Hellbent (Orphan X #3)(26)

Evan was suddenly aware of how cool the room was.

She said, “I asked what we were doing and he said—”

“‘It is what it is, and that’s all that it is,’” Evan said.

She stared at him.

“Cognitive closure,” Evan said. “Van Sciver’s mode of thinking. A strong preference for order which, okay, a lot of us have. But it’s paired with a distaste for ambiguity. That’s why Jack cultivated it in us. Ambiguity. That’s the part that keeps you human.”

“Question orders,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. “The Sixth Commandment.“

He nodded.

She swallowed, was silent a moment, then continued. “So I took the gun. I didn’t feel like I had a choice. Van Sciver walked me over to the duffel, told me to shoot it. I asked why. He said it was an order and orders don’t come with whys. I could see the guy’s outline there inside the duffel.”

In the neon glow, Evan caught a sheen on her forehead. Sweat.

She shook her head, breaking off the story. “We’ve all done shit we regret. I regret every day of my life what I did.”

Sliding off the bed, she dug in her rucksack. She pulled out a few toiletries, which she shelved to her chest with an arm, and disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later the shower turned on.

Evan looked at the open mouth of her rucksack. A piece of paper had fallen out. He picked it up to put it away for her when he saw that it was a birthday card. Tattered envelope, no address.

The front of the card featured a colorful YOU’RE 16!, though much of the glitter had been worn off from handling. A well-loved card.

Evan opened it.

A pressed iris had been preserved inside, already brittle.

Know that I am proud of you, sweet girl. That I see the beautiful woman you have grown into.

Xoxo, M.

Evan stared at the scrawled feminine hand for a time, felt a stirring inside him. Was “M” the mom who had lost Joey into the foster system?

It certainly wasn’t Orphan M; Evan had left his pieces scattered on a roadway in Zagreb.

But how would “M” have been in touch with Joey? Joey would have been taken off the grid when she was tapped for the Orphan Program. Jack must have arranged some way to reestablish contact between daughter and mother—mailbox forwarding or a dead drop. It would’ve been a lot of trouble to get done correctly, and Jack only did things correctly. Which meant that whoever “M” was, she meant a lot to Joey.

Evan put the card away, careful not to fragment the dried flower further, and found a plug to charge his RoamZone.

Crouched over the faint green glow, he pondered what he would do if a Nowhere Man call rang through right now. The missions formed an endless chain, each client passing on his untraceable number to the next. That was the only fee he charged for his services. He’d found that this simple act was also part of the healing process for clients, a first step on the road to putting their lives back together. What was more empowering than helping to rescue another person?

For the first time since he’d become the Nowhere Man, he felt unready to answer if the black phone rang. Holed up in a motel in Cornelius, Jack’s death still unavenged, stuck with a sixteen-year-old who was at her best difficult to manage—he was in no state to handle a mission.

He reminded himself that six hours from now things would get drastically simpler. He just had to hold out until that first train pulled into Union Station. He’d have Joey off his plate.

Then he’d run Van Sciver to ground and put a bullet through his skull.

The shower turned off, and a few minutes later Joey emerged, towel wrapped around her. She gestured at the rucksack. “Do you mind if I, uh…”

“You change out here. I’ll clean up.”

They passed awkwardly, giving each other a wide berth. In the bathroom he leaned close to the mirror and studied his face, nicked in several places from the shattered windshield. The sterile light caught a dab of dried blood at the corner of his mouth. Only then did he become aware of a throbbing above his right incisor. He lifted his upper lip, saw that the tooth was outlined in crimson. Above it a dot of safety glass speckled in his gum line. He worked it free with his fingers, dropped it in the trash.

Then he rinsed out his mouth and nose, brushed his teeth using Joey’s toothpaste and his finger, and went back into the room.

She was in bed, facing away, her breathing already slow and steady. She’d left a pillow on the floor for him.

He lay down on the carpet near the door and closed his eyes.

*

He awoke to movement in the room. Stayed perfectly still. Kept his eyes veiled, mostly closed.

Joey continued to ease out of bed, moving so slowly she didn’t even creak the hair-trigger coils.

Two silent steps, and then she hunched over her rucksack, reaching for something. She rose, turned. He watched her approach. Her hand passed through a fall of light from the window.

She was holding her fixed-blade combat knife.

She moved well, floating on bare feet. He read her posture. Her shoulders were hunched, her head lowered on her neck.

Nothing in it registered aggression.

Just fear.

She leaned over him.

He made the call to let her.

He felt the carbon-steel blade press against his throat.

He opened his eyes all the way.

Her own eyes were so large, the light coming through them from the side turning the irises transparent. The vivid green of them jumped out of the dark, the eyes of a great cat that no longer knew itself to be great.