Page 29

Jonah

A harsh flood of daylight rang through his skull the moment he tried to open his eyes. Jonah retreated into the darkness behind his eyelids but the pain remained; a steady throb that brought the rest of his senses into focus one at a time.

The surface beneath him was soft. A bed. The air smelled clean and cold. And the pain...

He hurt everywhere. His face, his head, his ribs, his stomach. When he swallowed, his throat burned like it had been cracked open and laid out under the hot sun. Jonah raised a hand to touch his neck, but there was a tug of resistance. He opened his eyes again to find a narrow tube protruding from a vein below his knuckles, secured in place with tape. Jonah followed the line up a silver pole, to a hanging bag of clear liquid.

He was in the hospital.

Jonah blinked. A half-second flash of a memory, so hazy it could have been his imagination, was gone as soon as it came: a wood-beam ceiling and a face, looking down at him while the water tried to pull him under.

The pain in his head spiked. Jonah pressed the heels of his palms against his temples, trying to alleviate the pressure, but it only sent the pain deeper. A broken noise slipped free from his throat, and when he opened his eyes again, he wasn’t alone.

A woman peeked into the doorway of his room—a police officer, with a black button-up top and a gun holstered at her belt. Jonah pressed himself into the mattress.

She turned away and murmured something into the radio at her shoulder. Jonah’s heart was pounding out of his chest, palms sweating as he clutched his fists around the hospital sheet pooled at his waist.

When Marcus appeared beside her seconds later, his heart nearly gave out altogether.

He stepped into the room as the uniformed officer ducked out, leaving the two of them alone. Marcus approached slowly.

Desperate words, a plea, a defense— something —bubbled in Jonah’s throat. “I didn’t...I didn't tell them... anything. I didn’t—”

Marcus raised his hands, and Jonah flinched. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Marcus take a step back.

“I know,” Marcus said softly. “I’m going to get a nurse and let them know you’re awake, okay? I’ll be right back, just... try to take it easy. ”

Jonah only raised his head when he heard the sounds of retreat. He watched Marcus’s back as he turned through the doorway, returning seconds later with a young woman in lavender scrubs. She greeted him in a warm voice and asked if it was okay that she examined him. Unsure of what other choice he had, he nodded.

The whole time she worked on him—shining a small flashlight in his eyes, pressing on the veins in his wrist with cold fingers—Jonah’s gaze lingered on Marcus, who stood just outside the doorway. If the nurse sensed the tension in the room, she gave no indication as she finished up her examination and snapped her rubber gloves into the trash bin.

“How are you feeling, Jonah?” she asked. “How’s your pain level, one-to-ten?”

Jonah , not Leo. He shot a nervous glance at Marcus, who didn’t react at all.

“Four,” he lied. The look on her face told him he wasn’t as convincing as he’d hoped.

“Okay. Let us know if that changes,” she said. “The doctor will be in to see you in a bit.”

“Thank you,” Marcus murmured to her as she passed him on her exit.

When it was just the two of them again, Jonah felt himself shrinking back, but Marcus didn’t crowd his space. Instead, he considered him from across the room, stepping just inside the threshold .

He pointed to a chair near Jonah’s bed. “Do you mind?” he asked.

Jonah had never been allowed to tell him ‘no’ before; he assumed that much hadn’t changed. He nodded, and only then did Marcus pull the chair up and sit down.

“How much do you remember?” he asked.

Jonah blinked a few times, trying to make sense of what was really being asked of him. It felt like a trap. There was always a trap.

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.

Marcus studied him. “About Shepard,” he nudged. “About what happened at the house. In the basement.”

Wood beam ceiling. A face overhead.

“You were there,” Jonah whispered.

The memory began to take shape: A photo of Liam on Shepard’s phone. A threat. An ultimatum. Bloody knuckles across his cheek. Hands around his neck. A loud bang. Someone beside him. The voice he couldn’t quite access but some part of him recognized right away.

“In the basement, you...” Jonah blinked as the threads between the images pulled taut. “You killed him. Shepard. He’s...?”

He couldn’t bring himself to say it, as if forming the thought out loud would crush the possibility to dust.

“Yes,” Marcus said, “Ross Shepard is dead.”

Jonah couldn’t wrap his mind around the words, let alone allow himself to do something as fundamentally reckless as believe them .

“I don’t understand.”

“He was killing you,” Marcus said slowly, deliberately, as if this was something he had rehearsed. “I did what needed to be done.”

Jonah almost laughed. “Don’t.” The word was intended as a snap, but it came out shaky and weak. “Why are you... Why would you tell me that?”

“Because it’s the truth.”

“Since when do you care about what happens to me?” Jonah shot back.

