by JA Huss
He sets me down at the stairs to the plane and then takes my hand as we climb. “She will, James. She’ll forgive you. You know how I know?”
“How?” he asks as we enter the plane and take our seats across from each other.
“Because I’ve decided you were right. Ford is just like you.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, we’re both killers. I’m glad you finally got that straight.”
“No,” I say. “That’s not what I mean. I mean you are just like Ford.”
He tilts his head and gives me a funny look.
“Nice,” I say with a sigh. And even though he tries to pull it off. He tries to pretend my words don’t mean anything to him. I know they do.
He’s a killer, he’s an asshole, and he’s one of the most dangerous guys on the planet. But he’s my partner now. And we’re gonna go kick some serious ass and save the world.
Coming For You - Part One
Chapter Fifty-Five - Sasha
Last Christmas Eve
I see him, but he doesn’t see me.
I’m practicing for the future. That’s how hunters work. You gotta be sneaky.
His friend, who I have seen before—but who ignores me like I’m dust—goes into the back room to meet my dad. It’s a gun run, so I don’t pay any attention to him. But this guy, the guy who looks like he could be a hunter, but whom I’ve never seen before, which makes it unlikely (though not impossible), that he is a hunter, stops to look at stuff after his friend tells him to wait.
He picks up a knife.
“That knife sucks,” I say from my seat across the aisle. “I wouldn’t buy that one.”
He checks the brand, then the blade. “Yeah, this is crap.” He puts it in the basket and I make my move.
I set my Little House book down and walk over to him. “Wanna see the good ones?” I ask. He turns and looks surprised that I got so close without him hearing me.
I’m good at being sneaky.
I show him the good knives and he looks at me like I’m weird. They all look at me like that once I let them into my world. They know I’m different. This guy—Ford, he says his name is—he knows I’m different. He jokes with me about grownup stuff. He laughs and listens to me when I help him shop for his mom and girl-who-is-a-friend. I gift-wrap his two presents, and while I do that, I realize something.
I’ve known almost from the moment he walked in that he’s a good guy.
His friend peeks out of the back room and tells Ford to leave. Things are getting complicated. My stomach does a little turn at that word. I don’t like it. I like things to be simple. Complicated is bad. I switch my frown to a smile before Ford catches it. “You have time for me to gift-wrap your knife.”
“It’s for me, Sasha. It doesn’t need to be gift-wrapped.”
“It’s like a present to yourself, Ford. Just go with it.”
He laughs. I keep my back to him and concentrate on my gift-wrapping as he asks why I’m working today.
Why am I working today?
Buddy, I think to myself, you would not believe me if I told you. I reach in my pocket and palm the little hard drive I took from my dad last night. He was drunk. My dad hardly ever gets drunk. And as much as I’d like to believe my Christmas Eve is going to end up with me sleeping soundly at my grandparents’ ranch tonight, I’m pretty sure that’s not what’s happening today.
When the hunters show up, bad things happen.
I pull the flash drive out of my pocket and slip it inside Ford’s knife box. When he opens this tomorrow, he’ll find an old battered piece of plastic covered in stickers. If he plugs the drive into his computer, he’ll see photographs. All my best moments in my short life.
And maybe that’s the end of it. Maybe he tucks it inside a drawer somewhere, laughing at the little girl up in Wyoming who got attached. Maybe he never thinks of it, or me, again.
I can only hope.
But I don’t think that’s what’s gonna happen.
I think that by the time this is all over, he might wish he never met me.
Chapter Fifty-Six - Sasha
Present Day
Some people look peaceful when they sleep.
James Fenici is not one of them.
He doesn’t talk, or thrash wildly from nightmares. Only stupid people do that. Weak people.
James Fenici is not weak. He’s a lot of things, but he’s not weak.
No. James has this little twitch. It’s almost not noticeable, and it only affects the one eye. But it’s there. I’ve been watching him for about an hour. I’ve been on a private plane twice now—once on my way to Vegas, and this time, on my way home from California. But let me tell you something. They are pretty fucking boring.
Fracking. Fudging. Flucking. I should not swear in my thoughts. James hates it when I swear and if I swear in my thoughts, I’ll swear in real life.
But fuck it. This plane ride sucks. There are no drinks because Harrison was too busy fishing me out of the ocean after James shot me to stock up the cooler.
Yeah. This stupid plane has a cooler. Like something you put ice in. Not like a refrigerator that even our stupid nineteen seventy-eight RV had back when I was a kid. A cooler. I’m not impressed.
So no soda. Not even a fracking, fudging, flucking bag of pretzels.
God, I’m so hungry.
“James?”
He’s across the aisle from me, but that’s like two feet away tops. I kick him when he doesn’t answer.
“James?”
“Kick me again, and I’ll break all your toes,” he says without opening his eyes.
“I’m so hungry.”
He cracks one eye open. “Do I look like a vending machine? I told you, we’ll stop in Burlington after we get the truck.” He closes the one eye like this matter is settled.
“How far away is Burlington?”
