Page 139 of Joey

“And Huck?”

“Him too. And Wald. We’re a team now.”

Johnny Boston laughs.

“What?” I say. “Why is that funny?”

He stops laughing, then laughs again, this time shaking his head. “Which are you, Brooke?”

“What?” I squint at him. It’s quite possible this man is insane. He looks the part. His eyes blaze dark even though I know they’re blue. I saw that picture of him as a child. He was an all-America, golden-haired, blue-eyed boy. But now that he’s in front of me, just a few paces away, I can barely make out the blue. And that boy? No. I don’t see him at all.

I see a man stretched to his limit.

“Stupid? Or naive?” he says.

I narrow my eyes at him even further. “I’ve been both,” I admit. “But I’m neither at the moment.”

“What do you think I’m going to do? Have a heart-to-heart with my brother? Tell him I’ll get that little girl for him? Kill Michael Conner and the Kanes and anyone else who gets in my way? What, Brooke? What is it, exactly, that you think I’m going to do for you?”

“He just needs… some hope.”

“Hope?” Johnny laughs again. “Do you really think I have a little bundle of spare hope lying around here?”

I look around. Which is dumb. There’s nothing but dark emptiness up here. Not to mention hope doesn’t come in little bundles.

“Go home, Brooke. Wherever that is. Just walk away. I’m telling you right now, Joey Boston will ruin your life.”

“No,” I say. “No. I’m not going home.”

“It’s your funeral.” He shrugs.

“He needs you,” I say.

“No, he doesn’t.”

“He needs you to tell him the truth, and give him a plan, and—”

“A plan?” This time he doesn’t laugh. “I know you know. I know he knows. Though he’s been lying to himself all these years. Pretending he doesn’t. And you know why he refused to believe his own eyes, Brooke?” He kinda snarls my name. “So he didn’t have to take care of it. So I could take care of it.”

“I’m not talking about that stuff. I’m just talking about him, as a person. He’s going to give up. He’s going to go home and—”

“Good,” Johnny says. “Good. That’s the best-case scenario. Leave that little girl behind where she belongs. I fucking warned him. You were there. Did he really think I didn’t know he had a kid? Did he really think I haven’t been monitoring the situation? And you?”

He points to me. Takes too many steps closer to me so that I back up until I hit the wall.

“Did you really think you could just come back to this life? Just show up after all these years and what? Pick up where you left off when you were sixteen?”

“What?”

He nods. “Oh, yeah. I know who you are. I guess the new question then is… are you stupid? Are you naive? Or are you ignorant?”

I try to meet his eyes and find that I can’t.

“I got a full fucking report about Friday night. You know that, right?”

I shake my head no.

“Those fucking people and their little rebellion. It’s kinda sad, really.” He lets out a long sigh and walks over to his desk on the other side of the room, sits down and leans back in his chair. “He can’t get out. I know that’s what you’re thinking. I tried, man. I really did. I did my best for him, and Jesse, and even Zach. For all the thanks they give me. But it’s not their fault. They have no idea how hard I’ve been trying to keep them out of this.”