Hellbent--An Orphan X Novel Read online

  From the far side of the fountain, a young cop shouted, “Stand up! Lemme see your hands!”

  Evan peered across the fountain at the cop and his partner. The park was dense with officers. Two SWAT units rolled up in front of the high school, new cruisers screeching to block the intersections in every direction.

  “Too late,” Joey said under her breath.

  Evan rose slowly, hands held wide, and stared into two drawn Berettas.

  57

  What He Thought He Knew

  David stood on shaky legs between Evan and Joey. Across the dancing water, both cops aimed at Evan’s head.

  The entire block was now locked down by backup officers and SWAT.

  Evan gauged his next move. The young cop stood in front of his partner, taking lead. He seemed capable, more confident than nervous.

  Evan could work with that, play to the cop’s ego. He let a worried breath rattle out of him. “Thank God. Is it clear, Officer? I was picking up my daughter, and … my son, he got knocked over. His arm’s cut open, and—”

  “Calm down. Sir? Calm down.”

  David cupped his hand over the wound, red showing in the seams between his fingers.

  The officer’s elbows stayed locked, but he swung the gun down and to the side. “Does he require medical attention?”

  “I can take him to urgent care,” Evan said. He put his arm around Joey’s shoulders, gathered her in. “I just want to get my kids out of here. I wasn’t sure it was safe to come out yet.”

  The cop’s partner, a tough-looking woman, said, “Where’s your car?”

  Evan pointed. “Minivan over there.”

  “Come with us.”

  The cops gave them an armed escort across the park, passing by dozens of officers, none of whom took notice.

  They reached the curb, and the young cop gestured at the SWAT trucks to allow the minivan to pull out.

  Evan rushed the kids into the van. “Thank you so much, Officer.”

  The cop nodded, and he and his partner jogged off to resume the search.

  Evan pulled out of the spot, driving past the rows of police cruisers with flashing lights. Two units at the intersection, parked nose to nose, reversed like a parting gate to let the minivan through.

  At the next street, Evan signaled responsibly and then turned. The flashing blue and red lights slid out of his rearview mirror.

  Joey tilted her head back and shot a breath at the roof.

  * * *

  Evan waited until they’d cleared city limits to pit-stop. He parked behind a liquor store and wrapped David’s forearm using gauze pads and an Ace bandage he’d pulled from the first-aid kit lodged beside the spare tire.

  The alley behind them gave off the sickly-sweet odor of spilled beer. Flies swayed above an open Dumpster. Broken glass littered the asphalt around it; somebody had practiced empty-bottle free throws with a twelve-pack, showing all the accuracy one would expect from somebody who’d drunk a twelve-pack.

  The hatch was raised, David sitting at the edge of the cargo space, his legs dangling past the rear bumper. Crouched before him, Evan smoothed down the bandage and snared the fabric with the metal clips to secure it.

  Joey came around to check on their progress. “All good?”

  David turned his arm this way and that. “Yeah. Can this be stitched once we get there?”

  “Get where?” Evan asked.

  “To the Program HQ or wherever.”

  Past the boy, Evan sensed Joey pull her head back slightly.

  “We’re not going to any HQ,” Evan said. “You’re not joining any Program.”

  David’s tone hardened. “What are you talking about?”

  “That’s no longer an option,” Evan said.

  “No way. That big guy said I could be part of it.”

  “That big guy will dispose of you if you don’t make the grade,” Joey said.

  David spun to face her. “I’ll make the grade,” he said. “It’s all I ever wanted.” He glared up at them. “I want a way out. I finally got it. And you want to take it from me?”

  “These guys killed Tim,” Evan said.

  “Then Tim wasn’t good enough.”

  “Watch your fucking mouth.” Joey stepped forward, shouldering Evan aside, her intensity catching him off guard. “He died for you.”

  David’s mouth pulsed as he fought down a swallow. But his eyes stayed fierce.

  Joey leaned over him. “You don’t even know what the Program is.”

