The black slowly resolved into gray and white as I opened my eyes. I was sitting in a lotus position and had been meditating for a little over 4 hours. The sun was low in the sky, but there was still enough light to see the bare, white wall in front of me.

  After Sarah left and went back to her hotel, I spent the rest of that day packing a kit to take with me to Texas, figuring that was the place to start. Soon, it was obvious I had no idea what to pack. After staring at a week’s worth of opioids, socks and underwear for five minutes, I realized that I was completely lost.

  What does one bring to a manhunt?

  Let’s get a few things crystal clear. I am not a detective. I do not have “contacts” I can call on to do “leg work” in investigations. I loathe computers, though I am competent in their use. I am merely a retired soldier. I am not a patient man, either. I tend to pick a direction and start going until I meet a wall, at which point I usually shoot it.

  In order to prevent such occurrences from happening in civilian life, I have found that the study of Tai Chi, along with meditation, helps me find pathways that my target fixated bull rush approach might otherwise miss. This time, however, the meditation was primarily to get these Godsdamned flashbacks under control.

  After Sarah had left, I had started seeing bright flashes of gunfire out of the corner of my eyes, and once a face that looked a lot like mine, but couldn't have been, because he was dead in my arms.

  Anyway. No time for that insanity just now. Now I need to pack.

  What does one bring to a manhunt? A hunter of men, and I am that. In spades. The battleground is different this time, as are the rules of engagement, but at the end of the day, I spent a lot of time tracking, chasing, and yeah, killing Extras. I’m actually good at it. All I have to do is acquire a slightly different set of tools for my toolbox this time. Or maybe a better image would be a different set of armaments for the rucksack.

  Whatever image you prefer, I needed intel, so the first stop after flying into Austin would be to sit down with Frank’s wife again and ask some relevant questions. As for packing, this battleground is a quiet, hidden one. The Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle would stand out like…well…exactly what it is – a man killer.

  But I was going to Texas, so I doubted too many eyebrows would be raised by a big game hunting rifle and a large caliber sidearm or two. Pack some hunting camo, some outdoor clothes, and a decent shirt and pants for appearing human, a big bottle of grey market pain killers, and I was good to go. Let’s pretend it’s a week-long hunting trip as a long overdue vacation.

  I was getting the hang of this whole detective thing already.

  Sarah had bought me a ticket on the same flight she was on, so we sat in excruciatingly uncomfortable silence on the airplane all the way to Austin. The less said about the trip, the better. I’m horrible at small talk, and Sarah obviously had a lot on her mind. I had eventually plugged in my headphones and listened to my Plucky Wizard overcome all odds to save the day. I was a chapter from the end when we began our descent. I still couldn’t figure out how he shot those accurate over-the-shoulder fireballs whilst running away all the time.

  When we landed in Austin, I went to stop at the first coffee shop I saw in the terminal. I looked up and got a gut punch when read it's name: Jo's. It stopped me in my tracks and gave me a little superstitious twinge.

  I mumbled, "Shit," as my joint pain flared up and a headache started in my temples. I shook it off and made myself walk up to the lady behind the counter, finishing my mumble with, "You can get past this, soldier, it's just a fucking coffee."

  She met me with a tired, "What can I get you?"

  I forced myself to say, "What's a good, strong, cold drink?"

  Her eyes lit up a tiny bit and a smile crept into the corners of her mouth, "Our specialty is the Iced Turbo."

  My eyebrows rose. "Turbo" sounded right up my ally. "What's that?"

  "It's an iced hazelnut and chocolate cold-brew. Delicious."

  "Sounds sweet. I'm not a huge fan of super sweet."

  The smile slipped, "It is sweet. What you want is the Belgian."

  Bemused, I asked, "And the Belgian is…?"

  "Half Turbo, half black Cold Brew."

  "Sold!"

  She smiled as she rang me up and the drink was put into my hands in less than a minute. I took my first sip, and the drink was the best thing that had happened to me in seven months. "Oh. Oh yes, thank you."

