have to go back to work tomorrow as if nothing happened.” Because as far as anyone knew, nothing had, but it didn’t stop the darkness in him from beginning to overflow. He needed time to remember, time to put those memories in all those tiny boxes we have inside us. To put them away for another day—a day when they would be bearable again.
“Go.” He pointed at my bed where Godzilla was curled up on my pillow. “And . . . thanks.”
He closed my door. I didn’t sleep, though Godzilla snored through a tiny deviated septum. I was nineteen and far beyond curfews and bedtimes, but Stefan’s trying to take care of me made him feel better about Anatoly, so I didn’t argue. I simply didn’t obey, and by the morning I had more than enough reasons for Stefan to take back that thanks he’d given me.
I now liked all animals except cats, which, if they’d allowed this travesty to go on, weren’t as smart as I had thought they were. Kind of like me, I thought grimly before correcting myself. Self-blame, so sayeth Jericho, was destructive to the mission, any mission, including staying free and alive. I should’ve seen it sooner. I hadn’t. It was time to move on to more constructive thoughts.
Stretching, I yawned, but only lightly. We healed faster, and as I got older, I started sleeping less too. Four hours were as good as eight to me. Less downtime, double the assassinations—Jericho had Walmart beat hands down for sales efficiency. I hadn’t told Stefan yet about the change in my sleep patterns. I wanted to be as normal as possible in his eyes and with all the other genetic baggage I had, that was not easy. I got out the chair, showered, fed Godzilla, Gamera, and Mothra, and was waiting for Stefan in the kitchen with breakfast and a stack of pictures I’d printed off my computer.
He stopped in the doorway, which was also freshly painted—the mobster who’d traded his gun in for a paintbrush, or had switched hands with them anyway. Paint with the right, keep a weapon in your left. He didn’t look much better than yesterday, especially with the addition of dark stubble that his scar ran through like a road to nowhere. “You cooked?” He rubbed the sleep crust from his eyes and took another look. “And it’s healthy. That can’t be good.”
Cheese omelet with butter-fried potatoes, sausage, toast, coffee, and orange juice. Compared to my usual chocolate chip pancakes or cinnamon-banana waffles, it was healthy. He sat down and started digging in, every fork stroke a testament to massively overacted resignation. “I’m rebuilding the garage, you know,” he mumbled around a mouthful of food. “Poison ivy. Splinters. You couldn’t have waited until winter to blow it up? When all the poison ivy, oak, and whatever else was dead?”
“You are such a drama queen,” I said drily.
His eyebrows shot up and he almost choked on his eggs. “Sara at the coffee shop taught me that one,” I explained. “It seems to fit.”
“Glad you’re picking up all the slang, but cut me some slack and at least give me drama king.” He put down the fork and reached for the coffee. “Go on, spill. Let’s get whatever it is out of the way. What could be worse than the garage, because I have houses to paint and you have tourists to
“Eat first,” I ordered. He wouldn’t feel like eating after, not for a while.
“Misha . . .”
“Eat.” I folded my arms.
“Michael, I’m serious.”
I looked up at the ceiling. There were cracks there. Three formed a completely perfect equilateral triangle. I’d measured it one day just to be sure. If there was a God, the bipolar one who was wrathful and vengeful in the Old Testament and raining fluffy kittens of love in the New Testament, it wouldn’t be in the sky or the sea or the inexplicable saving of a life. It would be in a perfect, equal-sided triangle. God would be the universe; the universe is physics; physics is science. Therefore God would be science. I wondered if I could cut it out of the ceiling and sell it on eBay. People did that with tortillas all the time and you couldn’t measure the Madonna, Mother of God. I had proof. Surely that would get me a higher price.
“Fine. Jesus. You are such a brat,” he grumbled. I lowered my gaze and narrowed my eyes. “Okay, okay.” He threw up his hands. “You’ve got me. You’re not a brat; you’re not a kid; you’re an adult. And one who pushes me around as if I were a toy car and half the time I don’t realize it.” He snorted and started finishing off the breakfast.
“I am the puppet master,” I said with appropriate darkness and doom in my voice. It should’ve been a joke, but unfortunately it was appropriate in real life this morning as well.
“You’re Darth Vader without the asthma and black cape,” he countered, scraping up the last forkful of potatoes.
“That too.” I didn’t mind. I liked Darth before he became a whiny mama’s boy. The whole choking people without having to touch them hit a little close to home, but it was a big pop culture thing I’d missed at the Institute and it was entertaining. I had all the Star Wars movies—the good three and the blasphemy-against-nature three. I’d watched the first three at least twice each. At least I’d stopped before I bought a light-saber to hide in the closet, although I still firmly stood behind the view that Han had shot first. The man wasn’t an idiot. Of course he shot first. I’d been younger then, by two years, and I had missed the excitement of everything being new and engaging. Things had popped up now that were new, but not engaging.
Not in a good way at least.
Stefan got up, dumped his empty plate into the sink, and said, “Okay, you’ve made sure I’m fed and watered just like your little monsters, so tell already.”
Tell I did. As he braced his hands on the back of my chair and looked down over my shoulder, I brought out the pictures I’d had hidden under my plate and laid them out. “I went back to look at the news on Anatoly.” I didn’t wait for a reaction, rushing on. “I thought something had seemed peculiar.”
“Weird,” Stefan substituted absently. He tried to help me get the language right for someone my age and my pretense of a lifelong coffeehouse career ambition.
“Weird. Something seemed weird.” I pointed at each photo. “This man. He’s in every one of them. Where they found Anatoly, when they put him into the coroner’s van, at the autopsy.” Stefan knew better than to ask where I’d gotten the autopsy photos. I could tell you who killed JFK if you wanted to know, but you really didn’t.
“I was curious,” I said. “There’s nothing Anatoly can do for the FBI or IRS now, but he looks like government. Then I ran him through my facial recognition program.”
That one did get to him. “You have a facial recognition program? You’ve got to be shitting me. Like the government and the TSA?”
“No, nothing like theirs. Mine is ninety-nine point nine percent accurate. They
Stefan didn’t have to guess. There was only one place that would have me going to this much trouble. He had gone to the Institute. “Who is he? Who is the son of a bitch?”
“Hugo Raynor. He’s been with the CIA, NSA, and now Homeland Security. He’s forty-two, five foot ten, best marksman at the Farm.” This was where CIA applicants trained when they were young and relatively untarnished. Raynor was far beyond the Farm and as blackened with tarnish as fifty-year-old tin. I’d bet he was still a good marksman, though. You’re never that good at something unless you love it, and if you love it, you don’t give it up.
“He speaks five languages,” I continued, “amateur” running through my mind, “and repeated a course in advanced psychological and physical interrogation. He got the top score both times. I guess it was like a good book; once isn’t enough.” I leaned back in the chair and said what had to be said, although Stefan probably already knew it by now. “The mob would’ve been quicker with Anatoly. The autopsy report says what was done to him was slow. Someone wanted to know something. The mob wants to find you too. King Anatoly is dead. . . . Long live King Stefan.” The man who’d taken Anatoly’s place in the mob would want to make sure Stefan wasn’t coming back to stir up old loyalties. “But they’re not patient, not like this.”
“Raynor. Goddamn it.” He sat back down. “We knew the Institute had to have some sort of government
