Hellbent

Her face had closed off again. Unreadable. Their boots squelched. An owl was at it in one of the dark trees, asking the age-old question: Who? Who?

“How’d Van Sciver’s men find my apartment?” she asked.

“They were closing in on Jack. They must’ve gotten the address somewhere, staked it out.”

“You sure you weren’t followed?”

“Yes.”

“If they knew I was there, why wouldn’t they just have killed me?”

“Because I’m more valuable to them.”

“Oh. So they only let me live to lure you in.”

“Yes.”

A burning in his cheek announced itself. He raised his fingertips, felt a distinct edge. He picked out the safety-glass pebble and flicked it to the ground.

The girl was talking again. “Van Sciver had Jack killed.”

He kept on, letting her process it. It was a lot to process.

She dimpled her lower lip between her teeth. “I can help you go after Van Sciver.”

Evan halted, faced her in the moonlight. “How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“No.”

“Eighteen.”

“No.”

She squirmed a bit more. “Sixteen.”

He started up again, and she hurried to stay at his side. The only colors were shades of gray and sepia. The moonlight ripened the green squash to a pale yellow.

“How did you know?” she asked.

“When you lie, your blink rate picks up. You’ve also got a one-shouldered shrug that’s a tell. And your hands — just keep your hands at your sides. Your body language talks more than you do, and that’s saying something.”

“God,” she said. “You sound just like Jack.”

He took a moment with that one.

They cleared the squash and came onto a stretch where something — pumpkins? — had been recently harvested. Hacked vines populated the barren patch, pushing up from the earth like gnarled limbs. An aftermath scent lingered, fecund and autumnal, the smell of life and death.

“It doesn’t matter how old I am,” she said. “I can help.”

“How? Do you have locations, addresses for Van Sciver?”

“Of course not. You know how he is. Everything’s end-stopped six different ways. I didn’t even know where I was most of the time.”

“Do you have any actionable intel on him?”

“Not really.”

“Do you know why Jack was in Alabama?”

She colored slightly. “Is that where he died?”

“Joey, listen. You’re raw, totally unbroken—”

“I’m not a horse.”

“No. You’re a mustang. You fight well. You have extraordinary coordination. But you’re not finished, let alone operational.”

“Jack sent you to me.”

“To protect you. Not get you killed.”

“I have training.” She was angry now, punching every word. “I knocked you on your ass, didn’t I?”

“You can’t imagine the kind of violence that’s coming.”

“Did Jack advise you to just ship me off somewhere to hide for the rest of my life?”

The shed loomed ahead, a dark mass rising from the earth, the outline of the beater truck beside it. Evan quickened his pace.

“Jack died before he knew how this would all unfold. I have only one concern now, and that is finding Van Sciver and every person who had a hand in Jack’s death and killing them.” Evan pulled open the creaky truck door and flipped down the visor. The keys landed in his palm. He looked back at Joey. “What am I supposed to do with you?”

“I’m not useless.”

“I never said that.”

She came around the passenger side, got in, slammed the door. “Yeah,” she said. “You did.”

15

Just Geometry

The neon sign announcing the motel in Cornelius had lost its M and L, blaring a woeful orange OTE into the night. The place was rickety despite being single-story, tucked beneath a freeway ramp, the pitted check-in desk manned by a woman who smacked watermelon gum vigorously to cover the scent of schnapps.

It was perfect.

Evan checked in solo, prepaid in cash, and didn’t have to produce any details of the alias he had at the ready. Not the kind of establishment that made inquiries of its patrons. The woman never looked him in the face, her attention captured by a hangnail she was working to limited success with her front teeth. The security camera was a fake, a dusty plastic decoy drilled into the wall for show.

He signed the book “Pierre Picaud,” took the key that was inexplicably attached to a duct-taped water bottle, and trudged like a road-weary salesman to Room 6.

As he opened the door, Joey materialized from the shadows and slipped inside with him.

She dumped her rucksack on the ratty carpet, regarded a crooked watercolor of hummingbirds at play. “Look,” she said. “Art.”

“Really spruces up the place.”

She gestured to a corner. “I can sleep there.”

“I’ll take the floor.”

“I’m younger. The bed looks shitty anyways.”

“I want to be right by the door,” Evan said.

She shrugged. “Fine.” She fell back stiffly onto the mattress, a trust fall with no one there to catch her. There was a great creaking of coils. “I think you got the better deal.”

“That bad?”

“It feels like lying on a bag of wrenches. No — not quite that bad. Maybe, like, rubber-handled wrenches.”

“Well, then.”

“And I’m used to some shitty places,” she said.

“That’s the biggest thing the Program has on foster-home kids,” he said. “We think wherever we’re going isn’t as bad as where we’ve been.”