Page 117 of Antihero

Deep breath. Exhale. He said, “Joey.”

And then he told her. He told her about the confusion of allowing Joey in the field, the necessity of letting her flounder and fail so she could strengthen herself, the overwhelming urge to control her so she’d be safe. The impossible balance of holding her close and letting her go into the horrors that lurked everywhere.

When he finished, Mia was silent. The diffuser hissed out a mist and then another.

Finally Mia said, “To care about someone properly, it’s sacrificial. You have to surrender them to the world. Or else you’ll devour them.”

No one had ever taught Evan that. He’d never had to know it. In fact, the whole point of his training and solitary existence was to never have to know it.

“She wants that world,” Mia continued. “She’s an adult.”

“Not for two hundred and sixty-six days,” he said.

“If you’re gonna put her into a mission, you goddamned better make sure you prepare her for it. But. Don’t allow an inch of your own untherapized bullshit in there. Not one inch. Everything—everything—must be about what is best for her. If she wants you to have that responsibility and you take it on, you hold yourself to the highest standard. It’s a sacred oath to raise someone. A sacred oath to let them grow properly. Even if that means losing them.”

He nodded. Nodded again. “I can still bop her in the snout though?”

“Once in a while.”

At the door, Mia kissed him good-bye on the side of the mouth. It was with warmth but not that kind of warmth. She set her hand on his cheek. “I’ll be waiting in the light. For whatever you drag out of the darkness.”

He said, “Copy that.”

“Good-bye, Nowhere Man.”

“Good-bye, District Attorney Hall.”

Walking away, he felt the warmth of her palm fading from his cheek.

45Half Naked and Flapping in the Breeze

Wearing nothing but boxer briefs, Evan sat cross-legged on his floating bed. Spine erect, hair damp from the shower, Mia’s sweatshirt tumbling in the dryer, the rest of today’s clothes smoldering in the fireplace in the great room.

It was time to call Joey.

And yet.

A splotch of bird shit marred the bedroom window near the top.

How could he talk to Joey with a distraction that pronounced smack in his visual field?

He tried to ignore it.

His efforts didn’t last long.

He fetched a paper towel from the kitchen, folded it into quarters, and dampened the edge. Back in the master suite, he cranked the window open, stood on the sill twenty-one stories up, and leaned around the outswung bullet-resistant polycarbonate-thermoplastic-resin pane.

Couldn’t reach.

It was an architectural window, significantly taller than he was.

The white amoeba was crusted on, floating just out of reach, a tactically positioned bombing.

He came back inside, shuddering, to regroup.

There was no way he’d be able to sleep, not with that stain blemishing the polished glass. Into the bathroom, nudging the shower door back on its carbon-steel barn-door wheels. It vanished soundlessly into its recessed slot in the wall. He gripped the hot-water lever, waited for the hum of embedded sensors to read the vein patterns of his palm, then turned it the wrong way. A concealed door parted from the tile pattern, opening into the irregular four hundred square feet of the Vault. OLED screens covered three of the walls, horseshoeing an L-shaped sheet-metal desk stacked with hardware. Windows populated the screens, countless law-enforcement databases that had been hacked into with methods and means that could be elaborately detailed in book chapters’ worth of exposition.

Reaching the row of weapon lockers in the back, he withdrew a length of military fastrope and snapped it once between his fists, its aramid fibers five times stronger than steel at the same weight.