Name vs. Number

From his first introduction in American Hellhound, Reese has been one of the Dartmoor characters I most want to explore. Because I have a bad habit of exploring the same concept from a variety of angles, his struggles of having been raised as a weapon rather than a human being are struggles I've carried over into my Sons of Rome series. Those themes of identity and personhood, of finding a place in society are all things I'm going to explore with Severin - and Kolya, to a lesser degree, though with Kolya it's more about remembering. But because their circumstances are so different, it doesn't take away the importance of those themes in Reese's story.

I've had requests for a Reese book, and that's definitely something I'm interested in - but a lot of work has to happen before that. Work that needs to occur on the page, and not offscreen. His journey to feeling like he's a part of the club - and even the world - will be slow, and strange, and, for the moment, he's got a rival he never intended on having. 

Here's a snippet from one of my current WIPs, and the next Dartmoor-related book, Lone Star. 

“Texas,” Fox said. “Amarillo.”

That was where they were going. Reese had spent enough time with Fox at this point to know that he was someone who didn’t mince words, and who didn’t like to waste effort. 

Reese appreciated that. He understood it. Mercy was like that, too – but Mercy was busy. He had a wife, and three children, and he liked to linger over lunch with Aidan, Tango, and Carter, laughing in that loud, bright, open way that Reese struggled to comprehend. He knew what laughter was – but didn’t know what inspired it.

Fox laughed, some, but it didn’t strike Reese as the explosive, involuntary release of good humor like with Mercy. With Fox, it seemed performative; he laughed when he was supposed to, when it was socially appropriate; an effort to blend in with the others, though his eyes flashed darkly, and the way he bared his teeth didn’t speak to good cheer.

That Reese understood perfectly.

So he was fine with going to Texas. Was glad of an opportunity to put his skills to use, actually. Training was important, was necessary, but not a replacement for actual wet work. This was perhaps the longest he’d gone without performing an op, and he could feel himself growing complacent. Maggie’s rich cooking, and Aidan trying to explain the wonders of college football to him, and Tango explaining Instagram to him – a phenomenon for which he had yet to find a justification. Roman was courting Kristin, and Reese was keenly aware that he and his sister viewed the world very, very differently.

I’m happy, she’d told him. I want you to be happy, too.

He didn’t understand. Probably he never would.

So he would go to Texas, and he would work, and he would be useful.

But they were traveling via bike, Fox had told him, and Reese couldn’t take his usual arsenal.

It lay on top of his neatly-made bed, now, arranged in orderly rows, largest to smallest, all the guns clean and smelling of oil, all the knives gleaming in the soft glow of lamplight.

The sniper rifle he would have to leave behind, he decided; even broken-down, it would make for awkward carrying. He stared at it a moment, already missing it, then dismissed all thought of it. His regular shotgun wouldn’t work, either, but the sawed-off he thought he could manage, in its leather scabbard.

He would take the .45s, worn in their usual shoulder holster; there was a slim little sheath built into one of the straps that held his two-inch, double-edged emergency knife, so that would go, too.

He’d take the Glocks, and plenty of extra magazines, ammo for all the handguns. The bowie knife he’d leave, but take all the others, the slender stabbers and the serrated utility knives. A switchblade for each boot. All of that he could wear on his person, save the mags and ammo; those he’d pack in his knapsack, along with a bit of wire, some gauze pads, tape, eye drops, and a tin of grease paint.

“We’re going to Texas,” a scathing voice said from the doorway behind him, BBC British; a cultivated accent, carefully chosen for the weapon who would wield it. “Not Fallujah.”

Reese cinched the knapsack and carried it to the dresser to set beside his folded hoodie and Kevlar vest. Only then did he acknowledge Ten. 

Fox’s brother lounged in the doorway, a shoulder braced against the jamb, arms folded, and hips cocked negligently. He had this way of melting and adhering to whatever wall or bit of furniture he was near. A kind of casual that he’d perfected, Reese knew, through long hours of practice, but which wasn’t natural. It was too perfect, too artless to have been anything like Evan’s unconscious sprawling across surfaces.

“Preparation is important,” Reese said, because that logic had been drilled into his head since his earliest memories. Tie your shoes, clean your plate, preparation is important.

Tenny rolled his eyes. “Yes, it is.” He pushed off the doorframe and stepped into the room. “Are you taking that?” He pointed to the broken-down rifle where it rested on the pillow.

Reese knew a sudden, intense urge to throw himself down on the bed and shield the gun from view. His things were his things, and he didn’t let others touch them. Didn’t share.

