Page 2 of Lone Wolf

When the world shifted this far upside down, it meant it was about to break.

And he was gonna be ready for it.

If anyone came for him or pushed him too far, he’d be ready.

He arrived back at his tiny apartment in Panorama City, the only place he could afford, with a broken air conditioner hanging in the window, dumbbells on the ratty carpet, a pull-up bar across his bedroom doorframe, and two whores who lived next door and kept the walls thumping. The sole decoration in the entire shithole was the Sears photo of him and Maryanne from back in happier days with Joshy propped between them on Martin’s knee, all fat and smiley. Martin had tacked it up by the gooseneck lamp set on the floor next to his mattress so it would be the last thing he’d see every night. A comforting reminder that there’d once been a time when the world had made any kind of sense.

Martin nestled the new 5.56 mm NATO carbine between the shotguns in the rack he kept in the closet. The big gun made him feel safe, protected, like he was still worth something after all.

Even if the world didn’t have plans for him, he had plans for the world.

When he stood up to admire his weapons cache, he didn’t see the feminine figure standing behind him, gripping a belt looped into the shape of a noose.

Martin Quinn dangled from the convenient pull-up bar, the tips of his Carhartt boots stretching to graze the ground. The stool had already been neatly placed, toppled just out of reach beneath him to the side. For the first few seconds he’d tried to hoist himself up to shake his head loose, but she’d greased the metal pole with petroleum jelly, so it hadn’t been long before his arm muscles gave out. Now his weight sagged, the belt torquing his head to the left.

That always interested Karissa, which way the head tilted in a hanging. It abided by some weird natural law like wishbones and that groundhog in Punxsutawney. Her scorecard showed Left 6, Right 7, so she was pleased to even up the score.

Quinn gurgled a bit, his lower lip wet with drool. His face hadn’t purpled yet but the blood was building up, like he was embarrassed, which he should be since she’d loosed his trousers and tugged them down to his shins.

Karissa preferred not to use guns, because guns could be traced, and she liked to choose different methods to obscure the connection between jobs. Just last month, she’d crossed “fell asleep with a lit cigarette and died in a house fire” off her bingo card when dispensing with a perky accountant with a proclivity for embezzlement. This morning’s gig, autoerotic asphyxiation gone awry, would likewise leave no fingerprints.

Especially once she disposed of Quinn’s arsenal and plugged her USB Rubber Ducky drive into his antique laptop, where it would purge his search memory of anything to do with weapon acquisitions and implant a history of perusing vibrant S&M vids.

It had to go slowly, the strangulation, for the forensics to add up. Karissa needed everything to add up, because when the forensics added up that meant that she had never been here.

She stood before him, arms clasped at the small of her back, observing. It was a rarity in the human experience to watch someone die up close, and for her it held endless anthropological interest, like seeing peregrine falcons mate or an octopus crack a crab apart to get at the meat.

Quinn’s bladder released, sheeting yellow down his bare inner thigh. To no avail his fingernails scrabbled at the edge of the leather band, gouging his throat. He strained to thrust his toes into the carpet and pull another sip of air through his constricted windpipe. His eyes pleaded with her. He made squeaking noises.

People said the weirdest shit before they died. Karissa collected dying words. Mostly folks were scared or regretful. Few were angry or defiant; almost everyone begged. The most common refrain was “Wait.” That always amused her. Wait for what?

Quinn choked some more, his bluing lips trying to shape themselves to say something.

She was curious.

She heeled one of the ten-pound dumbbells off the baseboard and rolled it over toward him. His boots scrabbled for purchase and then found it, buying him a few inches’ lift.

The words came so soft she had to step right up to him. At five foot four, she had to tilt her face up near his, close enough that she could feel his breath against her cheeks. She was flat-chested and tapered, gymnast-strong, and her power caught most everyone, Martin Quinn included, off guard.

He wobbled on his precarious perch, the dumbbell rolling beneath his toes. “… Joshy … tell … wish I … more time with … made it … right … him…”

More of the usual.

Karissa sidled a half step in, catching waves of heat from Quinn’s body and the smell of urine. Their lips, almost close enough to kiss.

She placed the ball of her foot on the dumbbell, rolling it slowly out from under Quinn’s toes. His eyes bulged. A blood vessel had given way, a lightning strike bleeding through the sclera. “… wait,” he creaked, his legs straining to hold the dumbbell underfoot. “… wait…”

Same old, same old, and besides, she had another stop today.

With a brisk nudge of her toe, she pushed the dumbbell free.

3

A Once-Brutal Man

Orphan X was missing.

It had been three days since Evan Smoak had blinked off the radar—or blinked further off the off-the-radar realm he inhabited—and Joey had kept herself busy being furious with him so she didn’t have to be worried.