Page 50 of Gorgeous Misery

Living with Sasha. In Fort Collins. New life, new name. She even got a pony.

You know what I got? A front-row seat to a shadow government global war, that’s what I got.

“Yeah,” I mutter, taking a turn too fast so the tires of my truck skid sideways across the loose gravel. “I’ve got issues.” I straighten out the wheel, barely avoiding a slip into the ditch, and then press my foot down on the accelerator. I’m not really sure where I’m at and the cell signal out here is spotty. So I sit up in my seat and peek around, trying to find a landmark.

Nick’s house is between two fields. If this were winter the fields would not matter. They’d be empty and brown like all the others. But it’s summer and that means the two fields on either side of Nick’s shitty house are filled with sunflowers.

I scan the horizon for any sign of yellow, but there’s mostly corn out here now and it’s that super-tall genetically engineered kind, so I have to travel past two more fields before I find what passes for a hill in Nebraska. I stop at the top, which is like twelve feet above sea level, get out of the truck, climb into the bed, then onto the roof, and scan in every direction.

My lips creep up in a small smile when I spot it. A blanket of yellow off in the west.

But I don’t get down right away. I stay there on top of the truck. Not a sign of life—other than grasshoppers and birds—for ten miles, at least. I guess it’s nice out here. I can see the attraction of emptiness. It’s a lot easier to live in your own skin when no one’s looking at you all the time. And isn’t that why Chek and I called Kentucky home? It’s a different kind of emptiness, but it’s all the same in the end.

Nick makes them plant the sunflowers for me. He told me that three years ago. That’s the last time I was here. And every year, on my birthday he sends me a picture of them. And if he knows where I am, he sends a bouquet.

Nick Tate has been giving me sunflowers on my birthday since I was six years old. He graduated up to bouquets when I turned ten. I guess I was worth more than a single flower that year because Nick, Lauren, and I had been travelling the southeast coast of the USA like we were permanent tourists for almost eight months before that day.

Then Chek came and got me. I balked a little in the beginning, but once I was back I was back, ya know? I missed training and jobs. But I had already fallen in love with Nick Tate by that time. No, not that kind of love. I don’t know if Nick and I will ever have that kind of love. Our love is something else. Something huge, and real, and even though we’re almost never together, we’re getting better at it.

We’re tied together now, at least. And he’s been helping me look for the cure.

You gotta love a man who helps you look for your cure. That’s real love in my book.

I jump down into the bed, then hop out, land on the dirt road, get in my truck, and head towards the sunflowers. Twenty minutes later I stop at the end of his driveway, suddenly hesitant.

Nick and I are people who don’t like to be found sometimes. And I’ve only been trying to get a hold of him for a couple days, so he’s not exactly missing.

But something is going on and I can’t put my finger on it.

So I’m here.

I look around, wondering if anyone is watching. This is just habit. But out here there is nowhere to hide. Unlike Kentucky with its thick woods and deep gullies, the Nebraska plains are… well, plain. I buzz my window down to listen. Birds, insects, somewhere off in the distance a tractor or some similar piece of machinery. This is the only house for miles and miles. All of this land—even the sections not owned by Nick’s shell company—are just fields. They surround his house, and the sunflowers are tall, but I scan them for a good two minutes looking for any sort of movement and see nothing. The other two fields nearby are sugar beets, and that’s not a tall plant. So I’m reasonably sure there’s no one watching.

I could do a U-turn and leave now. No one would ever know the difference. Nick’s dirt driveway is like a half a mile long. I can see the blue shack he calls home down at the end of it, but not any details. I look up, searching for drones. But it’s unlikely that anyone cares about this place. The Company is… well, not gone. It’s Adam, and McKay, and Donovan now. Well, maybe just Adam and McKay. But the point is, the Company isn’t the Company anymore. I’m pretty sure Adam does his best to pretend Nick doesn’t exist as much as possible. He would not be watching him. Especially now, with that whole Donovan situation looming large.

“I should leave.” But my whispered words get caught up in the wind. And then I just turn into the driveway and crawl my way down it. The front lawn is mostly weeds, but it’s been cut. Not recently. Maybe... two weeks ago? There are three outbuildings here. One is a legit outhouse that kinda tilts to the south. One is a chicken coop. I study it, looking for the filthy monsters. But he’s never kept chickens in there and that hasn’t changed. The third is a shop. There are lots of things going on inside the shop if you know where to look, but there are no cars or trucks in the driveway, so I don’t think anyone’s in the shop.

The house was blue once upon a time but now it’s a funky shade of sun-bleached lavender gray. The wooden window frames are trimmed in white. There’s not much else to say about it. It’s a box with a pitched roof. The front door has a skinny… well, it doesn’t even qualify as a porch. It’s more of a five-step stoop with ugly metal railings on either side. And it’s built into one of those mudroom additions that are so common in the Midwest. Every house out here has two doors, the one that leads to the mudroom and the one that leads to the house.

The AC is on. I can hear it humming as my truck crawls past the front steps. All the windows have curtains—most of them just pillowcases nailed to the wall, actually—and there is no way to see inside. So I shove the truck in park, turn it off, and then lean over to the glove box and get my gun. Another habit of mine.

But as soon as I step out of the truck, I remember why I have this habit.

The back door is wide open and the screen door bangs back and forth with the wind.

The AC is on. The door should not be open.

If someone is home, they know I’m out here. There is no way to stealthily make your way down a gravel road at a farmhouse this remote. The tires crunch. The motor of the truck hums. Everything about me is out of place and even dumbasses who didn’t grow up assassinating people pay attention to that.

So I call out, “Hey, asshole!” and wait for an answer.

No response.

“Nick?”

Nothing.

“If anyone’s in there, you’d better yell now. Because if I go inside and find you, there’s a bullet coming your way.”