Hellbent

36 Fresh Air

Joey answered the front door of the Burbank safe house. She looked like hell — swollen eyes, gray skin, her hair mussed.

Evan moved past her off the porch, swung the door shut. “Did you check the security screen before opening?”

“Nah. I figured I’d play door Russian roulette. You know, maybe it’s you, maybe it’s Van Sciver.”

“It’s increasingly hard to get a direct answer out of you,” Evan said.

“Yeah, well, sprinting the marathon means not a lot of sleep.”

He glanced immediately at the laptops, code streaming across both screens, progress bars filling in. “So nothing yet.” He failed to keep the impatience from his voice.

“I would’ve called.”

He took in the bare-bones house, wondering if it felt similar to the hangar in which Van Sciver had kept her. Or the apartment Jack had hidden her in. That familiar feeling compressed his chest again. He thought about her reading that Thanksgiving card last night, her legs tucked beneath her on the couch.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“How do you think I’m doing? I’ve been either running for my life or staring at a screen for longer than I can remember. What kind of bullshit existence is that?”

She went to the kitchen counter, cracked another Red Bull.

He had a few hours before his meeting with Benito Orellana in Pico-Union. “Let’s go for a walk,” he said.

“Great. A walk. Like I’m a dog. You’re gonna take me around the block?” She stopped herself, rubbed her face, heaved an exhale through her fingers. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m being a bitch.”

“You’re not,” Evan said. “Come on. Fresh air.”

She gave a half smile, swept her hair to one side. “I remember fresh air.”

She followed him out. The invigorating smell of Blue Point juniper reminded him of the parking lot in Portland. They’d had a lot of close calls already, a lot of hours together in the trenches.

They turned left and headed up the street, Evan keeping alert, scanning cars, windows, rooftops. Wild parrots chattered overhead, moving from tree to tree. Their calls were loud and strident and somehow lovely, too. As Evan and Joey walked, they watched the birds clustering and bickering and flying free. Evan thought he detected some longing in Joey’s face.

“You still haven’t told me your full first name,” Evan said.

“Right. Let me think. Oh, that would be… none of your business.” She gave him a little shove on his shoulder, pushing him into the gutter.

“I’ll tell you my full first name,” he said. “I’ve never told anyone.”

“It’s not just Evan?”

“It’s Evangelique.”

“Really?”

“No.”

She laughed a big, wide laugh, covering her mouth.

A pair of guys came around the corner ahead, one riding on a hoverboard, the other a longboard, the wheels skipping across the cracks in the sidewalk. They wore hoodies with skater logos and throwback checkered Vans.

The hoverboard hit a concrete bump pushed up by a tree root and the guy fell over, skinning his hands.

Evan was about to tell Joey to keep walking when she called out, “You okay?”

The guy picked himself up as they approached. “All good.”

His friend, a burly kid, stepped on the tail of his longboard and flipped it up, catching it by the front truck. He looked to be in his late teens, maybe twenty. His hair was cropped short on the sides, the top gathered tightly in a man bun.

Evan didn’t like him.

And he didn’t like how he was looking at Joey.

“Hey, I’m Connor. You guys live around here?”

“No,” Evan said. “Visiting a friend.”

“Well,” the guy said, directing his attention at Joey, “if you’re around again, we hang at the old zoo most nights.” He pointed up the street toward Griffith Park. “To chill. You should come.”

Evan mentally graphed the angle of uppercut that would snap both hinges of his jaw.

“She’s busy,” he said.

“When?”

“Forever.”

As they passed, Connor said in a low voice, “Dude. Your pops is intense.”

Joey said, “You have no idea.”

They left the guys behind, turning the corner for their street.

“Think he’s a plant?” Joey asked.

“No. I think he’s a useless reprobate. Loose body language. The stoner nod. He’s not good.”

“I thought he was kinda cute.”

Evan said, “You’re grounded.”

“Like, locked-in-a-safe-house-and-forced-to-hack-an-encrypted-laptop grounded?”

Evan said, “Yes.”

A smile seemed to catch her by surprise. She looked away to hide it.

He gave her a little nudge on the shoulder, tipping her into the gutter.