Page 2 of The Wild Charge

“Reese,” his handler said, in his familiar, grindstone voice. “Get ready.”

He lifted his head, and took a breath; flexed his arms as best he could to feel the chain dig into his wrists.

“Engagement in three-two…one.”

The first man came barreling out of the dark. Reese tightened his core, ready, and waited, waited – struck. His bare foot caught the man in the throat, and sent him reeling back, coughing, choking, clutching at his Adam’s apple.

There was the second man, and Reese let him get in closer than he’d let the other – so he could lock his thighs around his throat and squeeze. The man gasped, wheezed, and started pummeling him, at his hips, and legs, and waist; one solid blow against his ribs sent a hard shudder through Reese’s body; he swore he felt the vessels burst, felt the first stirrings of what would be a nasty bruise.

But he held tight, sitting now on the man’s shoulders, the chain slack above him.

He twisted his wrists, working against the binding – and then was free.

He laced his hands – numb and full of pins and needles from being overhead – together tightly, and then brought them down hard on the man’s temple. The man fell, and Reese managed to jump clear and land lightly on his feet, ready to meet the next attack.

In a matter of moments, he stood alone in the center of the shed, in the puddle of pale light that fell in through the gaps in the ceiling panels, the crumpled forms of much larger, stronger men sprawled unconscious around him.

His handler stepped forward, then, the light cutting across his impassive face like a knife. He surveyed Reese, from his ruffled, pale hair, to the bare toes dug into the earth. He nodded, once. “Better than last time. We’ll try it again tomorrow.”

Reese took a breath, and let it out, the pain electric through his ribs.

He was fifteen years old, and this was his only purpose.

One

Five years ago, a man named Benjamin Ruse had approached a woman in a pub in London. Younger than her, too young, really, barely out of school, but tall, and blue-eyed, and gorgeous. The lights had gleamed off the product in his hair, and off his smooth, high cheekbones, his fine, poreless skin. He’d leaned up against the bar beside her, and given her alook, one wiser and more experienced than his age would have indicated.

He’d bought her next round, and then the next.

She’d twisted her ring off and slipped it into her purse in the cab ride. Poured them more wine when they got to the flat…and never saw the granules he slipped into her glass when she wasn’t looking.

Her husband, an important member of parliament, arrived home after eleven to a dark flat. When he clicked on the lamp, he saw his wife laid out on the sofa, asleep – and a strange man in the chair. His favorite chair.

And a young man, at that. He’d grinned, a fast slice of white teeth in the dim lamplight. “Hi, honey, welcome home.”

Benjamin Ruse had made two other appearances: once on a horseback riding outing with a Saudi prince, one he then wound up in bed with, and took some extremely compromising photos of. And the last time in an elevator in Hong Kong, where two British officials had arrived on their designated floor sprawled atop one another on the floor of the cab, strangled to death.

Tenny had always considered it his favorite alias. Benjamin Ruse was suave, and sophisticated; charming to men and women. And Ruse was especially fun to say, knowing the word play at hand. It was the name he’d given to Ratchet when he first arrived in Knoxville, and found himself in need of a believably fake driver’s license, in case he ever got pulled over in a routine traffic stop, or wanted to buy beer, or get into a club.

But he hadn’t had a name, then.

Ratchet spun away from his laptop, a small, shiny plastic card in one hand. He scanned it, frowning to himself.

Tenny resisted the urge to fidget; he’d never been a fidgeter before, in his pre-name, only-a-number life. Lots of things were changing; the chaos of that infuriated him…even though, when he allowed himself to admit it, he didn’t want to go back.

He wanted to snatch the card from Ratchet’s stupid hand, but he waited, taking measured breaths.

“You sure?” Ratchet asked, finally looking at him, lifting a single brow. “About the last name, I mean.”

Ratchetwasstupid…but not as stupid as some of the others. Bit of a savant, really, and that meant he didn’t go in for some of the social word games that bored Tenny so much.

“I’m sure,” he said, and held out his hand.

Ratchet placed the new driver’s license into it. “Okay. Cool. Here you go.”

Tenny lifted it to his face. Smoothed his thumb across its shiny surface. His own face stared up at him, the smirking pose he’d struck in front of a pinned-up sheet last week. Height, weight, a Knoxville address – the clubhouse’s to be exact. And the name that he was going to use from now on.Hisname.

Tennyson Fox.

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