‘Yeah.’Lachlan has no interest in discussing the youngest Sorrenko boy.‘How are you doing?’
‘What does that mean?’
Honesty.It’s all they have.
‘After the headshots,’ Lachlan clarifies, should probably look at the pretty scene in front of him but it’s his job to stay eyes-on with the boy, and he takes it seriously, maybe beyond what’s necessary.
‘I’m fine.’
‘What does fine mean?’
‘I don’t know, what does it mean when you say it?’
‘Usually it meansstop asking,orI don’t want you to worry.’
‘There you go.’
‘Which?’
‘Both.’
‘Fair enough, but I just want to say—’
‘Look, I don’t need therapy or fucking counselling orcoddling, all right?I did what I did, and it worked to buy us time, so—’
‘I wanted to say I’m proud of you and that those were exceptional headshots,’ Lachlan speaks over him, drowns out the little spiral before it gains momentum.Jules trails off and looks at him, the rippling sunset forgotten.‘I’m really proud of you.Yes, taking life is a big deal but it’s better than losing your own.You did well, and if you wanna talk about it,’ he adds, shrugging, ‘I lost track of my kill count years ago.I won’t treat you like glass.’
‘What was it before you lost track?’
‘High two hundreds.’
‘How old were you?’
Lachlan casts back.‘Nineteen.’
‘Why did you lose track?’
‘Extraction gone wrong.I stopped counting from then on.’
Jules stares for a while before he looks back at the lake, and very quietly says, ‘They weren’t my first.’
‘Kills?’
‘Yeah.’
Lachlan recalls what Penhalyx told him last year.‘Was it a bodyguard?’
Jules rests his chin on his knees.‘It was.’
I was informed that it was a close call, the old man had told Lachlan when referencing the incident with a bodyguard when Jules was fifteen, something that apparently left himjaded in the extreme.
‘How did you kill him?’
Jules frowns.‘Poison.’
‘That’s smart,’ Lachlan says, carefully parsing all that Julesisn’tsaying.‘Do you want to learn how to do it with your hands?’
‘What?’
