Hellbent (Orphan X #3)(99)
Calmly, she chambered her leg high and pistoned her heel through his ankle.
The snap sounded like a heavy branch giving way.
Connor stared down at his caved shin in disbelief. His foot nodded to the side, ninety degrees offset from the ankle.
Joey said, “Three … two…”
He screamed.
Scotty yelled, “Crazy bitch!” and charged her, lowering his shoulder for a football tackle. Sidestepping, she took his momentum and redirected him into the wall. His face smacked the concrete. It left a wet splotch. He toppled over, his legs cycling against the pain, heels shoving grooves in the dirt.
Joey placed her hand on Connor’s barrel chest and shoved. He fell hard, landing next to Scotty. He was still making noises.
She squeezed through the narrow hatch, emerging from the cage. As she stepped out, she sensed the world opening up all around her. Starting back down the hill to civilization, she felt a part of her flutter free from the trap inside her chest and take flight against the canopy of stars.
65
Not an Innocent
Joey stepped through the unlocked door of 21A and stared at the cavernous great room. All the lights were off, but the city shone through the giant windows, making the contours of the penthouse glimmer darkly.
A silhouette rose from one of the bar chairs at the kitchen island.
Evan.
He said, “I made up your bed.”
Joey stepped inside and shut the door behind her. “Thanks.”
“I’m not very good at it,” he said.
“What?”
He gestured from her to him. “This.”
“You’re better than you think.”
“I didn’t mean what I said on the phone. What you overheard.”
“I know.”
She came forward, and they stared at each other.
“I went to see that guy with the stupid hair,” she said. “From outside the safe house?”
Evan nodded.
“He’s a useless reprobate,” she said. “You were right.”
Evan said, “I don’t want to be right.”
She leaned into him stiffly, her forehead thunking against his chest, her arms at her sides. He hesitated a moment and then hugged her, one hand holding the back of her head, her thick, thick hair.
He said, “Rough night all around, huh?”
“Yeah.” Her voice rose an octave and cracked. “I think I’m done pretending.”
“Pretending what?”
“Acting like I didn’t need anything from anyone. I started after my maunt died, because … you know, I wasn’t gonna get it anyways.” She straightened up. “But I was lying. Now and then I still think about what mighta been. Someone to tuck me in, maybe. You know, ‘How was your day?’ Cute boy in homeroom. A soccer team. All that normal shit. Instead. Instead.” Her lips wobbled. “Do you think I ever could?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not too late?”
“No. Once we get Van Sciver, we’ll find what comes next for you. It doesn’t have to be this.”
She blinked, and a tear glided down her flawless brown cheek. “How ’bout you?”
“It’s not an option anymore for me. It’s different.”
She looked up at him. “Is it?”
He nodded.
“Even after you get Van Sciver?”
“There will always be Van Scivers.”
“But what about Mia? And the kid?”
“There will always be Van Scivers,” he said again.
She pursed her lips and studied him in the semidarkness. “I remember I was fourteen, bleeding from my ear. Van Sciver put me with a demolition breacher who let me get too close to a door charge. I thought it was a punctured eardrum. He took me back to town and dropped me at a park, you know, for pickup. Anyways, I was worse than anyone thought. I was stumbling along off the trail. And I came up behind a guy on a bench, rocking himself and murmuring. At first I thought he was injured, too. Or crazy. But then I saw he had a baby. His baby. And he was holding it so gently. I snuck up behind him in the bushes. And he was saying … he was saying, ‘You are safe. You are loved.’” Her eyes glimmered. “Can you imagine?”
Walking behind Jack in the woods, placing his feet in Jack’s footprints.
“Yes,” Evan said.
“Maybe that’s all anyone needs,” Joey said. “One person who feels that way about you. To keep you human.”
“It’s a gift,” Evan said. “It’s also a weakness.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a vulnerability they can exploit. Jack protecting me. Me protecting you. Us protecting David Smith. But we’re gonna stop all that now. Instead of letting them use it against us, we’re gonna start using it against them. The Ninth Commandment.”
“‘Always play offense,’” she said. “But how?”
“We have what they want.”
She stared at him, puzzled.
He said, “Us.”
Her eyes gleamed. “Use me as bait.”
Evan nodded. “And we know where to drop the line.”
*
They left at five in the morning, switched out Evan’s truck for a black Nissan Altima he kept at a safe house beneath an LAX flight path. Seven hours and four minutes later, they reached Phoenix. They did a few hours of recon and planning before pulling over in the shade of a coral gum tree. The car windows were cracked open, and the arid breeze tasted of dust.