Page 109 of Lone Star

Tenny’s face appeared behind his in the mirror, lip curled up in a sneer. “Are you really going to wear that shit?” he asked, in his most posh accent.

“I always wear it.”

If the way his shoulders twitched was any indication, the calm answer ratcheted Ten’s anger up another notch. “Why? Because you like pretending to be a Navy SEAL? You’re not a real solider, you know.”

Reese painted the bridge of his nose, the thick paint gleaming in the lamplight. “I go where I’m told to go. I kill who I’m told to kill. Isn’t that what a soldier does?”

“Fucking hopeless,” Ten muttered, and turned away.

“I have enough if you want to wear some, too.”

“No, I don’t want to wear it! What’s wrong with you?”

Reese didn’t answer.

Tenny kicked the end of the air mattress – Reese’s air mattress, because Ten had of course called “dibs” on the bed with a snide comment about Reese not even appreciating a real bed, probably.

“Aren’t you going to get ready?” Reese asked. When Ten whirled again, teeth bared in a grimace, he couldn’t account for the warmth of satisfaction in his gut, like when he executed a perfect hit; the personal pleasure of a job well done.

Tenny opened the halves of his jacket and revealed the guns and knives strapped strategically to his person. “I am ready. I don’t have to do my makeup first, like you.”

Reese finished, tidying the last of the excess around the corners of his eyes – eyes that now looked too bright by contrast. He capped his tin, and wiped his fingers clean on a bit of rag he kept for the purpose, pre-soaked with solvent. He turned around, then, and leaned back against the dresser, observing Tenny as he paced the width of the small room. He’d been gathering his thoughts for the past hour or so, deciding what he wanted to say.

As if he sensed he was being watched, Tenny paused, and lifted his head. “What?” He was so full of hostility it was a wonder he hadn’t split open along some hidden seam in order to vent it.

“My sister told me something.”

“Well, good for you.”

“She said that sometimes a person acts like they’re angry with you, but they’re really angry about something else.”

Tenny had stood poised for a retort, lips set in a cruel line, dark brows lowered and malicious. But when Reese spoke, his face blanked. He blinked.

“She gets angry with me sometimes, but she says she isn’t really. She’s angry about what happened to us.”

Tenny waited a beat, and then wet his lips, and his voice came out small and choked. “What happened to you?” He sounded like he really wanted to know.

Reese’s own mouth felt dry, suddenly, but he didn’t lick his lips; he’d learned long ago to hate the taste of grease paint. “The Commander raised us. I was his soldier. I killed for him. Kris – I don’t know where Kris was, most of the time. They would bring her to see me, sometimes. She always told me to be good and listen to them, do what they said. I don’t know why, because I always did. When I did a job right, they let me see her more often. She was always crying.”

Tenny’s brows lowered again, but in an entirely different way.

“That was before Badger – that was…” he didn’t want to talk about Badger. “She smiles more, now. She has a boyfriend. She says our mother was sick, and the Commander took us from her, and that he shouldn’t have. She wants me to be a person. She gave me a book to read, but I don’t like it.”

Tenny snorted – but his expression wasn’t cruel, now.

“I don’t like you,” Reese continued. “I hate you. And I’ve never hated anything before, I don’t think, except for maybe Badger. I hate that you don’t take orders, and that you think you’re smarter than me, and that you’re pretending, all the time, to be a real person when you aren’t.You aren’t.” His breathing had picked up, and he forced it slow.

Tenny’s chest swelled as he took a deep breath of his own. “You said that before,” he said, tightly. “But my handlers spent millions turning me into about fifteen different people. Each with his own uses. I am a soldier, and a martial artist, and a sniper, and a driver, and a gangster, and a seducer. I’ve convinced rich old women to name me in their wills, and I’ve fucked closeted politicians in the beds they share with their wives. I’ve killed a third world dictator with my bare hands, and I’ve batted my lashes at warlords. I was cultivated to be whichever kind of person my handlers needed me to be. For my government. For my country.”

His voice shook. “And yourLean Dogstore it all down.Foxtore it all–” He cut himself off, abruptly; pushed hands through his hair and laced them together at the back of his neck, head bowed. “What was it all for?” he whispered. “What awaste.”

Reese knew pity again. “I’m sorry.”

Ten’s head lifted, sharply, scowl back in place. “What are you sorry for?”

“I’m sorry you’re afraid. I wish you weren’t.”

“Fuck,” Ten swore – but didn’t contradict him. “Finish your makeup,” he snapped, and stalked out of the room.

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