Fletcher Lane. Finn’s dad. My mentor. The assassin the Tin Man.
“You should have made sure that you were the only one clever enough to think of using this ridge as a sniper’s perch,” Fletcher drawled, eyeing his son. “I’d already been up here for twenty minutes before you showed up.”
“I know, I know,” Finn grumbled. “There are no original ideas anymore, especially when it comes to the assassination business.”
Fletcher nodded before he fixed his gaze on me. “And you should have made sure that he was alone before you approached him. That someone wasn’t lying in wait to kill you both.”
His voice was far sterner with me than it had been with Finn, since Fletcher was training me to be an assassin, training me to be the Spider, like he had ever since he’d taken me in off the streets when I was thirteen.
I gave him a curt nod. I managed to hide my wince, if not the embarrassed flush that stained my cheeks. Even though I was twenty now, Fletcher still had the ability to make me feel like that lost little girl, the one who had no clue how to defend herself. Seven years of training, and he’d gotten the best of me—again—not by being tougher or stronger or having more magic but simply by being smarter.
Fletcher was always telling me to take things slow, to think, to wait and plot and plan, but I’d seen an opportunity to beat Finn, so I’d seized it without doing any of those things. My action had gotten me exactly one thing: eliminated. Fletcher was right. I should have known better.
I had to know better, or I’d get dead for real one day.
Fletcher stared at me another moment before nodding again, satisfied that I’d learned my lesson, at least for today. “All right. I think that’s enough for tonight.”
“Finally,” Finn muttered, leaning down to grab his rifle from where it had landed. “We’ve been out here for three hours already. I thought the day was never going to end.”
“Aw, you wouldn’t be saying that if you had managed to kill me a single time,” I drawled. “Just because I’ve killed you five times since we’ve been here is no reason to pout.”
Finn narrowed his eyes at my crowing. Before we’d played sniper-versus-assassin, we’d done a few rounds of hand-to-hand combat, all of which I’d easily won. All of which I’d loved, since that was one arena where quick, decisive action always came in handy, instead of the wait-and-see approach that Fletcher preferred.
“Whatever,” Finn muttered again. “I’ve gotta go. I’ve got work to do.”
“More boring reports to read for your summer job?”
He sniffed. “The reports are not boring, and it’s not some lame summer job. It’s an internship with one of the most prestigious banks in Ashland. If I play my cards right, this could lead to a full-time position.”
I rolled my eyes at his snotty, superior tone. Finn had recently turned twenty-three and was finishing up his MBA with his internship and some sort of accounting program that he was taking online through a university in Bigtime, New York. With his new job and fancy suits, Finn thought that he was it on a stick—and then some.
“Whatever. I’d rather be cooking in the Pork Pit than sitting in some stuffy old bank day after day.”
Finn sniffed again, but he didn’t respond to my taunt this time.
Fletcher didn’t comment on our sniping. He’d long ago given up trying to referee the two of us.
“Come on,” the old man said. “I want to go home and get some supper.”
The three of us climbed down the ridge using some rope that Fletcher had brought along, piled into his beat-up white van, and headed back to the city. Thirty minutes later, Fletcher dropped Finn off at his apartment building downtown.
“You coming by the restaurant for lunch tomorrow?” Fletcher asked through his open window.
Finn hesitated. “I’ll try, but it depends on work. I’ll call and let you know, okay?”
Fletcher nodded and smiled, but not before I saw the flicker of hurt that pinched his face. Finn hadn’t been around much this summer, spending more time at that stupid bank than he had with his dad. Anger sizzled in my chest that he could be so thoughtless toward Fletcher. Finn should be grateful that he still had a dad, especially one like Fletcher. But I kept my mouth shut. There was no use arguing with Finn. He was even more stubborn than I was.
Finn waved at his dad, then headed into his building. He didn’t wave at me or tell me good-bye, though. He was still pissed that I’d beaten him so many times tonight. I grinned. Too bad.
Fletcher threw the van into gear, pulled away from the curb, and drove through downtown, going by the Pork Pit. Since it was after nine now, the restaurant was closed, although the neon pig sign over the front door burned with bright, multicolored lights. The sight never failed to cheer me up.
“You know, I noticed that there are a couple of apartments for rent in that building across from the Pit,” I said, trying to make my voice light and casual as I pointed out the window. “See the sign right there? I thought I might call about one and see how much the rent is.”
Fletcher harrumphed in the back of his throat, but that was his only reaction. Finn had his own apartment, and I was itching to move out of Fletcher’s house too. I loved the old man, really, I did, but I was an assassin. I was the Spider. Fletcher had been sending me on solo jobs for a while now, and I felt like I should have my own place, my own space, and not what I’d carved out for myself in his cluttered house.
“So?” I asked, impatience creeping into my voice. “What do you think? About the apartment?”
Fletcher stared out the windshield, instead of looking at me. “We’ll see.”
I wanted to pester him about it and get him to say yes right then, but I forced myself to wait, even though I ended up grinding my teeth the whole time.
But that was all he said.
If Finn and I were stubborn, then Fletcher was doubly so, and I knew that nothing short of being quartered by wild horses would make him say another word before he was ready to.
It was difficult, but I made myself unclench my jaw, although I couldn’t keep from tapping my fingers against the open window frame in frustration. As I watched the passing scenery, I wondered how much longer it would be before the old man realized that I was all grown up.
3
Twenty minutes later, Fletcher stopped the van in front of his house, which perched on top of one of the many ridges that ran through and around Ashland as part of the Appalachian Mountains.