“You’ve got that look in your eye, baby girl.”

I blink back into focus, and look at my hand holding the wash cloth near her face; my knuckles are white from gripping it so harshly.

Relaxing my hand, I say, “What look?” pretending not to know, and I go back to swabbing her face.

Dina looks up at me through eyes framed by deep wrinkles and exhaustion; her curly gray-blonde hair is laying softly against the pillow, her hairline damp from the wash cloth. “The same one you had a long time ago, right after I got you back. I’ll never forget it, that day you sat at the table, watching that news broadcast about that billionaire, Arthur Hamburg—thought you were gonna go after him right then.”

I shoot her a look of surprise. “You knew about that?”

Dina smiles weakly. “Well, you admitted to me that you’d killed a man in Los Angeles. And I never forgot the way you looked at that man on the news. Eventually I figured it out, or at least I thought I did—I had my hunches. Didn’t know for sure until just now.”

I nod, and then set the wash cloth on the nightstand. I take her hand into both of mine and I caress it because I sense this is a moment in which, if she could, she’d want to hold my hand.

“What are you planning to do?” she asks. “I know, honey, that I can’t be asking you too much about what you do, but I—”

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know, Dina.” Gently I squeeze her hand.

She thanks me with the tender look in her eyes.

“I have a feelin’ you’re gonna be makin’ me roll around in my grave,” she says. “Look, I know you live a dangerous life, that every day you step out a door that it could be your last, and I know better than to ask you to stop doing it—I know you’ll never stop. But there are some things I never want you to do, and that look in your eye just a few seconds ago when you were talkin’ about those fucked-up countries, well, baby, it really scares me something awful. Promise me you won’t go over there. I see it all the time on the news: innocent people kidnapped by those extremist bastards; the beheadings—Sarai, I just can’t be at peace knowing that the next time it could be you.”

I shake my head, squeeze her hand again. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Dina,” I lie, because I have to. “I won’t be going over there, I promise.” I smile down at her, then lean in and kiss her forehead; I bring her hand up afterward and kiss the top of it.

I don’t tell her anything else, and thankfully she doesn’t ask. I don’t want to have to lie to her anymore.

“Sarai,” she says softly, “do you remember that day your mom’s boyfriend came to my house looking for you?”

I smile. And then I can’t help but laugh when I picture her standing at the door with her shotgun.

“Yeah, I remember.”

She smiles, too.

“I’da blown his greasy head clean off, and I would’na blinked or felt bad about it afterwards. I’da done anything for you.”

“I know,” I say softly, and pat the top of her hand.

But I’m no longer smiling, because I feel like I know where she’s going with this; I know what she’s going to say next.

Her smile fades too, replaced by something more somber, proving my prediction right.

“I know you don’t want to talk about it, baby,” she says, “but have you…made a decision?”

I can’t look at her eyes.

“I know it’s a selfish thing to ask of you,” she says, “and it’s wrong, and terrible, and maybe even unforgivable, but when you peel off those layers and see it for what it really is, you have to know that it’s not wrong, just unbearably difficult. It’s mercy and compassion, Sarai.”

She goes on, pleading her case:

“I’ve lived a long and good life—shorter than I’d planned; I pictured myself with cottony-white hair, a sunken-in face because I didn’t care about having my dentures in anymore, and me sitting in a rocking chair just like my great-grandmother used to sit in on her front porch. Ninety-one. That’s how long I planned to live. I’m a few decades short of that goal, but that’s all right. I’m happy with the time I had.” Her voice begins to waver; I squeeze her hand more firmly. “I-I know I shouldn’t ask you…I’m sorry, Sarai, I’m just desperate. I-I don’t want to be trapped in this body for whatever time I have left, unable to move, to speak—it scares me more than anything. If I could…baby girl, if I could do it myself, I would”—anger rises up in her voice—“I should’ve done it when I when I was able!”

I move my hand from hers and place it gently on her chest. “Calm down, momma; everything’s gonna be all right.”

Moisture coats her eyes, and she manages a fragile smile.

“You are my momma,” I tell her, knowing it’s what made her smile. “You always have been.”

“But what kind of mother would ask her daughter what I’ve asked of you?” Now she’s the one who can’t look at me. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I tell her, and take her hand again. Then I swallow, unsure of what I’m about to tell her, but I do it anyway. “I’ve done it before,” I say. “I’ve…”

Suddenly, the memory coats my mind like the tears in Dina’s eyes.

I pulled back the plunger, drawing another spoonful of heroin into the needle. Both of my eyes throbbed; the left side of my face felt bigger than the right; I was so angry, so tired of nursing my mother every day, feeding her veins because she couldn’t find them herself anymore; tired of the smell; tired of these men raping me and beating me when Javier was gone. The one that just left, thought it necessary to rape me in front of my mother. And she just laid there on the bed, her back to us, too high to move a hand against him to stop him. So that extra spoonful of heroin, I knew in my heart was too much. I knew her emaciated body couldn’t take another one so soon, that her barely-beating heart would fail the moment the heroin touched it.

I knew…

“Sarai, baby,” my mother whispered to me; her body odor, mixed with strong perfume and cigarettes, choked me as she laid next to me on the soiled bed. “You forgive me, don’t you? I never meant for any of this to happen. I just…wasn’t thinking straight.” I saw the whites of her eyes briefly in the darkness as the heroin began to swim through her bloodstream. She smiled euphorically as if she’d touched the Face of God. I set the needle down on the tray at the foot of the bed.

“It’s OK, Mom,” I whispered back, and loosened the tourniquet from her wiry arm. “I forgive you…”

I force myself back into the present.

And I look right into Dina’s eyes.

“At least you have the courage to ask,” I say to her, the memory lingering on the fringes of my mind, and my heart.

I kiss her hand.

“Will you play the piano for me, baby girl?”

“Of course I will, momma. Of course I will…”

TWENTY

My Boston headquarters was perfect. It was hidden in plain sight, located in the heart of the city, built with just enough levels and rooms for all of my needs and personnel; not to mention, being a juvenile detention center previously, it was equipped with cells that served more than their fair share of purpose since setting up here.

Perfect.

Yet, not so perfect, after all.

It was, in a sense, a fantasy to believe even for a moment that I could stay in the same place for too long, much less run a growing underground organization of my own here, without imminent threat of The Order moving in and taking me down, and everyone in it.

Empty.

That is the only word to describe my perfect sanctuary now; it has been stripped clean of every stitch of furniture, every painting, every gun and bullet and blood sample and computer. But more notably, the hum of my operatives—spies, assassins, guards—has been silenced, leaving the walls of the building to whisper the things they have been subject to. I can almost hear them, talking to one another.