  Sara and I met back up at the baggage claim. As we looked for the luggage to start down the chute, we stood around nervously fidgeting and studiously not saying anything. After about two minutes, my ADHD got the best of me and I had to ask, “Do you realize there are two bands playing in your airport right now? At the same time?”

  She smiled a little and replied, “Austin is the live music capital of the world, and we take it seriously.”

  “Sure, but two bands at once?”

  “That’s a little unusual, but there must be a special occasion of some sort going on. Hardly a rare occurrence here. You know, Dru, you are not what I expected.”

  I looked around the airport like I was searching for something, “I’m not?”

  She adjusted her carry-on bag strap on her shoulder and said, “Oh, I know better than to assume anything where Frank's…friends…are concerned, but the way he described you, I thought you were going to look like Rambo.”

  Straight-faced, “I thought I did.”

  She laughed and seemed surprised at herself for doing it. I immediately realized why he fell in love with her. It’s not easy for a guy who can expect to outlive humans by four hundred years to let himself fall for a girl who will be lucky to make it to 90, but she had a laugh that would make a glacier melt.

  “So what you’re saying,” I continued, “is that Rambo isn’t a few inches shy of 6 feet and 165 pounds of pure awesomeness?”

  This time she didn’t hold back with the laugh and answered, “Oh sweetie, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have red stubble on his face or grey eyes either.”

  I immediately stopped laughing and stared at her hard. Her smile faltered and dropped, and her face registered concern. “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”

  I leaned in close and replied, “You callin’ me a ginger?” It took her a second, and she and I both broke into a laugh at the same time. “It’s a curse, dark brown hair and red beard. The Celts strike again.”

  She finished her laugh and put her hand on my arm in a simple gesture of friendship. Frank, you lucky bastard, why would you risk this? Where have you gone?

  Don't worry, I wasn’t thinking impure thoughts about my friend's wife. I’m not normal as far as relationships go. As in I don’t want a physical one. At all.

  I’m not a loner per se (that’s a lie, yes I am), but I’ve wanted nothing physical from anyone for as long as I can remember. Those relationships seem to be a non-starter for me. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t recognize an amazing person standing in front of me.

  As we left the airport, a wave of heat slammed into me and damn near took my breath away. “Wow,” I said, “I had no idea it would be this hot in Austin. It must be a hundred degrees! In September!”

  “Yes sir, it’s getting more and more common to have these temps even into early September. Good news is that it’s supposed to drop into the low nineties starting tomorrow. This should be the last day over one hundred until next year.”

  After we located her SUV in the aptly named "Blue Garage", I found myself a passenger in the largest non-military vehicle I had ever seen. Sarah’s SUV was a Chevy Suburban in silver grey, and it was approximately a city block long. Inside it was tastefully appointed in enough leather to clothe a large herd of cows, and it had all the bells and whistles available. The damn thing even talked to her and let her know we were headed to her house.

  “You don’t know where you live?”

  “What? Of course I do. What are you going on about?

  “Why do you have a navigation set up larger than my television, telling you where your house is?”

  “Stop being silly.”

  “In a way, I’m being serious. There’s no way a Lieutenant's salary bought this car, and he was never one to buy technology for the sake of technology. This is your car bought with your money, right?”

  She drove on, silent for a few beats, eventually answering, “Yes. I work, make money, and spend it. Women do that these days, Mr. Seta.”

  “What do you mean? I didn’t mean to imply you belonged in the kitchen making me a sandwich. I just wanted to know why you have a monster truck with enough technology to go to the moon.”

  “My husband and I are different people, Mr. Dru; beyond the obvious. I’m a certified techie. I love tablets, smartphones, computers and all that stuff. I work for a company that designs, builds, and sells the most popular examples of those toys on the market. I make about five times as much as he did in the Squad, and I run an entire division of the company. Research and Development, no less.”

  “So why does he need to get a job?”

  She eyed me sideways as she drove, “Are you serious, darlin'?”

  “As a heart attack.”

  “He doesn’t,” she shrugged, “I make a strong six figures and he has been saving money for over two hundred years. We're quite well off. But he wanted to get a job, and if we’re being honest, he still has a little of that macho male provider bullshit left over from being born in the early 1700s."

