Page 95 of Prodigal Son

“Charlie,” Eden said, speaking to him like he was spooked horse, or a really stupid child about to throw a tantrum in public. “We don’t have time to get pulled over for something like speeding. You should slow it down.”

He ground his molars.

Devin sat forward between the seats. “She’s right, son,” he said reasonably. “I know that you’re a little worked up–”

Fox slammed on the brakes.

Awful squeal, shouts, lots of fishtailing. Devin’s face smashed into the center console between the front seats, and Eden threw her hands up against the dash to keep from eating it. Evan shrieked. Stuff slid around in the back. Something heavy smacked against the back of Fox’s seat.

For a moment, he thought the unwieldy van might flip end-over-end up the road, but he got it locked down and veered off onto the shoulder, gravel spraying out like snow in the headlights, and they finally came to an unceremonious halt.

“What the hell?” Devin said.

Charlie took a few deep breaths, hands tight on the wheel. Then he disengaged his seatbelt and rounded on his father.

“‘What the hell’?” He was seething, but the words came out crisp and cold. “You find out that your daughter – who, let me remind you, issixteen– just got kidnapped by the same nasty creeps who tortured your old buddy Norris to death, and you’re asking me ‘what the hell’?”

Devin had a hand clapped over his nose; Fox hoped it was broken. The old bastard stared at him, impassive, unaffected by any of this.

And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Getting sniped in his own flat, having to run, faking his own murder, going off on this jaunt, finding Norris…none of it had affected him.

Fox snapped.

“Is this fun for you?” he asked. “Is this all a big game? Life got boring, and you’re too old to get it up anymore and spawn any more kids you don’t give a shit about, so you thought ‘I know, I’ll get involved with a bunch of scary government-funded lunatics and sic them on my children for laughs’? Have you ever, in your whole miserable fucked-up life, ever,everthought that maybe you could just settle the fuck down and stop ruining everything for all of us? Huh? Siring a whole brood of bastards wasn’t enough, now you have to make us miserable and get us killed, too?”

Devin slowly lowered his hand; spots of blood at his nostrils. Calmly: “We’ve been over this, Charlie. You hate me. I get it. But don’t ever suggest that I ever did anything to harm any of you intentionally.”

“Yeah, then what do you call fucking all our mothers?”

“Fox,” Morgan started. “I asked Devin to–”

Fox turned around, popped his door, and got out.

He walked along the side of the van, past the red glow of its taillights, and kept going, footfalls crunching in the gravel.

His chest ached – getting worse by the second. A tightening along his ribs, bright, sparking pains that chased across his whole torso. Like that first day in Albie’s workshop, but more intense.

He halted, staggered a step, and pitched forward to brace his hands on his knees. He wasn’t getting enough air. Opened his mouth to breathe that way, ragged and ineffective. His pulse beat like a drum in his ears, so loud he didn’t hear footsteps approaching.

Eden’s voice right beside him: “You’re having a panic attack.”

“No,” he wheezed, “I’m not.”

“I can see your face sweating from here. Yes, you are,” she said, matter-of-fact. She was calm, but not soothing, and somehow that helped. “Breathe through it. Deep breaths. In for a count of four, and out for a count of four.”

“I might be sick.”

“You might be,” she agreed.

“You’re a terrible nurse.”

“Hmm. And you were a terrible boyfriend.”

He did the breathing thing. In-two-three-four, out-two-three-four. After a minute or so, he felt steadier, his chest looser. Good enough to tilt his head and glance up at her.

She stood with her arms folded, her silhouette a line of red from the taillights, face shadowed.

“You aren’t really still sore about all that back then, are you?” he asked.

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