  “I don’t care what,” David said. “I don’t care. I want to go back with the guy who took me. I want something better than a shitty life in some shitty facility.”

  “Did Jack teach you anything?” Joey said.

  “Yeah. To be better. I deserve better than this.”

  Joey said, “None of us deserves anything.”

  “Maybe so,” David said, hopping to his feet and finger-stabbing at Joey. “But that’s my choice. I’m not going with you if you’re not part of the Program. You take me back to those guys, or the first chance I get, I’ll tell that you kidnapped me.”

  His features were set with a bulldog stubbornness that seemed well beyond his thirteen years. Given the life he’d led up to now, that made sense. Hard years counted double.

  Evan had been a year younger than David was now when he’d stepped off the truck-stop curb into Jack’s car and never looked back. He thought about who he was then and what he thought he knew.

  Evan said, “Is there anything we can say to dissuade you?”

  David’s face had turned ruddy. “No.”

  “Can we give you more information to—”

  “No.” The boy was on tilt, his nose angled up at Evan, shoulders forward, fists clenched by his hips.

  Evan looked at the boy calmly until he settled onto his heels. David shook his head, eyes welling. “I don’t want to be a nobody.”

  Evan said, “You go down this road, that’s all you’ll ever be.”

  At that, Joey touched her hand to her mouth as if trying to stop something from escaping.

  “Maybe so,” David said. “But it’s my road.”

  Evan watched him for ten seconds and then ten seconds more. Not a thing changed in his expression.

  Evan said, “Stay here.”

  He walked over toward the Dumpster, Joey trailing him. They huddled up, facing the minivan to keep an eye on David.

  Joey looked rattled. “We have to change his mind.”

  “It’s not gonna happen,” Evan said.

  “So we just what? Leave him for Van Sciver to pick up again?” She took a few agitated breaths. “He’ll kill him, you know. Sooner or later, directly or indirectly.”

  Evan said, “Unless.”

  “Unless what?”

  Evan cleared his throat, an uncharacteristic show of emotion.

  “Unless what?” Joey repeated.

  “We take him public.”

  She gawked at him.

  “He doesn’t know anything yet,” Evan said. “Not one proper noun in his head.”

  “He knew Tim Draker. And Jack.”

  “Both of whom are dead. Anything he has to say about them will sound like a foster-kid fantasy.”

  The words were so true that saying them out loud felt like a betrayal.

  “There’s safety in exposure,” he said. “No one wants a spoiled asset.”

  “Then why didn’t Jack just do it months ago?”

  “Tim Draker was alive. I’m sure he wanted to get David back once it was safe.”

  Joey flipped her hair over, revealing the shaved band. She lowered her head, crushed shards of glass with the toe of her sneaker. “I don’t know. It’s a risk.”

  “Everything’s a risk. We’re juggling hand grenades.”

  She didn’t respond.

  Evan said, “With everything else going on, with us still out here, you really think Van Sciver’s gonna burn resources and risk visibility for a screwed-up thirteen-year-old kid?”
/>   She fussed with her hair some more. Then she pinched the bridge of her nose, exhaled. “Okay,” she said. “Fuck. Okay.”

  When she looked up, all emotion was gone, her features blank.

  She walked back over to David, her hand digging in her pocket. She came out with the phone in the stupid Panda case, held it four feet from David’s face. The shutter-click sound effect was more pronounced than necessary.

  She bent her head, a sweep of hair hiding her eyes, and clicked furiously with a thumb.

  “What the hell?” David said. “What are you doing?”

  She kept on with her thumb.

  David grew more uncomfortable. “I said, what are you doing with my picture?”

  “‘My cousin’s best friend was kidnapped by the U.S. government,’” Joey read slowly. “‘Jesse Watson. Please retweet. Exclamation point.’” Now her eyes rose, and Evan was startled by how little they seemed to hold. “Twitter. Facebook. Instagram.”

  A few chirps came from the phone, notifications pinging in.

  Joey frowned down at the screen. “Looks like BritneyCheer28’s a popular girl. Lotta ‘friends.’”

