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  “Almost there, folks,” Harrison calls from the front.

  Just keep cool, Tet. Just keep cool until you get her alone. Then all bets are off. I might not have ever killed a little girl before, but there’s a first time for everything. I crack my knuckles.

  “I’ll fight back,” she says, just loud enough so I can hear but Harrison cannot. “I won’t let you get me.”

  I nod but stare out the window closest to me, not meeting her gaze. “I’m shaking, kid. Quaking in my fucking boots.”

  “You should be.”

  I laugh a little at her arrogance.

  “They always laugh at first.”

  I look over for that little crack and she smiles like she’s won. “You think you’re me? You think that half-assed training your father provided is equal to me?” Her face scrunches up when I mention her father. “You’re nothing, Sasha. Nothing but another girl to be sold. A piece of property. Your father killed himself out there that day. He was caught doing all sorts of—”

  She hurls herself across the aisle at me, her hands reaching for my throat. “Shut up!” she screams. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

  I’m trying to untangle her when she’s thrown across the aisle and back into her seat by Harrison. “You,” he says, pointing a gun at her. “Sit your fucking ass down on my plane or I’ll tie you up.”

  “Fucking kid,” I mumble.

  “And you.” Harrison points the gun at me now and I lift an eyebrow. He does not flinch. “I know what you are. But you’re dead without me to land this thing. So keep your hate to yourself until you get off my fucking plane.”

  He’s right. If Sasha and I want to kill each other, then we need him to put us back on the ground first.

  I look over at her and she’s looking out her window, crying silently. I can only tell by the erratic in-and-out pattern of her breathing and the abrupt rise and fall of her chest.

  I look out my window as well, happy to see the familiar desert below. This is where we go. The North American hunters. When we need time, or space, or help… we seek out the desert. I know Merc has a few places in the desert. It’s the heat, I think. People hate it—hell, I hate it. But it’s refreshing. I like the burn. The dryness too. It envelops me. It dehydrates me.

  We’re landing in Jean, not Las Vegas. It’s about thirty miles south. We stop here all the time. It’s cheaper to fuel up here, fly to LA or San Diego, then stop again on the way back to Colorado. I wish I could say that I didn’t travel this route all that often, but over the past year, this flight plan is as familiar as the desert below.

  I don’t like to think about this year. Nothing good happened this year. It’s been an endless stream of killing. One after the other after the other.

  And all of them were people I knew.

  “Seatbelts,” Harrison barks from the front. “We’ll be on the ground in three minutes.”

  I fasten my belt and the familiar click across the aisle tells me that Sasha does the same. She’s more in control. Her sadness, or anger, or frustration—whatever the fuck’s driving her right now—is tucked away for another time.

  And I’m with her.

  My anger is gone too. In its place is just the guilt. And hate. Not for her, or any of the other people on this earth who deserve my hate.

  But for myself. How many dead bodies does it take for an assassin to grow a conscience?

  The landing is smooth and the deceleration quick enough to make me struggle to keep my body pressed against the seat. But all of this—the flight, the pilot, the landing, the destination—it’s familiar and I like it.

  We taxi towards the terminal and I unbuckle my seatbelt and walk up to Harrison. “Hey,” I say as I clap his shoulder. He flinches. And that kills me. That he thinks I’d come up here to hurt him. Maybe Harrison and I aren’t friends, but I’d like to think he trusts me a little more than that. “Sorry for the trouble, OK? We’re good still, right?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he says. But I know that answer. It’s not good at all.

  “I mean, look, Harrison, I might need another ride. Ya know? So I need us to be good.”

  He turns to look at me, then glances down the aisle towards Sasha. I look too, but she’s hidden from view. She’s still huddled up against the window back there. “She’s a little girl, Tet. Treat her like one.”

  I shake my head and squeeze his shoulder. “She’s not, Harrison. She’s not a little girl. She’s very dangerous.” He starts to turn away, so I add what he needs to hear. “But I’ll do my best to remember what she used to be.”

