Chapter Three
It was the boy’s crooked grin that gave it away.
He grinned in that special way young boys do when they’re about to conduct mischief. Possibly violent, and painful. Also possibly illegal, and definitely probably fun for them. Not so fun for the people it was conducted on.
That’s why I follow him. Because I know that grin. I know it like I know parts of my own soul. I’d made that grin once or twice in my life, when I was a stupider, angrier boy who’d lost his father and had to take it out on the world. I made that grin before I raised the bat on Leo. I made that grin once while escorting a woman because she found assault scenarios terribly, horribly sexy.
I vomited for an hour after that session and tried to scrub her off, tried to scrub the evil out of me, out of humanity.
It never worked. It never will work. Humanity will always be dark. They will always try to inflict pain on one another, no matter how much they say they don’t want to.
I learned that three months ago, after Sophia’s funeral.
I learned it in my car, escaping Ohio. Escaping the pain I’d left behind.
I follow the boy down the quiet city streets, and he leads me to two more boys. Freshmen in high school, probably. Skinny, with tight jeans and earbuds hanging out of their pockets. No muscle. No experience. No courage. That’s why they corner the homeless man between a Dumpster and a wall scrawled with candy-colored graffiti gone brown on the edges. Rotten. They laugh and push him. The homeless man wears a flannel shirt and filthy pants, shaking hands clutching a half-eaten banana he likely fished out of the trash. His gray beard is down to his chest and knotted, his face sunburned. The man babbles under his breath so low and fast it sounds like a chant or a curse. He doesn’t want to die. He spends every day trying not to die.
“What’s that, you crazy fucker?” A boy leans in, holding his hand to his ear in an exaggerated motion. “Speak up, we can’t hear shit if you don’t say shit.”
The second boy brings out his phone and holds it up. “I got this. I’m recording, so do it.”
The third boy frowns. “No way, man, someone’s gonna see.”
“No one’s gonna see,” the second boy snaps. “We got his back.” He turns to the first boy. “We got your back. C’mon!”
The first boy hesitates, and that’s when I know. The first boy is not the real threat. Neither is the third boy, who looks uncomfortable, like he’s about to run away at any moment. It’s the second boy, the one with the camera, who is the true coward. Hiding behind a lens, just like Wren did that night in middle school. But unlike Wren, he’s smiling. Wren never smiled. Wren looked comatose, brain-dead. Wren looked like he was putting his soul somewhere far, far away to escape from the violence. Camera Boy, on the other hand, is instigating it, egging it on, goading it with all the small sickly power he has in his gangly teenage body.
Before I punch the camera out of his hands, I briefly thank whatever god is listening that I’ve lived long enough to learn the difference between just bad people and truly terrible people. Some people never learn that, and they get hurt.
Like Isis.
Like Sophia.
My heart contracts painfully, and I punch again, this time at his face. The camera boy staggers, nose bleeding through his fingers. His friends jump, backing up quickly. The homeless man squawks and huddles in the corner, covering his head with his scrawny arms.
“Who the fuck are you?” the second boy shouts.
“Nobody hits Reggie!” The first boy ducks into a fighting position.
“Get out of here,” I say. “Or you two are next.”
“Fuck you!” The first one lunges, and I duck to the side and pull his arms behind his back in one fluid motion. He struggles, trying to kick and head-butt me away, but my grip is steel.
“You there,” I say to the third one. “Help your friend up and leave. When you’re around the corner, I’ll let your friend go.”
The third one is sweating profusely, eyes darting between his bloodied friend and his immobilized one. He finally makes the right decision and pulls the camera boy to his feet. Camera Boy scrabbles for his phone and limps around the corner with his friend, vibrantly swearing. I wait a dozen seconds, then shove the first boy forward. He backs up, pointing at me with a furious, twisted expression.
“I’ll get you for this, you piece of shit!”
“No,” I say coolly. “You won’t.”
This makes something in him snap—his pride, maybe. He rushes me again, and this time I’m forced to show no mercy. I knock my elbow into his diaphragm, and he collapses on the ground, gasping for air. I extend my hand to the homeless man.
“We should go. His friends will be back.”
The homeless man uncurls, watery blue eyes connecting with mine. He nods, slowly, and uses my hand to help himself up. I make him walk in front of me, guarding the rear, all the way out of the alley and to the front of the strip mall, where there are cars and too many witnesses for the boys to try anything else. The homeless man’s gait is strong and true, but a limp hampers him. A veteran, probably, who’s fallen on hard times.
“Thank you,” the man croaks.
I scoff. “I did it to stop them. Not to help you.”