  She held up the phone. David’s face duplicated with each new post, a Warholian effect on the endlessly refreshing screen. The chirps quickened, reaching video-game intensity.

  “You bitch.” David’s voice was so raw it came out as little more than a rasp.

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” Joey said. “Maybe you’ll get it when you’re older.”

  “You just took away any shot of me being anything.”

  “No, you stupid little shit,” Joey said. “We saved you. We just gave you a normal life. Where you don’t have to spend all your time running away from … running away from yourself.” Her voice cracked, and beneath the vehemence there was something wistful, something like longing. She swallowed hard and turned away to stare at the rear of the liquor store.

  “Go back to the McClair Center,” Evan said to David. “There’s a charge nurse who’ll be happy to see you.”

  “Fuck McClair.” Tears streaked David’s red cheeks. “Fuck the charge nurse.”

  “I’m going to give you my phone number in case you ever need my help.”

  “I’m never gonna call you. I’m never gonna ask for your help. I never want to see you again.”

  Evan took the first-aid kit out of the trunk and dropped it at David’s feet. Then he walked to the driver’s seat and got in.

  Joey stayed in the alley, gazing at the cracked stucco wall, her arms folded. It took her a moment to start moving, but she did.

  She climbed in, slammed the door louder than she needed to.

  Evan said, “Look up the number of the McClair Children’s Mental Health Center and tell them you spotted him here. I already called. It should be a different voice.”

  Joey said, “Gimme a moment.”

  David didn’t move as Evan backed out. The side mirror passed within a foot of his shoulder. Evan hit a three-point in the cramped space and spun the steering wheel toward the open road.

  They left him in the alley, staring at nothing.

  58

  An Ad for Domesticity

  A few minutes past eight o’clock, the GPS dot finally stopped moving. In the passenger seat, Van Sciver pointed up a suburban street and said, “There.”

  Thornhill steered the Chevy Tahoe into a hard left. Van Sciver held his phone up and watched the blipping dot, finally at fucking rest. Candy hunched forward from the backseat, bringing a faint hint of perfume.

  “Two houses up?” she said.

  The muscles of Van Sciver’s right eye ached from all the focus. He nodded. “Backyard.”

  They slowed as they passed a white Colonial house that had recently undergone a Restoration Hardware facelift. A family of four ate at a long wooden farm table, displayed in the picture window like an ad for domesticity.

  Thornhill threw the gear stick into park.

  Three doors opened. Three Orphans climbed out.

  Van Sciver and Candy parted at the curb, each heading to a different side of the house. Thornhill leapt from trash can to fence top to a second-floor windowsill, vaulting onto the roof. Inside, the family dined on, oblivious.

  The Orphans converged on the backyard at the same time, Van Sciver and Candy crowding in with drawn pistols as Thornhill dropped down from the decidedly un-Colonial veranda, landing panther-soft on the patio.

  The backyard was empty.

  A family of black ducks bobbed in the swimming pool.

  Van Sciver stared at them, his jaw shifting.

  Then he sighted with the holographic red dot and pulled the trigger. The suppressor pipped once, a pile of feathers settling over the water. The ducks winged off vocally into the night. Van Sciver held the unit in one meaty hand and watched the blinking beacon fly away.

  Candy said, “I told you GPS was sloppy.”

  Van Sciver’s phone chimed, an alert muscling in on the GPS screen. He thumbed it to the fore and read the brief report. The visuals were distressing—David Smith’s face propagating out through the Information Age.

  Candy’s phone had gone off, too, and she drifted over, reading the same update on her screen.

  Thornhill gave them their space.

  “Let’s head back to McClair,” Van Sciver said. “Put the kid down.”

  “Sure,” Candy said. “That’s strategic. A kid whose picture just went viral, let’s turn him into a media event.”

  “He’s a loose end.”

  As Van Sciver started back through the side gate, Candy stayed at his elbow. “Does he know your name?” she said.

  “No.”

  “Does he know anything about the Program?”

  “No.”

