Page 25 of Out Of A Fix

The nurse didn’t understand the peril her eardrums just escaped, but Darwin dissolved into laughter.

We stopped at a diner the kids liked in Eena, and everyone who saw Griff gushed over him, which I appreciated. He looked rough, but he was in his clean clothes, and they had scrubbed off a lot of the blood at the hospital. With his bruised face, black eyes, bandage over the eyebrow, and split lip, it was clear he was hurt. What he needed was lots of love, and our waitress brought him some crispy bacon and homemade biscuits when she brought out the water and drinks. And yes, breakfast had been hours ago, but they served it all day, and it was what we all wanted.

Once we ordered, it took me a moment to realize I was under scrutiny.

“What?” I asked the table.

“Could you tell us about WITSEC?” Griff asked me.

I thought a moment. “Okay. First off, it’s not like in the movies at all.”

They all listened closely as I explained about the intake and how they chose where you lived, that you had no say in where they placed you. I then went through how you got a new name, a new life, everything.

“Like all your test scores, how well you do in your classes,” I told Darwin, “that’s all gone in the blink of an eye because those records belong to the old you.”

His mouth dropped open. “But I want to go to Harvard and be a doctor. I’ve been working super hard.”

“I understand that, and maybe…so did your mother.”

He was blinking at me, processing my words.

I turned to Griff. “When I read about you, I found out you’re a really good lacrosse player. Lots of trophies, captain of the varsity team and everything. The truth is, if you went with your mother, then the same thing would’ve applied to your feats on the field. They would simply disappear. So all those colleges that might have given you a scholarship, that couldn’t have happened anymore.”

“But if I can still play lacrosse, I could be on a new team and⁠—”

I shook my head. “That’s not how it works. You can’t do anything in your new life that could point to your old one.”

“Why? How could the bad guys know what kind of sports I⁠—”

“I did. Our tech guy, Owen, he digs up everything, and they would too.”

“So you’re saying when you go into WITSEC, it’s like night and day.”

“That’s right. And think about your father. He would have had to leave the business he’s spent his life building and never work as a landscaper again. He could never again do what he’s best at. Not ever.”

Griff’s brows furrowed. “That would kill him.”

I nodded and turned to Tatum. “And you,” I said, smiling at her. “I know you have an Instagram account that you and your mother used to maintain together, that now you do alone. But you wouldn’t have been able to do that ever again.”

They were all surprised.

“It’s hard to become a whole new person.”

I talked until the food came, informed them that some people, when there was no more threat, they could leave WITSEC, but with something like a cartel, which their mother was testifying against, the threat was endless, because a new head would always take over. It was like a hydra.

“I know what that is,” Tatum told me. “And not from Avengers. I know from mythology, because we’ve been reading all the Greek myths. We’re going to the Celtic ones after fall break.”

I smiled at her.

“I miss Mom,” Griff said, choking on a sob.

I put an arm around him, holding him tight, letting him wipe blood, tears, and snot all over the front of my T-shirt.

Tatum’s eyes were welling, and Darwin was focused on the table.

“Listen to me,” I said, leaning forward, whispering roughly, “you’re all gonna be okay, you understand? All of you are fuckin’ amazing.”

Griff lifted his head to meet my gaze, and I met his and then Darwin’s, and finally Tatum’s.