When he didn’t respond, stood there with his hands at his sides, open and loose from great effort, Ten took a few steps closer to the bed, and reached out.

“It’s clean,” Reese said, voice tight, and Ten’s hand paused, hovering in the air.

His head lifted, gaze sharp and assessing. “You don’t want me touching it.”

Reese swallowed. “The oils from your skin–”

“I know how to pick up a gun,” Ten said, faintly insulted. “But you don’t want me to touch it.” Probing now, the way he always seemed to.

When they’d arrived home from London, and Fox had introduced Ten to everyone, Ghost had said, “Shit, now there’s two of them.”

(“Um, three?” Evan had said, but no one had listened.)

He and Tenny had been slapped with the same label. Reese had known that he didn’t fit with the Lean Dogs. He did like them, and when he thought of Knoxville, of this clubhouse where he had a dorm room all to himself, he thought home.  But he didn’t think like them; didn’t act like them. Didn’t understand, for instance, what was so special about the girls in the skimpy clothes who Boomer looked at with such round-eyed, baldly appreciative stares. Chanel had looked at Reese once, and closed one eye, and Boomer had come hustling over with his chest stuck out, his voice too deep, and told Reese to “back off,” He’d apologized after, when Reese only stared at him, pale and stammering. Chanel had laughed.

Reese didn’t understand.

But it didn’t bother him, not knowing; not speaking the strange social language that everyone around him did. He had his skills; he knew his place.

But then Tenny had come along.

Tenny who’d been raised to fight, and kill; to assess, and assault, and act without hesitation or prejudice.

But Ten had been groomed differently. He spoke a dozen languages, and he could slide into a conversation in the same easy way Reese slid a knife from his boot. He understood the social cues that Reese didn’t; his master hadn’t been just a man like Reese’s, but a government. An organization. They’d had resources necessary to teach Ten to blend into a crowd; to seduce, and set at ease, and play mind games.

Ten thought Reese was weak, and he hadn’t been subtle in expressing that.

The idea of him touching Reese’s belongings left Reese thinking about the distance between them, and the force necessary to put his emergency knife in the other killer’s throat.

“No,” Reese said, “I don’t.”

Ten smiled, the blade-sharp grin that looked like Fox’s, the one that confused delight with aggression. “Because you don’t like me.” It wasn’t a guess.

I hate you, Reese thought, but didn’t say, startled by his own hostility. Hate wasn’t a prudent emotion in an assassin.

“I have no opinion of you,” he said, and thought he managed to keep his voice flat and neutral. Restraining himself was a foreign concept; he was struggling with it.

Ten chuckled; a forced sound, another practiced behavior too perfect to have been real. He sat down on the empty patch of bedspread where the knapsack had rested. “Do you know what your problem is?”

That I hate you.

“You haven’t been challenged.”

Reese thought of the small composition notebook in his sock drawer, the one rubber-banded shut. Thought of the tally marks on the pages. Of the accounting of his kills. He’d dropped over the wall of a bathroom stall to strangle a man to death. Had sniped down targets from rooftops, four blocks away before the body had cooled.

He’d crawled through the tangle of wires and vents and dropped out of a ceiling to save Ten’s own sister – whom he didn’t know, and didn’t love.

He lifted his chin a fraction. “I’ve been challenged.”

That earned another chuckle. “What? Killing rednecks? Drug dealers, and hooker-killers? You paint your face black, and you play grim reaper, and, what then, disappear? You murder the untrained civilians your masters point you toward. Where’s the challenge in that?”

When Reese only stared at him, Ten’s gaze sharpened. “You stick out. You stick out in a room full of people like a stinking, festering wound. You can’t play at charming, or interesting. You barely know how to speak.

“Could you work the long game? Could you befriend someone? Seduce someone into bed? Learn all their secrets before you slit their throats? No,” he said, when Reese gathered breath to speak. “You can’t. You haven’t the faintest notion how to get information out of a mark. Killing is good – it always comes down to killing, in the end – but any dog can kill. The best assassins can learn – and I don’t think you can.”

I hate you, Reese thought. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

Ten stood. “Fox might be taking you, but he doesn’t need you. When we get to Texas, stay out of my way.” He turned to leave.

He was at the threshold when Reese found his voice. “I have a name.”

Ten froze. Turned back around.

“I have a name,” he repeated. “And you only have a number. Don’t pretend you’re more human than me.”

Ten stood impassively a long moment. Then he bared his teeth in another too-sharp smile, and walked off.

His shoulders were tight, though. Reese noticed that.

Because he noticed everything.