HUNTER Page 7

  There was only one photo of him and Kyla. He was trying to look tough, scowling into the camera. It made me wonder what Kyla saw in the loser. In the photo, she was sitting next to him, with her legs across his lap—those thick, juicy legs. She had a big smile on but she didn’t look happy. I knew what Kyla’s smile looked like, and that wasn’t it.

  Liam’s final picture was of him in the Middle East, dressed in full camo, holding an M240 machine gun. Son of a bitch was a US Marine. I was more surprised at myself for not suspecting as much based on his other pictures—and the fact every second asshole in Nintipi went into the Marines, myself included.

  I didn’t even have to type Nextek Solutions into a search engine. The website told me all I needed to know with a single click.

  My librarian helper came back to check on me. “Everything working for you?” I swear her blouse was open one button lower than before. She still smelled like flowers and horny nightclubs.

  “Yeah, thanks. I think I got all I needed.”

  “Aren’t you Hunter Sykes?” she said. “I mean—Sergeant Sykes.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I saw you on the news. Were you really in a P.O.W. camp for five years?” Her eyes lit up as if it were some kind of achievement.

  “Yeah. Four and a half, really.”

  “That’s incredible. I bet you have some amazing stories.”

  “If that’s what you want to call them,” I said with a laugh.

  She put on her best sad puppy face and bit her lip. “It must have been really hard. I’m sorry.” She wanted me to fuck her. I’ve seen those glowing eyes and that little lip-bite more times than I could count—and it always meant the same thing.

  She would have been a good time. I could picture those firm, perky tits bouncing so slightly while her tight tush slapped against my lap. Had my blood not still been boiling from the thought of Silverstone hitting Kyla, I just might have taken her into the back room and fucked her brains out.

  My blood wasn’t going to stop boiling until I confronted the ex-Marine. “It is what it is. Thanks for showing me how to use the computer.” I continued towards the door but she ran up next to me.

  “I think you’re really brave,” she said. “I can’t imagine how scared you must have been.”

  “Yeah. I just did what I could to survive.” I reached for the door.

  “Could I ask you something? And I totally understand if it makes you uncomfortable in any way.”

  “What?”

  She bit her lip again. Hell, I thought she was going to ask me right then and there to stick it in her. “I’m working on this book. It’s kind of a history of Nintipi book, for my Masters’ thesis. I’d love to interview you for it—learn more about the Boys from Nintipi, and their mission in the Congo.” The history of Nintipi? There once was a shithole town called Nintipi. From the day it was created, it was a shithole and nothing interesting ever happened. To this day, Nintipi is still a shithole. The end. “The Boys of Nintipi has a good ring to it, right?” she asked.

  Anders’s face flashed through my mind.

  “Yeah, maybe. I need to get going, though,” I said.

  “Can I get your number? We don’t have to do the interview now. We can do it whenever—wherever. Your place, my place, here, it doesn’t matter. The corner of her mouth was curved upwards and her lips were pressed thin, as if she was trying to hold back a laugh. By the looks of it, she wasn’t talking about any interview. I guess there was some benefit to being somewhat of a celebrity.

  I jotted down my number and gave it to the girl. “I’m Erin, by the way,” she said as I turned to leave. I smiled, nodded, and left.

  Nextek Solutions wasn’t hard to find, and it wasn’t far from the library either. The blue and white Nextek logo was clearly printed on a small sign, stacked with fifteen other signs that stood tall above the town’s warehouse district. All the companies shared warehouse space—there were only four warehouses between the fifteen companies. And they all shared a reception room.

  It was more like a waiting room at the DMV than a reception area, with a long line of desks, each occupied by a different tired-looking woman, fifteen in all, one for each company. Nextek was at the very end, and the receptionist looked particularly tired.

  I asked her if Liam Silverstone was working.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I was surprised when Liam came home early. I wasn’t as surprised that he was in a rage, as that was becoming more and more common. Though this time, he was furious. He nearly took the door off of its hinges when he barged in.

  My heart skipped a beat. There was no way that he could have found out that Hunter came over—not unless…

  My heart sank into my stomach. Hunter had gone to the warehouse. I should have figured he would’ve gone and done something dumb and reckless after he left.

  Liam’s eyes locked on me and his expression dropped. “I can’t fucking believe you,” he said. His eyes were red, as if he’d been crying. “I asked one thing. That’s it. Just one fucking thing.”

  “I’m sorry, Liam. He just showed up here. I was going to tell you,” I said.

  He shook his head and laughed, the rage still burning in his eyes. “Just admit it. You’re fucking him. Just tell me, Kyla. Just fucking tell me.”

  “I’m not.”

  He slapped me. My ears were left ringing and my jaw tender. Tears began to well up in my eyes.