  There's a trick southerners have when they speak where they can take a simple sentence and make you know exactly how low their opinion of you is, and Sarah nailed it as she said, "I’m sure you understand Frank’s thinking.”

  That was about as clear a “shut the fuck up, man-pig” as you can get without actually saying it. Fair enough. I probably deserved it. A quick flash of a woman's face, framed in bright red hair, and calling me an idiot ran across my brain. That was a new one. Wonder who she was? Was she real? Did I once know her?

  We arrived at the house about 40 minutes later and I was invited inside for lunch. As we walked up to the door, I looked up at the big Texas sky as the sun shone down hard on me. I noticed a black bird high up in the air circling the neighborhood and felt a chill.

  Sarah saw me, looked up, and said, “Yeah, it’s a big Texas sky, isn’t it? Bright blue and goes on forever sometimes.”

  I pasted a fake smile on my face. “It sure is.”

  “You looked like Frank did that day on the call, standing there staring at the sky.”

  “I’m taking in all the clouds and sunshine.” I kept the smile on my face and looked one more time. The bird was gone, but that didn’t stop the shiver that went down my spine. We went inside.

  I entered the front door to find myself in a large foyer with a nice limestone tile floor and some artwork on the walls. No idea who the artist was, but it looked like scenes of local locations, so I assumed it was a local artist.

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  I followed Sarah past the dining room on the right, where she looked over her shoulder with an innocent smile and asked, “Want me to make you a sandwich?”

  “Uhh…there’s no right answer here, is there?”

  Laughing, she replied, “Bless your heart, you’re going to have to loosen up a little and get used to it. I’ve been teasing my husband about his old-fashioned thinking for our entire relationship, and you have to admit, you kind of set yourself up for that one.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry if I said or did anything to upset you, I do recognize that a lifetime in the military did not do me any favors in the ‘toxic masculinity department’, but I certainly don’t think I have any hang-ups about gender equality. I’ll try to watch my attitude.”

  “Huh. I’m…apology accepted, and I’m sorry too. I’m being a little defensive. Probably a habit from being the boss of a bunch of socially inept men who think their brains are bigger than mine because I have different plumbing than them. But you’re still going to make your own sandwich. Come on into the kitchen.”

  Having come in through the front door, and passing the formal dining room off to the right, there was a weird little sitting room to the left. Immediately after that, a stairway to the second floor was in front of me to the right creating a “wall” for the dining area and going up to my right-hand side. Walking past this stairway led me past a hallway to the right side of the house and into the living room with the large kitchen with a dining nook to my right. It was an interesting layout with the back door almost directly across the house from the front door, and the bulk of the house extending away to one side.

  We walked almost all the way to the back door, then turned right into the kitchen.

  I made myself a big, classic, Italian-style sandwich on a surprisingly delicious sub roll after Sarah pulled out all the meats, cheeses, and other sandwich stuff from the gleaming, stainless steel fridge. Italian Subs might be the greatest gastronomic invention in human history…as long as you have a great sub roll to build it on.

  And as long as you don't include coffee in the definition of "gastronomic", of course, because coffee is in a class all by itself.

  Sarah made something I’ll politely call vegetable-based with some cheese thrown in. She grabbed a bag of potato chips, tossed them onto the counter, and said, “Help yourself, Mr. Dru”.

  We sat down to eat and Sarah looked at me and said, “You really aren’t what I expected.”

  “So you said at the airport.”

  “No, not your physical appearance, well, not just your physical appearance. For example, what kind of name is Seta? It doesn’t sound Irish.”

  “I changed my name legally. My Stepfather's last name was a real Irish “Mac”. For personal reasons I’ll have nothing to do with that family.”

  She sat back in her chair, “Interesting, but it sounds like maybe you don’t want to talk about any of that.”

  “I don’t, thank you. How about you, Sarah. Family?”

  “Frank was...is…my family. That’s it.”

  “Well, I know Frank loved...loves…shit I’m sorry, this is hard.” I grabbed the edge of the table for support.

