Page 39 of Wanted
“Does Maia Callie know what we’re doing?” I asked.
Jordan shook his head. “Luis knows. That’s their dad. I told him what we were doing. He decided it would be safer for his daughter to think Fylox had left the city on one of his evidence of life cleansing trips.”
I nodded. “I still don’t understand why you guys bother with us. We’re just causing you more trouble… I know we keep going back to that subject. Mandy and I keep digging around, hoping that you’ll give us a direct answer.”
“She knows,” Fylox blurted out.
Jordan cocked his head in Fylox’s direction. He was an amusing man to me. I found comfort in his presence. So far, he had shown us that he had integrity. What he promised was what he delivered. He lied by omission, but he never lied out front. At first, he micromanaged Mandy and me, but after a week or so, he developed a trust for us that allowed him to take a step back. I had to admit that he never pushed for anything that we couldn’t do. He never asked things of us that he’d never do.
“What does she know, Fylox?” he inquired. Under normal circumstances, Fylox would sit upright and address his leader with the utmost respect. Today, he was semi-drunk, though. There was no other bottle here. Did he get drunk from one bottle, or was he having a Jordan cheat day?
“She knows that once upon a time, I was sold around like used furniture. That’s what she knows,” Fylox spat, gulping down some more beer. “I think you can tell her why we are doing this. It’ll end the stupid questions.”
Jordan sighed. He didn’t look disappointed in anyone but himself. “I guess you’re the siren that Travis warned me about.”
“A siren?” I asked.
“She’s not a siren. She was giving me the cold shoulder for a month after I shoved her. I owed her an explanation for my behavior,” Fylox explained. He sat back on the chair, his legs spread wide. It was one of the most disrespectful postures he’d ever taken in front of Jordan. “And she’s been pretty cool about it. She never asks any questions about it anymore. She doesn’t have that pitiful look in her eyes anymore either. That’s what we abused kids have in common.”
“Excuse him, he’s having a day,” Jordan warned me. He shifted in his seat so that he was facing me. He placed the bottle on the floor. “The Castro family had enemies back in the day. Luis, Fylox’s father, is a big-time criminal defense lawyer. Ever since… Fylox’s father has trimmed down his business, but he still fears for his children’s safety. Luis has pissed off a lot of people by playing by his own rules…”
Fylox interrupted him, “I’m not a child anymore. It wouldn’t be nearly as fun for these guys to abduct me. Plus, all these scars make for ugly merchandise. Then again, there’s a kink for everything these days, am I right? You Katantians know that the best.”
I shrunk in my seat, embarrassed at his question.
“Would you keep quiet the one time I’m asking you to?” Jordan asked without looking at him.
Fylox shook his head. “Nah.”
Jordan rolled his eyes. He went on, “It wasn’t a random abduction. They took him knowingly and they made him disappear without a trace. It appeared like a Hollywood plot, pompous and arrogant. Nevertheless, Fylox wasn’t spotted for months. We looked for him for years, and we never found any evidence that he was even still alive. The police couldn’t help us. They wouldn’t help us. So we went our own route.”
The scoff came from Fylox. I was perplexed.
“How did you guys get to know each other?” I asked.
“Fylox’s and Alex’s moms are friends. They sang together in Greece. They toured the States in the nineties… I met Alex’s mom back then, and we married pretty quickly. When the kids were born, they were naturally drawn to each other. Fylox and Alex were always protective of little Maia Callie, and she loved them both so much. When Fylox disappeared, both Alex and Maia Callie needed therapy. They were that close. They sensed that something was wrong even if their parents tried to sugarcoat it.”
“You’re telling the story as if you were there,” Fylox sneered.
“I was there. In the shadows,” Jordan responded, rougher than usual. “I didn’t have a place in my wife’s life in Alex’s very young years. We divorced early. But we’ll get to that in a second.”
Jordan glared at Fylox, urging him to shut the fuck up now.
“I’ve known Travis since I was a kid. He was my neighbor. He had a loving family and a career plan for his life. He was an only child and his family’s pride, but he never felt like he belonged. I grew up in the system, in a neighboring house that my foster parents had inherited. He was always the observant type. He knew every neighbor by name, and he greeted them, chatting with them about their day. He drove us to school when he spotted my sister and me walking to the bus. He secretly looked after us when the foster parents were absent for weeks at a time.”
Fylox crossed his arms in front of his chest, glancing at the yard instead of Jordan. He must have heard this before.
“Long story short, a day before his finals began, his parents got killed in a car crash. A privileged white kid like him couldn’t deal with that, so he sort of lost it for a while. He stayed at the house that neighbored ours, roaming around senselessly. One day, when my foster parents had another big fight over nothing, he grabbed a gun, and he came over, shooting them both. He grabbed my foster sister and me. We went on the run.”
“How old were you?” I asked.
“I was fourteen. She was ten,” Jordan revealed in a sober voice. He exhaled. “She was ten, and she’d been abused ever since she stepped into that house. I never found out until later when I forced the truth out of her. She’d confided in Travis, but she only trusted me with her truth after years had passed.”
He went on, “We were on the run for years until the case closed. There was insufficient evidence. They suspected Travis, but they were unable to prove it. When I turned nineteen, we came to Illinois. That’s where Spencer Rawlins found Travis Cross for himself. He scooped him up from the streets, and he turned him into what he wanted. A killer. An assistant. A thief. Anything he wanted, Spencer received from Travis.”
I inquired, “Where were you guys at the time?”
“Travis hid us from Spencer,” Jordan explained. “We’d become good at hiding our existence from years of being on the road. He kept us tucked away until he decided to marry my sister the moment she turned eighteen so that she could have a better life than the one she had in hiding. I was told that I was free to do as I pleased.”
