Come Back

“I’ll have the…” She looks down at her menu again. “Dino Supreme.” And when she looks back up she’s got that glowing smile on her face that makes people love her. Makes me love her, that’s for sure. “Scrambled, please.”

The waitress looks over at Sasha and waits. I expect something atrocious to come out of her filthy mouth, but she says in her best sweet-little-girl voice, “Dino Egg Pancake Plate and orange juice.”

“Oh, I want OJ too,” Harper says.

“Does that come with hash browns?” Sasha asks.

“No, those are extra, sweetie.”

“James,” she says, looking over at me. “Can I get hash browns too?”

I almost glare at her because she’s baiting me again, but if she wants to playact, I can go along. “Whatever you want, Princess Smurf.”

I order the T-Rex T-bone with a side of eggs and by the time the waitress leaves, I’m calm.

But this f**king kid. What the hell was that?

I watch her look out the window at the dinosaurs again, and then Harper takes my hands in hers, leans across the table, and kisses me on the cheek. “We’re OK, James.”

“I know,” I say back with a smile. For now, at least. But this trip will be over before we know it and then… I’m not sure what happens.

After that Harper keeps the conversation going. She asks Sasha all kinds of dinosaur questions and gets a well-articulated answer for each and every one of them. Sasha reports on shit I’ve never heard of before and it’s clear this is her passion. Not guns. Not hunters. Not revenge. Although I’m pretty sure she harbors a deep resentment for the Company and would get some revenge, if offered.

I’m counting on that, in fact.

But right now, she’s Sasha the dino nerd.

The food comes and the girls go quiet as they eat. Sasha finishes everything on her plate and she’s done long before we are so she excuses herself to use the bathroom. Harper slides out and then back in after Sasha takes off.

“So,” Harper starts. “What do you think all that was about?”

I should’ve expected that, but somehow I figured she’d moved past it. “Look,” I say with a little bit more exasperation than is necessary. “She’s a very troubled kid, OK? Her father was blown up last Christmas Eve on a job Merc was doing. Then she went to live with her grandparents and they were blown up too.”

“That’s what she was talking about when she said she killed four people?”

“Yeah, her father, from my understanding anyway”—Tread carefully here, Tet, my inner voice cautions. This is new info from the Admiral last night—“was a former assassin trainer and he left that position and became an arms supplier out of Cheyenne. And Sasha seems to be his only living legacy.”

“So she’s a trained hunter?” Harper looks away as she puts these things together. “Like me? Only she can shoot and I can’t.”

I smile at that. “I like the fact that you can’t shoot. Or drive,” I add. “It’s sorta sweet.”

She almost chokes on her orange juice. “Why sweet?”

“I dunno. Because you’re so deadly on your own terms, right? The hand-to-hand stuff. You kick some serious ass like that. And you can sail a megayacht, but you can’t drive a car.”

“Well, I can’t sail that thing alone. It’s crazy big. You have to have a crew. So it’s not that impressive when all you do is bark orders.”

“But if someone asked you to captain their megayacht and take them to… wherever, you could do it. Couldn’t you?”

She shrugs. “I suppose. If the crew was competent.”

“And what if the sailboat was smaller? Could you sail that?”

“Oh yeah,” she says with an excitement in her eyes that’s been missing since I met her. “If it can be manned by one or two people, I’m all over that. Sometimes Nick and I would sail alongside the main ship in a sloop.”

“And no one was on the boat with you?”

“No, it was only a two-person boat. Very small.”

“See, Harp. That shit is sexy as all f**king hell. I’d get us all killed, if I had to be in charge.”

“Well, we had a whole ship full of people who’d jump in to save us if we needed it. It was not unsafe in the least.” She slides out of her booth and comes to sit next to me. “I miss the ocean.”

“We’ll be back there tonight. Maybe we can walk out to the pier and watch the sunset?”

She grabs my upper arm and rests her head against my chest. “I’d love that.”

“Then it’s a date.” I’m suddenly glad we’ve missed all those other sunsets. That way this one tonight can be the one.

“Where’s Sasha? She’s been gone a while.”

“Shit,” I say as I push Harper to slide out of the booth. I fish through my wallet, throw forty bucks down on the table, and then take Harper’s hand.

“Wait,” she says pulling me back towards the window. “Is that her over there?”

I squint as I look out the window and sure enough, there’s Smurfette, walking over to the huge-ass dinosaur.

“You should go talk to her, James. She’s just having a hard time.”

“Harper, I have no patience for that girl. I feel bad for her, but I’ve done everything I can to be nice, and she’s just a brat. You go talk to her. I’m gonna take a piss. But we do not have time for her whacked-out bullshit. She needs to pull herself together or she’s gonna get us all killed.”