Jack Mars - Assassin Zero

Maya smiled sadly at the joke, and then cautiously asked: “But you’re… clean?”

Sara nodded. “As I can be.”

Maya frowned at that. She knew a lot about a lot of things, but recreational drug use wasn’t one of them. “What does that mean?”

Sara stared at the granite counter, tracing a small circle on the smooth surface with an index finger. “It means it’s hard,” she admitted quietly. “I thought it would get easier after those first few days, after all the junk was out of my system. But it didn’t. It’s like… it’s like my brain remembers the feeling, still craves it. The boredom doesn’t help. Dad doesn’t want me to get a job just yet, because he doesn’t want me having any extra money lying around until I’m better.” She scoffed and added, “He’s been pushing me to study for my GED.”

And you should , Maya very nearly blurted out, but she held her tongue. Sara had dropped out of high school after she was granted emancipation, but the last thing she needed right then was a lecture, especially when she was opening up like she was.

But one thing was clear: Sara’s problem was worse than Maya had realized. She’d thought her younger sister had just been experimenting recreationally, and that the near-OD on pills had been an accident. Yet the opposite was true. Sara was a recovering addict. And there was nothing that Maya could do to help her. She didn’t know anything about addiction.

But is that really true?

She suddenly recalled a night, about two weeks earlier, when she’d woken her dorm mate by coming in from the gym at one in the morning. The irritated cadet had grumbled at her, half-asleep, something about being a “workout junkie.” And then Maya had stayed up for another hour studying, only to be out on the track for a jog at six the next morning.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized she knew all about addiction. Wasn’t she addicted to proving herself? Had she not been chasing a dragon of her own success?

And her father, even after all the tumult of the last two years, had still gone back to the job. Sara still craved the chemical high the way that Maya craved accomplishment and their dad craved the thrill of the chase—because maybe they were all just a family of addicts.

But Sara is the only one that’s acknowledged it. Maybe she’s the smartest of all of us.

“Hey.” Maya reached over and put her hand on Sara’s. “You can beat this. You’re stronger than you know. I have faith in you.”

Sara smiled with half her mouth. “I’m glad someone does.”

“I’ll talk to Dad,” Maya offered. “See if he won’t relax a little bit, give you some freedom—”

“No,” Sara interrupted. “Dad isn’t the problem. He’s been great to me; probably better than I deserve.” Her gaze swept the floor. “The problem is me. Because I know damn well that if I had a hundred bucks in my pocket and could go wherever I wanted, he’d have to come find me again. And next time he might not get there fast enough.”

Maya’s heart broke at the obvious torment reflected in her sister’s eyes, and then again at the knowledge that there was nothing she could do to help. All she had were empty words of encouragement, which were all but meaningless in the scope of solving her problems.

Suddenly she felt incredibly out of place in that foreign kitchen. They had been through so much together. Growing up. Mourning their mother. Discovering their father. Family vacations and fleeing from would-be murderers. The kinds of things that anyone would assume would bring two people closer together, create an unbreakable bond, had instead created the vacuous silence that ballooned in the space between them.

Was this how it was going to be now? Would the girl before her just continue becoming more and more unrecognizable until they were mere strangers who happened to be related?

Maya wanted to say something, anything, to prove herself wrong. Reminisce about some happy memory. Or call her Squeak, the childhood nickname that hadn’t been used in god-only-knew how long.

Before she could say anything at all, the doorknob rattled behind them. Maya spun as the door swung open, her fists balling instinctively at her sides. Her nerves still jumped when it came to unexpected intrusions.

But it was no intruder. It was her father, carrying two grocery bags and taking seemingly cautious steps into the kitchen of his own home at the sight of her.

“Hi.”

“Hi, Dad.”

He set the grocery bags on the floor and took a step toward her, arms opening, but then paused. “Can I…?”

She nodded once, and he put his arms around her. It was a ginger hug at first, a hesitant hug—but then Maya noticed, strangely enough, that he still smelled the same. It was an overpoweringly nostalgic scent, a scent of her childhood, of a thousand other hugs. And maybe she was older, and maybe Sara looked different; maybe she still wasn’t entirely sure who her father was and maybe they were standing in a new place that she was supposed to call home, but in that moment none of that felt like it mattered. The moment felt like home, and she leaned into it, squeezing him tightly.

Maya tugged open the sliding glass door at the back of the condo, pulling on a hooded sweatshirt against the chilly night air. The condo had no yard, but did have a small deck outfitted with a stubby table and two chairs.

Her dad was in one of them, sipping from a glass of something amber-colored. Maya lowered herself into the other, noting how clear the night was.

“Sara asleep?” he asked.

Maya nodded. “Dozed off on the couch.”

“She’s been doing a lot of that lately,” he said, sounding troubled. “Sleeping, that is.”

She forced a light chuckle. “She’s always slept a lot. I wouldn’t read too much into it.” She gestured to the glass in his hand. “Beer?”

“Iced tea.” He grinned sheepishly. “I haven’t been drinking since going back to work.”

“And how’s that going?”

“Not bad,” he admitted. “I haven’t been on any field assignments lately, since I’m taking care of Sara and still getting back into shape.”

“I was going to mention that you lost some weight. You’re looking much better than…”

Than the last time I saw you , Maya was going to say, but she stopped herself, because she didn’t want to dredge up the memory of that visit, when she’d brought Greg to the house, got angry, stormed out, abandoned Greg there, and told her dad she never wanted to see him again.

“Thanks,” he said quickly, clearly thinking the same. “And school is going well?”

She had already told him so earlier, over dinner, but it seemed as if he didn’t quite believe her—and she reminded herself that part of his job was the ability to read people. There was little use lying to him, but that didn’t mean she had to share either.

“I don’t really want to talk about school,” she told him plainly. She didn’t want to talk about how things sometimes went missing from her locker. Or how boys shouted unkind things at her across the quad. Or the feeling she couldn’t shake that it was only the beginning of the torment, that the more she tried to ignore them the more the boys at West Point would escalate.

“Fair enough.” Her dad cleared his throat. “Um, there is something I should mention though. I should have asked you first. But Maria had nowhere to go tomorrow, and it didn’t seem right…”

“It’s okay, Dad.” Maya grinned at his awkward attempt to ask her permission. “Of course I don’t mind, and you don’t need to clear it with me.”

He shrugged. “I guess you’re right. It’s just—you’re so grown up now. Both of you. I missed out on some important parts.”