“Whatever reason, bless you. God bless you.”
He did. God blessed me, I think as I watch him go. And then he took it all away.
I shrug away that thought. I’m far better off than most people. But it’s that same privilege that sickens me. I’m eighteen. I’m, by all nationality counts, Caucasian. There’s some Italian in me, on Mom’s side, and Russian on Dad’s. But I’m decidedly white. And male. I am not hideous to look at, nor is my brain crippled by general idiocy. Mom and I never wanted for money. I am lucky. I am privileged.
The homeless man hobbling down the boulevard needs God’s blessings more than I do.
Sophia needed God’s blessings more than anyone.
The traffic becomes white noise in my ears, washing against me and around me. People pass, their faces blurring indistinctly. Nothing feels real—it’s a world trapped in a snow globe. The colors of the strip mall are washed-out instead of bright. The smells are Styrofoam and wood, tasteless where there should be taste. Nothing is right. I’m not right.
But I’d known that for a long time. I’m not right. I stand out too much. I’m too cold. I am not like the rest of the faces in the crowd. I don’t feel as deeply as them. I don’t vibrate with as much emotion as they do. I don’t have as many friends, and I don’t want them. I want to be alone.
If I were more like a normal person, warmer, would I have been able to tell what Sophia was about to do? Would I have been able to understand her better? Would I have been able to see her despair and stop it?
If I were more like Isis, would I have been able to save her?
That’s what you do, her voice echoes. You protect people.
My fingers twitch, the knuckles bloodied. She’s wrong. I hurt them.
I turn and head back to my car.
I came to meet my employer, Gregory Callan of VORTEX Enterprises. This little side trip to the strip mall was for an ATM I could get cash from. I got sidetracked by the homeless man and my own anger.
Unlike Isis, who was convinced Gregory was shady, I gave him a chance. I had to, after what he did for me. He found me, somehow, when no one else could. After Sophia’s funeral, I left Ohio and drove and drove, without caring where I ended up. I stopped at run-down bars and pubs, picking fights and passing out behind their trash cans with swollen lips and twisted knees. I drove myself into hell with an iron hammer—relentless, barely stopping to sleep or eat. Sophia’s face haunted me in every moonbeam, every shadow in the desert sand. I tried desperately to escape her—no, to escape the guilt. I was thin, delirious, and covered in old wounds when Gregory found me in a seedy Las Vegas motel.
How he found me, I’ll never know. I tried to fight him against the grimy walls of that place, but I was too weak to even land a punch. He locked my arms behind my back and smiled affably. I still remember his words.
You call that a punch? It’s a disgrace. If you want to die, that’s fine with me. But do it after I’ve taught you how to fight properly.
I passed out in his arms and woke to the gentle sun of morning and the dry air of the desert. Gregory had taken me to a ranch in the middle of nowhere, where a massive, silent man in a bandanna and oil-spattered jeans served me thin broth and changed my bandages. I tried to fight him, too, but I was too exhausted and weak to even form a fist. The man’s name was Littlehawk, and he and Gregory had been friends for their whole lives. They’d formed Vortex Enterprises together, recruiting the most promising police academy trainees and martial arts tournament winners, training them to become bodyguards for hire, as they had been so long ago.
Trainees came to Littlehawk’s ranch soft, and they left hardened by weeks of hauling firewood, fetching water, and wrangling the wild herd of horses that lived there. On top of it all was shooting practice, awareness training, brutal obstacle courses, and mixed martial arts training in all sorts of styles: wing chun, karate, muay thai, judo. The Nevada sun baked the clay of inexperience into hard ceramic, and I watched the recruits from my window as I recovered, and I envied them. They gave their all to the training, pouring their best effort into it. I was like that once—devoted, hardworking. Lying in that bed, powerless, I wanted nothing more than to be out there with them, filling my head with sweat and soreness instead of guilt and darkness.
When I was well enough, Gregory and Littlehawk gave me that chance. And it saved me.
I haven’t looked back since.
Vortex Enterprises has my loyalty, if only because I owe a great debt to the men who run it. They pulled me from the edge when even I couldn’t.
The September air swelters around me, crickets crying out lonely songs in the tall golden grasses on the side of the highway. The heat wave is the last dying gasp of the brutal, once-in-a-century summer that hits Ohio. The city of Columbus has never looked drier or bigger. The sky is a pale white-blue and goes on forever. My white dress shirt sticks to every sweat-stained crevice of my body, and the dark suit over it is uncomfortably hot.
I shouldn’t be here.
I should be in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At Harvard.