  “Yes it is. Let’s please assume my husband is alive until proven otherwise. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

  “I agree. LT is alive, and I’m going to find him." I looked up at her face. "He loves you very much. Said you were his world.”

  “You know, my husband liked you, but he also thought that maybe you were…” she looked away from me and over at the wall as if the words she needed to say would be printed there.

  “What? What did he think?”

  “Well, that maybe you weren’t only an excellent soldier. He told me many times he thought that the skills – what you called your “knack” – was more than you let on. Mr. Dru, he told me many times the world was far stranger than we modern folks knew, and you were part of that strangeness.”

  Well shit. I am a little different from most, and honestly, I don’t want others knowing. I’m not an Extra, but my “knack” has a few warps and twists to it I’ve worked hard to hide. I don’t want to lie about everything, so I figured it was time to try to change the conversation or deflect. “Sarah, I don’t know anything about that. I know what I can do. Not why or how.”

  “My Frank was born in 1723. He’s seen a lot, and he thought maybe you were more than you appeared or pretended to be, but he understood why you kept it quiet.”

  “Sarah, Frank was born in the seventeen hundreds, yes. But it’s only in the last few years that psychology and medical science have understood the behaviors of humans in any meaningful way. I need to be honest with you - I am a messed up person. I have seen lifetimes of trauma for sure, but that’s simply my bad luck. I do not function like you, think like you, or behave like you."

  I rested my elbows on the table and learned in towards her, “Sarah, I get what he was thinking and why. I am different. Even taking our profession into context. But that’s because I’m basically a functioning nightmare. Regular, healthy, normal people - like you - can not understand.”

  Sarah's eyes hardened. “Oh, you think so? You think little old me can’t understand? Mr. Seta, how many human beings do you think could accept and come to terms with a 300-year-old husband? I’m trying to get to know you, but you sure seem to think you already know all about me.”

  I sighed inwardly and tried to make her understand. “That’s not what I meant. I honestly meant that you have no frame of reference for my experiences and the things that shaped me.”

  “Like what?” she challenged.

  I honestly don't know why I said it. There is not one time in my life up to this point that I can remember ever speaking about my childhood. Hell. I pretty much never even allowed myself to think about it. But before my brain could realize what my mouth was saying, I blurted out, “Like my entire abusive nightmare of a childhood.”

  She got quiet and looked at me with an understanding that curdled my stomach.

  Oh shit no.

  A switch was thrown in my brain, my ears started ringing like a bad case of tinnitus and my vision began to tunnel, tinged with red. I began to panic.

  “I’m sorry Mr. Dru, but you're wrong. I understand that completely, sweetheart."

  She suddenly noticed my labored, heavy breathing and said, "Are you alright?" It sounded like it was coming from miles away or maybe underwater or something. I couldn't tell, and I couldn't answer. I was starting to hyperventilate. My knees, elbows, and shoulders exploded in agonizing pain and I crashed up and out of my chair, stumbling back against the wall behind me, using it to hold me up. Snapshots of dead faces played across my eyes in a rapid fire migraine of death and violence. Bodies, blood, and agony in flashback form causing my head to pound like a sledgehammer had come down on me.

  She stood up to cross over to me, and even through my blurred vision I could tell she was concerned, "Dru, are you okay? Breathe, sweetheart. Relax and breathe."

  I was waving my arms feebly. This hadn't happened in a long time, but I knew what was coming next and Sarah was in real danger. I gasped, "You need to get away from me. Get back!"

  She stopped a few feet away from me, not understanding the danger but trying to put me at ease. "It's okay Dru. Don't speak, just breathe. Just listen. You don't have to talk about it. You don't need to speak. Just breathe, just try to relax. It's okay."

  It was as if being given permission to stop opened a floodgate, letting the panic and hurt drain away. I began shuddering with relief and slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor.

  Sarah looked at me for a long time and I could tell from the set of her mouth and eyes she had come to some sort of a decision.

  Eventually, my breathing began to return to normal and I was able to hear and see clearly again. I felt exhausted and could barely lift my head.

