Dark Lover

Mr. X eyed Loser, who was still trying to get the halter straps to fit his shoulders. The guy looked miserable, his lower lip slack as his fingers worked the plastic catches. Billy watched him, too. As if Loser were food.

"So I thought we'd have a little friendly competition," Mr. X said when they finally stepped through the turnstiles. "See which one of you can hit the other the most."

As they entered the fighting arena, Mr. X's eyes quickly adjusted to the velvet blackness and the neon flashes from other players. The space was large enough for the thirty or so who were dancing around the obstacles, laughing and shouting as they fired beams of light.

"Let's split up," Mr. X said.

While Loser blinked myopically, Billy took off, moving with the swiftness of an animal. A moment later the sensor in the middle of Loser's chest went off. The guy looked down at it as if he didn't know what had happened.

Billy retreated into the darkness.

"Better take cover, son," Mr. X murmured.

Mr. X stayed out of their way while watching everything they did. Billy hit Loser over and over again from countless angles, shifting in and out of the obstacles, coming fast, now slow, then shooting from far away. Loser's confusion and anxiety ratcheted up every time the light on his chest flashed, and desperation made him move with childlike un-coordination. He dropped his gun. Tripped over his own feet. Knocked his shoulder into a barrier.

Billy was resplendent. Though his target was failing, weakening, he showed no mercy. Even when Loser dropped his gun to his side and leaned up against a wall with exhaustion, Billy hit him again.

And then took off into the shadows.

This time Mr. X followed Billy, tracking the guy's movements with a purpose other than measuring performance. Riddle was fast, shifting around the foam obstacles, doubling back to where Loser was so he could ambush from behind.

Mr. X anticipated where Billy was headed. With a quick shift to the right, he put himself in Riddle's path.

And shot Billy at point-blank range.

Billy looked down in shock at his chest. It was the first time his receptor had gone off.

"Pretty good job tonight, " Mr. X said. "You played the game well, son. Until just now."

Billy's eyes lifted, his hand coming to rest over the blinking target. Over his heart.

"Sensei." The word was spoken like a lover, with a lover's awe and adoration.

Beth wasn't about to ask the butler for a ride, because she was too shaken to carry on a polite conversation with anyone. As she walked down to the street, she took out her cell phone to call a cab. She was dialing when the purr of a car engine brought her head up.

The butler got out of the Mercedes and bowed his head. "Master called me. He would like me to take you home, mistress. And I… I would like to drive you."

He was so earnest, almost hopeful, as if she'd be doing him a favor if she let him take care of her. But she needed some space. After everything that had happened, she was rattling around in her own head.

"Thank you, but no." She forced a smile. "I'm just going to…"

The man's face fell. He looked like a dog who'd been whipped.

Where good manners failed her, guilt stepped up to the plate.

"Ah, okay."

Before he could come around the car, she opened the passenger-side door and slid into the front seat. The butler seemed flustered at her initiative, but recovered quickly, that beaming smile back on his wrinkled face.

As he got behind the wheel and put the engine in gear, she said, "I live at-"

"Oh, I know where you live. We've always known where you were. First at St. Francis Hospital in the neonatal intensive-care unit. Then you went home with the nurse. We had hoped she would keep you, but the hospital made her give you back. Then you went into the system. We didn't like that. First you were assigned to the McWilliamses on Elmwood Avenue, but you became ill and went back into the hospital with pneumonia."

He put the blinker on and turned left at a stop sign.

She could barely breathe, she was listening so hard.

"After that you were sent to the Ryans, but there were too many children. And then you went to the Goldrichs, who lived in that split-level off Raleigh Street. We thought the Goldrichs were going to keep you, but then she got pregnant. Finally to that orphanage. We hated when you were there, because they didn't let you out to play enough."

"You keep saying 'we'," she whispered, afraid to believe. Wanting to.

"Yes. Your father and I."

Beth covered her mouth with the back of her hand, her eyes capturing the butler's profile as if it were something she could keep.

"He knew me?"

"Oh, yes, mistress. All along. Kindergarten and elementary school and high school." His eyes met hers. "We were so proud of you when you went to college on that academic scholarship. I was there when you graduated. I took pictures so your father could see."

"He knew me." She tried the words out, feeling like she must be talking about someone else's parent.