Chapter Text
Court stands with his back to the science museum wall.
Dr. Grace’s students have been learning about Earth science and there’s an interactive tectonic plate exhibit that Dr. Grace had assured the parents was absolutely worth the field trip. When Claire had brought home the permission slip, Court had, of course, signed it. It hadn’t been a question. He wants to give Claire as normal a childhood as he possibly can, and with his past and her heart, any normalcy Court can offer her is hard won.
On the permission slip, he had also checked the box labeled “I am interested in being a chaperone.”
While he wants Claire to have a normal childhood with things like field trips to science museums, there is no way he’s letting her out of his sight in a crowded, public space like this, especially under the care of one overworked Dr. Grace and several unvetted PTA parents. So here he is, keeping an eye on forty-two children with four other parent chaperones while Dr. Grace explains plate tectonics and volcanoes.
At least Claire looks like she’s having fun.
“So, Mr. G.,” whispers one of the PTA parents as she sidesteps over to Court. Miss Linda, reads her name tag. Each parent chaperone had been given a name tag with Grover Cleveland Middle School printed along the bottom of the sticker. “Which one’s yours?”
Court glances at her before going back to subtly scanning the room’s exits.
“Claire. Over there,” he points, keeping his gesture small. He speaks softly. “The one in the green sweatshirt.”
He reminds himself to at least try to socialize like an adult, and asks “which is yours?”
“Jessica,” she says. “The redhead over there,” she says, looking again at Court. Her eyes dart down and then back up to meet his gaze. “I think she and Claire are friends. Maybe we could set up a play date for them?”
“I think they’re a little old for play dates,” Court says. Her shoulders droop, and he briefly feels bad.
He’s saved from having to navigate this awkward social situation—he wasn’t trained in small talk—when a loud clap from the front of the room draws Court’s attention to Dr. Grace.
“All right, everyone, that was our last stop of the day. Everyone say thank you to Ms. Dewey for showing us all the ways that volcanoes can form!” He gestures to the woman standing beside him wearing a blue polo with the museum’s logo over the breast pocket.
A chorus of thank yous from the students quickly morphs into excited chatter.
“Okay, hey, I wasn’t done. Listen—hey, my hand is up,” he says with his teacher voice. He gradually regains control of the room.
“You have fifteen minutes to go to the bathroom or the gift shop before meeting by the information kiosk. Understood?” He looks around the room, making eye contact with several students over the top of his glasses.
“Alright. Time starts… now,” he says, looking at his watch. The students scatter in several directions. “And no running!”
Dr. Grace turns to the woman, Ms. Dewey, and shakes her hand. They exchange a few words before he makes his way over to Court and Linda.
“Hey, Miss Linda, could you find another chaperone and go keep an eye on the gift shop, make sure nobody breaks anything?” He asks her. She agrees, probably itching to get away from Court’s antisocial presence. She finds Susan, and the two of them head over to the gift shop, leaving Court with Dr. Grace.
Dr. Grace leans against the wall beside Court, his bright yellow rain coat a sharp contrast to Court’s own dark suit. He exhales deeply, pushing his fingers behind his glasses to rub his eyes. He gives Court a tired smile.
“Field trips are exhausting,” he says, stating the obvious. Court thinks he probably just wants to have a conversation with someone over the age of thirteen. “Thanks for volunteering to chaperone. It’s not an easy job, keeping track of forty-odd preteens in a museum.”
Court gives him a soft smile and nod before looking ahead again.
“It’s no problem.”
It’s quiet again for a moment, and Court is getting antsy just standing here. He’s got a decent view of the lobby and the door to the gift shop, where Claire went, but he can’t see beyond that door. He makes to excuse himself, but Dr. Grace beats him to the conversational punch.
“Hey, just outta curiosity, why are you Mr. G. today?” Dr. Grace asks.
