3. Finn
Finn shouldered his front door open with his hip and let it swing shut behind him, the lock clicking into place with finality.
His leather jacket slipped to the floor, pooling into a dark puddle. Leave it. Bending down was a Herculean effort.
Training had been brutal, like taking a dip in a frozen lake and losing the ability to take a full breath. It was the kind of training that made him stop thinking.
The few people allowed into his house were always surprised not to find his apartment in full bachelor mode. Where were the beer pong and the smeared seven-layer dip on the ceiling? Well, he’d had enough of that before he was seven—hard pass.
“Honey, I’m home,” he said, his voice echoing back to him off the bare walls.
Finn toed off his boots and lined them up precisely against the wall.
The sight of his prized jacket on the floor, where everyone left their shoes, made him want to hurl.
With a muttered curse, he bent, sucked in a pained breath, and scooped up his jacket.
He hung it back on the first hook by the door, where it belonged.
The blueprint of his house was a copy of the other permanent houses at the Way Station: two-storied, cozy, with an open floor plan, the bedroom and bathroom straight down the hallway in front of him, a staircase to the right that led up to a loft, the living room was on the left, and the kitchen, bigger than necessary, was on the right.
The houses came lightly furnished. Couch. Dining table. Bookshelf. Bed. The rest was up to the owner to decorate—meant to inspire and claim the place.
Henry paid for everything. Happily. They spared no expense.
To Finn’s surprise, nobody took advantage of that system.
Everyone living here received a generous, healthy stipend.
And if you worked as a Conductor to help bring in families and work in the National Forest, your pay was doubled. Thank you, Daddy Warbucks.
The shower he took was quick and efficient. Sweat swirled down the drain as a chasm yawned open within him.
The communicator on his right wrist buzzed after he got dressed.
Maybe I can pretend I didn’t look at it?
It was Wednesday. Movie night. He couldn’t think of a better way to waste time than to have everyone come together.
No one was on guard duty. No one was monitoring the control room.
No one could miss it. A direct order from Sabrina.
They needed to come together as a people, sing Kumbaya, hold hands, and cry around the campfire or some shit.
Finn brought a tablet with direct camera access and the ability to run the control room, while he kept his hands from getting sticky with s’mores and watched from the sidelines to make sure their borders weren’t breached.
Someone around here had to do their job.
Whistler tended to set up shop next to him to help monitor. Good kid. Smart.
Finn turned on the TV for background noise while he looked for something for dinner that didn’t require him to go up to the cafeteria.
No pictures decorated the wall like the ones at the museum at Charlie’s place. No clutter. Nothing to miss.
His watch buzzed again. Then again. Different vibration patterns. Different people. Three long buzzes. Charlie. This had better be good.
Messages from a woman whose name he knew but couldn’t recall popped up. Another came from a woman suggesting a quick rendezvous. Third, a message from Whistler arrived with a final report before movie night: all was clear on the Western Front.
Finally, from Charlie, asking if he wanted him to save a place for movie night, with the couple’s new skippy dog jumping and licking all over him? No, thank you.
He ripped the communicator off his wrist, tossed it onto his bed, then wandered into his kitchen. His stomach growled as he headed for the fridge, dragging his bare feet across the wooden floor.
Purple, green, and blue patterns of flowers spread across the floor from the kitchen’s stained-glass window. It was what made him want to take the house in the first place.
The sun was setting, and nighttime was when this place undoubtedly came alive.
Finn opened his fridge, then grimaced.
Then closed the fridge door.
Opened it again to confirm there was only lean ground turkey, eggs, a bottle of water, and mustard, pickles, and ketchup lined up like soldiers.
“Inspiring,” he muttered, rubbing his hand down his face.
Movie night featured complimentary popcorn, candy, roasted hot dogs, and s’mores. Maybe if I?—
A knock at his door stopped him from opening and closing his fridge again to see if wontons had magically appeared.
He froze.
Leave. Just leave.
Three sharp raps.
He sighed, bowed his head, shuffled to the door, and whipped it open.
“Chucky, look, I was comin’. I just?—”
Nobody was there.
He scanned both sides of his porch. Nothing. Instinctively, he reached for the gun at his side. Probably just some kids doorbell ditching. Finn rolled his eyes. They should probably try Charlie next door. He loves that crap.
“Real funny,” he called out into the seemingly empty field.
Finn shut the door with a frown.
“You know, if you wanted to have a movie night, there’s one happening, like half a mile that way,” Sam said, feet kicked up on the coffee table as he lounged on Finn’s couch. “The screen’s much bigger.”
Sam sat there with a grin that stretched far too wide, his red hockey hoodie wrinkled as if he’d just picked it up off the floor, smelled it, and decided it was good enough.
His sandy-blond hair stuck up in every direction, topped with an old baseball cap.
