Sixty

Kootenai Canyon, Montana

Four days.

Michael slid his spatula under the pancake and gave it a flip. She’d been gone for four days. No update. No word. Nothing. It was like she’d dropped off the face of the planet. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected after his ill-advised call to Phillip Song. Armageddon? Livingston Shaw himself, delivered to his doorstep, surrounded by Pips? If he were completely honest, a part of him had wanted that. For it to be over, one way or another. A confrontation would finally free him. Instead, he’d gotten more of the same. Silence. Nothing. Waiting.

“Your flapjacks are burning.”

Miss Ettie’s voice snapped him back. She was right. Smoke was beginning to curl up from the skillet in front of him, carrying the smell of charred batter and chocolate. “Shit,” he muttered as he jerked the skillet off the burner. He shot an apologetic smile over his shoulder at the pair sitting at the kitchen table. “Sorry, guys.”

Christina gave him an indifferent shrug while Alex stared out the window like he was waiting for something. He’d been doing that a lot lately. Most days his behavior was puzzling at best, leaving Michael to wonder if he even knew what was going on, but every once in a while he caught a sharpness in the boy’s gaze that told him Alex Koto saw and understood more than he pretended to.

“Why don’t you let me take over,” Miss Ettie said as she gently pried the spatula from his grip. “Besides, I think everyone’s about finished with breakfast.” Some unseen signal passed between the old woman and the kids at the table and they stood to carry their plates to the sink. He moved away from the stove, leaning against the counter with a small nod. He’d made enough pancakes to feed the four of them for a week.

“Okay.” He peeled one without chocolate chips off the stack and handed it down to the dog at his side. She craned her neck slightly before nipping it softly from his hand. She licked her chops and whined, pressing her head against his knee. Without Sabrina, Avasa was as lost as he was, but at least she wasn’t sitting at the back door anymore, waiting for her to come back.

“You’re done moping,” Miss Ettie said sternly as soon as the children left the room to wash up. “I want you out of this house.”

He almost laughed. Not many people in his life saw fit to boss him around like that. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m serious, Michael,” she said, using her tiny frame to shoulder herself in farther between him and the mess he’d made. “And I don’t mean go out to the barn and listen to that damnable radio hiss static at you for hours on end. I want you to get your boots on and go for a walk.” She picked up the spatula and started to scrape burnt chocolate from the bottom of the skillet. “A long one.”

His gaze found its way to the antique larder that’d been converted into gun storage. It’d been a few days since anyone had walked their fence line. Not since Sabrina had taken Christina out with her the day Maddox showed up. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

“Okay, you win.” He looked down at the dog again before nodding. “Whaddya say, girl, feel like a walk?”

Avasa chuffed at him softly before ambling over to the back door to sit down and wait.

–––––

Thirty minutes later, Michael carried his boots outside and sat down to pull them on, loosening the laces just enough to slip his foot inside before pulling them tight again. He glanced at the barn. Aside from his little field trip, he’d been within sprinting distance of it—and the radio inside—since Sabrina left. He’d fallen asleep last night on the hood of his car, listening to dead air, just like Miss Ettie had accused him of.

“Mogu li ya poyti s toboy?” Can I go with you?

Michael glanced up from the boot he was lacing to find Alex standing beside him. He’d traded his sneakers for sturdy boots and added a lightweight jacket. A .22 rifle was slung over his bony shoulder.

It was the first time the boy had spoken directly to him in days and the first time he’d ever shown interest in spending time with him. “Da,” he said to the boy, nodding his head before standing. Avasa was already waiting for him, sitting at the lip of the bridge, her tail swishing impatiently in the dirt. “Ty gotov idti?” Are you ready to go? Instead of answering, the boy nodded on his way down the stairs. Michael chuckled softly as he shouldered his TAC-50 before following suit.

They walked for a while in silence, the dog jogging a few paces ahead, nose to the ground, before circling back to wedge herself between them. Every few minutes, she’d catch scent of something up ahead and trot off to investigate before coming back.

The grass along the fence line had grown thick and high. It shuttered and hissed, rattled by a low-sweeping wind. The sound of it caught Avasa’s attention and she shot forward before banking left to dive into the waving sea of green. They both stopped walking, Alex watching the dog while Michael watched him. Something was going on with the boy. Something beyond his carefully blank stares and firmly held secrets.

“Pochemu ty zdes’, Aleks?” Why are you here, Alex? The question came out of nowhere. If anyone had asked him the same thing, he’d have told them that Alex was here because he was like the rest of them. Lost and alone. Despite the truth of it, Michael was suddenly sure that his orphan status had nothing to do with why Alex was here.

The boy turned toward him, dark gaze sharp. “Potomu chto vy menya nuzhno.” Because you need me.

Michael opened his mouth to tell him that he knew. He knew the boy could speak English. That he could probably speak it all along. He knew he was hiding something. Or that he was hiding from something. “Look—”

Alex held up a hand, palm flat and pressed against the air between them. “Shhh,” he said without even bothering to look at Michael, the sound blending perfectly with the wind as it whispered through the grass. “Sushchestvuyet kto-to zdes’.” There is someone here.

It wasn’t the boy’s words that silenced him. It was the certainty behind them that had him lifting the TAC to fit it against his shoulder, eye pressed to the scope. He caught sight of their cattle—no more than a couple hundred head—a few miles out. Their heads were hung low, big, soft jaws rolling slowly as they chewed up the meadow. They looked relaxed. Undisturbed.

“I don’t see anything,” he said quietly, sweeping the rifle from left to right. He lowered the TAC to look at the boy. “YA ne vizhu nich—”

Just then Avasa shot through the grass, ears tucked against her sleek skull, the strip of hair running down the length of her spine standing straight, even more ridged than before. She stood in front of him, lips peeled away from her teeth in a quivering, silent snarl.

Michael immediately lifted the TAC to do another sweep just as another gust of wind swept through the valley. That’s when he caught the flutter of it. A spent parachute, nearly the same bright green as the grass that surrounded it, billowing gently in the breeze.

Shit.

“Do you remember what my friend Ben looks like?” he said, his tone held low. When the boy didn’t answer he chanced a quick look, pulling his eye off the scope. “No more pretending, Alex. I know you speak perfect English. Now, do you remember what Ben looks like?”

Alex hesitated a moment before he nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.” Michael eyed the .22 rifle Alex had slung over his shoulder. “Go home. You see anyone you don’t recognize, kill them,” he said, pulling his gaze away from the rifle to find the boy watching the distance, eyes aimed in the same direction he’d been looking just a moment before. “Can you do that?”

Alex lifted his gaze, settling it on his face. “What about the big one?” he asked in a dispassionate tone. “Should I kill him too?”

The big one … It took Michael a second to realize he was talking about Lark. A few seconds longer to shake his head. “No. But you can shoot him in the leg if you want.”

“Okay,” Alex said before turning to head back the way they’d come without saying anything else.