Page 117 of The Wild Charge

“Hey,” Fox called from the clubhouse, and they turned to face him. “Everything all set?”

“Yeah,” Tenny called back.

It was difficult to see from a distance, and given the shadows of the clubhouse porch, but Fox’s expression seemed grim. “Good. Give me, like, fifteen minutes.” He turned and went back inside.

“Ugh.” Tenny scraped his boot sole over the asphalt, hands jammed in his pockets. “If he’s gonna take so bloody long, I’ve got something I need to see to first. Alone,” he added, with a stern look, when Reese moved to follow.

Reese huffed his disappointment, but stayed put, hip resting against the back of the utility trailer. He watched Tenny stride off across the lot, down toward the office, and wondered what he could possibly need to attend to in that direction.

He’d forgotten all about Evan until he said, “Hey, so, uh, can I ask you something?”

Reese turned to him and found him chewing at his lip, nervous. Did Reese make him nervous, still? Maybe that was just his default setting. “Yes?”

“Those guys you and Tenny fought with. At the restaurant?”

Tenny nodded.

“Are they as – I dunno – scary as you guys?”

“Scary?”

“You know, like…” He mimed a few sloppy karate moves, and then aimed a pretend rifle off into the distance. “All Liam Neeson and shit?”

“Liam…Neeson?”

“Dude, you gotta watchTaken. You’d love it. But, I mean:scary. Special skills. Dark Knight. All that shit. You know.”

Reese thought he knew, although Evan had a very obtuse way of phrasing it. “They were trained by my old handler.” Something very inconvenient and unpleasant had persisted ever since he’d seen Hunter on the sidewalk in front of Smokey’s. He’d told Ghost about him when he first came to the Dogs; had mentioned him to Mercy and anyone else who asked.My handler. A simple statement, a reference to a person from his past. But since the night of the drive-by, even passing thoughts of Hunter left an odd tightness in his chest; left his mind slipping, so that, for a moment, he wasn’t quite sure where he was or what was happening.

It happened now, for a brief flash. A pulse of memory: his hands manacled, the smell of a musty old shed.Again.Again. It had never, ever been good enough.Again.

He swallowed with difficulty, and said, “I assume they’ve been trained the way I was. That they have similar skills and experiences.”

But his throat tightened another fraction when he remembered that wraithlike figure dodging his swing; the bite of the knife; that awful, unfamiliar sense that he might not win that particular fight.

Evan said, “Wow. Okay, but, like, why did he let you go if he was gonna stay in the assassin factory business? That seems dumb to start all over from scratch.”

Reese swallowed again, and his stomach clenched.Because I wasn’t good enough. Again. Again. I disappointed him. He and Tenny had gotten the drop on the lookout earlier tonight, and subdued him – but it had taken both of them, and they’d had a taser. What if there had been two? What if Tenny hadn’t gotten that taser pressed to the back of his neck in time?

What if…what if…what if…

Again.

“Reese?”

He gave himself a mental shake, and took a deep breath of cool, river-scented air. He was at Dartmoor. He was alive and whole. He’d completed tonight’s op and was about to go on another. In a minute, Tenny would come back, and say something rude, and he’d put his arm around Reese’s shoulders and tug him in close when no one was looking.

“I don’t know,” he said, but that was a lie.

He never used to lie.

~*~

None of the flunkies were on guard duty down at the trucking warehouse tonight, though the outer office door was locked. Tenny picked it, fast and efficient, then went through to retrieve the second set of keys in the filing cabinet.

The cattle trailer was parked back in its usual spot, a hulking, rusty-edged box in the pale glow that filtered through the skylights. The door was secured with its heavy padlock, and Tenny could hear the straw rustling inside as Luis shifted. The door wasn’t quiet, and he’d doubtless heard it, straining out here in the cold, concrete silence, but Tenny toed off his boots and moved soundlessly across the floor. When he reached the trailer, he slammed his shoulder up against it and pressed his face to the gap in the slats.

As hoped, Luis let out a strangled cry of alarm.

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