The feed from Cason’s room fills one of the screens. He’s asleep now, sprawled comfortably across the bed like he owns it. One arm is draped off the side, fingers slack. His straight blond hair is a little messy, hanging over his eyes. He looks peaceful, like in his subconscious mind, he’s not here.
He looks like heshouldn’tbe here.
But, then again, he’s not the first person I’ve had that thought about. And it’s not the first time it would be true.
Victims of circumstance.
Taking a seat in the chair, I drag my attention to the laptop and open the encrypted email client. There’s one unread message waiting for me. No name attached, no address that means anything. Just a string of characters that could belong to anyone. Or no one.
Status?
Concise. Impatient.
I crack my knuckles and type back.
Subject secure. Disoriented but stable. No complications.
I hesitate, then add:
Attempted escape risk low. Monitoring.
That part’s an assumption. I’ve already determined that Cason Bellrose is a bit harder to pin down than other targets.
The reply comes fast.
Good. Maintain schedule. Do not deviate.
I let out a sharp exhale and close the laptop without responding. Whoever’s on the other end doesn’t want commentary, just results. And that’s fine by me. I wasn’t hired to ask questions.
I lean back in the chair, ignoring its whine of protest, and peer back up at Cason’s monitor. He shifts in his sleep, brow furrowing like he’s arguing with someone in his dreams.
Maintain schedule.
That means I’ll be giving Cason’s dear old uncle a phone call first thing in the morning.
Becauseof coursethis is about money. It almost always is with the people who hire me. It’s usually money or a grudge or a combination of the two. That’s probably the case here because the demands could have just as easily been made to Cason’s mother instead of Malcolm Bellrose. However, if I don’t need to know in order to do the job, then I don’t ask questions.
But I think back to Cason’s.
Am I going to die here?
The truth is, I couldn’t answer it. That’s not the plan, no. But plans can change.
And I don’t like to lie.
I settle in to get some work done for the rest of the evening. Even when I’m on one job, I have several others that need extensive planning. I watched Cason for nearly a month before taking him from the parking garage outside Bellrose Institute. After hacking the security cameras to loop, it was easy because I knew what to expect.
From him, that means to not expect anything.
He has a schedule at the Institute, but he deviates from it often. He never goes to the same coffee shop twice in one week. He takes most of his classes online, and he has several different spots where he does his schoolwork.
However, with all of those, there are little tells for whichpath he’s going to take.
Cason is chaos theory.
Not the romanticized version people like to quote when they want to sound clever. Not butterflies and inevitability. Real chaos. Systems thatlookrandom until you watch them long enough to understand the rules hiding underneath.
He doesn’t repeat patterns, but herhymes.
