Page 108 of Gorgeous Misery

I decide I’m just gonna give him what he wants. He already knows. I’m sure Nathan has told him everything. “I kill Zero girls. Is that the information you’re fishing for? Because Indie’s not on the list and neither is her daughter.”

“My daughter,” Adam says. And everything about his tone has changed. “She’s my daughter too.”

“I thought—”

“Not biological, you idiot. But that girl is mine. Same way Wendy is yours, I guess.”

“Not the same, but—”

“Anyway,” Adam cuts me off. “No, sir. That was not the information I was fishing for. But it’s a start, at least.”

“Shouldn’t we just concentrate on Donavan?”

“Oh”—Adam looks over his shoulder at the house—“don’t you worry about Donovan. I’m sure McKay and Merc are working the details out as we speak.”

And then something hits me. A sudden realization. A full illumination of what he just did.

He separated us and I didn’t even realize it. Indie took Wendy to debrief her. And McKay took Merc and Sasha to debrief them.

“This is about me,” I say.

“You sound so surprised.”

“What the fuck? Is Donovan even alive?”

“Oh, everything you heard about Donovan is true. And I do appreciate your help in that regard, but that’s not really why you’re here, is it, Nick? Why don’t we cut out the bullshit and get to the point? Why. Are you here?”

Why am I here?

He wants to know why I’m here?

I’m here because eight years ago I found a book in the back of my truck, a book that was filled with desperate hopelessness, and I decided then and there that I would not allow this girl to grow up just so she could die.

I was going to fix her.

I was going to cure her.

I went to Chek first. I told him what I wanted to do. I showed him the book. But Chek wasn’t interested. His line of thinking was… if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

But Wendy was broke. She had been shattered long before Chek saved her. And it was just a matter of time before there were so many cracks, we wouldn’t be able to put her back together again.

Every good little Zero girl needs a handler.

That’s Chek. That’s Adam.

But if you want them to grow up sane, they need more than just a man to keep them in line.

They need a McKay.

They need a Donovan.

I was Wendy’s McKay.

I was Wendy’s Donovan.

And seventeen days after Chek died, on Wendy Gale’s seventeenth birthday, I knew she was at her breaking point. She was not gonna come back from what happened to Chek.

No. If I’m only talking in my head, then I should at least be honest with myself.