Hellbent

When doctors and nurses crashed into the room, they found the motionless body and no one else.

77 Original S.W.A.T.

She remembered two rough men minding her in the darkness, one scented of soap and sweat, the other moving through a haze of cigarette smoke and wintergreen tobacco. And there was a hospital room that was not in a hospital and a doctor or two drifting through the miasma of her drugged thoughts.

Now she looked out her dorm window onto the stunning view beyond — Lake Lugano and the snowcapped Alps. It was an English-speaking school filled with affluent kids, a demographic to which she supposed she now belonged. Seven hundred ninety-three students from sixty-two countries speaking forty different languages.

A good pot to melt into and disappear.

Her passport and papers had her at eighteen years old, a legal adult, so she could oversee her own affairs. Her cover was thorough and backstopped. She’d been recently orphaned, set up with a trust fund that released like a widening faucet, a little more money every year. She was repeating coursework here after some understandable emotional difficulties given the fresh loss of her parents. She’d pick up courses at the second semester, which began in a few weeks.

The campus was spectacular, the resources seemingly unlimited. There was a downhill-ski team and horseback riding and kickboxing, though she’d have to be careful if she chose to indulge in the last.

She was due to matriculate today, a simple ceremony. Her roommate, an unreasonably lovely Dutch teenager, was coming to fetch her at any minute.

She set her foot on her bed and leaned over it, stretching the scar tissue. The last thing she’d remembered before going out was looking up at Evan, his hand over her leg, holding her blood in her veins.

Holding her tight enough to keep her alive.

They could never see each other again. Given who he was, it was too risky, and he was unwilling to put her in harm’s way.

But he had given her this.

He had given her the world.

She pulled open the window and breathed in the air, fresher than any she’d ever tasted.

There was a knock at her door.

She opened it, expecting Sara, but instead it was the school porter, a kindly man with chapped cheeks. He handed her a rectangular box wrapped in plain brown paper and said, in gently accented English, “This came for you, Ms. Vera.”

“Thank you, Calvin.”

She took it over to the bed and sat. The package bore no return address. Postage imprints indicated that it had traveled through various mail-forwarding services.

She tore back the brown wrapping and saw that it was a wide shoe box. Lettered on the lid: ORIGINAL S.W.A.T. BOOTS.

Her heart changed its movement inside her chest.

She opened the shoe box’s lid.

Inside, dozens and dozens of sealed envelopes formed razor-neat rows.

With a trembling hand, she lifted the first one.

On the front, written in precise block lettering: OPEN NOW.

She ran a finger beneath the envelope flap and slid out an undecorated card. She opened it.

Inside, the same block lettering.

IT’S YOUR FIRST DAY. TRY NOT TO SCREW IT UP TOO BAD.

X

Her hand had moved to her mouth. She stared at the words and then over at the box of envelopes. The next one up said CHRISTMAS.

As she slipped the card back into the envelope, she noticed some lettering on the back.

Y.A.S.

Y.A.L.

It took a moment for the meaning to drop. These were the words she’d overheard that young father speak to his newborn in the park the day she’d wandered by, bleeding from one ear.

You are safe.

You are loved.

Another knock sounded, and she wiped at her eyes.

Sara’s gentle voice carried through the door. “Are you ready?”

Joey slid the shoe box beneath her bed and rose.

“Yeah,” she said. “I am.”

78 Worth the Trying

As Evan crossed the lobby of Castle Heights, Lorilee looked up from her mail slot and caught his eye. She was alone. She smiled at him, and the smile held deeper meaning.

He nodded, accepting her thanks.

He neared the security desk across from the elevator. “Twenty-one, please, Joaquin.”

Joaquin looked up, his security hat tilted. “Hey, Mr. Smoak. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Evan grimaced. “Sales conferences.”

“Livin’ for the weekend.”

“You got that right.”

A voice floated from behind Evan. “Twelfth floor, too, Joaquin.”

“Sure thing, Mrs. Hall.”

Evan held the elevator doors, and Mia slipped past him, her curly hair brushing his cheek.

The doors closed, and they regarded each other.

He tried not to notice the birthmark at her temple. The line of her neck. Her bottom lip.

“Sales conferences.” She smirked. “Ever wonder which identity is the real one?”

He said, “Lately.”

And now that full grin broke across her face, the one he felt in his spinal cord. “How are you, Evan? Really, how are you?”

“Good. I’m good.”

And he was.