Fuck.
“Candy!” she screams. “You changed my pills out with candy! You ass**le!”
I hold the phone away from my ear and look over at Sasha. She’s back to being the smiling one now. “Harper,” I say calmly. “No one is coming to that house, OK? It’s a safe place and I want you inside. So get up off the ground.” I wait but I don’t hear movement. “Are you getting up?”
There’s some shuffling and then she says, “I’m up.”
“OK, now walk across the street, open the gate, and go into the garage.” I give her a few minutes to walk up the long driveaway. The gate closes, then the side door to the garage squeaks as she opens it.
“OK.”
“There’s a key in the tailpipe of the car. A small silver one. Use it to go inside the house and wait for me. If you’re scared or you have trouble there’s guns in the trunk. They’re all loaded with a cartridge in the chamber. So be mindful.”
Silence.
“Harper?”
“Got the key,” she says with a trembling voice. “How soon will you be here?”
Oh, she’s so scared. I feel terrible but I do not want her getting any ideas about taking those pills again. “Soon, OK? I’m only a few hours away. So very soon. You gonna be OK?”
She sniffs. “Yes.”
“I miss you,” I say, turning away from Sasha’s sneer. “I can’t wait to see you again. And I’m glad you’re not back at the beach. You’re fine right where you are, it’s no big deal.”
She’s silent on the other end.
“You sure you’re OK?” I prod her. It’s weird to think of her as vulnerable. The Company has done nothing but talk up how dangerous she is. And yeah, if she really applied herself, she’d give me a good fight. But she doesn’t seem all that interested in fighting. I glance over at a smirking Sasha. Unlike that wild thing. She’s out looking for an excuse to brawl. “Just take a few deep breaths. Were you followed?”
“I don’t see how. There is no one out here for miles and I walked here from town. But—I’m so afraid they can see me. It’s so open out here.”
“You walked?”
“You’re breaking up, I’ll—”
And then the line cuts us off. Fucking airplanes.
I go back to the cockpit. “We’re getting off in Vegas.” Harrison grunts, so I just walk back to Sasha and take my seat.
“You owe me now, James.”
“I don’t owe you shit.”
She smiles her I win smile and crosses her arms. “I could’ve let you go all the way back to California only to find her missing. But I didn’t. I helped you. And that means when I need it, you have to help me.”
I glare at her. “Who sent me?”
“I’ll give you one guess.”
I don’t need one guess, because I already know. And that means he’s been watching me this whole time. But she’s wrong about one thing. I have not been set up. I made a deal and I’m seeing it through.
“I’ve been set up too,” Sasha says like we’re in this together. “I’m not a player, I’m just a pawn.”
“Do you know for sure who sent you out there?”
“I don’t need to know who, Six. The only thing that matters is why.”
“Why then?”
“You,” she says. “I was sent out there for you. And where did you just come from?”
I wait for it.
“How likely is it that you showed up in Huntington Beach and found her waiting for you?”
Jesus, this kid knows more about my job than I do. “But you’re OK with this setup.” I watch her face, but she’s good. Or she’s psycho like the rest of us and the lies pour out second nature.
“I’m as OK with it as you are. Unless, of course, you haven’t figured it out yet and I’m telling you something you don’t know.”
“Then what’s your plan?” I ask, ignoring her dig, because I don’t know. I’m off balance a little. After my last job I was not… all there. I failed the debrief psych evaluation. I lost a little bit of time. I lost… a little bit of me, maybe.
“Wait it out and see what happens. Just like you.” She smiles and her perfect white teeth gleam in a stray beam of sunlight. She looks harmless like that. If you disregard her ratty hair and mismatched ALCO clothes.
“I know who set you up,” I say through a curled lip. “So let’s not pretend.” God, this girl. I’m starting to feel some serious hate for her.
“You only know what they tell you.”
“And you know more?”
“Yeah. Because I’m a kid. And you know what? All you guys have ignored me for so long, I don’t exist. I bet you don’t even remember meeting me, do you? You only saw my father’s guns that day.”
I search my memory. “I was never in Cheyenne. Sorry, Smurf.”
“No, but you were in Boise that year I turned nine. You bought four FN Five-SeveNs and two thousand rounds of cartridges. That was a nice paycheck for us. We bought that cabin. You know, the one where my father was killed?”
I just stare at her.
“I remember all the hunters, James. All of them. And you can tell yourself that Ford is just like you. But you’re wrong. He’s not.”
My whole body heats up with anger now. Fuck this kid. “He made me kill my brother. Did you know that? He cashed in a debt Merc owed him. For you, Sasha. Everything that’s happened to me this year, all that shit that made me unstable in the eyes of the Company? That’s all your fault.”