Page 14 of Lovely Darkness

Doc sighs. “Unfortunately. Wish I hadn’t.”

“You and me both.”

“He trained you? Who was your father?”

“I’m not Company.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“You wouldn’t know him.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because he wasn’t Company either.”

Doc lifts his chin up a little. A gesture that maybe asks, Is that what you think? Alternatively, it might say, Then how did you get here?

I don’t answer either of his possible implied questions. Instead, I add a little more about Garrett. “He and I served together. Garrett, I mean. We were military PSYOPS.”

“Were you now.”

“And then… then I was hunting down runaway women and children for them.”

“I see.”

“My wife killed Garrett about ten years ago.”

“Hmm.” Doc ponders this.

“It was either him or us,” Sasha says. “He had control of Sydney Channing at the time.”

“That’s my wife,” I explain. “It’s a rather long and complicated story.”

“Not really,” Doc says. “Garrett was probably cleaning you up and using the girl to do it. If what you say is true and you’re not Company.”

“Yeah.” Sasha sighs. “That’s probably right.”

“So you’re the man everyone around here is counting on to bring our boy out of this terrible situation he finds himself in?”

“Our boy?” I make a face. “He’s not my boy. I’m here as a favor to her.” I nod at Sasha. “She said Donovan is worth saving, so.” I shrug. “Whatever.”

Doc turns to look at Donovan. He’s pale right now but you can just tell that’s not his normal pallor. His hair is dark, almost black. And he’s built different than, say… well, every other Company man I’ve ever met. Including Garrett. They are all chiseled and muscular. Fair, and blond, and light-eyed. With the exception of Nick, of course. His brown eyes have always been out of place in that way.

But Donovan here looks lean. Not skinny. Lean. Like his body was bred for something other than killing people. He’s built like a guy who might win a gold medal in swimming or run the Boston Marathon just for fun. Or… a model, maybe. He reminds me of Ronin. Except Ronin has those brilliant blue eyes and according to Donovan’s chart, his are hazel.

I walk over to Donovan wanting to see those hazel eyes for some reason. Sydney is dark like this too. Her eyes are brown, though. Like Nick’s. Her father was a Wyoming senator for decades but my wife was not well-bred the way these girls in this house are. She was some kind of mistake, I think. I never ask her about the past. It’s better left dead. And I doubt she even knows many of the details, anyway. She was given to Garrett as a girl. Assigned to him, is maybe the better way to put it.

Sydney was a throwaway.

The girls in this house—including Sasha—are all keepers.

Donovan’s eyes are closed, of course. So there’s no way to even get a look at his peepers unless I invade his space and open his eyelids myself. And maybe I’m not the most cultured man on this earth, but understand limits.

“I like Donovan,” Doc says. He walks up to me and we stand shoulder to shoulder. “I very much want to save him if it’s possible.” He pauses. I look over at him because it feels like he’s waiting for me to do this. “Is it possible, Mr. Case?”

“It’s just Merc. And I don’t know yet. We’re gonna have to bring him out of it so I can do an evaluation using my own cocktail of drugs.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. He’s not under very deep. Just enough to keep him from waking.”