Prodigal Son (Orphan X #6) - Gregg Andrew Hurwitz Page 0,17

take the edge off the operational wear and tear on his body and mind. No more nights with oil painters from the Royal College of Art. And no more hope of maybe, just maybe, having a shot at nights more meaningful than that.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noted the elevator doors open downstairs. Mia and Peter stepped inside, vanishing from view.

There was so much to recommend normalcy.

And yet.

He thought about the drive home from Jeanette-Marie’s. The taste of adrenaline. The sharpness of the night air. All five senses alive, and maybe even a sixth.

“I don’t miss it,” he told Vera II. “I really don’t.”

Already his hand was moving the mouse, bringing up an incognito search engine.

“I’m not breaking the agreement,” he said, keying the number of one of his forged passports into the airline website. “It’s not a mission. It’s just a trip.”

He risked another glance at Vera II, but she’d already made her position clear. She assimilated carbon dioxide disapprovingly.

He clicked purchase.

8

Sucker

The next day at noon, the dark sedan is back, and so is the Mystery Man, both in the same place. Evan rounds the handball wall and stops, holds his fists up as he’s seen boxers do on TV, a technique the boys mimic in street fights to questionable results. His ribs ache from Van Sciver, and beneath his shirt his back hosts a collection of scarlet abrasions from the belt that look like half-formed question marks. But he is here and he is ready. The Mystery Man throws his hands wide and does something wholly unexpected. He smiles.

“Good. That’s a good stance.” He starts toward Evan. “Look, kid. Sorry about yesterday. Sometimes I can be a little overzealous. I mean, what the hell was I thinking? A grown man—”

He sucker-punches Evan again. Too late, Evan realizes he’s been disarmed, that he’s let his arms drift south. The fist connects with his cheek, grinding flesh into bone. Not a hard punch, but perfectly placed, and again Evan goes down, and this time he stays down, crouching on one knee, trying to breathe.

The Mystery Man leans over him, hands on his thighs. The cigarette is still there, jutting from between two fingers; he didn’t even bother to put it out before swinging. “Look at you,” he says. “Do you honestly think you have what it takes?”

Evan forces the words through the pounding in his skull. “I’ll get bigger.”

“You think that’s all it takes? Bigger?”

“It’s all I’m missing.”

At this the man laughs. “Look, I get it, kid. Grit and drive and all that. But you gotta understand—there’s nothing you have that I want. You’re not gonna surprise me. The kid I want? Charles Van Sciver? He’s got it. We’re just about done vetting him. And if he fails, next in line’ll be that husky kid, Andre. You’re not even on the list. Now, go home or whatever you call it and get on with your life.”

Evan stands up, wipes his bloody mouth roughly. He looks at the tinted windows of the sedan, back to the Mystery Man. “I want to try again.”

“There’s no trying again.” The man points at Evan’s face with the red cherry of the cigarette. “Get the fuck out of here. Or I promise you this: You’ll find out what a real punch feels like.”

Jogging home this time, Evan feels the pain in his ribs anew, the reality pounded into him by Van Sciver.

It feels like defeat.

* * *

At dinner Van Sciver spoons extra mac and cheese from the pot, then flicks the wooden spoon at Evan across the table, landing a few stray noodles on his shirt and his swollen lip. “What happened to your face?”

“What happened to yours?”

It’s not the wisecrack so much as the covered laughter from the others that lets Evan know he will pay for this later. Papa Z is across on his armchair, massaging his lower stomach as he does when his bowels won’t cooperate.

Van Sciver points at Evan with the spoon. “Wait till you fall asleep.”

But that night Evan does not fall asleep. After bed check there is a face-off, Van Sciver staring at him from his bed across the room, Evan staring back from the mattress on the floor, neither wanting to drift off first. By the time Van Sciver’s eyes stop glinting through the darkness, the inside of Evan’s thigh is purple where he’s been pinching himself to stay awake.

Evan creeps across and watches the rise and fall of the bigger boy’s chest, watches the