Page 111 of The Company

When I’m in, I’m all in.

And even though everything I’ve done since that day on the beach when Harper and I turned Six was building towards a future, I know now I can never follow through with it.

The message that changed my life was about a girl.

And this almost makes me laugh. Because now that I’m here looking back, every major turning point in my life has been about a girl.

This girl was one I had forgotten about and yet she was always there, in the back of my mind. Nagging at me. A girl the very same age as Harper. A girl I loved long before I even knew Harper existed.

It came in the first day I was at the beach taking the edge off. Just before I recognized Harp as the missing twin, as if I was being reminded where my loyalties lie. The text said… Meet me.

That’s it.

I get these messages all the time. I get phones dropped off at various places for me all the time. The one in the green house in Sandy Valley was not for Harper, it was for me. The one in Merc’s house was not for Sasha, it was for me. And the one I found sitting on the railing of an apartment balcony last March—the day I went to see if it would suit me as a rental as I endured my mandatory take-the-edge-off punishment at the beach—also for me.

Meet me is a code we assassins use when we need help. It means find the nearest gas station, go there, and wait.

So that’s what I did. I waited, expecting to see one of two men show up. The only two left who know how to find me. The dead man who walked through the doors of the Stop-N-Go on Beach Boulevard was so off my radar it took me almost a whole minute of open-mouth staring to come to terms with what I was witnessing.

He was beach-bumming, like me. His jeans were old and torn. His t-shirt a little too big, sporting a faded image of a mushroom on it. Vans on his feet. He was holding his hands up, like he was surrendering, but he was not surrendering. He just didn’t want me to shoot him straight away. He needed a minute.

He got it, because I was stunned.

“You look good,” he said.

“You look better than you should,” I replied.

He nodded and shook a hand in the air so I’d notice it. “I have something for you here.” He was holding a phone. “A message.”

Whatever message he had, it was not one I wanted to hear, but I said, “What message?” involuntarily.

“Take a look.” He held out the phone and I reached for it, thinking he’d use that as an opportunity to attack. But he didn’t. He handed me the phone and I took it, never taking my eyes off him. “Press play, Tet.”

I looked down at the phone and squinted at the girl on the still shot of the YouTube video. The still shot was a close-up of her face, her eyes wide with fright.

Green.

Her eyes were as green as mine. Her hair was as dark as mine. Her features reminded me of pictures of my mother when she was young. But there were bruises on her face. Not recent ones, which made them all the more ugly.

“Nicola?” It was a question in my head. A desperate, desperate question as I hoped against hope that what I was seeing was real. I pressed the play icon on the screen and her voice carried though the noise in the busy gas station. “James,” she said to the camera, her eyes filled with fear. “Help me. Please,” she begged that day on video. “Please, help me.”

How do you deny your sister when she returns from the dead and asks you to save her?

You don’t. You say, Whatever it takes.

Because blood runs thick.

That fucking blood sticks to your hands no matter how much time you spend in the desert.

That fucking blood makes you do things. Things that you never thought you’d do. Things like kill your brother to save your niece. Things like give up your future to save your sister.

I’ve been looking for someone to save my whole life.

Since the day I shook death’s hand and walked away from a dirty promise.

Since the day I decided I am damned and I’ll take them all to hell with me.

Since the day I realized blood might run thick, but revenge runs deep.

I did make a choice that day. But that was just hours before I met Harper. How could I have known?

I remember now. I remember what was hiding behind that black curtain of denial. I remember those missing hours I forced myself to forget to avoid the consequences.

I remember the dirty deal I made with death.

And death is coming back to collect.