Cooper’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “Who was he?”
“Her mentor,” Shannon said. “You know how academies work? Every kid has a mentor, always a normal, who is their, well, everything. The academies are all about setting us at each other’s throats. The mentor is the one person you’re supposed to be able to trust. Of course, they’re the real monsters, but you don’t understand that as a kid. They’re just adults who are nice to you. And since you don’t have a mom or a dad or brothers or sisters or even a name anymore…” She shrugged. “All children need to love a grown-up. Normal or twist, it’s in the DNA.”
Cooper had that helpless anger again, the feeling he’d experienced when he’d visited the academy, when he’d imagined throwing the director through the goddamn window. He was starting to wish he had.
“Anyway, around the time she turned thirteen, she started looking like she does now. And she had that gift, right? She knew what people wanted. What men wanted.” She took a deep breath, then exhaled. “He convinced her it was love. Even promised to sneak her out of the academy as soon as he could arrange it. And until then, he gave her things to make it easier to bear. Vicodin at first, but he moved her up the ladder fast. By the time he did take her out, she was snorting heroin.
“He set her up in an apartment, but he didn’t pretend to be in love anymore. Just let her get a taste of withdrawal. Then he introduced her to a ‘friend’ of his, and told her what she needed to do to for her next hit. She’s been doing it ever since.”
“Jesus,” Cooper said. When he’d looked at her before, he’d seen raw need in the shape of a woman. Now he saw a teenage girl, strung out and sold by her father and lover. “Is she—the mentor, is he—”
“No. After John graduated the academy, he went looking for her.” Shannon turned to him for the first time since they’d gotten in the car, and he saw that signature smile, lit brake-light red. “Funny thing, her mentor vanished. Never seen again.”
Good for you, John. You may be a terrorist with hands bloody to the elbow. But you did that right, at least.
“She’s independent now, no pimp or anything. But she never really left her mentor behind. She could have been an amazing artist, or a counselor, a healer, but that’s not what the normal world wanted from her. It’s not what the normal world had trained her to do.
“What the normal world wanted was blowjobs on demand from an abnorm whore willing to be their daughter. They don’t even have to feel bad about it. After all, they never said they wanted to screw their daughter; she sensed it. And as for the women, well,” Shannon shrugged, “she’s just a twist.”
She went silent then, the story hanging between them like cigarette smoke as he navigated the darkened city streets. He wanted to argue with her, to tell her that the world didn’t have to be that way, that not all normals fit the picture she was painting.
But then, enough did to keep Samantha in an expensive, well-decorated prison as long as she lived. Or until her beauty began to fade.
It was the world. The only one they had. No one said it was perfect.
“Anyway,” Shannon said. “Even with that bit at the end, she’ll do what she promised. We should be safe from my side, at least until we get to New Canaan. Speaking of which, that’s going to take shiny new identities.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m on it. There’s just one thing we have to get first.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“I have to admit, I figured you were talking about, you know, assault rifles, or some secret newtech spy toy.”
“Disappointed?”