I really did hate him.
The body, a man in his seventies, was sprawled in the tall weeds by a detached concrete building—too big to be a shed, too small to be a garage. The decomposition was more advanced than that of those in the Institute, but Wyoming had had some rare rain over the past week and the coyotes hadn’t let some fast food of their own pass by. Both Stefan and Saul leaned in for a closer look and then stepped back a few paces when the smell truly hit them. To me it wasn’t any worse than the smell of cooking cabbage coming from the Institute cafeteria—different but no worse, and in some ways, not as bad. Cabbage was disgusting.
“They came straight here from the Institute.” I straightened from my crouch. “He was about a month away from a massive stroke. A dead man walking, isn’t that what they say? No challenge, no fun. They didn’t bother to play with him. One of them simply blew out his aorta and down he went.”
“I’d say that’s something at least, but I’m not sure it is.” Stefan was slowly picking up on these chimeras being nothing like me. That was good. It would make him more careful. “Let’s take a look in the outbuilding, then get the hell out of here while you explain how we’re going to track down this pack of rabid human wolves and fix them.”
“Kids did this,” Saul mused. “I know what you guys have said, but it’s weird to see.”
“This?” I shook my head and tossed him my own phone. “This is nothing. If they had it in them, you could almost call it a mercy killing. Here. I transferred some of the Institute video onto it. Take a look. You might want to see for yourself what all of this really is.”
Stefan tried the handle on the metal door. It was locked. He tried kicking it down as he had the front door of the house, but he only ended up cursing. “I think that poor bastard thought Y2K was the end times and planned on riding it out here. You can pick the lock or I can shoot it out.”
“How do you know I can pick locks?” I asked suspiciously.
“Assassin, drug lord, bomber, hacker, man of a million identities. Now that you’ve come out of the closet as a master criminal and not the little brother who can’t understand Lolcats, I’m pretty sure there’s not much out there illegal that you can’t do.” He didn’t appear pleased at that, only tired. “You grew up to be me. It’s not what I wanted, Misha.”
“It’s not real,” I said quietly. “It’s not forever. It’s only until we’re safe for good. And I don’t make any money off any of it. I’m a pro bono criminal.” I tried to smile. It didn’t feel real either. “We’re the only ones who benefit from it and that benefit is staying alive. It’s not the same as what you had to do.” I didn’t want to disappoint Stefan, but I didn’t want him dead either. I’d do what I had to, just as he had.
I fished inside my jeans pocket for a tiny packet of metal tools rolled up in a piece of felt. As I went to work on the lock, I heard Saul make a sound. If there was a word for it, that particular mixture of horror and disbelief, I didn’t know what it was. I could hear the tinny screams from my phone and then Peter’s and Wendy’s voices. But the time I had the door unlocked, Saul gave the phone back to me. “Okay,” he said, brusque and pale under that leathery Miami tan. “I’ve seen it. I get it now. Let’s go.” I noticed he’d dropped the phone into my hand without touching my fingers. I had a feeling there would be no more “Mikey’s” from now on. I’d wanted respect. I had it. I hadn’t wanted fear, but I had that too.
If wishes were horses, they’d kick you in the gut and, when you were down, dump a steaming load of manure on your head. Why didn’t useless homilies ever tell it to you straight?
“We’re in.” I put away the picks and my phone.