I’m not usually one to worry about the future, about things that are out of my control. Because as much as I hate to admit it, therearesome things I don’t have power over. But I’ve always focused more on what’s in front of me, on what Icancontrol. If something veers you off the path, you adapt.
Right now…something feels wrong.
When the family doesn’t pay, it’s rarely because they can’t. It’s because they won’t. They stall. They negotiate. They convince themselves it’s a bluff.
From all the intel I gathered before taking Cason, he and his uncle seem to have a strong bond. Cason was moving in with him after his mom relocated to North Carolina.
It doesn’t make sense.
The problem is that nine times out of ten, when the money doesn’t come through, my employer—whoever it may be at the time—decides the asset is no longer an asset.
When you’re not an asset? You get eliminated.
Cason might be the first hostage I’d actually be…inconvenienced by killing.
That’s the most neutral word I can manage.
He’s disruptive. Loud. Inappropriate. Reckless in a way that should irritate me more than it does. He gets under my skin, but it’s rarely when he’s actively trying. Like he’s pressing buttons but the wrong ones.
He’s…growing on me, I guess.
And that’s a liability.
I’m not quite sure how it happened with how much of a menace he is.
The first time I brought him breakfast, it was cereal and an apple. Paper bowl, plastic spoon. I set it all down, left, and came back later to collect the disposable dishes. The empty bowl was there, but the spoon wasn’t.
I asked him where it was.
He shrugged. “What spoon?”
“The one I gave you.”
He looked around the room as though it might magically appear. “Huh. Weird. Maybe the Spoon Fairy took it. You should check under my pillow.”
The second time, same thing. Bowl empty, spoon gone. I decided not to press the issue. What could he possibly do with two plastic spoons?
But then that afternoon, I checked the feed from the camera in his room to see him sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, spoons in his hands, tapping them against the concrete, against the bedframe, against each other like some kind of makeshift percussion kit. It was a steady rhythm. Not random, but musical. Almost…good. He kept time with his foot, head tilted, expression focused.
It went on for hours. At first, I let it.
Then he wouldn’t stop. It started drilling into my skull, the clinking carried through the audio system no matter how low Iturned the volume. Eventually, I muted the feed.
That, apparently, was not what he wanted.
The next day, he abandoned his spot in the middle of the room and parked himself by the door, leaning his back against it, this time smacking the spoons against the metal surface with exaggerated force. Loud and sharp and completely off-beat on purpose.
It was then I realized he was trying to press as many buttons as he could.
And it worked.
“Hey, if you’re listening,” he shouted just loud enough for me to hear, “I take requests!”
Clang. Clang. Clang.
I unlocked the door and pulled. He fell backward dramatically when he lost his wall, staring at me upside-down from the floor.
“There he is,” he said with a lopsided grin. “My biggest fan.”
