Hellbent

“Deep cleaning,” Evan said, as he shot around the corner.

He shouldered through the men’s-room door.

The first thing he took in was Joey facing away, her tank top slightly twisted, arms raised, shoulders flexed. He couldn’t see her hands, but his ARES pistol was tucked in the back of her pants.

The man was on his knees, his cheek split to the bone, his front teeth missing, his chest bibbed with blood. One arm dangled loosely at his side, broken. The other hand was raised palm out, fingers spread. Evan took a careful step forward, bringing Joey into full view. She was standing in a perfect Weaver stance, aiming the man’s own Desert Eagle at his head, the long barrel made longer by a machined suppressor.

Joey’s finger tightened on the trigger.

Evan held out a hand calmly, stilling the air. “Joey,” he said.

The man ducked his head. Blood dripped from his cheek, tapped the floor. The acrid smell of his panic sweat hung heavy.

“Lower the gun,” Evan said. “You don’t want to cross this line.”

“I do.” Her eyes were wet. “I want to prove it.”

“There’s nothing to prove.”

The barrel trembled slightly in her grasp. Evan watched the white seams of flesh at her knuckle.

“It’s just one more ounce of trigger pressure,” Evan said, “but it’ll blow your whole world apart.”

“What’s the difference?” she said. “If I do it or you do it?”

“All the difference in the world.”

She blinked and seemed to come back to herself. She inched the gun down. Evan stepped to her quickly and took it.

He faced the man. “A directive came from above to have me killed. I want to know where it came from.”

The man sucked in a few wet breaths. He didn’t answer.

Evan took a half step closer. “Who’s Van Sciver taking orders from now?”

The man spit blood. “He keeps us in the dark, I swear.”

Evan shot a glance at the bathroom door. Time was limited. “How’d he find you? Are you former military?”

The man tilted his face up to show a crooked smile, blood outlining his remaining teeth. “Now, that would give away too much, wouldn’t it? But it’s your lucky day, X. I can help you. I’ll send a message to Van Sciver.”

“Yes,” Evan said. “You will.”

He shot the man in the chest. The suppressor was beautifully made, reducing the gunshot to a muffled pop. The man jerked back against the tiles beneath the window and sat in a slump, chin on his chest, head rocked to one side.

Eleven down.

Fourteen to go.

Evan dropped the gun, took Joey’s arm, and walked out. No one at the gas pumps had taken notice.

He flipped Joey the keys to the Honda. “Get your rucksack and the laptop.”

She jogged off to the right, and he veered left.

When he stepped around the corner to check on the woman, she was bent over the dog, scolding it. “Do your business, Cinnamon. Do your business!”

She sniffed at him. “You know, there was a time when strangers helped each other.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, picking up his shopping bag. “It’s the teenager. Unpredictable.”

Her face softened. She returned her focus to the Pomeranian.

Evan walked swiftly past the gas pumps to the 4Runner, which waited for them, motor still on, already angled downslope for a quick getaway. Joey met him there, climbing in as he did, tossing her rucksack ahead of her.

She was still winded from the fight and the adrenaline rush, her clavicles glistening with sweat.

He said, “You are a powerful young woman.”

He pulled out onto the freeway and headed for home.

31

Sprint the Marathon

By the time they arrived at Evan’s Burbank safe house twelve hours and twenty-nine minutes later, they were driving a Prius with the license plates of a Kia. Bottlebrush and pepper trees shaded the street of single-story midcentury houses. Evan’s sat apart at the end of the block behind a tall hedge of Blue Point juniper. When he’d bought it, one of a half dozen he kept at the ready, the neighborhood had been affordable, the houses charming if slightly ramshackle. But owing to Burbank’s fine schools and proximity to the studios, the block’s gentrification had reached a fever pitch; now remodels perennially clogged the quiet street. He’d been planning to unload the place and would do so as soon as he and Joey were done with each other. He maintained a labyrinthine and impenetrable network of shell corporations that allowed him to shuffle and discard assets without fear of being traced.

He parked in the garage next to a decade-old Buick Enclave that had served him loyally. The garage door shuddered down, and then he and Joey were cocooned in darkness, safe.

He started to get out when she said, angrily, “What does it matter?”

“What?”

“Whether I kill someone?”

He took a moment to consider. “It changes you in ways you can’t understand. You’d never be able to have a normal life.”

“A normal life? So I can… what? Hang out at the mall? Go to prom? Take a thousand fucking selfies?”

Her voice held an anger he did not understand.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’d fit right in.”