Marcus shifted in his chair, an agitated movement that put Jonah on edge. “There’s a lot you don’t know, because you weren’t ever supposed to. I’d like the chance to explain it.” When Jonah only stared at him blankly, he continued. “The name Marcus was an alias assigned to me by the Bureau. My real name is Antonio Ellis.”

“The Bureau,” Jonah echoed numbly. He heard the words from a perspective outside of his own body. “You’re...?

“I’m a special agent for the FBI,” he said. “I’ve been working undercover for the past three years as part of a joint task force.”

Jonah shook his head, failing to process the information he was being given. He pinched his thigh beneath the thin sheet, trying to wake himself from whatever strange dream he had fallen into.

“The assignment was ‘as long as it takes’ from the get, but none of us...” Marcus trailed off, shaking his head. “It took longer than we initially thought to get close to the target. ”

“What are you talking about?” Jonah finally found his voice. “You were there every single day. You were part of it. How was that not close enough?”

Marcus— Ellis? —grimaced. “Ross Shepard wasn’t the target,” he explained. “He was a link in a whole network of connections, nowhere near the top of the food chain. He was a means to an end.”

When he caught Jonah’s eyes, there was an apology there. He heard the part Ellis didn’t say out loud: Jonah was just collateral damage.

“Who was it, then?” Jonah demanded. “Who was so important you could look past everything Shepard did?”

Ellis’s eyes fell shut. “I can’t tell you that,” he said. “I’m off the case—I compromised my cover, and I don’t regret it—but the investigation is still ongoing.”

To his horror, Jonah felt the sharp prickle of oncoming tears and tried to blink them away.

“For what it’s worth,” Ellis said, “there wasn’t a moment of what happened to you that I didn’t detest.”

“It’s worth nothing,” Jonah spat. “You sat there every night while it happened. You drove me there, to all of them, you...” His voice broke off, but he was too angry to be embarrassed. “You saw what I... when I got in your car every night, you saw .”

Something fierce flashed behind the older man’s eyes. “I was doing the job that I was given, in hopes that we would save hundreds of lives in the long run. I did what I could within my tight limitations. It was never enough to make it better, I know that, but I never tried to make it any worse. I... I never touched you,” he finished weakly.

Jonah scoffed, a bitter, hateful sound that cut through the sterile room. “You think that absolves you? That you didn’t try to fuck me, you think that makes you a hero ?”

Ellis was shaking his head before Jonah finished speaking. “No,” he said. “I don’t.”

“You...” Jonah began, but he trailed off, a chill settling over him at his sudden realization. He looked at Marcus— at Ellis, at Marcus —trying to spot the lie. “No.” He shook his head. “You’re not a cop. You can’t be. You’re lying. The body. You... The man I...” Jonah squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push away the memory of a hotel room covered in blood. “He was dead, and you helped Shepard get rid of a body. You wouldn’t do that if you were a cop.”

Ellis sat back in his chair, scraping a palm roughly over his stubble. “There was no body, Jonah,” he whispered. “You never killed anyone.”

The world tilted off its axis. Jonah stared at him, willing the words to converge into some sort of sense.

“What?” The word left him in a breath.

“Henry Becker is alive,” Ellis said. No. No. No, no, no. “He was injured, yes. But Shepard had more than enough dirt on him to keep his mouth shut, and it kept the incident away from the police. I...” He paused, looking at Jonah then away. “Helped convince Shepard it was wise to keep him away from you, going forward.”

Jonah couldn’t breathe. “It was your idea? ”

“To fabricate a murder to hold over you? No. That was him,” he said. “But I couldn’t stop him.”

“Bullshit,” Jonah snapped. He almost thought he saw Ellis flinch. “You act like you were helpless, but you could have done something.”

“It’s not that I didn’t try,” Ellis admitted. “I brought it to my higher-ups. I asked for a way to get you out of there, to find some sort of legal recourse that wouldn’t compromise the investigation. But I was building Shepard’s trust, and doing that was the only way to get closer to his circle. Sabotaging his twisted fucking operation would have raised too many flags. And even if I managed to get you out...”

“There would have been someone to take my place,” Jonah finished flatly.

Ellis, at least, had the good grace to look ashamed. “It was always my plan to get you out, in the end,” he said. “I didn’t know when that would be, but I knew that when I was done with my assignment to Shepard, I was taking you with me.”

“A year,” Jonah said, the words cutting him on the way out. He had never spoken the quantity out loud. “A year of my life I spent under him. How much longer would it have taken? My court requirements were up after six months, and then he had blackmail to keep me around. It would have always been something. He would have kept it going until I was too fucked up to make him any money or I was dead.”