  He nods a little, but he doesn’t look at me again. “I’m gonna check into the Gold Strike for a few days. You have my number if you need it.” And then he stands up, pushes me back into the aisle, and starts opening the door to let us out.

  “Let’s go,” I call to Sasha. She unbuckles herself and stands up. I wave her forward to exit ahead of me, but she shakes her head.

  No trust.

  I go first and shake Harrison’s hand on the tarmac. Sasha, to my surprise, does the same. She says, “Thank you,” in a very polite little-girl way that makes me wonder.

  Is that all she is? Or is she the killer I imagine her to be?

  She walks up next to me and her gaze finds my face. “Now what?”

  I slide my shades down to cover my eyes and then blow out a breath of air. I don’t want to think about what’s next. I just need to forget for a day. “What do you need, Sasha?”

  “Huh?”

  I turn and start walking towards the casino. She follows. “Are you hungry?”

  She almost snorts. “Hungry?” She laughs again. “I’m wondering how long I have to live. The last thing on my mind is the breakfast buffet at the Gold Strike.”

  “OK,” I say, giving up. “We’re going home then.” She laughs at that word too. And it’s absurd, right? Home. It’s not my home, it’s not her home. It’s just a place I keep in the desert to dry out after the kill. A place where the sun can bake the dirt off my skin and boil away the bad blood.

  “I have no home, James Fenici. I have nothing. I’m here because other people control my destiny. I have no free will, or opinions, or dreams. I exist only for orders. Right now, your orders. Is that what you’re looking for? Is that what you want? Obedience? Surrender?”

  “You wanna walk away?” I stop and look back at her, raising my sunglasses so she can see my eyes. “There’s the fucking door. Ya can’t miss it.” I pan my arm out towards the desert across the 15 freeway. “I’m just the delivery guy, Sasha.”

  “That sounds like a declaration of innocence, to me. Or at the very least, non-affiliation. And we both know that’s about as far from the truth as you can get. You’re nothing if not affiliated, James. You’re nothing if not guilty.”

  “Whatever,” I say, giving in and letting her win. “Let’s just find our ride.”

  My heart’s not in the fight anymore.

  My heart’s tired of fighting.

  I turn and continue walking towards the Gold Strike Casino and I don’t look back. But when the doors whoosh open, the little Smurfette follows me inside.

  We get about ten paces before security stops me. “What?” I ask, annoyed.

  The guy is big, bald, and has a look to him that says professional. He nods behind me so I turn. Sasha is peeking around another equally professional-looking guard. “I can’t come in!” she says in an uneven voice.

  So she is a kid. The little brat isn’t as cool as she seems. “All right,” I tell the guard. “Sorry, I’m not used to having her around. I just forgot. We’re hitting the buffet anyway.”

  I backtrack, pluck her by the shirt, and steer her to the right where the restaurant is. We don’t wait to be seated because there’s a sign that says, Seat Yourself, and I choose a booth that faces the front of the casino.

  Sasha slides in her side of the booth and I grab two menus from behind the salt-and-pepper shakers and flop one down in front of her.

  “I’m not hung
ry.”

  “You’re a bad liar, Sasha. Besides, you hinted on the plane you’ve been starving for months. So cut the martyr act and pick some food.”

  The waitress comes a few minutes later and I order myself a coffee and her an orange juice, then go back to the menu. “What’re you getting?” I get the silent treatment, so I lower my menu to look her. Her eyebrows are knitted together so tightly I have to laugh. “Just choose some breakfast.”

  “I thought you were in a hurry to get home.” Her accent on the word is meant to be mocking. But you don’t need to be a mind-reader to understand that’s longing and not contempt.

  “We need a ride. I can’t call a taxi from around here, they’d remember us. I can’t steal a car, we’re lying low. And we can’t walk, it’s too far. So we gotta wait for the right opportunity. And that won’t be for another few hours.”

  The waitress comes with our drinks and Sasha gulps hers down as I order the buffet for both of us. “Might as well fill up before we go.”