“Go ask Harrison.”
And that’s it. I watch him for a few minutes to see if he’ll apologize for not having food. But he doesn’t. He’s asleep again because there’s that twitch.
I don’t want to ask Harrison. He’ll say something with coordinates that make no sense without a map. If it was light I could look out the window and at least see if we passed the mountains yet. Burlington is on the prairie.
I slump down in my seat and pout. I know that’s very childish and I should man up and stop doing it. But I’m not a man and I’m still a child. So hey, might as well enjoy it while I can.
I think of Nick instead.
I can’t believe he never told Harper about me. Is that weird? She didn’t even know I was his promise. That’s not weird. I don’t think, anyway. Promises are supposed to be secret. I shouldn’t know Nick and I are promised. But he told me last year when he started coming to see me in Wyoming.
Well, he came to see my dad. But he took an interest in me and it was very hard for me not to take an interest back because Nick Tate is what girls call hot.
He and Harper have some similarities, obviously, since they are twins. But Nick is taller than Harper. He’s got nice muscles for a boy of only eighteen. Not like James. James has man muscles. He’s a big guy compared to Nick. But Nick is quicker than James. Harper is quicker than James too. I saw her fight a little while we were together.
Nick is smart too. He knows so many things. He knows secrets for one. Secrets that even James doesn’t know.
Hell, even I know secrets that James doesn’t know.
But if I thought that gave me an advantage, I’d be wrong because there’s more to James than just… James.
Of course, there’s the little matter of Number One too. He tried to kill Harper. And I don’t know what to make of all this. Or of James’ sister, Nicola. Or the Admiral. Or Nick for that matter.
Who should I trust?
So far it’s just James. But once I see Nick, I’ll have to make a choice. Because you can’t be loyal to two people at once.
Can you?
Harrison yells from the cockpit. “We�
��re getting ready to land, you guys. Buckle up.”
James lowers his feet off the seat across from him and sits up straight. Has he been awake this whole time? Shit, I stopped watching him. Did he see me thinking?
I don’t like to think about secrets in front of James. It’s not like he reads minds or anything, but he’s got instincts. He reads faces. And body language. And even voices.
I know because my father taught me how to do it too. But the thing about instincts is that you have to use them in real life to make them second nature.
I have never done a job. Aside from killing those four men who came to blow up my grandparents’ ranch, I’ve never done anything exciting. All the teaching in the world is useless without experience.
James has experience. James has killed hundreds of people. He’s overthrown governments. He’s worked in conditions I can’t even imagine. And he was a prisoner of war down in Honduras once.
I’ve heard that story enough times to recite it in my sleep from people more important than him. Back in the desert he told Harper and me that he was running a shadow government down in San Pedro Sula, but that wasn’t his first time in Honduras. No. The first time was when he was captured.
I know what happened to him down there. Both times. I chance a look over at my new partner and smile.
“What’s on your mind, Smurf?”
Shit.
“I’m so, so, so, so hungry.” He stares at me and I can’t help myself. I squirm.
“Burlington has a McDonalds. We’ll get some breakfast there.”
I would die for McDonalds right now. “And then what are we gonna do?”
The plane drops the landing gear with a thud and this gives James the opportunity to ignore my question.
I don’t like when he ignores my questions. Because that means I won’t like the answer he’s not giving me.
“We’re partners, right?” I ask him, suddenly feeling needy.
He turns back to me with a smile. I love it when he smiles. Because as far as I can tell, the smiles are never fake. “Till death do us part, midget.”
I smile back. I really do like James. I’m just not sure I can trust James.
Because as far as I’ve been able to tell, Tet is in charge in all the situations that count. The most notable was back at Merc’s house in the desert when he told me he might have a plan. The second time was after Harper was drugged by One. I’m still not one hundred percent sure of who was actually in charge that first time. But the guy who told me he was going to shoot me in the chest was definitely Tet.
And even though I think James is on the up and up, I have a hard time understanding how he can live two lives at the same time.
Everyone in the Company—and I do mean everyone—knows that James Fenici is a twisted dude. You need him to kill his brother? No problem. Just tell Tet. You need him to kill a trainer’s kid? No problem. Just tell Tet. You need him to trail your daughter and lead everyone on a wild chase to take the heat off your son? No problem. Just tell Tet.
But the problem with James and Tet doubles when you realize you can’t have one without the other. They are not two separate personalities.
They really are the same guy.
I think that makes James/Tet more insane than if he was one of those crazy people with split personality disorder. Because at least if they were two people you could sorta count on them.
For instance, when the Admiral texted James and told him to come out to Colorado and “pick me up” what he really expected was for Tet to come out to Colorado to “pick me off”.
Nick told me the night before James showed up. He said, If you see him first, he’s James and you should give him a chance. If he shows up as Tet, you’ll never know he was there.
Is it fucked up that Nick didn’t just tell me to get the hell out of there?
I’m not sure.
But Tet wasn’t around when that text from the Admiral to come “pick me up” came in. James was. And James was busy with Harper, so he didn’t need Tet.
