Page 93 of Lovely Darkness

“I get what you’re saying. What if… the mindfuckers got to the mindfuckers?”

I nod.

After a couple seconds she says, “OK. Let’s look at this logically. If someone was mindfucking you, what are they getting out of it?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t like the idea that I’ve spent the last ten years thinking that me and my family were safe and now I come to find out we weren’t. They played us.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Merc. This is a thought experiment. If they did play us, and we’ve done things… according to their plan, all the while thinking it was our plan, then what is the endgame?”

I point to the table. “This, Sasha. This is the endgame.”

“This room, these people… which part of this are you referring to?”

We both look over at Donovan. “Him,” I say. “He’s the endgame. I mean, what are the chances, Sasha? That we all end up here in this house, with this… whatever he is—”

“Well.” She cuts me off with a sigh. “Here’s something I haven’t thought about in like… twenty years.”

“I’m almost afraid to hear what comes next.”

She squints her eyes. Like she’s thinking deeply. “I do have a point of reference for what you’re describing. Back when I was little—like maybe nine? Ten? Back when I was still the daughter of a Company arms dealer, I remember this one time when a group of men came into the antique mall. My dad went white. I’m talking… sheets, OK? I didn’t have my booth across the aisle back then. I was just hanging out, right? So I was close.”

“What kind of guys were they? Like assassins?”

“No. The assassins never scared me. They were just hunters. I knew so many killers—and my dad knew hundreds more. These guys were different. They didn’t wear camo or suits. They were just dressed like normal, everyday people.”

“Describe that. Because camo’s normal and so are suits.”

“It wasn’t about their dress, it was about their… look. They looked like… they knew things. No. That’s wrong. They acted like they were outside of things.”

I point at her. “Like they woke up from the fuckin’ pod, right? And now they’re just computer-simulated people trying to fuck with people’s virtual reality experience.”

“I thought we agreed no more Matrix?”

“Sorry. But it fits, right?”

“Yeah. They acted like that. Like they were above it all. No consequences. People like that, well…” She sighs. “No one is like that. Not even me. Or you. No one. We all understand consequences. Hell, we’ve all had to live with the consequences.”

“So who were they? Did you ever find out?”

She shakes her head. “No. It was just that one time. But I saw the way my dad looked at them. They were different.”

“Different like this guy?” I nod my head towards Donovan.

“No. Not like him.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I just am. I’m not even sure those people matter now, anyway. Chances are, they all died with everyone else during our last three attempts to bring it all down.”

“Two,” I say, holding up two fingers. “We were never in on the last one.”

“Right. Two.”

“Well. Let’s tuck that away into a little imaginary file called ‘Things to ask Adam’ when he gets home from his date tomorrow night.”

Sasha snickers.

“Right? Who the hell invites the who’s-who of Company killers to their Southern mansion for a good old-fashioned mind-unfucking and then says, ‘My lover and I need some romance time, we’ll be back tomorrow?’”