Page 20 of Perfect Order

“This had better be important,Q?za.The kid is teething, and we’ve barely slept all night.”

“I’m standing in a room at the NYU Medical Center. My sister’s been murdered. I hope that doesn’t inconvenience you too much,sir,” my voice spits at him.

“What the fuck?” is shouted before a murmured “No, sweetheart. Go back to sleep. It’s work.”

“I wish I could sleep. I wish I could believe that closing my eyes would make it okay. If I could close my eyes and not see my Lee’s body broken and bruised in front of me, I’d close them forever.”

“Hold it together.” Through the phone, I hear him close a door, and footsteps fall as he makes his way down a flight of stairs.

“It’s going to be a cold day in hell before that happens.” I already feel the dam waiting to burst.

“Talk to me. What happened,” he urges.

His words, words I’ve heard from him in the middle of so many crises, send me into autopilot. I repeat the events of the last fifteen hours as if I’m telling him a report. Finally, I crack. I admit to the man who I’ve entrusted with my life for almost the last seven years, “Emotionally, I’m so lost, it’s entirely possible I may have just signed my own death certificate. Literally.”

He doesn’t say a word for so long, I pull the phone away from my ear just to make certain we’re still connected. “Hello?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Think on your own damn time. I’m about to have a breakdown!” I screech at the top of my lungs. My capacity for his stratagems is at an all-time low.

“The first thing I need to say is I’m so fucking sorry.” His breathing rasps in my ear. “I’ve lost too many brothers in combat for me to give you any platitudes; you know that, right?”

A sob wells up. “I know, but could you lie? Just this once?”

“No. Nor would you want me to.” His voice is definitive.

I start to cry harder. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“The truth will come out,Q?za.NowthatI will promise you.”

I lean into the anchor he’s offering me. I lift my eyes skyward in an effort to stop the stream of tears. “I have to figure out the truth.”

“Of course you do because if there’s even the slightest chance this wasn’t some random mugging and they were after you—after us—I swear to you, I’ll help you take them apart.” It’s a vow. And one thing I know about this man is he’s shed blood to keep them in the past.

Something settles in my soul. “So, what do I do?”

He hesitates before shocking me for the first time since that long-ago day at MIT. “Stay dead.”

“No, just no. Don’t make this about work right now. I’m bleeding inside.”

“If you don’t, you could end up as dead as Kylie.”

Hearing her name feels worse than the time I took a billy club to the chest by a high-tech company night watchman who caught me sneaking out with a handheld scanner clutched between my teeth. I can’t get enough air into my lungs for long moments, but when I can, I hiss, “Do you understand? She’s fucking Erzulie.”

“And you’re her identical twin,” he shoots back. “You’re the only one who can get answers. Do you want them?” Before I can lose my shit at him, he throws a bucket of ice water over my anger, leaving me terrified. Cold.

And alone.

“What happens if you are the target and they go after your parents next? Or would you rather give up and crawl into that grave with her tonight?” His words are downright cruel, but like they did the first time we met, they focus me in a way nothing else can.

They use my love of family to direct me to do the right thing.

A long gap of silence plays between us. He’s letting my mind work through the preliminaries—doing what I do best.

Go dark.

“There’s no way I can do this without people on the inside.” I pace back and forth.