Page 35 of Penny for Your Saints

In parallel, we do our best to stay busy, to serve the Saints—me working a simple yeast dough for pan bread; a pot of boiling potatoes on the stove and a pan of onions gently caramelizing over the coiled electric burner—materials in preparation for a hearty breakfast curry—before we get on the road once more, while Quentin lays out clothing for Louise and an expensive human hair wig in a shade of soft black. I pat out a circle of dough as Q jabbers away in some Slavic language on his phone; the sky beginning to glow pinky-orange with the rising sun through the single pane windows.

After a few minutes, Quentin snaps his phone shut and a relative hush falls over the apartment. The sounds of the stove and Louise’s gentle snoring are the only things keeping us from total silence.

All of us are more than a little shaken. The raid on Safehouse B in Liberty city was far from expected. Even more troubling, it seems as if the bureau might not be as concerned with getting Louise back in one piece as we had previously hoped.

While our main goal has been to get to the bottom of what horrors the Penny’s unleashed upon the world, and to find out what part their daughter Louise—the possible ‘key’ to it all—actually plays in this tragedy; we have also passively relied on the idea that Louise would be a powerful bargaining chip that we could exchange for our own lives should the need arise.

The fact that the only one who seemed to care if Louise ate lead was her old partner? Not comforting.

In his eerie way, as if he’s been reading my mind—Caz breaks the silence. “So, now that things are getting fucky and going sideways—how exactly are we going to follow ‘the plan?’” he grouses, his eyes still closed, hands folded delicately over his diaphragm as he lies on the musty old carpet.

‘The plan.’

It feels like years ago rather than a few days that Frank recounted the steps of the brilliant ‘plan’ to the rest of us. Grab the girl, make her talk, get everything we can from her. Pending the details of her parent’s research, we either keep her and use her as a tool as a means to our end, or we use her up and toss her back to the Feds in exchange for a chance to walk away—to fade into the shadows. That’s a wild oversimplification, of course, but that’s the gist of it.

Instead, we end up with our own little pit viper, as uncooperative as she is deadly. Or at least, that’s what I thought.

“I could have killed her,” Caz had choked out from behind the wheel of the Lincoln as we sped toward the Liberty City line; his face white as a sheet as he made his confession. “I had my knife pressed to her neck, and I couldn’t fucking do it.” He hiccuped down a sob as Liberty City grew smaller in the rear-view mirror, my eyes flicking to the red-brown scab beneath Louise’s chin with a new understanding.

“I thought I was a goner when I threw down my knife—she could have easily had me, even with her bare hands—.” His voice cut off as Caz remembered his proximity to his own death.

Shock had been an understatement. Louise managed to get free of her bonds and didn’t even try to hurt Caz? Didn’t try to run?

The four of us had sat in silence, the sound of the engine and Louise’s shallow breathing expanding endlessly into the tiny sedan’s cabin.

When we arrived at Safehouse D, I took a look at the dart injector site on Quentin’s shoulder and set up my temporary ‘lab’ to run some tests on the small amount of mysterious serum still left in the dart he pulled. Both his blood and the serum are spinning in an ad hoc centripetal carousel in the other room as the reagents process.

Now, Quentin leans back in his chair, a cocktail napkin with jotted notes under his rhythmically tapping index finger; his chartreuse eyes darting around the parlor with unfocused mania, but he still doesn’t appear to be showing any signs of being affected by the dart.

“Sleeping beauty likely has another few hours before she comes around,” I yawn, tossing a clean towel over the bread dough for its final rise before it hits the pan. I turn my attention to the filthy-looking Moka pot perched atop the back vent of the stove—preparing to make some much needed coffee.

“Once she and Frank rejoin the ranks of the waking, we’ll be able to have something to eat—and to review the results of my tests before we make our way to the next safehouse. If she really is ready, or open to cooperating… Then maybe she and Caz can make use of the hard drives,” I do my best to provide Caz an answer—even though I’m not Frank, and it isn’t my plan.

Quentin’s hand drifts up to absently run over the bandaid on his shoulder.

“Is it hurting worse? Is there any swelling?” I ask, already in motion to check on him.

“I wouldn’t say it’s worse. I would say it hurts about the normal amount for dart impact.” He shakes his head, but doesn’t brush me off as I close the distance between us, reaching out to peek inside the open sides of the large cloth bandage.

“Honestly, I’m more concerned with what they dosed me with,” Quentin admits solemnly, giving a little shudder.

“No grogginess, no stimulation?” I confirm with him for the third or fourth time since he was first shot with the dart, quickly pressing the back of my hand to Q’s forehead, his cheek, under the angle of his jaw. No fever.

“No, right now I feel totally fine,” he sighs, shaking his head slowly. “Like I told you, right when I first got hit—it was like a flame trying to ignite—an alcohol fire racing across a hard surface; a bright blazing flash of heat—then,” he makes a low whistling sound—sweeping his hands out in a sudden, smoothing motion. “Whoosh! Extinguished—as if nothing had happened.”

Visibly shaken, Quentin does his best to shrug the feeling off—but a lingering pinch in his lips can tell me he’s still unmoored.

“What is it, Q?” I press—unnerved by our usually steadfast Lieutenant’s palpable fear.

“It’s going to sound ridiculous, but I can swear that I’ve had the exact sensation before—except it didn’t just dissipate.” Quentin squirms in his seat—his eyes turning to the far distance beyond the dawn-break through the dirty windowpane.

I open my hand and wave it through the air—gesturing for Quentin to continue his explanation while I make coffee for those of us already among the waking.

“I know I don’t talk about it that much, but I was a sickly child.” He rakes a hand back through his beautiful copper brown hair, looking out the window so that he can spare himself the intimacy of eye contact as he tells his tale.

At this, Caz sits upright, pulling his knees to his chest and hugging them against himself; glacial baby blues fixed on Quentin.

“My parents were very well to do, so I had a huge panel of specialists and prestigious doctors who tried to get to the bottomof my mysterious ailments.” Quentin continues on, his eyes well with wetness, though his voice doesn’t quaver. “At one point, my family went to America so that I could be part of a study for my relentless medical mysteries.” Quentin’s long, feathered lashes flutter down to the perfect ivory of his high cheekbones as his eyes close for a moment. He draws a steadying breath in through his nose. “I don’t remember much of the trip—I was less than ten years old after all—but I do remember being sicker than I’d ever been in my life for a stretch of weeks.”

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