Court should have expected the question. He was once again Courtland Gentry, and that’s the name Dr. Grace knows him by. His old name had been resurrected, and he’d been granted a blanket pardon by the US government, wiping clean any and all records of his activity during his time as a covert ops asset. In the eyes of the law, his record was as clean as that of the middle school science teacher currently looking at him with earnest curiosity.
Court had been hesitant to use his old name again. Courtland Gentry had died when he was recruited at twenty-two years old, and Sierra Six had been built from his ashes. Even back then, he’d had little family to mourn him when it had been announced that he’d died in prison. Now, over twenty years later, he’s certain that there’s nobody living today who had known him when he had been Courtland Gentry for the first time.
And yet, he finds himself protective of that name. His old name. His new name. His name. He’s still relearning the habit of thinking of it as just his name.
“Old nickname,” he offers instead. “Claire thinks it’s funny, for some reason she won’t explain to me.”
Grace squints a bit and his mouth tilts in a crooked smile, but he’s also looking restless rocking back and forth on his feet. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“I’m gonna go, you know, take care of my own business while we have time,” he says, before visibly cringing. Cute. Court feels a small smile blooming on his face without any input from his brain. He can’t help but be charmed by Dr. Grace. “Meet by the info booth in ten,” Dr. Grace calls before he weaves through the crowd toward the restrooms.
Court takes the opportunity to head to the gift shop. He enters and immediately turns to his right to begin pacing the perimeter. Overkill, but he’s bored. He can admit he’s being a little paranoid in insisting on chaperoning this field trip, but he’s okay with a little paranoia. He thinks the two of them have earned the right to be a little paranoid. He rounds the corner and spots his mark.
Claire is standing in the plush toy section with with two friends. Court notes that neither is a redhead.
Satisfied, and knowing there’s only one entry and exit in the gift shop, he decides to use the restroom before they head out. He walks the opposite direction through the lobby towards the elevators, where he’d noted another bathroom in a hallway that looked like it got little foot traffic.
Court does his business and is washing his hands when the door opens. He glances up at the mirror and makes eye contact with the man who’d just entered the bathroom.
Court’s turned around in an instant, shoving the man against the wall with his arm across the man’s neck. He’d hardly even realized he’d recognized the man before his subconscious mind had identified him as a threat. The man is whimpering, hands raised in deference.
“Hey, man, I don’t know what your problem is, I’m just trying to go to the bathroom,” he manages. “Please, let go.”
Court isn’t buying it. His hair is longer and darker than the last time the two had met, and he now sports a full beard, but his eyes are unmistakable. Court knows this man. He’d tried, unsuccessfully, to kill Court several years ago. There was no way that their meeting here, in an otherwise deserted science museum bathroom in San Francisco, a city Court had never even been to before this year, was a coincidence.
“What do you want?” Court growls. “Who wants me dead this time? Who are you working for?”
The man drops his act, grabs Court by the wrist and flips them around in an aggressive show of strength, and pins Court face first against the wall. He presses his entire bodyweight against Court.
“I’m working alone, now,” he says. Court grunts, shifts a little. The man’s breath is warm against his ear. Court suppresses a shiver of disgust. “Couldn’t believe my luck when I saw you here today. You might not have a bounty on your head anymore, but I couldn’t pass up a chance to take down the Gray Man.”
“I’m out of that life now,” Court tries. He really, truly, wants to leave his past behind, but this man is making it really difficult. Court is unarmed, and he has no idea what kinds of weapons this man has concealed on his person.
“Well, I’m not,” the man says. He adjusts his grip on Court’s wrists so that they’re both being held in one hand, uses the other to reach for something. Court doesn’t wait to find out what he’s reaching for.
He throws his head backwards as hard as he can and feels his skull connect with the man’s nose. Court uses this moment to turn around and shove the man into the sinks, noticing he’s now holding a small handgun in his left hand.
The bathroom door opens, and to Court’s horror, he hears a familiar voice calling his name.
