J. Redmerski - Behind The Hands That Kill

“If she’s as tough as everybody says she is, she’ll—”

“Who are you?” I cut in; I did not look at her.

I heard her sigh. She began to adjust her position next to me on the bench; she placed her folded hands on her lap.

Finally she answered, “My name is Naeva. Though you might remember me as the little blond-haired girl who always tried to play with you and Niklas when we were children. Niklas slapped me in the face with a dead snake once. And you—”

“I took the snake from him and forced it in his mouth,” I finished.

I looked over, and Naeva, my baby sister, smiled.

I smiled, too. But it was short-lived. Izabel, clinging to life on the other side of the door just feet from me, controlled all of my emotions.

“Your hair is different,” I said. “It used to be white.”

“I grew up,” she said. “And it turned brown. Like yours.”

I nodded.

After a long time, she asked, “Is he dead?”

“Brant Morrison?”

“Yeah.”

I nodded again. “Yes. He is dead.” Then I glanced over briefly. “Does that bother you?” I hoped she would say no.

She shook her head. “Not at all; actually, I’m relieved.”

The silence went on for another stretch.

I sighed.

Naeva sighed.

There were many questions she and I both wanted, needed , to ask one another: our separation as children; where we have been all these years; what kind of life outside of The Order had we lived, experienced, and shared with others; how long she had been in The Order; how she ended up there in the first place; who raised her after our mother was killed; if she forgave me for killing our father. But this was not the time nor the place to open that book. There were other, more important questions that needed immediate answers, and so I spoke to her not as my long-lost sister, but as any other young woman who might be able to tell me what I needed to know.

“Morrison said that Izabel’s bounty is even higher than my own. Can you tell me why?”

Naeva looked at me and shook her head sadly.

“I don’t know, Victor,” she admitted. “All I do know is that just like you and Niklas, Izabel is to be brought in alive—and unharmed.”

“How much is her bounty?”

“Forty million.”

I blinked, quietly stunned. Forty million? How is that possible? I could not fathom why The Order would want Izabel so desperately, why she was more valuable to them than myself or my brother or Gustavsson, all of whom broke the most sacred of laws. To The Order, Izabel was just an escaped sex slave from a Mexican compound. Or was she?

Then it occurred to me: “At the compound, or anywhere Javier could keep tabs on you and control you, you were not a threat to him. But now that you have escaped, you are a bigger threat than anyone because you know too much. He probably never anticipated you leaving. You being alive and free is a threat to his entire operation and anyone involved in it.”

I thought about that revelatory conversation for a long time, trying to remember it word-for-word.

“The information you hold, no matter how insignificant you think it all is, could bring down a lot of high-profile people.”

I was almost convinced that it was all coming to fruition now, that word did get out about what Izabel knew, after all. I thought perhaps the bounty was so high because several ‘high-profile’ clients all chipped in and hired The Order to find her. But still, it did not make sense to me why, if someone held that many powerful lives in the palms of her hands, she would be wanted alive.

And then something else occurred to me.

I turned my head to see my sister.

“You said Niklas and I are also wanted alive?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yes. That is the condition.” She laughed lightly under her breath, and shook her head. “Brant wasn’t happy when he found out about this. He wanted you dead more than anyone—he could’ve killed you once. I was there; he had you in the sights of his scope; he almost pulled the trigger.” She sighed and looked back out ahead of her. “I think maybe he would’ve if I hadn’t reminded him that if he killed you, they’d come after him next. For a moment, I knew he didn’t care about that; he was going to do it anyway. But at the last second, he moved his finger from the trigger and packed the rifle away. He didn’t speak to me for two days. He didn’t speak to anyone for two days.”

A question I had been asking myself since I set up in Boston and began conducting hits of my own outside of The Order, had finally been answered. How did I manage to stay alive for as long as I did? I may have been smart about it, worked out in the open but stayed out of the open; I may have covered all of my bases, killed anyone who seemed suspicious—except Kessler—but I knew something about still being alive, was too good to be true. And as I sat with my sister on the bench, outside the room where the woman I loved was lying in a hospital bed, the answer had become clear to me. Killing me would have been easier than apprehending me—and killing me was not an option, despite what Morrison said.

Well, you almost had me, Morrison, I thought to myself as I sat there, staring at the wall. And while I was relieved that things did not turn out the way Morrison wanted them to, I was disappointed in myself that he got as close as he did.

“Why are you helping us?” I asked Naeva. “We have not known each other since we were children; you owe me no loyalties.”

I felt her hand touch mine, but I did not look down at it.

“You are my brother, Victor,” she said, and then squeezed my hand. “And who do we have in this world if we don’t have the love of our family.” Her hand slid away. “You and Niklas are all I have. I’d do anything for you.”

I looked over.

“How did you know I was your brother? Does The Order know?”

She nodded. “They know. I found out after you went rogue and Brant started hunting you. He was the one who told me.”

More silence passed between us, and then sometime later, I asked Naeva, “What do you plan to tell The Order about what happened here tonight?”

“I’ll figure it out,” she said. “Of course, I’ll have to explain something about why Brant is dead, but as far as you and Izabel—I’ll manage. Brant knew that he had to turn you in, but he kept everything quiet: the months he spent watching you; his plans to move in on you once he decided the best way to do it—no one knows about tonight, so I have time to figure it out. He knew that if he reported it too soon that every eye would be at his back, every mouth breathing down his neck.”

“So he never called it in,” I said, understanding.

“No. He wanted more from you first. He not only wanted to be the one to take you in, but he wanted to use you to lure in Niklas and Fredrik Gustavsson; he wanted information, numbers, names, etcetera. Brant didn’t just want what everyone else set out to get—he wanted everything . He wanted to make Vonnegut proud.” She paused and then added softly, “But he wanted too much…”

The shift in her tone planted a seed in my head.

“Were you involved with him, Naeva?” I asked gently.

She shook her head sadly. “No,” she answered. “But he was kind to me. He protected me. And I cared about him. He was my teacher just like he was yours.”

“But you told me you are relieved that he is dead.”

She nodded. “And I told you the truth. As much as I cared about him, he probably got what he deserved.”

She looked out ahead at the door to Izabel’s room, pushing down her grief, it seemed. “I do hope that she’ll be OK,” she said moments later, and with all my heart I knew she was being sincere. “I don’t know her, but I’ve heard a lot about her, and I admire her. She’s strong. She’s what I strive to be every day.” There was a sadness in her voice, and I found myself wanting even more to open that book, but we were still in the same time and place. It felt strange to me, to want to reach out to her, to comfort her, to understand her, to protect her, my beautiful and soft baby sister who I could not for the life of me picture being in such a dangerous line of work—it incensed me. But Izabel was my priority, and so I left it alone. Nothing incensed me more than what Artemis did to Izabel.