Come Back

James is suddenly in front of me. He takes a seat on the dinosaur toe next to Sasha and flicks his cigarette away. “I killed a dinosaur once,” he says as he blows the last of the smoke out of his nose. Sasha laughs and wipes her eyes. “I swear,” James continues. “You know, that’s my job. I’m a killer for hire. So one time, I’m on this tropical island somewhere off the coast of South America. And they have this theme park there where they grow baby dinosaurs using genetic cloning. And they have all these electrified fences and shit, but some ass**le was stealing the DNA to sell on the black market and knocked out the power so all the dinosaurs got out and they needed me to come in and save everyone.”

“James!” Sasha says, laughing. “You never went there. That’s the movie. Don’t believe him, Harper. He’s making all that up.”

“Sure I did. Who do you think gave that writer the whole idea for that book? It was me. I’m the original dinosaur hunter. Animal Planet wanted to give me a show—”

“James!” she squeals again. “You’re lying.”

“—because I found a stash of living dinosaur eggs—”

Sasha punches him on the arm and then he winces and rubs it, like she hurt him. “I’m not joking, James. We were dinosaur hunters, only we looked for bones and stuff. We used to spend the summers in Utah looking for fossils.”

“Did you know this past year was the first year I actually had a winter?” I pipe in, since we are sharing.

“What?” Sasha says through her laugh.

“Yeah, whenever winter rolled around we just crossed the equator and sailed towards summer. I’ve never seen snow.”

“Oh my God,” Sasha says. “What do you do on Christmas if there’s no snow? I can’t even imagine a Christmas without snow.”

“We never really celebrated Christmas. We never had a tree or anything. We just had dinners. And people would say it’s Christmas, Merry Christmas or whatever… but it never really meant anything to me other than we had lots of guests on board.”

“Wow,” she says, looking at me with pity. “I think I like my life better than yours.”

I shrug. “It’s not all that different. I still have a father, but I ran away from him. So really, I’m all alone too.”

Her somber mood is back and I feel bad for being responsible.

“Well,” James says. “Both of my parents are still alive but I hate their f**king guts.” He lets out a long, controlled breath of air and then flicks his lighter and starts puffing on another cigarette. “How do you sell your kids?” He blows out a stream of smoke through his nose and shakes his head. “Who the f**k sells their kids?”

“It’s not like they have a choice, James,” I say, trying to defuse the anger that is bubbling up inside him. “They did the same thing our parents did. They were born into this f**ked-up Company too.”

But James is shaking his head before the last of my words are out. “That’s not true.” He stares at me. I can’t see his eyes because he’s got those damn sunglasses on, but I can feel his stare like it’s the desert heat. “You wanna know how I know that’s not true? You wanna know how I know your fathers”—his fingers make a v-shape and he points to both Sasha and I—“put up a fight and mine didn’t?”

I’m not sure I want to know, but Sasha says, “How?” before I can stop this conversation.

“Because your mothers are dead.” He blows out more smoke and then slides his glasses up onto his head so we can see his eyes. “And mine’s not.”

The entire world goes still for several moments as I take in his words and the only thing that snaps me back is Sasha’s small hand lacing her fingers with mine. “What’s that mean, James?” she asks.

He gets up off the dinosaur toe and walks away. And when he’s walked the length of the dinosaur’s underbelly, he turns and walks back. He stops right in front of us and looks down as we look up. “It means your mothers are dead because they killed them. That’s just what tends to happen when you have girls. Boys? They just get trained, right? Trained to do what? Jobs, I guess. Most of them aren’t killing people for a living, are they? No, only a few of us get that privilege. But the girls are just handed over.” James stops talking and his stare focuses on me with laser precision. “You know this, Harper. You were given away.”

“To you, James. I was given—”

But he’s shaking his head.

“You were the one who said it was never gonna happen, right? Why would your father give his prized possession to me? A killer. My family is wealthy, but only because the Company sets them up that way. I’m nothing. I’m nobody. You knew it right away. You feel it inside. I’m nothing but a filthy killer. You father made that promise, but he never expected to have to live up to it. He never expected me to make it this far.”

My heart is beating so fast I might pass out. My head begins to spin and I know I’m gonna have a panic attack. I want him to stop talking so bad, but Sasha—“But why would they kill them?” she asks.

All I want to do is cover my ears, but James is already talking.

“When you have a girl, they take the mothers away because they put up a fight.” And then he stares down at me. “Not even the Admiral is immune to this, I guess.”

I’m shaking my head. “My mother died in childbirth.”