Finn had given him the hat. It was a red cap from Sam’s favorite baseball team, with a fishing hook clipped to the brim.
Sam was Sabrina’s little brother. Nineteen. Four years younger than her. Seven years younger than him. With the same golden-blond hair and green eyes. Perspicacious to a fault. And so painfully, a little brother.
“How?” Finn said. His eye twitched—actually twitched.
Sam spun a silver communicator on one of his fingers.
“Charlie’s missing something,” Sam snorted. The kid had hands like Houdini’s.
Finn huffed.
“What? He’s the only other one with access in here,” Sam said, getting cozier, burrowing deeper into the couch.
“You know, Chucky’s probably losing his mind without it,” Finn said, going back to his fridge to grab his water bottle.
“Not saying that’s how I got in, but?—”
Finn shook his head, half impressed, mostly unsettled. “You knocked just to mess with me.”
“Partially,” Sam admitted, waggling his eyebrows. “Mostly, I wanted to see if you were home and to give me time to run to your back window. You should fix that, by the way. The lock is sticky.”
“Get your feet off my coffee table,” Finn said, coming around the couch and pushing Sam’s shoes off. “You could have messaged me.”
Sam waved Charlie’s communicator in Finn’s face again. “I did.”
Finn grumbled.
“So, are you coming to movie night? ‘Brina will blow a gasket if you aren’t there. I, myself,” Sam said, pressing a hand to his chest, “would love to see that. But Charlie said he would pay me ten bucks if I could get you there,” Sam confessed, completely ignoring Finn’s concerns.
Finn let out a hard breath. “Never do that again.”
Sam grinned wider. “You say that every time, but it just makes the next time so much more fun. If you could see your face when I scare you, you’d understand. Oh, wait. I can show you.” Then Sam made a face, looking like he was silently screaming, waving his hands in the air.
The pillow just smothered him all by itself, sir, I swear.
“Why are you here?” Finn said, removing the couch pillow from Sam’s face after the first three seconds.
“I want to come on the mission with you tonight,” Sam said, batting his puppy-dog eyes at him. Finn never had a little brother, but Sam was as good as one.
Finn cocked his head at him. “We don’t have a mission tonight.”
Sam nodded. “I overheard my dad. You’re leaving in an hour.”
“How?” Finn said, tired of asking the same question to this kid.
“There’s an air vent in the hallway next to his office, and a couple of screws are missing. It’s easy to overhear,” Sam explained. “So can I come with you?” He clapped his hands together and stuck out his bottom lip.
Finn shook his head.
“You know that’s not my call.”
“I’ve snuck out with you and Sabrina before,” Sam said, standing up.
“Yeah, to go to a baseball game, kiddo. This is different,” Finn said as he mentally went over his packing list for their upcoming mission.
“I’m not a kid. I know what’s going on there, maybe more than you do,” Sam countered.
Finn shrugged. He was probably right. A lot of people knew more than he did.
“You haven’t even started your training with Atlas,” Finn explained. “I won’t let an untrained agent out in the field.”
Sam crossed his arms over his chest.
“You know, Dad won’t let me go to Atlas to train,” Sam huffed, scrunching his face. He made the same face his sister made when she was angry.
“I don’t even know what the mission is.”
Sam held up his finger. Of course, he knew that too.
“Let your dad brief me,” Finn said, holding up a hand to silence him. Plausible deniability. Hope left Sam’s eyes. Too far. Finn always went too far. Sam sat back down on the couch, dejected.
Finn knelt in front of him.
“Look, I wish I didn’t have to go to these things, Sammy. They’re . . . brutal. We never know what to expect. I don’t want you to experience that. Not yet. Not until we figure out what’s going on.”
“But I wanna fight,” Sam pleaded.
Sometimes Finn forgot that Sam was just a kid. He’d lost his family, too. Because of that loss, the Way Station was created. Sam and Sabrina were all but locked in this gilded cage. Sabrina was so young when she ran away. Finn first met Sabrina as she fought for her life in an alleyway.
After that experience, Henry barely loosened the leash around Sabrina and Sam.
“I know you do, whether your dad likes it or not. If you’re serious about this, I’ll train you. It’ll be early. I don’t want to hear any complaining,” Finn compromised.
Sam shot up off the couch like a rocket.
“You’ve got a deal, General Vega,” Sam quipped, saluting him.
Finn put him in a half-hearted headlock and rubbed the top of his messy hair, knocking Sam’s hat off the ground.
“Now, Charles said he’d give you ten bucks to get me to movie night, huh? If I pocket five, I’ll come with ya right now.”
“Deal.” Sam grinned, pushing away from him. He walked out of his lonely house to score a couple of hot dogs, place a whoopee cushion under Charlie’s seat, and try to forget what he would have to face on their mission.