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"Sit back, Harper," I growl as I yank her by the arainst the door I pull back onto the road before one of these girls decides to get out of the car I am not in the mood to chase them down in this heat

"I don’t want to travel with you anymore," Harper says as she crosses her aret back to civilization"

"I’o back to Merc I’ll find Ford on o I was having war about Harper’s lips wrapped around er and resenters in the air like a cloud of dust I roll over all the possibilities in ure out where it all rong And then make a decision to take one for the tea atabout my brother" I check Harper in irls are listening, I know that much

"Lots of people wanted hireed He was one fked-up individual I admit, I am one fked-up individual But Tony… Tony was the worst of all of us He was too young when he started doing jobs Three years younger than me, and I was only sixteen I was sent away, learned my trade and completed my contracts in faraway places, filled with faces I never cared about Entire populations of people who a and they were not real people But Tony did jobs in fking San Diego on the weekends and went to school on Monday like he was just another kid He never had the chance to dissociate"

"Dissociate?" Sasha asks, leaning forward into the front seat "What’s that mean?"

"They tellthe Company shrinks--that the dissociation from society is normal Key, really It’s the only way to kill people for a living and not go off the rails Of course, we all go off the rails That’s why there’s only two of us left And I’m the only one still here"

"You really killed them all?" Harper asks, appalled

"I really did"

"But," Sasha interrupts, "there’s more than ten assassins, Jalad you’re here to schoolher eyes in the rear-view "I know there’s ave you those jobs?" Harper asks

I don’t look at her as the words coht ahead "Your father"

"Why?"