“I didn’t let him kill you,” Ellis asserted .

“Yeah,” Jonah said. “I hope that helps you sleep at night. Because if it’s absolution you came here looking for, you can’t have it.”

“I don’t expect you to forgive me.”

“I don’t.”

“That’s okay.” He was placating him, throwing kerosine on the fire.

“Then what are you doing here?” Jonah asked.

Ellis was quiet for a few moments. “You deserved to hear the truth from me. After everything, you...” he cleared his throat, keeping his eyes hidden. “Jonah, you deserve a lot more than any apology or explanation I could offer you. And I am sorry. I am so deeply sorry for everything that has happened to you, and everything I played a part in. And I will be, for as long as I live. I know it’s not enough, and it never will be, but I needed to be the one to tell you that you’re safe now.”

Safe . The temptation to let the word swallow him into its warm embrace was right there at the edge, like heat glowing off a fire onto outstretched, frozen fingertips. Ready to bring him in from the cold, if he let it. Jonah hadn’t felt safe in a long time. A part of him knew he might not ever again. What Ellis was offering him was a cruel lie.

Jonah closed his eyes. He used the silence to draw in a few deep breaths, but on the third inhale, his injured throat spasmed, sending him into a coughing fit .

In his periphery, Ellis rose from his chair and crossed the room. He returned to Jonah’s side moments later with a paper cup of water.

With little room for rejection, Jonah took it in his trembling hands and pressed the rim to his lips. The cold water was soothing. He drank slowly until the cup was empty and his coughing subsided.

“Do you want more?” Ellis asked.

Jonah swallowed, feeling the immediate difference in the reflex, and shook his head. He sat the cup down on the plastic tray beside his bed and watched as Ellis lowered himself back into the chair.

“So, it’s just over,” Jonah said, strained. “Just like that. He’s dead, and after all this time, I’m just supposed to...” He blinked, realizing he had no idea how to end that sentence. “What happens now?” It came out in a whisper.

He hated having to ask, hated the uncertainty in his own voice, but the fear was creeping in quickly behind the realization. In many ways, Jonah was back at square one. The monster was dead, but that didn’t change the fact that Jonah was still alone in the world, without a dime to his name.

“The house is shut down,” Ellis said, confirming his suspicion. “The rest of the residents will have to work out their individual cases with the courts, but most of them have family they can stay with.”

“How nice for them. ”

“Is there anyone you can call?” Ellis asked, more gently than Jonah had ever heard him. His pity added insult to injury.

“If I had anyone, I wouldn’t have ended up here in the first place.”

“Your parents. . . ?”

Are the reason I was on the street at seventeen, he didn't say. Instead, he shook his head.

Ellis nodded, his expression carefully blank. “Look,” he said. “I’m not going to pretend I can understand what you’re going through, or the situation you’re coming from, but you’re going to need a support system in place while you get back on your feet.”

“And if I don’t have it?”

Ellis leaned forward, his eyes intent. “I’m not dumping you back on the street, Jonah. We will figure something out,” he said. Then, after a pause, “I owe you that much, at least.”

Jonah looked away, biting down on the urge to tell him he didn’t want anything from him, of all people. It was terrifying to find himself in a position, once again, where he couldn’t afford to turn down help—in whatever form it came.

“I’m going to give you a minute alone to process everything, but I’m not leaving the hospital.” He rose from his chair, but paused before he walked away. He pulled the cell phone from his pocket and laid it on the tray next to the bed. “I’ll be back,” he said. “If there’s someone in your corner, Jonah, I suggest you call them.”

The silence left behind in his absence was too heavy .

Jonah stared down the phone on the table like an insult. He thought about all the possibilities that could come from dialing his mother’s number, telling her he was in the hospital, that he had almost died, that he was coming off the worst year of his life and had nowhere to go.

She had never been a cold woman. She had cried, the day the pastor sat them down at their kitchen table and discussed Jonah’s “options.” She had screamed the first time Jonah’s father put his hands on him. Despite everything, Jonah still believed that she loved him, even if it wasn’t in the way that he needed, or the way she was supposed to.

Somehow, that made it hurt more—the idea that if he called her now, he would hear her tears on the other end of the line, and it still wouldn’t be enough.

Maybe he couldn’t avoid that conversation forever, but he could at least give himself the grace to put it off for now.

If there’s anyone in your corner, Ellis had said.

In the entirety of his life, Jonah had only ever memorized three phone numbers: his mother’s, his own, and the one he had carried around in his pocket for weeks.

Shepard might have stolen the note from him, but Jonah had committed the digits to memory the very first night he got them.

He picked up the phone.