While he had not yet been convicted—or even formally charged—with a crime, thirteen-year-old Jalen Rose found himself under what amounted to house arrest. This was done for two reasons, the first being that local police and multiple three-letter agencies wanted unimpeded access to interviewing Jalen. The other reason for the isolation was for his own safety. Everyone in the U.S., from the press, to private citizens, to nutcases, was trying to figure out the identity of the kid in the video wearing a VR headset gleefully running over actual human beings.
He was an accidental mass murderer. After a couple of weeks, his confinement had become reality and the safe house in the podunk town of Clarkston his new home. It was as if he were a castaway, trapped on an island that was not only physical, but emotional as well. Once his picture started circulating on the national news—even with the VR headset obscuring his identity—Jalen felt exposed. If someone knew it was him, he’d be America’s most hated human and a target. He deactivated all his social media accounts. He turned off his iPhone and left it in a bowl on the kitchen counter. The only account he left active was Twitch, but when he finally went online to delete that one as well, he found the government had already done it for him: User not found.
And if the overbearing, unwelcome eye of the U.S. government’s security detail was not enough, Ronnie had hired a guy of his own, Willie Green. Willie had been Ronnie’s teammate with the Lions, and he supplemented his retirement working private security detail.
“I tell you what,” Ronnie said to Tyra. “I’m not gonna trust no FBI to keep my family safe. No, sir. We take care of our own.”
Since Ronnie had already disclosed the Rose family’s whereabouts to Willie Green, it was decided that it was safer to go ahead and let him stay. So Jalen spent most afternoons with a three-hundred-pound ex-linebacker eating hot wings and working on crossword puzzles.
Which was just as well to Jalen. He had given up TV after the first morning he saw the news footage of the park in Austin. It seemed they would never stop talking about it. Night after night of candlelight vigils. The loved ones crying for the fifty-three people killed. The first time he saw the small towers of flowers piling up in front of the picnic tables, he flicked the TV off and hurled the remote at the screen.
While most kids would be happy to have their divorced parents reunited under one roof, Jalen knew it just meant he’d be in the middle of the verbal equivalent of a UFC fight. When the yelling got to be too much, Jalen would sneak out at night, lifting his bedroom window and dropping down silently into the grass. He never wanted to go anywhere in particular; he just needed to get out of the safe house. So he could think. He figured if he spent the rest of his life trying, he could do enough good to offset all of the harm he had caused. On one of those nights, he was walking, thinking about how he could fix things, when he realized he’d reached the filling station a mile from his house. He saw a bum slumped against the wall outside the gas station, an empty Styrofoam cup in his limp hand.
Jalen pulled a couple of dollars out of his pocket and bent down. “Here you go,” he said to the man.
“Two dollars?” the man yelled. “Come on, man. Can’t even buy a Big Mac for two dollars!” The bum’s eyes were wild, and the whites of his eyes yellow. He crumpled the money and threw it back.
Later, alone in his bed, Jalen pulled the thick tartan comforter over his shoulders and went to sleep, praying, as he did every night, that tomorrow would be different. That like in his video games, he might somehow die and begin again.
Before Wyatt even opened his eyes, he heard the sound of birds. Their early-morning warbling cut through the woods outside his window, growing louder with the coming dawn. Wyatt stirred in his cot, under the wool blanket, unwilling to open his eyes, forgetting for a minute he was back.
He dressed quickly and stepped out onto the porch. He knew he could not do anything until he talked to someone, but it was not a conversation he was eager to have. He went to the lodge, poured a mug of the hot chocolate Mum made every morning. He took a sip, sweet and hot. Maybe too sweet. He tried something he’d seen older campers do. He poured out some of the hot chocolate and added half a cup of coffee to his mug. He tried it. Not bad. Bitter and sweet. He drained the cup and walked out under the evergreens, heavy and wet with the morning, and made his way down to the Caldera.
From a distance, the Caldera looked ominous, but within the rocky bowl was another world altogether—green and thick with plant life. Pools of clear water dotted the basin, and woven into the interior was the heart of Valor: an obstacle course and shooting range, swimming pool and soccer field, a climbing wall and helicopter landing pad, all manner of military vehicles, camp offices, storage areas, indoor training facilities, and of course, Avi’s secret security lair. All housed in a series of cave-like bunkers dug into the rock cliffs that ringed the inside of the Caldera.
Wyatt hadn’t seen her yet, but he had a good idea where to find her. He punched the buttons on the keypad and entered the bunker that served as the armory. A cold, sterile locker filled with every weapon imaginable. Wyatt had only taken a few steps across the concrete floor before he heard a familiar click and felt the cold metal at the nape of his neck.
“What are you doing in here?” The woman’s voice was raspy and calm.
“Looking for you.” Wyatt turned slowly. He held his hands up, staring beyond the barrel of a Desert Eagle into a face that was half drop-dead gorgeous and half laced in burn scars coming together to make a terrifying yet beautiful face. “Hey, Cass.”
“Heard you were back.” She drew the gun back and put it in the holster on her hip.
Wyatt forced a smile, but he could not keep eye contact. His stomach swirled with butterflies. Her dark eyes. Her tan, perfectly sculpted shoulders. She was so much like her younger sister it caught his breath, except for the fine scars that she wore like a veil on the right side of her face.
“Why won’t you look at me?” Cass said, stepping closer.
“I am.” Wyatt lifted his chin and gazed at her through his shaggy bangs. Still, he could say nothing.
Cass’s long dark hair had been shaved months ago when the doctors removed the 9mm that had been lodged in her skull in the firefight with the Glowworm, but it was now growing back.
“I know what you think.” She stepped even closer. So close he could see the slight deviation of her fake right eye. “And it’s not your fault.”
A huge knot swelled in Wyatt’s throat. “It is.”
“No, what happened to my sister—”
“Was because of me. I was supposed to keep her safe and I got her killed.”
“Don’t you dare cry.”
“I’m not.” Wyatt gritted his teeth and pushed the knot back.
“It was her time. She knew the risks. Dolly was a soldier. And soldiers go when it’s their time. You can’t control that. Nobody controls that. It’s what we sign up for.”
“But Hallsy and I were close … I should’ve known.”
“You should have? Hallsy and I were together at one time. If anyone was close enough to know, it was me. We can’t undo what’s been done…” Cass drew a Sig Sauer P229 Compact from the back of her belt and laid it in Wyatt’s palm. “But we can go after him.”
Wyatt curled his fingers around the cold grip and looked her square in the face. “That’s the only reason I came back.”
“If you’re going to be sneaking into my lair without permission…” a voice said behind them.
They turned to see Avi, drone goggles propped on his head. “Then you better let me help.”