I should be settling in to my dorm room and learning to tolerate the idiot who will be my roommate for a year. I should be taking classes now, typing notes on the laptop Mom bought me. But I returned the laptop, and I returned my dorm room. I returned it all. I rescinded my tuition and closed my bank accounts and packed a single backpack and left a note on the kitchen counter that told Mom not to worry.
And then I left.
That world, the innocent little fishbowl of young-adult angst people like to call college, isn’t meant for me. I am mentally older than they are. I always have been. I am smarter than they are. I always have been.
I’m amazed you manage to get your head off your pillow in the mornings.
Isis’s voice rings clear and bright in my ears. But I’m better at ignoring it now. It’s gotten fainter. I haven’t seen her for half a year, and yet her voice clings in my brain. It’s incredible. Incredibly annoying. It’s either a testament to her infuriatingly persistent personality, or a testament to my unwillingness to let go of the last few moments in my life I recall being truly happy. Happy? I’m unsure if I was ever happy, even with her. It’s a mishmash of fuzzy memories and stolen moments of tenderness, all laced with the searing edge of guilt that is Sophia’s face.
Maybe I was happy. But it’s pointless. There’s no real value in being happy.
There’s no real value in something that doesn’t last.
I take a right onto the shipping roads of Columbus, where eighteen-wheelers gather five deep and Matson containers choke the dusty, fenced-in lots. Two massive cranes noisily rearrange blocks of containers, loading and unloading with creaking, dutiful slowness. Men in orange vests and hard hats weave among containers, checking the contents, marking things on clipboards, and shouting obscenities at one another over the ordered chaos. Gregory—a tall, broad-shouldered man with an impressive salt-and-pepper mustache and tweed suit—stands in a near-empty lot. A shorter, yet somehow even beefier, young man stands next to him, wearing a dark suit like mine. His posture is tense yet relaxed, his hair spiked and his eyes dark. A dragon tattoo twines up his neck. It’s Charlie Moriyama, Gregory’s right-hand man and most trusted bodyguard. I saw him once or twice at the ranch, where he came to talk to Gregory and even taught some of the judo classes. He kicked my ass the first time I sparred with him—the only person at the Ranch besides Gregory to do so. I hold a grudging respect for Charlie; he’s brash and immature at times, but extremely talented.
Across from both of them is a woman with black hair tied up in a neat bun. She shuns a business skirt for a woman’s suit, looking every part a professional. But a professional of what, I can’t quite tell. Gregory’s training kicks in; there’s no obvious weapon lump on her, and any jewelry that would mark her as a drug dealer or tattoos that would out her as a gang member are well hidden, if they exist at all. She doesn’t even wear makeup. Odd, considering most of the people who contract Gregory’s services are usually extremely wealthy and appearance-conscious.
Gregory sees me coming and waves me over. He plays the jolly old man bit almost too well, but it serves to hide the vicious businessman, wizened soldier, and master black belt beneath.
“Jack! Vanessa and I were just talking about you.”
I sidle up beside Charlie, who crosses his arms and grunts. “You took too long,” he says.
“Had to make a detour. Road construction.”
“Yeah? Is this the same ‘road construction’ that got you on the news last week?”
“C’mon.” Gregory smiles. “Let’s at least try to pretend to be friends when in front of—” He turns and cocks an eyebrow at the woman, as if asking her what she is.
“Let’s call me a potential client for now,” Vanessa says. Her blue eyes are sharp and riveted to my knuckles. I wipe the blood off on a cloth I always keep in my pocket for this exact purpose.
“—in front of a potential client,” Gregory finishes. “Besides, Jack’s entitled to his five minutes. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were jealous.”
Charlie scoffs. “Jealous? Yeah, boss, I’m real jealous of wannabe Batman over here.”
I’d risen in the ranks faster than anyone at Vortex. Of course Charlie’s jealous. He’s been in the business for years, even though he can’t be more than twenty-two. He had to claw his way up by his hangnails. He thinks I’m pampered and spoiled. And I am. To a degree.
“I wasn’t aware what I did in my free time was up for criticism by you,” I say.
Charlie throws a glare at me. “It’s up for criticism when you decide to use your training to beat the shit out of guys who steal Popsicles from 7-Eleven.”
“They mugged a woman,” I counter smoothly.
“They were small-time idiots pulling off small crime!” Charlie snarls. “But your little savior complex had you wasting time on their stupid asses.”
“My time. Not yours. It’s hardly any of your concern.”
“You got us on the news! We’re Vortex, not goddamn Walmart!”