  “Don’t lie to me. I’ve been nothing but good to you. Three years, I’ve supported you. This is your way of repaying me?”

  “I’m not sleeping with him, Liam. I’m not lying to you.”

  He prepared to slap me again, but hesitated. His body was tense and his jaw was clenched tight. It was taking everything he had in him not to knock me out cold. Maybe it was the tears running down my face, or maybe he actually believed me; something held him back.

  “Please don’t hit me again,” I said.

  “Just tell me why you did it?” He wiped his eyes, which were also glazed with tears.

  “Did what? He just showed up. I don’t even know how he got our address.”

  “Bullshit,” he shouted.

  I backed away from him. His mind was made up and there was nothing I could say to change it. All I could do was hope that he didn’t hit me too hard.

  Liam turned away from me and began pacing the room with his hands on his head. He took long, deep, controlled breaths. It crushed me to see him like this. Liam wasn’t a bad guy. He didn’t have a short fuse. He never screamed, or yelled, or hit me until Hunter came home from the Congo. I don’t know what’d gotten into him, but if yelling at me and hitting me would make him feel better, I was happy to be his punching bag. I just wanted the old Liam back.

  “I bet he told you, then?”

  “Told me what?”

  “C’mon, Kyla. Don’t start this.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I pushed away my tears.

  He laughed. “Yeah, right. I lost my job. Last week.”

  “What?”

  “I was fired. And you know what? It’s your fault. If you weren’t such a fucking slut, I would still have my job.”

  He scowled at me. His eyes were full of hate, full of disgust. There were no signs of love anywhere behind those dark lenses.

  I tried to speak but couldn’t. I didn’t know what to say. I had too many questions but I was too afraid to ask any of them. I was too afraid of what he might do. What did he mean he lost his job because I was a slut? I’d never even met his bosses or been to the warehouse. I didn’t even go to his staff Christmas party. Liam had told me it was for employees only. Though now, I was beginning to think he was just ashamed of me.

  “Oh, don’t try to look all sad. Don’t expect me to feel bad for you,” he said. I tried, but I couldn’t help it. I was devastated. Our three-year-long relationship had fallen into pieces in the span of a few days. “Two weeks ago, they brought in a new floor manager. He liked me for a while. I actuall
y thought I was going to get a raise. Then, he found out about you.”

  “What are you talking about, Liam? What do I have to do with anything?”

  “The new manager’s name is Roger Patrick. Turns out, he knows you pretty well.”

  Roger Patrick was Sammy’s older brother. Roger hated me, even before rumour got out that I cheated on Sammy. Roger used to be friends with Hunter until one day when they had a falling out. I’m not sure what happened, but after that, Roger hated anything to do with Hunter, and that included me. Roger always told Sammy to stay far away from me, told Sammy that I would cheat on him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t wrong.

  It wasn’t a surprise that Roger fired Liam.

  “Liam,” I said, “I’m so sorry—there must be something we can do—”

  “—There’s nothing. I need to find a new job and no one’s hiring. We’re fucked.” His hand remained clenched in a fist, but he didn’t strike. Still, something was holding him back—something that hadn’t held him back before. “I applied for unemployment but I haven’t heard back.” Still pacing, he was slowly calming himself down. The redness slowly drained from his face. “I don’t know what you ever saw in that cocky piece of shit.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  He laughed. “I’m trying really hard to think of a reason to stay with you,” he said.

  I felt the same way. I scoured my brain for a reminder. I could still remember the day he asked me out on a date. It was so cute, the way his face got all red while he shuffled his feet. It would have been impossible not to say yes. He reserved a table at Antonio’s Steak House, and he got all dressed up in a suit and a tie. Sadly, we didn’t even make it to the table. The waiter told him his credit card had been declined with his fifty dollar reservation deposit.

  Oh God, I felt so bad for him as we walked out of the restaurant. His face was beet-red and he couldn’t look me in the eye.

  We ended up across the street, ordering cheap pizza from a place called Nero’s. It wasn’t the greatest spot for a date, seeing as it had no tables, so we took the pizza to the nearby golf course, climbed the fence, and lay down on the green, watching the stars as they overtook the sky.

  We kissed. He told me that, as long as we had each other, things would be okay.

  The man I kissed under the stars that night was not the same man that was pacing around the kitchen, calling me a slut, and slapping me across the face.

  “I’m going out,” he said without looking at me. He slammed the door on his way out. I didn’t know where he was going. I didn’t know where he’d been going at all for the past week.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I woke up the next morning with Anders standing over my bed. The son of a bitch damn near gave me a heart attack—could have gotten himself killed, had the gun I usually kept under my pillow been there. Fortunately for Anders, I wasn’t allowed having any weapons in my house until I “completed a full psychiatric evaluation.”

