I was being trained by PSYOPS before my father pulled me out of the program at age ten and even though they never finished me, it was enough to keep the chaos inside me alive.
Still, I manage. I haven’t had a slip up in years now. So there’s hope, at least. A small, sliver of hope that Indie can be as normal as I am.
I almost laugh out loud when I realize I just referred to myself as normal.
No one involved in making me who I am would ever call me normal.
But at least I will get her. I will understand her. And if Donovan can unfuck her head a little, and McKay can teach her what she needs to know to get the jobs done without stealing her soul—then maybe this will turn out OK?
A little while later I’m handed a tri-fold… menu? It looks a little bit like a multiple-choice test.
How would you like your girl dressed tonight?
A. Long, fantasy gown with flowing skirts.
B. Pastel-colored lingerie.
C. Black and/or red lingerie.
D. Please do not dress my girl.
I’m left wondering if option D means ‘leave her naked.’ Or ‘don’t put any of this sick shit on her, she’s ten, for fuck’s sake.’
I err on the side of caution and go looking for Donovan. I find him off in a corner texting on his phone, but he puts it away when he sees me approaching. “Mr. Boucher. Have you made up your mind?”
I hold the menu out for him. “I don’t want her dressed in any of this.”
“No?”
“No. She’s fucking ten. I want her in shorts and a too-big t-shirt. Sneakers on her feet. I want her to look like my little sister. I need to take her home, Donovan. We’re leaving as soon as the papers are signed. I want to be back in New Orleans no later than tomorrow afternoon.”
“I can arrange that for you. No problem. But have you thought about my offer?”
I have been thinking about his offer. Because I will need him—or at least someone like him—if I want to keep this kid in line. Donovan Couture is the only PSYOPS agent available at the moment so I tell him, “I’m gonna say yes, but it comes with conditions.”
Donovan looks eager and happy. And I have to say, even though he comes off as just another fifteen-year-old nerd, this dude creeps me out almost as much as my little snake girl. “Name them.”
“You stay away. You’re not on the team.”
“I will require a paycheck.”
I wave a hand in the air. “That’s fine. But you only come around when I call you. Got it?”
“I can work with that. As long as the visits are regular. She needs consistent guidance.”
“Maybe every three months.”
“That’s reasonable.”
“And you only stay one weekend.”
“Fine. Anything else?”
I draw in a deep breath, then tug at the tight knot of my tie at my neck. “You record everything you say to her. And you leave those recordings with me.”
“I, of course, can keep a copy for myself?”
I shrug out some reluctant acceptance.
“Then we have a deal.” Donovan offers me his hand.
And for the second time tonight I shake it.
CHAPTER THREE - INDIE
Nathan St. James was the boy next door.
I didn’t understand what this meant when we met. So I didn’t know it was a thing until many years after we had become our own thing when I picked up a romance book at a garage sale about a young girl who falls in love with the boy next door.
I think I read that thing cover to cover dozens of times since then.
Adam threw the old copy out, or maybe it got lost sometime in my early teens. But I never forgot the title and every time I wandered into a used book store, or I was browsing a bookseller at the flea market, I would look for it.
I’ve had three or four different copies over the years. The cover changed once. I bought it with the new cover because it was only forty-five cents. But I didn’t like it as much. Just didn’t do anything for me the way the original did. Because the original people on the cover kinda looked like me and Nate.
She had long blonde hair, like me. And blue eyes, like me.
And he had sun-kissed skin and dark blond hair, like Nate. And brown eyes that weren’t really brown, but almost the color of an almond shell in the shade. And I thought that was some kind of sign. Because I have never ever seen another boy with almond-shell-colored eyes like Nate had. He said they came from his great-grandfather’s werewolf blood. Ha ha.
But I didn’t care where they came from, I just loved them so much.
Nathan St. James was my boy next door. He was my first friend, he was my first kiss, and later, when we were older, he was my first love too.
Nate and I met about three days after I had moved in with Adam and McKay on Old Home Island when I was ten years old. It wasn’t really an island because when I think of islands I think of oceans. I come from an ocean island so I know what islands are.
We didn’t live on the ocean, we lived on the Old Pearl River in lower Louisiana. But it felt like an island because the river wound around two sides of Adam’s property and there was a small duck lake on another side. So Nate and I just called it an island anyway.
He lived on the other side of the duck lake, which was on the west side of my island. I could see his house from my bedroom window. It was a brick house the color of the rusty mud in the Old Pearl River when the water level was low. And his bedroom was in the attic. His window was small but when I used my night vision scope, I could see him walk past the window from time to time.
I lived in the smallest room on the second floor of Adam’s old family home. It had old-time wood paneling painted white—McKay did that for me. It had an old claw-foot bathtub in the corner and a small sink, but no toilet.
Even though I laughed at that tub the first time I walked through the door, I loved it. And I took a bubble bath nearly every night once I settled in.
My bed frame was made of old iron that used to be painted white, but the paint had been chipping for decades before I showed up. The sheets were the softest white cotton I had ever felt in my life, and there was a blue quilt as a bed cover. An old, soft quilt that many people had used to keep warm in the past.
There were little pillows on the bed, propped up in front of the real pillows. They were also quilted and handmade. All of them had large flowers pieced together with geometric shapes of varied fabric on the front. And on the back, there was a checkerboard of all these same fabric patterns.
The floor was old bare wood. But it had been polished and sealed before I got there so there was no chance of splinters. And there was a big, round coiled-rope rug on the side of the bed that matched the blue and white color scheme of the room. Half of it was hidden underneath the bed, so when I swung my legs out of the bed in the morning there was a perfect half-moon of blue below my feet that made me think of the sea.
My room faced the trees, but beyond the trees was the duck lake and that’s how I could see Nathan St. James from my bedroom.
The house was old and white, but it had been recently remodeled so everything was fresh and clean when I arrived. Adam said it was a Victorian house because it had a turret in the front, just over the porch, which was just an atrium in the foyer inside and not even a real turret.