Come Back

I was debriefed after Tony and Amber and I held it together then.

No, ass**le, Tet interjects, you got sent to the beach to unwind because you failed the f**king psych eval and then you blacked out.

Well, technically. Yes. But I turned off the emotions. Like always. I recalled every detail of the days leading up to that job. I told it just the way it happened.

And I can do it again.

I wrap a towel around me, grab my gun, and head across the hall to the bedroom. All my safe houses have certain things. Basic clothes. Some rations to hold me over for a few days. A 4x4 vehicle packed with survival gear and weapons. So I put on a pair of jeans, tuck the gun back in my pants, and swipe a hand through my hair.

I can do this. Debrief. No emotions. I don’t have a suit, but—I slide my sunglasses down onto my face—this will have to do.

No eye contact, James.

Right. No extra details. Stick to the story.

I go out to the living room but the girls are gone. I check out front. Nothing. I go through the kitchen and check out back. And there they are. The garage door is open and they are sitting on the hood of the Hummer. Harper is holding my goddamn pink notebook in her hands, fondling it like it belongs to her.

And I guess it does, doesn’t it? I gave it to her when we became six. And then I stole it back.

She’ll want to know why you took it back, James.

Right. I need to face that truth if I go out there. Twelve years of waiting has come to an end. This is it.

I walk over to the fridge, pull it open and grab a beer from the door. If you have to hit the safe house a beer is mandatory. I twist the cap, take a swig, and look out the window over the sink. I can see them from here. Harper glances at the house every now and then, like she’s waiting for me.

You can do this, James, the inner Tet says. The voice that talks to me during all my jobs. Keeps me calm. Rational. On high alert.

I set the beer down, open the door—and hesitate.

But Tet is there. Tet is always there. I got this, James, he tells me. And then I push through the screen door and walk onto the back porch and take a seat on the bottom step. They both stare at me. Anger comes off Harper like heat.

She swallows and turns away, looks into the evening sun that is beating down on her body, making it a rich gold that matches her hair and eyes.

Lionfish. Hunter. Lover. Just like me.

Killer.

Tet decides to start there. I clear my throat and Sasha looks over at me, her eyebrows raised as she waits to see what I’ll do.

I kick my bare feet out in front of me and lean back on my elbows. “I know what you’re thinking.” Sasha continues to stare. Harper shakes her head but does not look my way. “You’re thinking he’s crazy. He’s a liar. He can’t be trusted. He’ll kill me if the right deal comes along.”

Harper does look over for that remark. I smile at her and she squirms.

Sasha squints at me. She knows more than Harper about what’s going on, that’s for damn sure. No kid is that calm and sure of herself unless she knows something.

So I start with her first. I get up and walk towards them, stop in the center of the driveway so I’m blocking the sun from Sasha’s body. And then I point to her. “But you and I, Smurfette, we’re exactly the same.” I smile because her cool expression drops a little. Just enough to let me know this is the right way forward. “I am a killer. I kill people. That’s my job. But before we talk about why I haven’t ditched you yet, let’s get it all out in the open. OK?”

I don’t need to look over at Harper to know that she’s paying very close attention.

“Let’s do a tally. Would that make you feel better? You want to know my tally, girls?” They both stare at me. I wait for the little shake that says, No, Tet. We do not. But everyone wants to know. I hold up my hand and pretend to count bodies as I tick off a finger. But there are not enough fingers and toes in this driveway to count up all the people I’ve killed.

I’m not counting kills. I’m counting years.

“Let’s see, year one, that was eight. Year two, seventeen. Year three they had me cleaning up a drug cartel on the Mexico Arizona boarder to stop the Juárez beheadings. So I’m pretty sure that qualifies as genocide. Sixty-four Mexican government employees got the shaft from me that year.” I keep going, never missing a beat. “Year four I was on vacation. Winding down at the beach is what they’re calling it these days. Year five—twenty years old—I only had one job that year but it ended up destabilizing six African nations. Just enough to allow Company-run corporations to slip in and take over some critical industries.”

“Diamonds?” Sasha asks.

She knows a lot of shit she should not know. Her father did her no favors. “No, not diamonds,” I lie to her.

“And year six?” Harper asks, like she’s unaffected.

But I know better, I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet. I look away and pick it back up. “Year six I was off again so I did jobs with a guy I’d met a few months earlier.”

“Merc?” Sasha interrupts again.

I smile at this. “Yeah. Fucking Merc.” She scowls at his name. There is no love lost between Merc and the Smurf. “He’s not that bad when you get to know him.”

“Whatever,” Sasha grunts. “I hate him.”

“Year seven,” Harper prods.

She’s digging, I realize. Looking for something. About Nick, maybe.

“That year I spent with my brother, Tony. He was twenty, I was twenty-two. We were in for almost the same amount of time, they started him early. Had him doing local jobs in Southern California all through high school, put him in the US military at eighteen. He was just finishing up his two-year contract with the Marines that year. But he was in love with this girl.” I look over at both of them now. “Not a Company girl. And he wanted out, so he applied to the SEALs, thinking if he could just hang on to the military affiliation, the Company might let him have a life.”