Lone Wolf (Orphan X, #9)

by Gregg Hurwitz

Jack’s baseball-catcher head bobs twice, giving the question its due. It is respectful, his pause, a willingness to sit with what is.

And she was beautiful, too, beautiful in a way wholly specific to her, regardless of norms or comparisons, and he wondered if that was what the four-letter word was, when you saw straight down into someone with that kind of clarity.

It was always the same—the same suffering and destruction, the same age-old battles, the same powerful men looking down at it all from on high through the filter of the latest recycled ideology.

“That’s the answer right there, amigo. How many people care about me? How many people care about you? How many people ever really did?” Once more Evan found himself at the limitations of his experience. If there were words to shape the chaos beyond into meaning, he didn’t know what they were.

“You still think it’s your responsibility to fix every damn thing in the world. That’s good. But it’s just training.” “For what?” “For what happens after you learn you can’t fix anything or save anyone. All you can do is light a match at a fork in the dark-ass road to show someone a better path that they’ll probably not take.”

“There’s gotta be something,” Evan said. “Something you still want to aim at. To leave behind. What do you want them to say when they put you in a casket?” “‘Look,’” Tommy said, “‘he’s moving!’”