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This is Ethan—er, Evan. His first placement fell through. He doesn’t talk much. But I’m sure you’ll all make him feel welcome.
baby mobile chiming a nursery rhyme, patterns on the ceiling way up above, a horse, a lion, a zebra, shouts somewhere in the house—A stroke, I think she’s had another—red flashing lights through the windowpane eclipsing the animals, the rhyme winding down, his tiny, tiny hand gripping a smooth white rail, and raw sobbing from another room with no more music to disguise it
The transport vehicle bounced over a pothole, throwing him back into the prison of his restraints, encased in darkness, his senses bound.
Sweat trickling down the back of his neck. The smell of French roast, wafting off his skin from the spray he’d caught on the plaza.And his breath, there for him as it always was. As long as he could breathe, he was okay. He gave himself a brief respite and then refocused once more.
Rewinding through his takedown, he replayed it inch by inch, forward and backward and forward again, extracting splinters of ancient linked memories, clearing them from his nervous system until each needle punch of sensation lost its sharpness, until they joined the thrumming of his heart and the wheels across the uneven road, until he was no longer locked off from sight and sound and voice, severed from himself, but able to observe his thoughts and emotions, to see clearly what he’d managed to hold at bay.
Panic had been there all along, a constant beckoning, the road not taken. He looked down the barrel of it now to the bottomless dark. Acknowledged it with respect.
Then he closed the door.
It was time to get to work.
8
A Fucking Selfie with Orphan X
Evan straightened up as much as the restraints allowed and feigned choking. Gagging against the mouth guard, knees bouncing, shoulders rattling the metal at his back.
“Shit— He’s choking. He’s choking.”
“Get the fucking hood off, now!”
“Careful—wait—careful—don’t—”
Hands seized his shoulders. The GI sandbag was ripped off his head. Drooling around the mouth guard, he kept his eyes fluttering, rolled to white.
Gloved hands grabbed his head roughly, chin and crown. Someone unsnapped the plastic band and yanked the guard free of his mouth, and then the earmuffs were lifted and the earplugs tugged free.
The clamp on his head was released, and then he heard the clank of geared-up bodies flying back to hit the bench across from him, everyone keeping a good safe distance.
He opened his eyes.
He was indeed cuffed and barred and chained and strapped to a restraint chair seated in a metal cradle in the back of an uparmored SUV with blacked-out windows. The vehicle had been reconfigured with facing bench seats.
He was indeed wearing soft-soled disposable slippers and a standard prison jumpsuit, though it was black, not orange.
There were indeed two gunners. They were ensconced in body armor over black BDUs, select fire SR-16s with SureFire suppressors at the ready, SIG P229s in drop-leg holsters, double flashbangs bulging in pouches.
There were indeed two handlers armed with the now-familiar grenade launchers and various caustic sprays and shock devices poking from various cargo pockets.
And seated directly across from him, Naomi Templeton herself playing the role of team commander.
Evan immediately stopped choking and let his face find dead calm. The men’s eyes bulged beneath their tactical goggles. Legs bouncing with adrenaline. They couldn’t take their eyes off him. Naomi alone looked unflustered.
Evan cleared this throat. Once. “You sure you have enough firepower?”
Naomi’s lips tensed, an almost-smile. “Maybe.”
The younger of the gunners was breathing hard, his finger curled around the trigger instead of resting alongside the guard. “You’re really him?” he asked. A glance at Naomi. “Can I …”
“What?” She did not sound pleased.
“If I stay over here, can I take a selfie with Orphan X?”
“No, Chip, you cannot take a fucking selfie with Orphan X,” she said.