“Mr. Gentry? The students are boarding the bus,” Dr. Grace’s voice cuts off when he takes in the scene. “Oh my god, what’s going on?”
The man points his gun at Dr. Grace, whose face pales.
Court wastes no time in disarming the man. He grabs his wrist and gives it a painful twist, forcing him to drop the gun. He kicks it, sending it across the room and into an unoccupied bathroom stall.
“Lock the door,” he calls to Dr. Grace as he wrestles with the man. Dr. Grace is still frozen. He’s probably in shock. “The door!” he calls again, louder. This snaps him out of it and he stumbles backward, locks the door without ever fully turning his back to the room.
Court has the man in a headlock, and the man’s face is going red and bloated. He’s struggling against Court’s hold, mouth leaking spit while he makes sick, wet gagging sounds. Court grunts, breathes heavily, squeezes the man’s neck tighter. He leans back a little bit, pulling the man up from his slouch.
He’s distantly aware of Dr. Grace’s horrified expression, but he pushes it from his mind. Right now he has one objective and one objective only.
Court growls as he holds steady, squeezing his arm around the man’s neck and cutting off the blood supply to his brain. Finally, Court feels him go limp.
He wastes no time in laying the man down in the middle of the bathroom and patting him down, searching for weapons. He finds a knife in an ankle holster and an extra magazine for the gun, but nothing else notable. He has no I.D., but Court knows this man.
He drags the limp body into a stall. He sees Dr. Grace’s white Converse in the gap below the stall door and reluctantly arranges the unconscious man into the recovery position. He’d love to be able to deal with him now, but there was no way he was leaving a dead body in a busy museum in the middle of the day, let alone killing anyone in front of Dr. Grace. No, he’ll handle this cleanly. He’s an expert in covert ops. This man’s death will go unnoticed for a long time after Court’s through with him. There will be no body to find.
He comes out of the stall and makes a bee line for the gun. He picks it up, ejects the magazine, pulls the spring back to remove the bullet in the chamber, and fits this bullet back into the magazine. Then, he slips the gun into the waistband of his suit at the small of his back, and slips both magazines into an inside jacket pocket. He turns to Dr. Grace.
“Are you alright?” he asks firmly but calmly. “Any injuries?”
Dr. Grace seems to take stock of himself. He blinks several times and looks down at his own body, pats himself a few times.
“No, I think I’m alright,” he says with a noticeable tremble in his voice. “Did that man almost shoot me?” His voice is high. “Oh my god. I almost died.” He’s starting to freak out, and Court needs him calm.
“Yes, he could have shot you,” Court answers. “But he didn’t. He didn’t shoot me either,” he says, trying his best to sound reassuring. “But we’ve gotta go before he wakes up,” he says. Court makes for the door, but Dr. Grace blocks him. His feet are rooted to the spot.
“Listen, this guy is really dangerous. And he saw your face, and he heard you address me by name. He knows you know me, and that’s enough to put you in a lot of danger. We need to go, and we need to go now.”
He drags Dr. Grace through the door and into the lobby where he sees Claire holding a new plush whale and chatting with some friends.
“Claire,” he says in a serious voice. “Come with me.”
Her friends ooh at her as if she’s in trouble, but Court knows she knows she’s not. At least, not in the type of trouble they’re thinking of. She knows what that tone of voice means on Court.
She hustles to follow them out the front doors of the museum and toward the parking lot.
“Hey, the school bus is that way,” Dr. Grace tries. Court places a hand between his shoulder blades to direct him away from the bus.
“We’re going to my car,” he says, leaving no room for argument. “I’ll explain more when we’re driving.”
Dr. Grace glances back toward the yellow school bus with the rest of his students milling about, two parent chaperones standing and chatting with the bus driver.
They arrive at an unassuming black sedan. It’s less than two years old and is full of modern features, but you’d be hard pressed to pick it out of a lineup next to any other black sedan. Claire opens the back door and throws her plush whale and school backpack into it before climbing in and buckling up. Court opens the driver side door and begins to get in, but sees Dr. Grace hesitate.