  "Dru, I’m going to tell you my story, because you need to hear it. Can you listen to my story? It will be hard for you, I think."

  I nodded my head. "I can listen, so long as I don't have to talk much, I think."

  "Alright." She visibly gathered herself together before she continued, "I was an orphan at age four and was placed in five different foster families before I ran away at fifteen. And yeah, it was every bit as bad as you could imagine. I was a very pretty little girl." She sat as still as a statue and pinned me with her eyes, "They started whispering that to me in my bedroom late at night when I was eight.”

  I sat there stunned. I forced out a whispered, “Then how…how the hell did you wind up…” I waved my arms weakly around the kitchen, “...here?”

  “Frank.”

  “Frank?”

  “He showed me how to save myself. Plain and simple." She nodded to herself, "If I tell you this, you’ll be the third person alive to know my secret. Don’t make me regret it. Please.”

  I swallowed hard and nodded my head a fraction of an inch, “I won’t. I understand.”

  “I was a fifteen year old runaway, smart but undereducated, and I was trying to hustle and con people on the streets to survive, desperately trying to avoid the fate of so many others like me. My eyes were wide open. I knew prostitution, drug addiction, and death were waiting for me, but I thought I was smart enough to play the game and win. "

  I guiltily thought of the painkillers in my pocket.

  "I was sure I could beat the odds. Then I met Lucas and we became partners. I knew shortly after he punched me for the first time I had gambled and lost. By the third beating, I did what he told me to do and tried not to make him angry.

  “Then one night I tried to con Frank."

  I tried talking, “Where?”

  “Atlanta. I came onto him as he left a bar, figuring the middle-aged drunk guy would try to take me home and I could talk him into driving into a quiet parking lot where my partner was waiting.

  "Lucas was a big kid full of steroids and all muscle. He would bang on the car yelling and screaming about the mark ‘molesting’ his little sister and we’d shake our marks down for money, get their driver's license and threaten them with exposure if they were married, or violence if they were single.

  “Frank started talking to me. He saw right through the con, offered me five hundred dollars so long as I went to a woman's shelter for the night, and somehow kept me talking for almost an hour right there on the corner. I can’t explain it. I should have hightailed it out of there and looked for another mark. I knew Lucas was one bad day away from becoming my pimp, and I was terrified of him. Somehow Frank talked me into walking away.

  “I explained to him about Lucas, and he shrugged that way of his, smiled a sad little smile, and said he’d handle Lucas. I laughed. You know what Frank looks like. I thought, this middle-aged skinny guy is going to handle Lucas? No way! But he patted my hand and led me to the shelter.

  “The next morning, for the first time in my life, somebody made good on their promise to me. He showed up, handed me five, crisp, one hundred dollar bills, took me out to meet Lucas, and beat him into the hospital in 30 seconds. I was stunned, and I was in love. Immediately. I turned to Frank and told him he was going to be my husband and I was going to take care of him forever.

  “To this day, I’m not embarrassed about that. This wasn’t some childish fantasy in my head. This was me seeing a man treat me like a human being for the first time ever, and I knew - I knew- this was the way forward and out of my dead-end future. But there was also something in Frank that told me he needed me too. I can’t explain it, but I felt for the first time in my life that I was an equal part of the equation. I trusted him completely and I realized he could trust me too. I was one hundred percent committed.

  "I’ll never forget his response as long as I live. He said, ‘I believe you mean that, but you can’t even take care of yourself yet. That five hundred can get you away from here. Take it and grab a bus to Florida or somewhere. Learn how to take care of yourself.’

  "I was furious. I yelled, 'Don’t tease me, I’m serious! You are going to be my husband and I am going to take care of you!'

  “He replied, ‘I said I believe you, but do you even have a high school diploma?’ So I punched him in the shoulder and yelled that I didn’t need one to love a man.

  "I was fifteen years old, Dru, but he could tell I was no stranger to what I was offering and that I meant it. I had no shame. I would have seduced him right there on the street if I could have."

