“How long would the contract last?”

“For as long as you can feasibly maintain your cover at the university.”

“So, indefinitely,” I say.

“Or until you gather what we decide is solid enough evidence to incriminate both of them, yes.”

I look to Gregory, who shrugs.

“You and Charlie are the best candidates for the job. You’re young enough to be in college. Hell, we can jimmie Charlie’s papers and make him a year younger. We’ll stick you in the same dorm room.”

“You’re asking us to sit on our asses and go to college with a bunch of privileged geeks for a year?” Charlie asks. “Are you kiddin’, boss? Do you know how boring –”

“The tuition would be paid. You would have to put up a show of attending class and maintaining decent enough grades to continue your enrollment,” Vanessa interrupts. “But your primary concern will be surveillance and secrecy. No one must know why you are there.”

“Two of the Gatekeepers are college students,” I muse. “Do you have names?”

“None that I can disclose in the open. We’ll send the dossiers along once the contracts have been signed and you two are in place.”

“And we gotta do this for a long-ass time?” Charlie protests. “Boss, I didn’t join to go back to college, I joined to stay out of it.”

“It’s the beginning of the school year. You’ll blend in fine.” Gregory says, a steely edge in his voice. “I know you two can do this. You especially, Charlie. You’ve got the charisma for it. You always have.”

“But I’d rather be with you, boss. Aramon –”

Gregory pulls Charlie’s arm, and motions for me to lean in.

“Aramon isn’t going anywhere. These Gatekeepers are. Listen, it might not seem hard, or very glamorous or exciting, but it’s a good, solid post, and it’ll pay well. The CIA will be paying, for shit’s sake. It’ll be good to have them in Vortex’s debt. Do you understand? We’d like very much for them to be in our debt, especially when we deal with Aramon in the future.”

Charlie’s eyes glint with slow realization. I fight the urge to roll mine.

“When would we leave, sir?” I ask. Gregory shrugs.

“As soon as possible, I’m guessing. I’ll forward you the details when I get them. All you have to do is agree to the contract.”

“I agree to it, sir,” I say. Charlie inhales, chest puffing.

“I-I’m down for it too, boss!” He says quickly, glaring at me. “I’m not gonna let batman f**k it up.”

“I have a name,” I drawl.

“Jack, right. Jackman. Jackoffman,” He corrects. The insults are so familiar they sting with a bitter sweetness, but I brush them off.

“Alright, enough playground antics.” Gregory straightens, and smiles at Vanessa, extending his hand. “My boys here say they’ll do it.”

“Fabulous.” She takes his hand and shakes it. “I’ll be in touch with the details. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

It only takes a second before she’s gone behind a Matson container. She moved so quick I could barely follow her stride. She must’ve had her exit planned minutes in advance. Charlie shivers a little.

“Goddamn government spooks.”

“She doesn’t seem so bad,” I say.

“Of course she doesn’t seem bad to you. You’re practically one of them already, all robotic and cutthroat. I’d bet you’d kill your girlfriend if the boss asked you to.”

My hand shoots out to his suit lapels before I can stop myself. The world becomes horrible white static again, blurring Charlie’s face, dulling Gregory’s assertive voice that tries to convince me to let him go. I shove him higher against the Matson container, the smell of dust and sweat and steel turning to ash in my nose. He’s just a snowglobe person. A puppet. I could crush him so easily, snuff his life out like I did that man that night by the lake, like I almost did to Leo, like I did with Sophia.

Because, after all, I let her die.

I killed her.

There is fear in Charlie’s brown eyes, and it’s the only thing that keeps the roar from consuming my brain. I shove him away, and stride back to the car. Gregory keeps up with me, motioning for me to roll down the driver window. I do reluctantly.

“Look at me,” Gregory says, voice suddenly dark and commanding. I reluctantly meet his gaze. “Are you going to be able to do this? Or do we need to revisit our training?”

My body flinches out of instinct, out of the physical memory from the training sessions with Gregory. The memory of blood oozing from my ears and staring up at broken wood buried deep beneath the ground, the smell of dirt and darkness in my nose. No. I never want to undergo that kind of training again.

“I have the beast under control, sir,” I say slowly.

Gregory stares at me, through me, and then nods and pats the hood of my car.

“Get packing, then. You’ve got college to attend.”

We return to the motel Gregory is paying for us to stay in – two twin beds, cockroaches in the microwave, possible years-old bloodstains on the wall, but better than sleeping in our cars. Better than the gravel he made me sleep on during training. Charlie grumbles obscenities and jumps in the shower immediately. I order Chinese and open my laptop. Gregory, ever punctual and eager to get started, forwarded us the dossiers. The two Gatekeeper’s faces stare out at me from their FBI files. One of them is tan, jockish, with a fair face and dark eyes like a cat’s. Kyle Morris. The other – good-looking, brown hair and a symmetrical face with eyes like frozen steel.

Will Cavanaugh.

-3-

3 Years

44 Weeks

2 Days

It seems to me old people really like to tell you to enjoy your life while you’re young. Said people are usually forty-nine hundred years old and drive Volvos. Not that there is anything wrong with Volvos. But there is definitely something wrong with being forty-nine hundred years old. This is primarily because having too much experience makes you boring and flat as week-old soda.

Exhibit A; Jack Adam Hunter.

Exhibit B: Immortal vampires, probably.

Exhibit C: Grandparents.

Except my grandma. My grandma is tremendous. I know this because when I was two months old she took me for a ride in the basket attached to her Harley Davidson. I’m slightly positive this experience full of wind and exhaust and bawling crafted me into the dashing heroine I am today. Mom and Dad sent her to an old people’s home, since I guess taking your infant granddaughter for a spin with your bike gang is the first sign of dementia or something. But now that I’m in Georgia we are reunited at last. There were tears. And snotty tissues. That lasted for roughly five minutes. Now there’s mostly a lot of insanity.

“I’m not one to question the validity of doing neat things,” I say as I hand Gran another fistful of fireworks. “But if I was the sort of person to do that, you know, someone really boring and lame and definitely not-me, my question would be along the lines of what the hell are we doing on this roof at four in the morning, question mark. At least four question marks go after that. And like, a very concerned emoji.”

Gran makes a tut-tut noise and stuffs the rest of the fireworks into the chimney’s mouth. There are so many I can’t see the dark brick inside anymore. We ran a fuse up through the chimney an hour ago, and now Gran ties it to the huge combined fuse of all the fireworks. She sits back on her heels and wipes wispy dyed green hair from her eyes, flashing a wicked grin at me.