“Please, trust me on this. You’re in danger. I promise I’ll explain.”
Dr. Grace hesitates for one more moment, eyes on the bus, before looking at Court over the roof of the car. He must see something in Court’s face, because he swallows, nods, and gets in the car.
Grace is in shock. He has to be. He just saw the parent of one of his students choke a man until he lost consciousness in a public bathroom. He’s now allowing himself to be taken to who knows where in said man’s car. Does he have no sense of self preservation? You’re never supposed to go to a second location! That’s, like, rule number one in how not to get murdered 101. And even if he doesn’t get murdered, he just abandoned his post as the field trip leader. Oh no, how will he explain this to his students? Or the school? He just ditched a field trip. Oh, god, they’re going to fire him.
“Phones,” says Court. Right, phones. He should call the school, let them know what happened. He pulls out his phone and begins to make a call.
“No,” says Court. “No phone calls. We can’t risk being tracked. Claire, can you get the bag from the pocket behind my seat?”
“Yep!” Claire is oddly cheerful right now. Hopefully that means Grace can trust this man. She pulls out a heavy duty zippered bag a bit larger than a sandwich bag made of some sort of metallic material. She slips her phone inside, and takes the phone Court is holding over his shoulder and slides that in beside her own. She holds her hand out expectantly. “Mr. Grace?”
“Uh, what’s going on?” he tries.
“Phones in the bag first, then we can talk,” says Court. “It’s a Faraday bag. Means—”
“Oh, blocks all electromagnetic signals,” Grace interrupts. “That’s why you can never get a cell signal when you’re in an elevator. You’re surrounded by metal, so the whole thing acts as a Faraday cage. Fun fact,” he says, turning to face Claire.
He notices the smallest smile on Court’s face for just a moment.
“Exactly,” he says, serious again. “I don’t want anyone tracking us or listening to us.”
Grace’s curiosity over the situation wins out over his instinct to not hand over his only means of communication with the outside world. He distantly wonders if he’ll look back on today and see, with painful clarity, just how irresponsible he’s being with his own safety.
“Okay.” He hands Claire his phone, which she adds to the bag before zipping it up and putting it back in the pocket behind the driver’s seat. “Okay,” he says again, “now, will you tell me what’s going on?”
Court sighs and briefly stretches his fingers before gripping the steering wheel again. Grace watches the movement, noticing the sunset tattoo on the back of Court’s left hand between his thumb and index finger.
He’s always thought it looked out of place on the otherwise polished man. He’s only met the man a handful of times, but every time he’s seen him, he’s been wearing a suit or at least a blazer, an expensive looking watch, and has styled his hair with a sleek part.
His mind unhelpfully suggests it looks like a prison tattoo, and then he internally scolds himself for rushing to stereotypes. Then again, he did just watch this man physically, forcefully overpower another.
With the phones safely locked away, Mr. Gentry speaks.
“My old line of work was…” he begins. “Dangerous. I tried to leave it behind, and for the most part I did, but apparently I still have some enemies out there.” He glances at Grace before putting his eyes firmly back on the road. He merges onto the highway and heads east, away from San Francisco.
“I’m taking you to somewhere safe. You two will stay put while I deal with this guy, and once I’m sure he’s no longer a threat, we’ll go back to town. It shouldn’t take more than a day or two, hopefully.”
“A day or two?” Grace sputters. “I have a job! I can’t just no-show. I need to call the school, let them know I’ll need a sub. I had a pop quiz planned for Friday! Sorry, Claire,” he apologizes to her, but she just shrugs. Pop quizzes apparently aren’t that big of a deal when you’re on the run.
“Claire,” he turns to face her, suddenly ashamed that he’s been freaking out while one of his students is probably much more scared than he is. He needs to be the adult here. “Are you okay? This must be really scary.” She just smirks.
