Page 106 of Antihero

“And you won’t kill anyone?”

He did not respond.

“I don’t want to pass on, like, an assassin phone number or something. I don’t want to be responsible for that. I’m just a kid.”

He did not respond.

“Hello?”

“I will not kill anyone,” he said, “unless it’s life or death for the person I am helping.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t do that.”

Traffic whirred by on Wilshire, and his thoughts whirred along with it.

“I can’t handle this. I’m sorry. Thank you but I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just—I can’t handle this.”

She hung up.

After a time, the call cut off. He’d forgotten to disconnect the line.

The city blasted by around him, oblivious, six lanes of drivers in their own separate bubbles, going their own separate ways.

He wondered what the hell held it together.

Joey had texted again.

Just four words, but they had hit Evan in the heart or whatever the correct metaphor was for such matters.

Back in the penthouse, he banged away his frustration on the speed bag.

He tried not to think of the look on Tyler Russell’s sister’s face or his mother’s wails.

He tried not to think of Anca in the hospital getting re-sutured.

He tried not to think about the aggressive protectiveness that had roared up inside him, scalding Joey at the club.

He didn’t have the words to explain any of this to himself, let alone to Joey. Rage and fear, guilt and vigilance, the strange responsibilities he had to her at various levels, responsibilities that crashed into one another with exquisite confusion. He hadn’t learned to name complexities of emotion like this, to shape them and push them out of himself in a manner discernible to others. It was the opposite of everything he’d been built to be. And no matter how hard he struggled to learn this different language, it eluded him.

His attack on Tyler had been a ruse.

Painful to admit.

It had not been a properly conducted mission. Evan had done his bullshit drive-bys and recon but he’d known there was no legitimate physical threat. That’s why he hadn’t bothered to clear the house for no-shoots.

He’d charged over there looking for an excuse. He’d baited the kid into taking a swing at him so he could smash up the furniture with his face.

He’d beaten Tyler Joseph Russell with the might of the world just to knock some sense into him through the cracks.

What was he supposed to do instead? Leave Kenzie to the legal process? Trust the courts and the lawyers, the politicians and media, the educators and corporations to protect her? To stop places like RedLite from spewing bile and brutality into the face of reprobates like Tyler Russell 24/7?

All the while, the pack of predators who’d fed on Anca were out there still, prowling the streets of New York, looking for their next victim.

How was he supposed to trust Kenzie to this world? Trust Anca to it?

Trust Joey?

But he had to. Or else people could go storming into houses playing battering-ram with asshole kids’ faces whenever they wanted.