Page 59 of Creeping Beautiful

CHAPTER TEN - INDIE

Donovan came home a lot after that first job. I could tell everyone was concerned about something, but they wouldn’t tell me what that something was.

Me, I presumed.

It was always me.

Everything around Old Home seemed to revolve around me.

We didn’t do another job for several months. But Adam hemmed and hawed about the Company being on his ass and started taking me into New Orleans for practice jobs.

I wasn’t supposed to know they were practice jobs, but I did. It was so obvious. They were easy things. Steal this thing. Attack this person, but do not kill him.

That was the dead giveaway. It was always McKay I was attacking. He always had a ski mask on, but come on. Did they take me for a four-year-old? I could pick McKay out of a crowd of a thousand people just by his walk.

But then, right after I turned thirteen and Donovan’s visits had become fewer and fewer over the past months—I guess I was making progress?—Adam called all of us in for a meeting.

His office had been rearranged for this. That was my first clue that serious things were about to happen. He had a giant mahogany desk in that office, but on this day, he did not sit behind it. He had his desk chair, the two chairs that typically lived in front of it, and another chair from the dining room all arranged in a circular pattern in the center of the room.

He sat in his chair, Donovan and McKay sat in the other two office chairs, and I took the dining room chair. It was summer again, but all of us were wearing jeans and t-shirts.

McKay’s were faded to light, light blue and his t-shirt was white and sleeveless. Adam’s were some regular blue color and he had on a black tank top that showed off his muscles. He had been working out hard since the first job went wrong, and his upper arms were thick like cannons. And Donovan was wearing dark, dark jeans with a white button-down, long-sleeved shirt—sleeves rolled up—that made me uncomfortably sweaty just looking at him.

McKay was leaning forward with his head bowed and elbows on his knees. His hands were gripping his thick, light hair and he was staring straight ahead. So still. Like he dared not move or everything might fall apart around him.

Donovan was kicked back in his chair, one ankle propped up on one knee, shoulders open, head tilted back a little, slight smile on his face.

Adam had the only chair with armrests. And he gripped those tightly, I remember. His back was straight and his face serious as he looked us all over.

His eyes landed on mine.

I smiled. Trying to play things off like Donovan was.

“OK,” Adam finally said in his gruff voice. “It’s time. I know that first job did not go well, Indie. But Donovan is positive that he has fixed the problem and is confident you can get started again. So this weekend we’re going to San Francisco and then we’re taking a little side trip over to Colorado to watch someone.”

I nodded at him out of habit, but inside I was stuck on the words ‘fixed the problem,’ wondering what that meant and how Donovan fit into the picture. And when I snapped back to attention, Adam had already moved on to McKay’s part in this next job. Which was the San Francisco one I wrote about earlier where Adam had to come save my ass again. Only this time I made it out OK.

Anyway. That was when the real jobs began. Company jobs, like that San Francisco one, but also private things, like that surveillance stuff in Colorado.

This was also when I first learned about Sasha Cherlin. She was a Company kid like me. And when I say like me, I mean almost exactly like me. She grew up with men too, and was trained to kill people, and knew lots of secrets. She was also the one who fractured the Company several years earlier with Adam’s help.

Donovan told me that part. But I was not to tell Adam that I knew these things. It was just between us.

Donovan told me a lot of things after our sessions when the tape was not recording. I don’t remember all of them, just some of them. He told me weird things in those after sessions. Things about himself, mostly. Which I enjoyed. I was always interested in Donovan’s life.

But this one time I’m thinking about he was talking about Sasha Cherlin.

I never actually met this Sasha girl. Adam said that was too dangerous. She had a lot of people watching her. Not people like us, and not for the same reasons. Protecting her, he said.

So all we did was take notes.

I didn’t see the big deal about this girl. She didn’t do anything unusual. She had just graduated from some fancy university in Denver and was living at home with some family before leaving for Kansas for more college.

We stayed there for two days, but then on the second night Adam woke me up in the hotel room and said we were leaving. He was stuffing my clothes into a bag and talking in a rush. Almost like he was in a panic.

On the jet ride home, I heard him talking to McKay on the phone. Telling him that there was a whole team of Company surveillance on Sasha Cherlin and we needed to get the fuck away from that shit.

He never explained that to me and I didn’t ask. I was tired that night and slept the whole trip, even after we landed and were driving back to Old Home.