He fell against the couch and landed with a grunt of pain. I leaned over him with a pillow, and for a moment I saw fear streak his eyes. He thought I was going to smother him as he looked up at me.
I smiled sweetly and placed it behind him instead. I patted it and said, “Lean back, you must be so sore after shooting yourself.”
“It’s good to see you two getting along,” Mom said as she swept into the living room with a tray. She had a cold can of beer and some slices of Reg’s favorite sausage on a little plate. She set it down in front of him and smiled. “Is there anything else you need?”
“Yeah,” Reg said, and looked up at me with a menacing glare. I thought for a moment he might tell on me and alert Mom to the way I’d just treated him, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “The remote. I want to watch TV.”
“Of course, dear,” Mom said and I stepped back as she took her spot on the couch next to him. They were happy that way, side by side, night after night, nothing to interrupt their boring lives.
But then Mom looked at me with her brow raised and said, “One thing doesn’t add up, though.”
I took a breath and held it, expecting her to catch on that I was the one who shot her husband.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Who cleaned up the dining room? You were gone, and we weren’t in town. You’d never know there had been an accident in there,” she said.
“That was a volunteer group,” Reg said quickly. “They help out after accidents like this.”
“Oh wow, how amazing,” Mom said. “You’ll have to get me their contact information so I can send them a thank you card or something.”
“Yes, definitely,” Reg said and Mom snuggled against him. It made me sick to see her cozying up to him, especially after everything I knew. He must have been reading my thoughts, though, because he shot me a cruel, hard look and said, “Are you gonna stand there like an idiot all night? Or do you have shit to work on?”
He turned on the TV to the sports review show he loved so much, and I left the two of them alone.
It wasn’t going to be easy with Reg back in the house, but I thought I could handle it. I could keep it under control.
At least I hoped I could.
* * *
“You have to shoot him again,”Penny told me with such an excitement in her voice I wondered if my best friend had changed in the time we’d been apart.
I finally told her on Saturday when the Kings had a football game and we were able to meet up at long last. There had been tears and hugs, but everything had been back to normal within moments. We had met at the library, our usual spot, but decided to walk to the shopping district nearby so we could sit in a Starbucks and sip chai lattes while catching up.
I couldn’t hold it in for more than a few minutes after sitting down. We got a table near the side of the store, but the good thing about any busy coffee shop was that people were too self-involved or too loud to pay attention to what we were saying.
Penny had known something was up and kept giving me the look. The one that would drag information out of the most seasoned spy if she wanted it.
So I gave in and told her about Reg, the shooting, more details about the drugging and photos, and of course about the Organization.
“I can’t just shoot him,” I whispered, and looked around to see if anyone had overheard. “What would I do then? Either the Organization sends me to jail, or I get shipped off to some foreign country where I’m never seen again.”
“Can’t your Kings help you?” she asked.
“They want to, but what can they do at the end of the day? They could help hide me, but we’re all trapped by this whole thing. Whoever is behind it has been doing it for years, and from what I can tell, the Organization has their roots in just about every level of government. I don’t even know if we could leave the country.”
“And they might have people in other countries by the sound of it,” Penny said. “Then we have to kill whoever’s at the top. We have to set you free any way how.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” I told her, but I loved her for her fierce loyalty. “I want to keep you safe. This is my battle to fight, and I was pulled into it even before my mom hooked up with Reg, I think.”
“Are you a legacy like Kingston?”
“My mom was never Tribute, so I don’t know,” I said. “But the Organization mentioned my father and a debt he owed. And you know I have zero fucking clue who he is. My mom has lied so many times about his identity, he could be anybody at this point.”
“You did a good thing, though,” Penny said, putting her hand on my arm to comfort me. I couldn’t help myself, whenever I talked about this entire situation too much, I began to spin out of control. It was a combination of frustration and fear, but also anger and aggression. I was terrified of the Organization, and yet I wanted to tear them down and burn them at the roots. “Without you, Nat would have been next. Let’s hope you at least did that for her.”
“Yes, let’s hope,” I replied and sipped my chai. I could taste the bitter cinnamon they’d sprinkled on the top of it, and it reminded me of something. “Did I tell you I’m not taking my pills?”