“Just another Thursday,” she says. Court smiles and makes eye contact with her through the rear view mirror.
“It’s Wednesday,” says Grace, confused. This just makes Claire snort. “Hey, where are we going, anyway?” he asks Court. They’ve made it out of the city in record time. Not much traffic at 2 pm on a Wednesday.
“I’ve got a safe house up in the woods. But we’re making a stop before we get there,” Court says. “Do you have any pets or prescription medications?”
The question catches Grace off guard, but he shakes his head no.
“Good. That keeps things simple.”
The drive is quiet for a moment, but Grace can’t just let a silence exist. There’s an itch in his mind just begging to fill any silence, and he can’t get the image of that man passed out in the bathroom out of his mind’s eye.
“Is that guy gonna be alright?” he finally asks.
“Define ‘alright,’” says Mr. Gentry. Claire snickers. What is it with these two?
“Uh, alive, I guess?” Grace says. Mr. Gentry sobers, takes a moment before answering.
“I only made him lose consciousness. He’ll have woken up by now,” he explains. Grace is relieved, but there’s something he can’t quite put his finger on, something that’s ringing alarm bells. Grace braces himself, prepares for an answer he knows, deep down, he’s afraid to hear.
“And, uh, is he gonna be alright in a day or two?”
It’s silent in the car again, but for once, Grace doesn’t immediately speak to fill it. Mr. Gentry keeps his eyes locked on the road, and Claire is uncharacteristically silent.
Mr. Gentry is planning on killing someone. Grace looks out the window. He can’t look at Mr. Gentry right now.
His heart rate picks up when he realizes he doesn’t recognize where they are anymore. Realistically, he knows they’re less than an hour out of San Francisco, he’s not that far from home, but still. He’s in the car with a man who is premeditating murder. His palms start to sweat. He wipes them surreptitiously, he hopes, on his jeans. Mr. Gentry glances at him.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, softly. Grace sees Claire nod through the rear view. “I’m trying to keep you safe. Both of you.”
Grace nods, finding it hard to speak. He doesn’t want to ask this question. He really doesn’t want to ask, but he finds he needs to know. He’ll spend some time later agonizing over whether it was appropriate to ask in front of Claire.
After one aborted attempt, he manages, “have you ever killed anyone before?”
It’s quiet. Mr. Gentry doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t deny it. Grace swallows.
“Okay,” he says. He doesn’t know what else to say. “Okay,” he repeats.
He’s in the car with a man who has almost certainly killed before. And his hand tattoo probably is a prison tattoo after all. And he was planning on killing another person in the next two days. Oh, god, what has Grace gotten himself into?
“It’s only bad guys,” reassures Claire from the backseat.
“Claire,” Mr. Gentry warns.
She seems totally at ease. That’s a good sign, but he’s caught up on another detail.
“Bad guys, plural?” he asks.
Claire’s eyes go wide like she just revealed something she shouldn’t have, though Grace supposes that’s exactly what she did. He huffs out a laugh despite himself. She looks like she just got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Mr. Gentry doesn’t look too upset with her, at least.
Mr. Gentry exits the highway and begins driving north along an arterial road.
“Almost to our first stop,” he says. Grace checks his own watch. It’s been about an hour already. He normally gets bored and antsy on long drives, but apparently not today. No room for boredom with all the adrenaline in his blood. He tries to slow his breathing and take in his surroundings as they continue to drive.
Around 3:30, they pull up to a shabby self storage unit complex. The building is large and industrial looking, with nothing nearby that would generate foot traffic. A row of about two dozen identical rolling doors face west. Mr. Gentry pulls the car up next to unit 14.
“We weren’t followed,” he says. Grace has no clue how he knows, but he trusts that Mr. Gentry knows what he’s talking about.
