White Hot

“Why did you put the bag on his head?”

“You’ll see in a minute. This is the view from the sniper’s window.” The screen split in a half. “No shot.”

“Yep.”

The sniper sighted the spot on the lamppost, where Leon had zoomed in before, and fired. The bag on the mannequin’s head tore and a thin trickle of sand spilled out.

“Ricochet,” I whispered. Leon wasn’t a precog. He’d evaluated the potential targets and positions of the shooters, calculated the trajectory of the bullet, and waited for it to happen. When it didn’t, he moved on to the next most likely target. And he did all this in a split second.

“I don’t know what this is,” Bug said. “It’s some sort of wonderful whatthefuckery I’ve never seen before. But I thought I should tell you.”

Leon would never have a normal life. There was only one path open to his kind of magic.

I looked at him. “Please, don’t tell Rogan.”

“I’ll have to tell him if he asks me about it,” Bug said. “But I won’t volunteer. Does Leon know?”

I shook my head.

“It’s your call,” Bug said, picking up his laptop. “But a word of advice. From personal experience. When you keep people from doing things they are destined to do, they go crazy. Don’t let him go crazy, Nevada.”

Chapter 9

It was six o’clock on Friday evening and I was sitting in our media room in a fifteen-hundred-dollar-a-night dress, holding a tiny evening bag containing my phone, and trying not to move. Arabella had done my makeup. Catalina had rolled my hair into a suitably messy crown on my head and pinned it in place with a black metal hair brooch. My shoes were on. I had gone to the bathroom before I got dressed, I hadn’t eaten anything that would give me gas, and I was probably dehydrated, because Murphy’s Law guaranteed that if I had a drink in my hand, I would spill some of it on my nice dress.

I was ready to go. Grandma Frida and my mom were keeping me company until Augustine showed up.

I had spent the last several hours memorizing names and faces from Augustine’s list and my poor brain buzzed like a beehive. Several of the men in the photographs were blond. I had stared at them for an hour, trying to match their features to the smudged blur I had seen through the rain-speckled window of the Suburban. I failed.

On TV the talking heads speculated about Senator Garza’s murder. The police were still sitting on the details of the investigation and the rabid intensity of the earlier commentary had died down to annoyed declarations that sounded suspiciously like whining. The press so desperately wanted the story, but there was only so much speculation you could come up with, and starved of information, they were ready to admit defeat and move on to more exciting topics.

The pictures of Senator Garza came on the screen again. Young, handsome, politician’s haircut, and probably politician’s smile. He’d been murdered, and somebody had to answer for that.

“Poor family,” Grandma Frida said.

Leon ran into the room. “Neva—”

He stopped and stared at me.

“Yes?”

“Nevada, you’re pretty.” He said it with a sense of wonder, as if he had discovered some alien life-form.

“And normally I’m . . . ?”

“My cousin,” he said, loading a lot of duh into his voice. “There’s a limo outside. Two limos.”

I held out my hand and Leon helped me stand up.

“How do I look?”

“You look good,” Mom assured me.

“Break a leg!” Grandma Frida told me. “Take lots of pictures!”

I stepped out of the media room. Cornelius was waiting for me. He wore a black tuxedo that hugged his body and set off his handsome features. He looked sharp and elegant, a man who belonged in the world of fifteen-thousand-dollar dresses. I felt like a little girl playing dress-up.

Cornelius offered me his arm. I rested my fingers on his forearm and we walked through the hallway to the door.

“This is like going to the prom,” I said.

“I didn’t go to mine,” he said. “Did you?”

“I went to my junior prom. My date’s name was Ronnie. He joined the Marines and was due to ship out two weeks later. He showed up high as a kite and proceeded to cheat on me with weed the entire evening because it was his last chance to let loose. I got fed up and ditched him thirty minutes after we got there.” I had gleefully skipped the prom my senior year.

“I promise not to abandon you,” he said.

“Between you, Augustine, and Rogan, there is no danger of that.”

Cornelius opened the door for me and I stepped out into the night. Two limousines waited. Augustine stood by the second limo. He wore a tuxedo as well and it fit him like a glove. I took a second to come to terms with it. Wow.

“Nevada, you look perfect. Harrison, good evening.”

“Good evening,” Cornelius echoed.

The driver of the first limo, a tall blonde woman, stepped out and held the door open. “Mr. Harrison.”

“Are we arriving separately?” I asked.

“Yes,” Cornelius said. “I’ll be arriving in the limo of my House.”

And I would be going with Augustine as his employee. Just as well.

“I’ll see you there.”

His limo slid into the night. Augustine held the door open for me. I sat very carefully.

He shut the door, walked around, got in next to me, and we were off.

“The bruise is a masterful touch,” Augustine said.

“The two of you said Baranovsky prefers unique.”

“It’s certainly that. It draws the eye. Together with the dress it’s a powerful statement. Have you noted that Rogan tried to dissuade you from attending?”

“Yes.” Where was he going with this?

“Rogan is, at the core, an adolescent,” Augustine said. “Driven, dangerous, and calculating, but an adolescent nonetheless.”

No. Rogan was anything but. He sought to maintain control over his environment, his people, and most of all himself. On the rare occasions his emotions got the best of him, the glimpse of his true nature was so brief I still hadn’t been able to completely figure him out. There was nothing impulsive about him.

“Adolescents are ruled by their emotions,” Augustine continued.

You don’t say. If only I had some adolescents in my life with whom I had to deal on a daily basis.

“Abandoning your family obligations and running away to join the army is a teenage move,” Augustine said. “It is one peg above dramatically declaring that you didn’t ask to be born.”

Given that Rogan was nineteen when he joined the army, the teenager criticism wasn’t exactly fair. I finally understood why Rogan had joined. He was trying to escape the predetermined path of all Primes: go to college, attain an advanced degree, work for your parents, marry a spouse with the right genes, and produce no less than two and no more than three children to ensure succession. The path that Augustine himself had studiously followed with exception of finding a spouse.

“My point is, occasionally Rogan has an emotional reaction and acts accordingly. He had an emotional reaction to sharing you with the rest of the world. I don’t know the nature of his fascination. Perhaps it’s personal. Perhaps it is professional interest. I don’t believe you realize how valuable you are, but Rogan does and so do I. And I don’t like to lose.”

He flicked his thumb across his phone. My clutch let out a melodious tone I set specifically for this event. I opened it and checked my phone. A new email from Augustine waited in my email box. I tapped it.

A contract. Agreement between House Montgomery . . . He was offering me employment, but not with MII. With House Montgomery. This was new. Base Salary. Employee shall receive a Base Salary in the amount of $1,200,000 per year . . .

That couldn’t be right.

Payment. Base Salary shall be payable in accordance with the customary payroll practices of the Employer . . .

Adjustment. On November 1st of each year during the Term, (i) Employee’s Base Salary shall increase by no less than 7%; (ii) The Company shall review the Employee’s performance and may make additional increases to the Base Salary in its sole discretion.