“They never got his name or a picture of him,” Gregory steps in. “Really, Charlie, you can relax. We aren’t here for a witch hunt; we’re here for the client. Settle this later.”
Charlie goes red down to his spiked roots. I glance at Gregory, and despite his smile he narrows his eyes slightly. He should’ve told Charlie to be quiet ages ago. Letting him blab in front of a client was Gregory’s way of letting Charlie embarrass himself. It’s the subtle kind of mind game Gregory loves to play. Most of the people he trains and hires are not clever enough to sidestep it.
“Vanessa,” Gregory begins. “Would you do the honors?”
“I’m Vanessa Redgate,” the woman says. “I can’t disclose who I work for, but we’re offering Mr. Callan a contract.”
“Outside of your work’s approval, I assume?” I ask, and motion around. “Considering the unorthodox meeting place.”
Vanessa nods, “We are after a small, elite group of hackers who have been shuffling funds for the largest black market on the internet.”
“The Spice Road,” I say.
Vanessa nods again. “I’m impressed. I wasn’t aware Vortex agents excelled anywhere beyond their muscles.”
Gregory laughs and claps me on the shoulder. “Jack’s a special case. Please, continue.”
“Regardless, these hackers worked for the Spice Road. They call themselves the Gatekeepers. The people I work for have unanimously decided against using third-party—”
“Contractors,” Gregory interrupts, flashing a smile. “We prefer the term ‘contractors.’”
Vanessa eyes him warily but continues. “Decided against using third-party contractors. But my supervisor and a great number of people within the project have worked for years to trace the Gatekeepers. We finally have a lead, but we don’t want to risk deploying a team and spooking them into going underground. Training people for this particular mission is just not cost-effective, and by the time we do train them, the lead may have already gone dry. ”
“So this is where we come in,” I say. She nods.
“We have strong evidence that two people closely connected to the Gatekeepers recently transferred into Ohio State University as sophomores.”
Ohio State. The name catches in my brain like a large fish in a too-small net. During my stay at the Ranch, and after I was well enough, I had a laptop. Gregory lent it to me, with one request: that I find a goal. It was a simple task to anyone but me; I’d lost everything with Sophia’s death. Things like goals seemed stupid when I no longer wanted to live in this hell we call a world, but I couldn’t deny Gregory. He’d saved me. So I focused on the only thing I felt I’d left unfinished, the only thing I felt I could do for the people I’d left behind.
Will Cavanaugh—Isis’s abuser and ex-boyfriend, the guy she called “Nameless.” I picked up where I left off before Sophia’s death and found his trail, which consisted mostly of stalking his social media. He didn’t post much, mostly complaints about basketball teams and games, but it was enough. I hungrily devoured everything he shared, looking through his old photos. One of them even had Isis in it, the old Isis smiling timidly. Seeing that picture only fueled my stalking higher. I tried to trace Will’s IP address but never got very far; he stuck to his old methods of routing himself around the world to throw off tracers like mine.
One day, though, as I watched his family’s Facebook feeds, his aunt gave me a vital piece of info. She tagged Will in a picture of her holding up an Ohio State University sweatshirt, beaming. The hashtag was #mynephewgotin. The picture disappeared shortly after—I assume Will got her to take it down, one way or another. But I already had the info in my hands.
Will Cavanaugh is going to OSU in the fall.
So Vanessa’s words about OSU perk up my ears, and I listen closer. Could it be him she’s after? He’s a good hacker—Isis herself said he won hacking tournaments in middle school.
“The goal,” Vanessa continues, “would be to maintain surveillance on these two without rousing suspicion. The ultimate goal would be to gather evidence, preferably hard copies and byte logs of their hacking activities, or their correspondence with the Gatekeepers themselves.”
“How long?” Charlie grunts. Vanessa raises an eyebrow at him.
“Excuse me?”
“How long would the contract last?”
“For as long as you can feasibly maintain your cover at the university.”
“So, it’s open-ended,” I say.
“Until you gather what we decide is solid enough evidence to incriminate both of them, yes.”
I look to Gregory, who shrugs.
“It’s not our type of gig, Vanessa,” he says. “Surely you understand.”
“It could be,” I say quickly. “Charlie and I are the youngest in Vortex. We could feasibly fit in.”
If I could get into OSU without rousing suspicion, I might be able to find Will there, too.
Gregory shoots me a quick look. “You could. But why would you want to? This is information work, not bodyguarding. We don’t do that.”
“But we could,” I press.
“You’re asking us to sit on our asses and go to college with a bunch of privileged kids for a year?” Charlie scoffs.