Claire immediately jumps out of the car and stretches her arms above her head. Mr. Gentry exits next and heads for the door of the storage unit. It’s about the size of a one car garage. He messes with a heavy duty combination lock on the door before hauling it up. He looks back at Grace, who’s still sitting in the passenger seat, and raises his eyebrows. Grace unbuckles himself with shaking hands and gets out of the car. As soon as he stands, the stiffness in his legs and back makes itself known.
Once out of the car, he can see into the storage unit more clearly. Inside is a sleek black motorcycle, two helmets, a pile of heavy duty looking clothing, and a large duffel bag. Mr. Gentry squats in front of the duffel bag and unzips it. Grace can see some clothing and a large matte black handgun in the bag. He decides to focus his attention on the motorcycle.
It’s a beautiful bike. At least, he thinks so. He knows nothing about motorcycles. But it looks well maintained, clean, modern. It has two seats and saddlebags on either side of the rear wheel. He could see it being used by a hippie couple to road trip through the southwest, stopping at the Grand Canyon or Arches to camp.
That was not how they’d be using this bike. Actually, would they even use the bike? Grace turns to Mr. Gentry to ask, but his voice catches in his throat.
Mr. Gentry has shed his suit jacket and is unbuttoning his shirt. The suit jacket lies in a pile on the floor next to the duffel bag, and the shirt soon follows. He’s wearing a tight, white sleeveless undershirt, revealing enormous arms and a nasty looking scar that runs from his shoulder, over his tricep, nearly to his elbow. Grace spots another tattoo on his right arm, though he’s too far away to see what it is. All Grace can tell for sure is that it’s done in black ink and is about four inches long, centered over his forearm. This one is always hidden during parent teacher conferences. He wonders how many other tattoos Mr. Gentry has.
Mr. Gentry pulls on a tight, long sleeved black shirt. He starts untying his shoes and Grace figures he’s changing his pants next, so he turns and faces Claire, who is hanging out by the car and keeping watch over the parking lot. Shoot, should Grace have been keeping watch too? He walks over to Claire and leans against the car a couple feet to her left.
“You seem pretty unfazed by all this,” Grace starts. He’s scanning the parking lot of this storage unit complex. There is only one road leading away from the parking lot. Not a single car has come through since they got here.
“Like I said, just another Thursday,” she smiles at him, mischief in her eyes. Grace can’t help but smile back.
It’s a small one, and quick lived when the stress of their situation makes itself known again. He breaks eye contact and looks back into the storage unit.
Mr. Gentry has changed into dark gray cargo pants. His museum footwear has been replaced with heavy duty black boots that laced tightly up his ankle.
As Grace watches, Mr. Gentry fits an asymmetric harness over his shoulders, then slips the heavy looking matte black handgun into the holster that sits below his left armpit. He then fits a matte black knife into a holster against his right ankle beneath his charcoal gray cargo pants.
He manages to make those pants look good, which was a feat, in Grace’s inexpert opinion. He shakes himself and turns to face the parking lot.
“You don’t need to be worried, Mr. Grace. He’s really good at this stuff. He won’t let anything happen to us,” Claire says with absolute certainty.
Instead of feeling reassured, Grace feels an awful combination of dread for his immediate future and grief for what he imagines Claire has been through. Claire has probably seen more violence before the age of thirteen than most people will see in their lifetime. He hopes, for her sake more than his, that she’s right about Mr. Gentry.
“Hey, I know that,” Grace says on reflex, then cringes. “Uh, actually, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ve only ever talked to him at parent teacher conferences,” he says as he rubs the back of his neck with one hand. “I hardly know him. How could I possibly know he’d be good at… this?” Grace puts his head in his hands, pushing his fingers up between his glasses and his face. He rubs at his eyes. “Sorry. It’s just, I’m the adult here. You shouldn’t have to reassure me.”
Claire looks at him thoughtfully for a moment. She’s a smart kid. She thinks before she speaks, unlike so many of her peers.