  “What opportunity are we waiting for?” Sasha asks as she sets down her empty orange juice and wipes her mouth.

  I smile at her. “Patience, Smurfette. Watch and learn from the master. Come on.” We scoot out and go grab food from the buffet. Say what you want about Vegas, but these people know how to do up the all-you-can-eat buffet.

  Sasha gets a plate of everything. I’ve never seen a kid eat so much in my life. Actually, this girl gives every grown man in the place a run for his money. She goes back for fourths. But it passes the time until a little past two a group of loud old ladies come in. Ready to chow down after a day of bingo and slots.

  Sasha catches me watching them and kicks me under the table. “Don’t stare at them.”

  I empty my fourth cup of coffee and throw a twenty down on the table. “Come on, that’s our cue.”

  “What cue?”

  She stays sitting, but I get up and walk away. If she’s gonna hang around she needs to learn to follow. She’s been on her own too long, and that’s not good. She’s rogue. And that’s worse. Because if she’s not trying to get me killed with her secrets and setups, then she’s valuable to me and I might keep her around. But only if she can follow directions. The last thing I need is Soldier Smurf going AWOL when I need her the most. I get all the way to the front door before I hear her flip flops behind me.

  One tick mark for keeping Sasha.

  “Hurry up,” I say over my shoulder as I slide my shades back down. The heat outside is well into triple digits and it blasts my face like I’m standing in front of an inferno. No humidity like the beach. No biting wind like this morning in Colorado. Just breath-stealing desert heat. “We gotta go around back. That’s where they keep them.”

  “Keep what?” she asks, as she skips a little to keep up with me.

  “Just go along, OK? I got this.” We walk around the building and I search the long line of busses, looking at the name plates above the front windshield. I sigh with relief when I see it. Sandy Valley Community Center.

  I chose Sandy Valley for a base house for two reasons. It’s cheap. And it’s got a shitload of old ladies who love to gamble. Almost every day they pile in a bus and come out here in the early morning. They get tired and grab lunch, then head back on the bus so they can get home in time to take the afternoon nap.

  I knock on the door and the driver whooshes it open. “Help you?”

  I dig in my wallet and pull out a Sandy Valley Community Center Transport card. Then point to Sasha. “My kid sister’s coming too.”

  He looks at my card, squinting at it a little. It’s legit. The city recreation manager is a Company employee. Well, was. She’s dead now. And while I might be the only guy on the planet who has a card like this, the dude cannot find any good reason to tell me no.

  So he just shrugs and hands it back. “Welcome aboard. Take any seat you want.”

  Sasha and I hop up the steps and I have a little moment of pride when she does not automatically take the last seat in the back, but instead takes one that faces the aisle. You sit in the back and everyone sees your face straight on. But if you sit in the aisle, they only see your profile.

  Her dad was a good teacher and I’d hate to have to kill her. But I will if I have to and the more she obeys, the higher her chances of survival climb.

  A little while later the old ladies come back. They are all pretty spry for their age and don’t need help or anything. But since we’re taking up two seats that weren’t filled on the way out here, I stand and let a grandma have my seat.

  It’s a thirty-minute drive back into Sandy Valley, and from there it’s a three-mile hike outside of town to my little patch of desert. We head south, Sasha complaining the whole way. And by this time the afternoon sun is brutal. I stop at the edge of an empty expanse of acreage and shield my eyes. “We can cut off about half a mile if we walk through the desert instead of the streets. Come on, we’ll be there in like twenty minutes.”

  I head out into the scrub, my boots kicking up sand and dirt, but when I glance back, she’s still back there on the sidewalk. “What?” I shout at her. She’s been good since breakfast and right now I need her to stay that way. I’m not in the mood for this kid shit. “Let’s fucking go!”

  She lifts her foot and waggles it around. “Flip flops, James. You are out of your fucking mind if you think I’m crossing that desert in flip flops.”

  I walk back to her and grab her by the shoulder. “Watch your fucking mouth, kid. Now let’s go.”

