“You!” He squawks, and points.
“YOU!” I shout. “How are you still alive? I FIFA’d your balls!”
“What the hell is she doing here?” He snarls at Jack. Jack sighs.
“Isis Blake, meet Charlie Moriyama.”
“Already have,” Charlie and I say at the same time. I glare. He narrows his narrow eyes even further.
“Look, we don’t have time for this shit,” Charlie looks to Jack. “We were supposed to be there five minutes ago. Let’s not f**king blow this, okay?”
Jack sighs and hefts off the bed, looking at me. “I’ll be back later. We’ll talk more then.”
“Sure, yeah, just work with the bad guys. See if I care.”
“Isis –”
“We’re GOING,” Charlie shouts, grabbing a towel off the end of his bed and slamming the door behind him. Jack frowns, and follows reluctantly.
And I do the same. From at least five meters and two cars away. Charlie drives a white Nissan with a broken taillight. My mind runs circles around itself as they lead me down the highway and away from school. Why has Jack shacked up with Tweed-jerk and Small Balls? Tweed talked about wanting to hire him, but I still don’t know for what. I guess he succeeded. Let’s be real though - Jack let him succeed. Everything that happens to Jack is exactly because Jack lets it happen. Except me. But that’s a different story, full of illegality and joy.
Jack said he’s working, which means, what? He’s at school, but on a job for Tweed? What job, stealing good grades for the poor-grade people? What could Tweed’s company possibly do for money, other than stand there and look dumb? It doesn’t make any sense and it makes less sense when Charlie pulls into a huge, white-stone plaza surrounded by a posh apartment building. A security booth lets cars in and out of the massive parking garage. Charlie’s Nissan disappears, and I pull up next. The security guard is a tan guy with a neat beard.
“Hey there, who are you here to see?” He asks.
“Um,” My brain scrabbles for a reason, and like all good brains, makes me blurt the first thing that comes to mind instead. “Jesus….? Christ.”
He squints, and just when I’m convinced he’ll launch a row of spikes under my car and into my tires, he smiles.
“Ah, yeah, you must be here for the North Presbyterian dinner.”
“Yeah! That’s right. Praise the lord!”
He nods. “Go on in, visitor parking is on the left.”
Either the rest of the world is exceedingly dumb today, or I’ve gotten smarter. Thanks, college. Wait, who am I kidding? College hasn’t taught me anything yet except how to have panic attacks and not pay attention to professors at all. Correction: thanks, National Geographic.
I park and walk slowly behind Jack and Charlie, who are waiting outside a fenced door that leads to the elevators. After minutes of silent agony in which I almost twist my ankle trying to hide behind a pillar when Charlie looked behind him, a red-head with a black bikini on opens the door for them. She bats her eyelashes at Jack and I pretend I did not see, the same way I pretended not to see the end of the Titanic. Then again she has titties up to her eyes and she has a wonderful smile and if Jack’s taste in women has changed then he should by all means bed her, because she looks fairly fun and also cute and who am I to get in the way of true love? Nobody. Nobody should get in the way of true love. Not even well-meaning Italian arch-nemesis families.
The three turn a corner and take the stairs, and gracefully as a Koga ninja I make a mad dash to the door and manage to jam my pinky finger in it just before it closes and locks me out.
“Banana shitcake!” I whisper loudly and nurse the tip of my finger in my mouth as I take the stairs. “What does a lady have to do to get a warm reception around here?”
“Stop her stalking habit, perhaps?”
I whirl around to see Jack leaning against the railing behind me. I look downstairs to my escape door, back to his calm yet irritated face, and then I peek over the railing.
“How many stories does it take before you break your knees? Medically? Asking for a friend.”
“Don’t you dare jump.”
Jump. Sophia jumped. I flinch, but Jack is a tower of ice, murky and rigid and unreadable. I draw myself up to my full intimidating five feet five inches of height.
“I am out,” I say with great dignity. “For a stroll. I wasn’t stalking you.”
“You were following Charlie and I. I saw your car.”
“Oh. In that case, yes, I was stalking you.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says without missing a beat. “Nameless might be here.”
I grit my teeth, but manage words. “So? I don’t care about him. I want to know what you’re doing in Tweed’s company, and why. Is it dangerous? You said you wouldn’t join them, you said –”
“I said a lot of things,” Jack sighs and rubs his eyes. “- before Sophia died that I ended up regretting.”
My stomach churns. Was saying he liked me one of them? I shake my head – selfish. Stop being so f**king selfish and focus.
“Since when is going to a barbeque work?” I hiss.
“Since the one throwing the party is our target.”
“Uh, hello? Earth to Zabadoobian Jack? This is reality, not Call of Duty. There are no ‘targets’.”
“In my line of work, there are,” he answers.
“And what, pray tell, is your line of work?”
Jack’s frigid eyes harden, becoming clear and sharp as he answers. “I’m a freelance intelligence agent.”
I quirk a brow and look suitably confused.
“Spy,” he translates. “Now go back to your dorm, and leave this to me.”
I bluster about for ten seconds, squirreling my hands together. I say ‘sp’ a lot, but never quite manage to get the ‘y’ out. Jack, ever sensitive to my plight, turns and leaves. I follow.
“S-Spy?” I choke. “What blind idiot died and made you a spy? You’re like…you’re…what’s the word for the opposite of ‘subtle’?”
“Isis Blake,” Jack offers.
“Jack Hunter!” I correct. “Jack Hunter isn’t subtle.”
“I’m very subtle when a girl shouting ‘spy’ isn’t following me,” He argues.
“You’re a mobile, permafrost glacier with killer eyebrows and rapiers for eyes. People don’t forget Jack Hunter so easily.”
“I wish they would,” Jack murmurs. It sounds so hollow and weak, so unlike him. I slap him on the back.
“Nonsense! You can never be forgotten. If you were, the last major glacier on planet Earth would fade from existence, and global warming would become a very scary reality. Scarier than it already is. And closer. And hotter. In the temperature sense, not the let’s sex it up sense.”
Jack stops walking and stares at me. I stare back. There’s a profound quiet. Bikini girl chooses that moment to run into the stairwell and give Jack a very drunk kiss on the cheek, accompanied by an extremely subtle drop of a pink condom wrapper as she runs back out. I pick it up and hand it to him.
“Wrap your willy before you get silly,” I remind. Jack facepalms spectacularly and I count at it as a victory because at least he is not sad-looking, he is something-else-looking and it’s not much, but it’s better than sad. He comes up with the barest smile on his lips, but he quashes it quickly.