Mr. Gentry chooses that moment to approach the two of them. He holds out a small but heavy duty jacket and a youth sized motorcycle helmet to Claire. She takes the jacket and shrugs it on.
“The safe house is about thirty minutes away from here. We can’t take the car—I can’t risk us being spotted after I was seen in it at the museum today,” Mr. Gentry begins. “So I’m going to take Claire to the safe house, get her settled, then come back and pick you up,” he looks at Grace as he says this.
Grace nods.
“Yeah, sure, that sounds good,” he says, and swallows. He sticks his hands in the pockets of his rain coat to hide their fidgeting. Mr. Gentry is still looking at him. “Why do I feel like there’s a catch?”
“I need to hide the car. I don’t like that it’s been out in the open this long as it stands,” he says. “I want to park the car in the storage unit. And I also need you hidden from view.”
Grace sees where this is headed. An hour, at minimum, sitting in a dark car, in a dark garage, unable to start the engine lest he suffocate himself, with his phone locked away in a communication proof sandwich bag.
“You’re not trying to keep me from running away, right?” Grace asks with a nervous laugh. “Like, you’re not trying to trap me here, are you?” It feels absurd as he says it, but the words claw at his throat until he lets them out.
“No, of course not,” Mr. Gentry says softly. He holds eye contact. “I’m only trying to make things right. You’d never be in this mess if it weren’t for me. It’s my responsibility to keep you safe. This is all because of my past. Not yours.”
Grace accepts this, a trusting person at heart. He nods.
“Okay. Let’s get this over with. Lock me in the dark solitary confinement chamber,” he tries to joke, but it falls a little flat.
A few minutes later, the motorcycle is all loaded up and in the parking lot beside the storage unit, and the car has been backed into the storage unit. There’s enough room to open the driver side door, but not so much room that you can do so without it hitting the wall. But as long as Grace is able to get into and out of the car, he’s happy.
Well, as happy as he could be while an assassin was after his companion, and by association, Grace himself. At least he has an hour of sensory depravation to look forward to. Maybe he can finally give meditation an honest try.
Claire stands by the motorcycle, black jacket done up and helmet secure on her head. The helmet is all black with a tinted black visor. She also wears a pair of slightly oversized motorcycle pants over her jeans. Grace would never admit it, as a lover of safety and thus a hater of motorcycles, but she looked really cool. If Mr. Gentry ever decided to drop her off or pick her up from school on this bike, she’d immediately become the most popular kid at GCMS.
Mr. Gentry wore an all black motorcycle jacket and holds an identical helmet to Claire. One look at the two of them and it’s clear that they’re a set. Grace finds it sweet, despite their circumstances.
Mr. Gentry approaches Grace where he’s leaning against the hood of the car.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he says seriously. “When I get back, I’ll knock on the garage door with this pattern,” he says. He taps out a quick rhythm. “You unlock that door only if you hear that knock. Got it?”
Grace nods.
“Alright. I’ll try to be back in an hour, but it might be a little longer than that. See you then, Dr. Grace.”
Grace nods again and Mr. Gentry steps out over the threshold of the storage unit. Grace’s heart rate picks up again, instinctively nervous at the prospect of being alone.
“You don’t have to call me that, you know,” Grace blurts. “Nobody calls me Dr. anymore. I’m just Mr. Grace to my students. To Claire.”
Mr. Gentry nods.
“See you in an hour, Mr. Grace,” he says, and he honest to god winks at Grace before pulling on his helmet. He leaves the visor up for now as he reaches for the chain pulley that lowers the door. Grace watches him work as the door lowers to the floor. The resulting darkness isn’t all encompassing, but it is severe compared to the late afternoon daylight. Grace secures the combination lock on the chain.
Mr. Gentry knocks on the door in their agreed upon pattern. Grace double checks the lock and then repeats the pattern back. He hears the motorcycle engine start, then grow fainter and fainter until the sound disappears completely.
Now, all he has to do is wait.