Page 140 of Everything That Kills Me
“How are you?” Jack asked.
“Fine.” Actually, as far from fine as he could possibly be.
“I know about the cancer coming back.”
Zeph exhaled, deflating like a balloon.
“I saw you in the hospital. I came to see you several times but I never let you see me.”
Zeph’s eyes filled up.I wish you had.Just once.
“I watched you walk through Cambridge when you graduated. Congratulations. But then I never thought you’d get anything other than a First.”
“That was the day you left the shark.”
Jack put more containers on the table and the last two in the microwave. “You were supposed to have had it that Christmas, but… You kept it. I saw it in the bedroom. And the photo book.”
“Check out my underwear drawer too? I sleep with Sharkie. Safer than sleeping with you.”
Jack chuckled.
By the time the final containers were on the table, Zeph had started to help himself to the food. He was starving.
“Thomas says you know.”
It wasn’t hard to figure out what Jack was referring to. “That you’re not in witness protection? I worked it out. Well, it was a guess, but… When did it all start?”
“The day Thomas rescued me from abusive parents. He’s not my uncle. He came to my house to do a job. He could have killed me but he didn’t. The house was on fire and he rescued me. He gave me hope that my life could be different. For the first time that I could remember, I didn’t go to sleep hungry or cold. Thomas never struck me, rarely raised his voice. He was kind. I thought he was the best person I’d ever met. At six, I was easily impressed. Keep eating.”
Zeph dug the chopsticks into the food.
“He gave me a choice. Stay with him, let him look after me, or go with strangers who’d be paid to look after me. I chose him. I’ve never regretted that. He said I’d have a job to do when I was older. That’s what he was training me for. I didn’t know then what it meant. He said I’d bean adjuster.Easier for a small boy to understand. Someone who makes things right.”
“He groomed a small boy to be an assassin like him? That’s a terrible thing to do.”
“He thought it was the only way to make it safe for me to be in his life. I had no objections.”
“You never questioned what you were doing?”
“Of course I did. Especially after…”
“After what?”
“After I met you.”
“Did Thomas yank you out of school because of me?”
Jack nodded.
Oh God.“Was what you did always right?”
Jack shrugged. “I understand that many people would consider what I do to be wrong. But all jobs were done with the aim of righting wrongs. Thomas accepted or rejected thecontracts. Once a job was done, what happened next was out of our hands. And yes, I know that sometimes things didn’t always work out for the better.”
“Government sanctioned work?”
“Would it make it more acceptable if that were the case? You think governments always do the right thing?”
“I suppose I don’t like the idea of one criminal paying you to get rid of another.”