  “No,” she says, wiggling free. “There’s rattlesnakes. If I get bit by a rattlesnake you’ll either have to leave me out here to die or rush me to a hospital for antivenin. And something tells me you’re not in the mood to blow our cover to save my life. Because a teenager who’s been missing for months coming into the emergency room with a rattlesnake bite a thousand miles away from home will definitely make the news. So excuse me for not having more faith in you, but that’s how I’m rolling right now. I am not”—she crosses her arms in front of her chest—“walking across that desert in flip flops.”

  I just stare at her. For several seconds. She shifts her stance, puts her hand on her hip, and puckers her lips as she shakes her head. This is her limit today. Not the actual rattlesnake bite, but the possibility that getting bit will blow her cover. And mine.

  And that I can respect.

  “OK,” I say with a smile. A smile that might have a touch of pride in it. “You win. But we’re still cutting across—”

  “No!”

  “—the desert. But I’ll piggy-back you. How’s that?”

  She looks down and laughs. I turn my back to her and she hops on. Her flip flops fall off immediately, so I bend down and she scoops them up.

  And we walk. She talks in my ear for a little while. About how Bugs Bunny always sees a mirage when he’s in the desert and have I ever seen a mirage? She talks about the heat, guesses the temperature, and what time the sun might go down. And I wonder about that as well. Because we’ll be home before sundown and maybe, if I’m lucky, Harper and I will have that moment to ourselves.

  God, I miss that girl so bad now that I know she’s so close.

  And after about ten minutes of this, Sasha falls silent. Her head’s heavy on my shoulder, her body limp in my hands, her arms loosen around my neck. I’m sweating like crazy and I’m sure she’s soaked too. But she’s asleep. Out here in the hundred-degree heat with a man she met this morning.

  I sigh a little. Because I know she’s caught in the web of lies the Company is telling. Just like me and Merc. Just like Harper and Nick. We’re all caught in the web. And the more we struggle the harder it becomes to escape.

  As I move forward I can see the crappy little prefabricated green house in the distance. It’s nothing special. But for now, it’s home. There’s no one in this neighborhood. It looks like there were once houses and stuff out there, back in the sixties maybe. There’s some sort of playground across the street from me—the only thing
left is a metal slide and a swing set with one crooked swing. But the area also looks like everything was razed. Like someone decided it needed a do-over, cleared it down to the dust, and then forgot all about their grand plans.

  The lots are big, far apart, and the driveways are long. So even if people did still live out here, we’d have some privacy. Not much, because there are no trees, just scrub desert. Enough though.

  I set Sasha down as we reach the cracked and buckling sidewalk. She’s quiet. Her ten-minute nap was just enough to subdue her fiery temperament, but not enough to make her enthusiastic about reaching a place that’s not home.

  But I’m excited. I smile a little to myself as we walk up the dirty driveway. The sun hasn’t set yet, got a few hours left probably. Enough time to tackle Harper and take her into the bedroom.

  I positively grin at that thought. And then Sasha and I reach the porch, climb the concrete steps, and I’m just about to reach for the screen door when it’s kicked open and the barrel end of a gun presses against my temple.

  “Don’t. Fucking. Move.”

  Chapter Six - Harper

  I press the gun against his skin as I play my next move in my head.

  “Harper,” James says. “It’s me.”

  “Pfft. I know it’s you, asshole. That’s why I have the gun.” I look over at the girl he’s with and squint at her. “Who’s she?”

  “Harper, lower the gun.”

  “No. I don’t trust—”

  The next thing I know¸ I’m pressed flat against the front door.

  “Are you gonna be good?” James asks, his face so close to mine I am forced to look him in the eyes. “Because I just piggy-backed this kid across the desert, I’m sweating my ass off, and this was not the welcome home I was expecting.” He leans into my neck and those familiar prickles are back. All those feelings he brought out in me back at the beach are rushing through my body as heat and trembling and desire. “Answer me, Lionfish.”