  “Then let him rot in a kid’s mental ward, spin his delusions in group therapy with the rest of them.” She shook her phone. “Taking him out after this is gonna bring press. Why add fuel for the conspiracy theorists?”

  Van Sciver halted in the cramped space at the side of the house. “So X doesn’t get what he wants.”

  His eruption caught Candy by surprise. It seemed to have caught him by surprise, too.

  He turned and continued on. As they neared the front yard, the door to the kitchen opened, the father leaning out in front of them, hands on hips. He was wearing a red-and-green Christmas sweater, seemingly without irony.

  “Excuse me,” the man said.

  Van Sciver kept moving, eyes forward. But he lifted the .45 and aimed it at the man’s nose. “Back inside. Call the cops and I’ll come back and rape your wife.”

  Candy smiled. “Me, too.”

  The man jerked back as if yanked by puppet strings, the door closing with enough force to tangle the cutesy country curtains.

  As Van Sciver and Candy stepped out into the driveway, he felt his nostrils flaring, and he tried to contain the rage in his chest. Thornhill dropped from the garage and sauntered up beside them.

  Candy kept her focus on Van Sciver. “You’re playing X’s game. Don’t let him trick you—”

  He wheeled on her, grabbing her shirt with both hands. “Don’t try to manipulate me.”

  Leaning over her, his face in hers, he was struck by just how much more powerful than her he was. If he slipped his hands up from the fabric, he could catch her chin in one palm, the back of her skull in the other, and twist her head halfway off.

  Her expression remained impressively placid.

  “I am trying to manipulate you,” Candy said. “But I’m also right.”

  He observed the ledge of her chin, the thinness of her neck.

  Then he released her and stormed for the Tahoe, his breath clouding in the night.

  “I know,” he said.

  59

  All Fucked Up

  Evan kept one hand on the wheel of the stolen rig, a Toyota pickup with a leaf blower rattling around in the bed. Joey looked out the window at the passing night. Evan hoped that Van Sciver and what remained of his crew
were still on their wild-duck chase, pursuing the partially digested digital transmitter Evan had smashed into the bread rind by the fountain.

  He wasn’t going to risk going out of any of the airports in neighboring states. Dulles International was too obvious, Charlotte and Nashville clear second choices. St. Louis, however, was just under twelve hours away and featured one-stop service to Ontario, California, an unlikely airport forty miles east of Los Angeles. Just before boarding time tomorrow morning at the airport, he’d purchase two tickets under their fake names for the first leg only. He’d buy the second set of tickets during the layover in Phoenix.

  Joey finally broke the two-hour silence. “What do we do now?”

  “Go home. Regroup.”

  “How?”

  “I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

  The highway this time of night was virtually empty. Dark macadam rolled beneath them like a treadmill belt. The headlights were as weak and pale as an old man’s eyes.

  Joey said, “You think that kid has a shot?”

  “Everyone does.”

  “He was so stubborn. Refusing to go with us, refusing our help. It’s like he’s locking himself in his own prison.”

  Evan thought of the gunmetal grays and hard surfaces of his penthouse, such a contrast with Mia’s throw blankets and candles.

  He said, “A lot of people do.”

  Joey muffled a noise in her throat.

  Evan said, “What did you want?”

  “I don’t know.” Anger laced her voice. “To help him. More.”

  “You can’t help people more than they want to help themselves.”

  He looked at her. Her eyes were wet.

  She turned back to the window, shook her head.

  “Stupid fucking kid,” she said.

  * * *

  He and Joey sat in their parallel twin beds, Joey with her laptop across her knees, Evan sipping vodka poured over cubes from the motel ice maker. The front desk sold miniature bottles of Absolut Kurant, which Evan didn’t buy because he wasn’t a fucking savage. A twenty-four-hour liquor store five blocks away had a bottle of Glass, a silky vodka distilled from chardonnay and sauvignon blanc grapes. It had a tangy finish, unvarnished by added sugars or acids, and if he swirled it around his tongue enough, he could catch a trace of honeysuckle.