  “Good morning,” he said with a casual smile. In his hand was a cup of coffee, fresh judging by the steam rising up from it. It was one of my mugs, meaning he made it with that damned pod machine.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I came to check on you.” He took a long, casual sip and then exhaled as if it was the best damn cup of coffee he’d ever tasted.

  “You’ve got a fucked up way of checking on people, Anders.”

  “I wanted to beat the media. I tried calling, but your phone’s disconnected. Why is your phone disconnected, Hunter?”

  By about 3AM, I had to disconnect the thing. It kept ringing—Greg kept calling, telling me the Kongies were outside his house. I would tell him he was dreaming, he’d calm down, and then he’d call back fifteen minutes later. He kept telling me he couldn’t find his rifle. I guess that’s why they didn’t let us have guns. God forbid Greg mistook some poor kid walking his dog for a Kongy.

  “Telemarketers. They’ve really upped their game since I left,” I said.

  “From now on, just keep the phone connected.”

  “Roger that.” I sat up. “I don’t suppose you made one of those for me?” I asked, looking at the cup of coffee in his hand.

  “I didn’t. You’re out of pods. Tell me, Hunter. Why are you breaking orders, going to see Kyla Rose?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He laughed and held up a document. “I’ll refresh your memory. You left your house a few minutes after 1300, arriving at the Kyla Rose’s house at 1330. At 1415, you left Ms Rose’s house, arriving at the library at 1430—”

  “—You’re spying on me?” I knew they were keeping a close eye on me, but I didn’t realize they had someone following me.

  “I’m not personally.” He took another sip from his coffee—my coffee.

  “Okay, so I went to see a friend. You going to have me arrested?”

  “No. And we actually appreciate that your trip to Ms Rose’s house was fairly discreet. I’m more concerned about what happened after.” He referred back to the document. “At 1515, you showed up at Flannigan’s Irish Pub and assaulted an ex-Marine in public. Not just any ex-Marine, but the ex-Marine that happens to be dating the Kyla Rose, whose name we are trying to keep out of the media.”

  “He had it coming.”

  “I don’t care if he had it coming, now we have a problem. Now we have consequences. There just happened to be a journalist having dinner at Flannigan’s Irish Pub when you decided to take Mr Silverstone by the neck and pin him to the table.”

  “For an ex-Marine, he didn’t have a lot of fight in him.”

  Anders didn’t look amused or impressed. His lips pressed thin and his eyes narrowed. “See, I want to say it was bad luck that the reporter was there, but it wasn’t. There are still reporters all over town, reporters that will do a story on you taking a shit if they happen to see it. Now you’ve brought Ms Rose into this. Now we have the tabloid’s attention. Soon, coverage will be national.”

  “Why do they care?”

  “Because you are one of two surviving members of one of the most controversial missions in our military’s recent history.”

  “There are less than a thousand people in this town, Anders. You don’t seriously expect me to avoid Kyla for the rest of my life.”

  A knock at the door grabbed both of our attentions.

  “Not for the rest of your life, no. But for a few months, yes,” Anders said, walking towards the door. “Get dressed, you’re going on TV in five minutes.”

  “What?”

  Anders didn’t respond. Instead, he answered the door. Waiting on the other side was Matthew Bremkin. Behind Bremkin was an army of impatient news reporters.

  Bremkin and Anders wanted me to make a public apology to Liam Silverstone, for publically humiliating him at the pub—or as they put it, “unnecessarily inciting an engagement.” I didn’t want to. Liam didn’t deserve an apology. He was the one that should have been making a public thank you to me, for not breaking both of his scummy, woman-beating hands.

  They told me I didn’t have a choice, and they made it very clear that I not mention Kyla or the reason why I unnecessarily incited an engagement. In other words, I couldn’t tell the world that he was a steaming piece of shit.

  I ended up doing the apology after it occurred to me that it was the last thing Liam would want—everyone in the country hearing about how he, an ex-Marine, had been forced to say “uncle” in a bar fight.

  Anders and Bremkin weren’t impressed, though I didn’t break any of their stupid rules. “Don’t you have any respect for your fellow soldiers?” Anders asked with a scowl after we went back inside, away from the reporters.

  “Hm.” I thought. Not much. How could I? Sure, there was a time, long ago, when men selflessly gave their lives for freedom and democracy and all that shit. But those days had been long gone since Nixon stepped foot in the White House. Now, men and women who loved their country were working to end poverty, c
rime, and all that altruistic shit.

  We didn’t give a shit about the country.

  We just wanted an easy out that didn’t involve years of schooling and hard work and dedication and ambition. We just wanted to shoot guns and sleep with girls and we were told we could make a bunch of money doing it—a bunch of half-brained pawns trying to take the king in a game of Checkers. We believed what they told us. They said jump, we jumped. They said shoot, we shot. If we asked why, they’d just fed us a load of bullshit.