“Okay, Michael it is,” I conceded, and was rewarded with a slight loosening of his wiry frame. I continued with a hard-won casual tone. “Could you hop in the car, Michael? We’re in something of a hurry here.”
His yes or no on that didn’t matter. I hadn’t come this far to have him go pelting off into the darkness like a jackrabbit. If worse came to worst, I’d bundle him up in a blanket with some duct tape and toss him in the backseat. His frame of mind right now couldn’t be counted on to be anything but a little askew. It would be nice if he made the right decision if only for future trust issues, but it wasn’t strictly necessary. I would do what I had to.
Studying me with fathomless eyes, his face gave nothing away as the scrutiny stretched on. Saul, an obviously budding diplomat, shifted his weight urgently, checked his watch, then growled, “Kid, it’s simple. You can go with him or wait for the nut ball ninja in the jockey shorts. Make the call already, would ya?”
As he bowed his head, Lukas’s lips thinned, and I heard his soft exhalation. “Simple.” There were myriad emotions in that echo. Most were so fleeting, I could barely get a feeling for the flavor of them, but none of them were childlike—incredulity, resignation, and the blackest of black amusement. There were more, but it didn’t matter. . . . Lukas had chosen his path. Without looking at either of us, he trudged across the dirt and climbed into my car.
Following him, I slid in behind the steering wheel and slammed the door shut. Saul leaned into the open window. His mask was still in place, but I could see his eyes, bloodshot from sleepless nights that had no doubt started the day he’d made his bargain with me. I hoped he enjoyed the money I’d given him. He deserved every penny and then some. “Thanks, Saul.” Inadequate didn’t even begin to cover that statement, but it was all I had left to my name. “I owe you, Skoczinsky.”
“Yeah, like that’s news.” Once again I could hear the grin. “Send me a stripper-gram every year on my birthday and we’ll call it even.”
Saul had given me all the help I could pay for. Even more, he’d given me all I could ask for, and he’d given me a friendship I thought I was beyond. In our world it was nothing short of goddamn amazing. “Stay low, Saul. For a while at least.” It wasn’t much of a good-bye, but I’d never developed the talent for that—not with the practice I’d been given.
“You’re preaching to the choir, Korsak,” he drawled, and slapped the top of the car. Here he could use my actual name for the last time, as this was most likely also the last time he’d see me. “Now get out of here before you drain my will to live with that god-awful boring shirt.” With that and a short two-fingered salute, he turned and walked away. Pushing my hair behind my ears, I started the car and put it in motion. I didn’t look back to see Saul get into his own car. If I had faith in anything, it was in his competence when it came to survival. I simply drove, into either a new life or the dark mirror version of an old one; I wasn’t sure which.
“Fasten your seat belt,” I said absently as I kept an eye out for pursuit. “Michael,” I added belatedly. Jesus, all of a sudden I was a soccer mom—perhaps the most lethal soccer mom in the tri-state area.
There was the quiet snick of the latching mechanism and I spared a glance for my brother, sitting detached and classroom straight in the passenger seat. “Are you all right?” I asked with quiet concern. If there were a more stupid question to be asked, I couldn’t think of it at the time, but it was sincerely said and sincerely felt. Lukas appeared to realize that. At least I hoped he did, maybe so much so that I was fooling myself into seeing something that wasn’t there.
“This is no worse than the other tests.” A long strand of brown hair fell across his forehead to the straight and uncompromising line of his brows as he looked at me, then away. His gaze lost out of his window, he queried evenly, “What will my punishment be? For failing?”
This test bullshit was turning into a broken record, a damn perturbing one. A disturbing piece to an ugly puzzle, it made me wonder for the thousandth time what was going on in that compound. What had happened to Lukas and the others? “Why do you think you failed?” It was the only question that wouldn’t lead to a cascading domino of others that neither of us was ready for.