Prodigal Son (Orphan X #6) - Gregg Andrew Hurwitz Page 0,121

Any thought of sharing this secret with Andre evaporated at the sight of him; some arcane rule Evan hadn’t known to abide by prevented him from sharing what Veronica had not yet decided to share herself. Which was fine—it was all too much for Evan to comprehend right now, let alone convey.

“Why the hell are you back?” Andre said, snapping Evan from his trance. “I told you I—”

“You’re right,” Evan said. “I don’t care about you like this. I care about who you could be. That’s respect.”

Andre’s expression loosened, head lolling back on his neck, his eyes suddenly suffused with sadness. “I think I just need to sleep it off, be alone for a while.”

“Your best thinking got you here,” Evan said. “Time to try something else.”

Andre thumbed crust from his eye. Stared back through the doorway, leaning heavily on the knob, like it was holding him upright.

He staggered away from the door. He didn’t get far before the metal bed frame hit him behind the thighs, forcing him to sit abruptly. He pinched at the bridge of his nose, literally hung his head.

When Andre spoke, his voice was cracked from dehydration. “I was good at drawing. ’Member that?” He looked up, his eyes bloodshot, weary. “Thought I could grow up, draw comics one day. Batman, right?”

“You were,” Evan said. “You were good.”

“I coulda been something, dunno … worthwhile.”

“You still can be,” Evan said. “Best two words in the English language: ‘next time.’”

“If I figure it out. If I live that long. I been under the heel of this thing weeks now. All I feel is fear. At what it’ll be like when they catch me.”

“Fear needs a future,” Evan said. “Let’s focus on the present.”

Andre spoke now in little more than a whisper. “Don’t you feel it, too?”

“No,” Evan said. “I just feel dread. I’ve been there enough times, at the point when it catches up. I’ve learned what it is.”

“It worse than fear? Dread?”

“Not worse. But it’s more awful. Because it’s my job to meet what’s coming. Which means it’s on me if I fail.”

“How did you … how do you get there? Where you are?”

The question was so raw, so plaintive, that Evan took a moment to find a worthy answer. He looked down, studied the tips of his boots. “I was so goddamned scared of Van Sciver. He was so much … so much bigger than I was. So I covered it. And I covered it. Afraid you guys would see.”

“See what?”

“Shame. At how afraid I was. How powerless. I had to prove I wasn’t a coward. So I did. I faked it again and again. Until at some point I believed myself.”

Andre made a thoughtful voice deep in his throat. “Maybe that’s all bravery is.”

“Maybe,” Evan said. “And bravery comes in different guises.”

“Like what?”

“Like standing up now, taking a shower, and getting to a meeting.”

Andre blinked a few times quickly and shuddered off a chill. Then he rolled his head back on his neck and blew a breath at the ceiling that signaled not defeat but a different kind of giving up.

He rose.

* * *

The large church basement, toasty from an overzealous heating system, felt warm and cozy. High-set hopper windows, fogging up with a kind of holiday cheer, vibrated with the buzz of trapped flies. Cookies and coffee and a boxed cake on a table in the back. The scent of cigarettes rising from the clothes of the participants, who sat in folding chairs arrayed around a podium. A poster on the wall proclaimed DON’T PICK A FIGHT WITH REALITY, an aphorism Evan figured could make a good addition to the Commandments.

He’d driven a surveillance-detection route through the surrounding blocks before approaching the All Saints Catholic Church via an alley. He’d eased Andre to the meeting step by cautious step. The basement had stairs at both ends, providing good options for egress.

A woman in a pantsuit finished her story and said, “Would anyone else like to share?”

Andre stirred in his chair beside Evan and reluctantly rose.

He took the podium. “My name is Andre Duran, and I’m a alcoholic.”

A chorus of gentle voices. “Hi, Andre.”

“I’m about four hours sober,” he said. “So I got that shit going for me.”

A few chuckles. Evan looked around at the others, some of whom had shown themselves intimately over the past forty-five minutes. So much vulnerability, so little negative judgment, everyone in it together, all telling their own unique stories. Or he’d thought of them as unique, at least