Chapter 76

76

Jonathan

When I was a kid, there were times I thought my brain would break. You can push someone only so far. There were scars all over my body, and I could not remember where all of them came from. I stopped being able to see my face when I looked in the mirror. Sometimes I forgot my own name. Forgot everything except pain and fear and vengeance.

Mas brought me back from the brink, again and again. He knew my name. He saw my face. He could tell the story of every scar.

We used to hide out in the woods. We would sit beneath the trees and watch the sun draw time across the sky and Mas would promise me, "When we get older, we'll leave all this behind. We'll be completely different people, with completely different lives."

He was right. And he was wrong.

Paris is over three thousand miles away from the town we grew up in. I do not think that anyone who knew us then would recognize us now: rich and clean and cutthroat. But underneath everything, beneath my bones even, I am still back there, and I always will be.

I cannot be with Eva. I cannot be with anyone, because no matter where I go, no matter what I do, I am still back there, and I always will be.

As we pull into Montparnasse, I realize I have stopped shaking. My tics have vanished. I have gone completely still, like time has stopped inside me. There is nothing more tragic than knowing something terrible has happened before it has been confirmed. Because you cannot scream; you cannot cry.

All you can do is hold your breath.

I wait for a taxi like a prophet. I give the driver the address. Eva looks confused, even awed, by the change in me, by the person I have become: cold and expectant and ancient.

She leans closer. She whispers in my ear, "Should we get weapons somewhere first?" We do not need weapons to find a body.

I know of a safe house in the thirteenth arrondissement and an arms dealer near the Place de la Bastille, but "We don't have time," I say. We ran out a long time ago.

We pull up outside his address, the chicest little doctor's office in Paris, and I can hear the death silence from the street. The shutters are drawn. The lock on the front door has been busted apart.

"We should be armed," Eva says, but it is too late—I am already walking inside.

There is no clerk behind the front desk. There are no patients in the waiting room as I pass through, then down the hall, toward Mas's office.

I find the first body there.

It does not belong to Mas. It belongs to an assassin, laid out across the narrow hall. I take his gun, toss it to Eva.

"Feel better now?" I ask. I do. It is amazing how quickly tragedy can lift, become something else.

The next body belongs to another assassin, this one slumped against a wall, stunned and starry-eyed.

"Holy shit," Eva opines.

I shake my head and almost smile, almost hope.

I step over another body just as I hear his voice. He is on the phone. He is talking to his wife.

"…I'm fine, I promise. I just want you to stay with the police, okay? I'm just waiting for the officers to arrive, and then I'm getting in a cab. I canceled all my appointments. I'm fine ; I just want to make sure that you…"

I walk into the exam room. I am very lucky that Mas is expecting the cops and not more assassins. He actually smiles when he sees me. His face is spattered with blood.

"I'll be home soon," he tells Giselle. "I promise." He ends the call. "You fucking prick," he says to me.

"I did text you." I hop onto the exam table.

"You said some one was coming to kill me."

"I meant a singular entity. Not a singular assassin. I could have explained that if you had just called me back ." I try not to smirk. I am so happy he is still alive. I am even happy he is still an asshole. "You told me you didn't want my help. If I'm on fire, you said."

He stalks across the room and neatly slaps me across the face. I do deserve it.

Eva steps in. "I'm impressed. I thought I was with the killer brother."

"I did three tours of duty," Mas says. "You want to see some real action? Try war."

"I was sure you were dead," I tell Mas. I was sure. I am always so sure of the worst possible outcome.

"Have a little faith in me," he says. "That one did catch me off guard." He points at a fourth body, a sniper jammed into a vent, dead arm dangling. Mas shakes his head, then glares at me. "I thought you said you were taking care of this."

"I'm so sorry."

"Right, well. Did you ever consider that maybe you're the one who needs me to protect you?"

"I would say that's a pretty accurate assessment," I admit.

The door buzzer sounds. "I'm glad you're here," Mas tells me, resting a hand on my shoulder and directing me toward the door. "Because now you can explain all this to the cops."