  She had tears in her eyes as she continued, "And he said, ‘As soon as you get your Masters degree from a college, I will accept your marriage proposal, if you still desire it. Not a day sooner. And until then, if you’re really serious, you will move into my spare bedroom and we will do the proper paperwork to make me your guardian so that you can legally stay in my house. Come on, we’re going home’. And he took me to his home, moved me into the guest room, and helped me get a GED so I could enroll in Georgia State by age seventeen."

  She looked at me and raised her hand to forestall my comments. “Obviously he didn’t mean it when he said he’d marry me, and it was clear he wanted me to learn to think of him like a father, but I knew how flimsy and useless the word father could be, and I wasn't interested in that. I decided to prove to him that he was going to be my husband.” She smiled a wry grin. "That first night I tried his bedroom door to find it locked. He locked it every night for over four years.

  “I busted my butt at Georgia State and spent three and a half years buried in books. At age 20 I had my bachelor's in Computer Sciences and we moved to Austin – Frank sold his house and moved with me to Austin – so I could get my Masters. He never once tried to sleep with me, and I never once tried to sleep with anybody else.

  “By then I knew all about him and his past. He had dropped hints for years, but he told me everything during my senior year at Georgia. He was trying to explain why we could never be husband and wife. Oh Dru, I cried so hard when I realized I couldn’t keep my promise to take care of him for the rest of his life, and apologized over and over again.

  “A few years ago, he confessed that’s when he began to fall in love with me. Until then, he was simply doing a good deed. Who does that? Who just saves lives for no reason?”

  I was moved in a deeply unsettling way I couldn't define. “Frank, apparently.”

  “We got married at the courthouse three hours after my graduation ceremony from UT, and that was seven years ago. You already know that four years ago he had to go back to slavery in the Squad, and now he’s gone and it’s my turn to either save my husband or avenge him. Because I promise you, if my husband is gone, I’m going to kill every single bastard involved.”

  “Where were people like you when I needed them?”, I mumbled.

  “I’m sorry sweetie, but I know what it’s like being a Child of the Secret.”

  “Oh, it was no secret in my family," I replied bitterly. “My step-father passed me around like a party favor.”

  “My Lord.”

  “Yeah. I've killed a lot of people, I really wish he was one of them.”

  “He’s still alive then?”

  “Oh no, he’s long dead, but I didn’t get to do it. In fact, the son of a bitch died a hero. How’s that for a kick in the teeth?”

  “But Dru, people like us understand more than most that family has nothing to do with blood. Frank was my family of choice, and you are part of his family. That makes us family too.”

  I had an electric jolt of self loathing shoot through my whole body and I had to step away from her. I stood up and walked away from the wall. “No, it doesn’t. Only a fool would choose to call me family, but LT is my friend, and friends are rare." I stared into her face, willing her to understand. "That’s why I’m going to help you kill all of these motherfuckers."

  I dropped my eyes and began to fidget. Gods I could use a few painkillers all of the sudden. "Sarah, this was a lot for me. Too much, really. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I think I need to be alone now. I’d better get on up to my hotel in Dallas.”

  “How?”

  “Umm…good question. Can you actually get an Uber to go that far?”

  “Mr. Dru, why don’t I drive you?”

  There was no way I was going to be able to sit next to her for that long in a car after what we had shared. No way. “And then you’d have to drive all the way back? Isn't it like three hours each way?”

  “Well, I have a car you can borrow, I guess.”

  “Actually, I don’t want any connection between you and me yet. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I do think it’d be better if everyone assumes I’m Frank's lone friend. So. Can you get an Uber from Round Rock to Dallas?”

  Turns out you can, but it’s not fun. I sat in the back of the car for the whole trip thinking about Sarah’s childhood and how I’ve spent my entire life trying to forget mine. But it’s impossible to forget when everything you are was shaped in that crucible of hell.

  And the real punch to the gut is that I hadn’t told her even a tenth of it. I couldn't. We shared a horrific past, us children of the secret, but there are things in mine that would send her right over the edge, and she’d never trust me to be sane if I shared them with her, because I’m not.

  Oddly, there were no flashbacks for the entire ride.

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