“The tuition would be paid,” Vanessa interrupts. “You would have to put up a show of attending class and maintaining decent enough grades to continue your enrollment. But your primary concern will be surveillance and secrecy. No one can know why you’re there.”
“Ms. Vanessa,” Gregory says, “I’m sure you’re aware Vortex Enterprises is a for-hire bodyguard company, not a stable of spies.”
“I know that well enough,” she says. “But you came very highly recommended from several politically connected friends of mine who’ve used your service. And no other company has such a”—she fixes me with a stare—“diverse range of ages among their employees. It’s imperative we employ informants who look the part of college students.”
“These two college students who are connected to the Gatekeepers,” I muse. “Do you have names?”
“None that I can disclose prior to your acceptance of the work.”
“You really think you can do this?” Gregory asks me.
I nod firmly. “It would be simple.”
“For you.” Charlie snorts. “But the rest of us are here to guard, not get ass-deep into some James Bond shit.”
Gregory ponders this for a moment, then nods at Vanessa. “We’ll do it.”
“What?” Charlie looks incredulous.
“It’s the beginning of the school year. You’ll blend in fine,” Gregory says, a steely edge in his voice. “I know you two can do this. You especially, Charlie. You’ve got the charisma for it. You always have.”
Gregory pulls Charlie’s arm and motions for me to lean in.
“Listen, it might not be our usual gig, but it’ll pay well. Whoever wants this, they’re big-time. Maybe even government. It’ll be good to have them in Vortex’s debt. Do you understand?”
Charlie’s eyes glint with slow realization.
“When would we leave, sir?” I ask.
Gregory shrugs. “As soon as possible, I’m guessing. I’ll forward you the details when I get them. All you have to do is agree to it.”
“I agree to it, sir,” I say.
Charlie inhales, chest puffing. “I-I’m down for it, too, boss!” he says quickly, glaring at me. “I’m not gonna let Batman fuck it up.”
“I have a name,” I drawl.
“Jack, right. Jackman. Jackoffman,” he corrects. The insults are so familiar they sting with a bitter sweetness, but I brush them off.
“All right, enough playground antics.” Gregory straightens and smiles at Vanessa, extending his hand. “My boys here say they’ll do it.”
“Fabulous.” She takes his hand and shakes it. “I’ll be in touch with the details. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
It takes only a second before she’s gone behind a Matson container. She moved so quickly I could barely follow her stride. She must’ve had her exit planned minutes in advance. Charlie shivers a little.
“Damn spooks.”
“She doesn’t seem so bad,” I say.
“Of course she doesn’t seem bad to you. You’re practically one of them already, all robotic and cutthroat. I’d bet you’d kill your girlfriend if the boss asked you to.”
My hand shoots out to his suit lapels before I can stop myself. The world becomes horrible white static again, blurring Charlie’s face, dulling Gregory’s assertive voice that tries to convince me to let him go. I shove him higher against the Matson container, the smell of dust and sweat and steel turning to ash in my nose. He’s awful. An awful puppet. I could crush him so easily, snuff his life out like I did to Joseph that night by the lake, like I almost did to Leo, like I did with Sophia.
Because, after all, I let her die.
I killed her.
There is fear in Charlie’s dark eyes, and it’s the only thing that keeps the roar from consuming my brain. I shove him away and stride back to the car. Gregory keeps up with me, motioning for me to roll down the driver window. I do, reluctantly.
“Look at me,” Gregory says, voice suddenly dark and commanding. I meet his gaze. “Are you going to be able to do this? Or do we need to revisit our training?”
My body flinches out of instinct, out of the physical memory from the training sessions with Gregory. The memory of blood oozing from my ears and my fingernails black and falling off. No. I don’t need to learn the hard way again.
“I have myself under control, sir,” I say slowly.
Gregory stares at me, through me, and then nods and pats the hood of my car.
“Get packing, then. You’ve got college to attend.”
We return to the motel Gregory is paying for us to stay in—two serviceable twin beds and nothing much else, but it’s better than sleeping in our cars. Better than the gravel he made us sleep on during training. Charlie grumbles obscenities and jumps in the shower immediately. I order Chinese takeout and open my laptop. Gregory, ever punctual and eager to get started, forwarded us the dossiers. The two student faces stare out at me from their files. One of them is tan, jockish, with a fair face and dark eyes like a cat’s. Kyle Morris from Lakeside City, Michigan. The other—handsome-looking, brown hair, and a symmetrical face with eyes like frozen steel.
Will Cavanaugh from Good Falls, Florida.
I was right.
I was right, and now the game has truly begun.