Page 56 of Wasted Lust

“What?” I whirl back around. “What did you just call him?”

“The Zero. The new breed of Company assassin. Nick was one, too.”

I turn back to the wall and stare up at the golden boy of my childhood.

“So were you.”

But my head is shaking out a no. “My father never put me in the program. My father—”

“Taught you how to kill as a child.”

“No.”

“Yes. I brought you out here to show you the truth. You wanted me to give you all the information I had about Nick. And here it is.” Jax walks up to the wall and starts pointing at the pictures. “Age fourteen—this is him. Just a kid in a low-income classroom. Some inner-city school where politicians go to make up feelgood moments. The next day that government official was poisoned. Didn’t I once hear that the Company assassins had to use poison for personal jobs? What kind of personal job could a fourteen-year-old boy have, Sasha?”

No.

“Age fifteen. This picture was taken in my own fucking house. That’s Nick sitting between me and Jake. That’s Michael on the far left. He was shot in the head as he slept less than two weeks later.”

No.

But he goes on and on and on. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Jax pulls out an envelope with pictures of me and Nick together at the antiques mall in Cheyenne where my father ran his business. The same place I dreamed about the life Nick and I would have together. Where I sat reading Little House books, lamenting over my stupid braces and hoping against all hope that things would turn out OK. That Nick Tate might save me.

No.

“After he left you crying in that boat, he went down to Honduras for his final phase of training. Before Nick Tate came to town there were between two and three homicides per day in San Pedro Sula. After, it averaged four.”

“So that’s all Nick? Please.” I laugh. “You cannot be serious.”

“He brags about it, Sasha. We’ve got video. I told you we have informants. We have plenty of video. And I’ve got it all queued up for you on that laptop right there.” He points to a computer.

I swallow hard.

“I’m not lying. I swear to God, everything I just told you is true.”

She processes the information I just dumped. Her face is tight, her emotions controlled. No tears from this girl. None.

“I have you too.”

She turns to look at me and I pan to the wall behind me. There are far fewer images of Sasha. Long stretches of white space reflect the trouble I had finding her. “I wasn’t sure you were real. I mean, we heard rumors of a little girl, a Zero, as they call them, leading the way during that year the Company went defunct. But they were just rumors. No one really thought you were real.”

“I’m real,” she says in a whisper.

“I know, Sasha.” I take her trembling body in my arms. “I know you’re real. And I’m sorry I have to be the one to show you this stuff. But he’s back, OK? He’s back for you. And no way in hell is he gonna get what he wants again. No way.”

“He would never hurt me.”

“You have no idea how bad he can hurt you.”

She sighs in my embrace but she doesn’t pull away. It’s something. More than I could’ve hoped, probably. I mean, I just shattered her reality. And how many times has this happened before tonight? How many times has she had to suck it up and accept the truth about who and what she is?

“That’s my middle school.” She points to one of the pictures. “And my high school.”

“I found them much, much later. I have your yearbook pictures from that time, but that’s it.”

“And me at graduation two years ago.”

“Found on the web. I wasn’t there. The day at the airport, that was the first time I ever saw you. Everything came after that meeting.”