See, the Admiral, for all his uppity smugness, really has no clue how James/Tet operates. I suppose that’s why he instructed me to kill James that day. It was a two birds kind of thing.
I’m pulled out of my thoughts when the plane touches down, bounces once, then again, and we roll the rest of the way towards the small airport surrounded by cornfields on three sides.
When we come to a stop James stands up and stretches his arms above his head and touches the top of the cabin, pressing his hands flat against the curved plastic. “I’m starved too, McSmurf. And I need coffee.” He says that with a smile.
God, I love that smile. I might not like Tet all that much, and James is not one of those nurturing people like my dad was. But when he smiles at me like that, I absolutely love him.
Chapter Fifty-Seven - James
I watch the Smurf watch me through the smallest crack of an eye during our plane ride.
She’s making me nervous. She’s not asleep, but she thinks I am. She’s watching me, but she has no idea I’m watching her.
Jesus fucking Christ. I have no idea what I’m doing. I know things they don’t think I know. But I’m not even sure what to do with some of that information.
And I have no idea what Sasha is doing. I know she’s operating on someone’s orders. I’m just not sure who’s orders they are. The Admiral? She definitely was. But now? Not sure. Nick? Don’t know about that either.
Merc? Now that’s the real mystery. The one that matters most right now because he’s the first person we’re gonna see.
And Nick. I haven’t seen him in a long time, but Merc has. He knows a lot about me. Maybe more than he should. Definitely more than he should.
And so this is the test. Who works for who is a question I’ve had no solid answer to for a very long time. But pretty soon all the players will be present and I can sort it out.
But pretty soon is not now, so I need to just let it go. I’m moving forward on trust alone. I have to trust her. It’s my only option.
I think about Harper instead and that makes my chest hurt in a way that’s new to me. When I saw her lying on the floor in her old apartment—fuck. I stopped breathing. It had to have been no more than two, three seconds. But it felt like eternity. Slow mo, right? They say that in emergencies, time changes. And I believe it. I’ve felt that a lot over the years. When reality is so in your face. When death is right there—all you gotta do is reach out and he’ll pull you across that thin veil and make it all end, once and for all.
I’ve been there so many times. But the first time is the one you never forget.
Honduras. Twelve years ago. James Fenici, barely Six, not yet Tet. Already fucked up.
Even now when I close my eyes, I hear the spray of bullets. My hands were shaking so bad I couldn’t even load my fucking rifle. And when I finally shot my first gang member down in the fucked up place they call San Pedro Sula, I missed. The first bullet skimmed past his temple, just enough to ruin his eye, and give me a nice visual burned into my memory. Still, to this day.
I never even got a chance to fire a second shot and finish the job, because I was caught and the guy who was forever called Mistake Number One in my head lived.
But I’m sure he looked in the mirror every day and wished he hadn’t. I’m sure he looked in the mirror every day and told himself he lived for one thing only. To make James Fenici pay.
I was in custody long enough to be tortured by him personally after he recovered. They burned me. They choked me. Hell, they hanged me once. Not enough to break my neck, obviously, just enough that I had to stand on my tiptoes for hours… days, sometimes.
They say the reason I’m so dangerous now is because I never gave up then. And I guess that’s true. I don’t. I figure fuck this goddamned world. It’s got nothing I can’t take. All I gotta do is become Tet when the time starts to slow down and he steps right in. He’s got no problem blowing heads off and Tet does not miss.
If you’re
gonna kill someone, you finish the job or die trying.
Because it’s no gusta hanging around to get caught or having to go back and try it again. Take it from me. I know. I got caught and I went back to finish the job of taking over the city they call Murder Capital of the World. It was like combining the worst moment of my life with a weird sensation of coming home.
I think that’s when Tet really started to take an interest in my jobs. I don’t consider Southern California home anymore, not since I left there when I was sixteen. But thinking of Honduras as home back then? That was a new level of fucked up, even for me.
It took me years to understand that I was different. When One came to rescue me from the Honduran gangs, I had an inkling. His third name is Shroom because his calling-card poison is amatoxin. Poison mushrooms. We get assigned a poison to use when we need to kill people for personal reasons. Mine’s the toxin found in the blue ring octopus. Classic James Bond kinda shit.
Tet the toxin is a blockbuster movie way to die, for sure.
But Tet the dude? He’s definitely more of a Goldfinger kinda character.
I don’t know whose idea it was to give us three names, but I took that shit seriously because when your job requires you to interact with some of the biggest scumbags on Earth, you gotta keep it in perspective.
Tet.
I can feel him inside me. He tips his hat in greeting. He’s relaxed right now. His version of winding down at the beach. But that’s because I’m with the kid and I think Harper is safe for now.
Fucking Harper. I miss her more than I’d like to admit because there’s just no telling how all this shit will play out. I have no idea who is on my side inside the Company or who is actively working against me. They might be using her to get to me. They might be using me to get to her. Hell, anything is possible at this point. I don’t know if a single person can say they understand their loyalties these days.
