“No. The assassins never scared me. They were just hunters. I knew so many killers—and my dad knew hundreds more. These guys were different. They didn’t wear camo or suits. They were just dressed like normal, everyday people.”
“Describe that. Because camo’s normal and so are suits.”
“It wasn’t about their dress, it was about their… look. They looked like… they knew things. No. That’s wrong. They acted like they were outside of things.”
I point at her. “Like they woke up from the fuckin’ pod, right? And now they’re just computer-simulated people trying to fuck with people’s virtual reality experience.”
“I thought we agreed no more Matrix?”
“Sorry. But it fits, right?”
“Yeah. They acted like that. Like they were above it all. No consequences. People like that, well…” She sighs. “No one is like that. Not even me. Or you. No one. We all understand consequences. Hell, we’ve all had to live with the consequences.”
“So who were they? Did you ever find out?”
She shakes her head. “No. It was just that one time. But I saw the way my dad looked at them. They were different.”
“Different like this guy?” I nod my head towards Donovan.
“No. Not like him.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I just am. I’m not even sure those people matter now, anyway. Chances are, they all died with everyone else during our last three attempts to bring it all down.”
“Two,” I say, holding up two fingers. “We were never in on the last one.”
“Right. Two.”
“Well. Let’s tuck that away into a little imaginary file called ‘Things to ask Adam’ when he gets home from his date tomorrow night.”
Sasha snickers.
“Right? Who the hell invites the who’s-who of Company killers to their Southern mansion for a good old-fashioned mind-unfucking and then says, ‘My lover and I need some romance time, we’ll be back tomorrow?’”
Sasha snorts. “I told you he wasn’t that bad. He’s kinda likable, right?”
I reluctantly have to agree. None of these people are anything like what I was expecting. Including Nick Tate. “Hey.” I say. “Are you doing OK with all this Nick stuff?”
Sasha takes a moment to consider my question, then bobs her head in a noncommittal way. “I guess. I don’t really care about Nick Tate anymore. The reunion was… emotional. And I’m a little worried about what he might do next. He’s kind of unpredictable.”
I chuckle. “That’s an understatement.”
“But before this is all over, and before I leave here, I’m gonna make one thing very clear. Nick Tate needs to stay away from Lauren.”
“Lauren?” The word floats towards us from across the room. We turn in surprise to see Donovan Couture sitting up in bed, very much not in a drug-induced coma. “Sasha Cherlin. You and I both know that Nick Tate needs to stay away from all of them.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - NICK
I pull into a long driveway that leads to a unique modern farmhouse. It’s dark green in color, kinda blending in with the pine forest surrounding it. It’s a newer house. Huge rustic, raw-wood beams frame the porch. And it’s shaped funny. Not anything like a regular farmhouse. It’s got a center portion with two wings on either side slanting out in a diagonal.
The roof is tin, the siding is wood, and the chimneys and skirting are all lined with rock.
I stop the truck, turn it off, and the four of us stare at the dark house in silence for a few moments.
Finally, I break it. “Well. What are we doing here?”
Indie gets out, then Nathan. They shut their doors, leaving Wendy and me alone.
“Wendy, we should just leave.”
“Why?”
“Because whatever’s here that they want to show us, you don’t need to see it.”
“I’m curious though.”
She’s sitting behind me, so I have to turn all the way around and peek over my seat to see her. “You remember that cat, right?”
She smiles. And it’s a little bit sad. So I like this smile. It says a lot of things, but mostly it says, I’m OK. “We’re here. We came all this way. I wanna see it. I want to know more about these girls.”
That’s not good.
But I’m not gonna fight her on this. It’s a losing battle. So I open my door, close it, then open hers and wait for her to get out.
“OK,” Indie says. She’s smiling like she just won something.
And she did, I guess. She got us here.
“I’ll be right back,” Nate says. He doesn’t wait for anyone to argue with him, just walks around the back side of the house. A couple seconds later the sound of breaking glass fills the forest, and then a few more seconds after that he opens the front door. “Let’s go.”
We go inside and pause in the foyer. It looks like people still live here, but there’s a layer of dust on the tables lining the entry that is clearly visible in the moonlight filtering in from the front windows.