Blackwood

Prologue Just Another Day At 5:14 in the morning, Zair Backwood caught a tennis ball without opening his eyes. He lay still for another second, the ball resting in his palm beneath the blanket. Then he sighed. “Wade.” No answer. Z opened one eye. His bedroom door was open by barely two inches. “Seriously?” From somewhere down the hallway came his uncle’s voice. “You’re getting slower.” “I was asleep.” “Sounds like an excuse.” Z threw the tennis ball toward the doorway. It disappeared through the narrow opening. A second later came a soft thump. Then silence. Z smiled. “Got you.” Wade appeared in the doorway holding the ball against his chest. He wore gray sweatpants several sizes too large, an old black hoodie, and one slipper. Only one. His hair looked like he had spent the night arguing with his pillow and lost. “Cheap shot,” Wade said. “You threw something at my face while I was sleeping.” “Head.” “What?” “I threw it at your head. Your face was collateral.” Z stared at him. Sometimes he wondered how this man had been legally allowed to become his guardian. “Five-thirty,” Wade said. “Outside.” “No.” “Good talk.” Wade disappeared. Z dropped his head back onto the pillow. He had sixteen minutes. He considered using all sixteen to go back to sleep. Then he remembered what happened the last time he ignored Wade’s morning training. Wade had dumped ice into his shower. Not the water. The actual shower. Z sat up. “I hate this house.” From down the hall: “House didn’t do anything to you.” “I hate you too.” “That’s healthier.” ⸻ By six in the morning, Z had already run four miles. By six-fifteen, he was halfway through an obstacle course Wade had constructed behind the house. Calling it an obstacle course was generous. It looked more like someone had given a military engineer too much money and unresolved childhood trauma. Ropes hung between trees. Wooden walls rose from the ground. Narrow beams crossed muddy trenches. Tires, weighted bags, swinging poles, climbing nets, and other objects Z had stopped trying to identify were scattered through the woods. Z sprinted across a narrow beam. Something moved in his peripheral vision. He ducked. A rubber ball passed over his head. “Really?” “Keep moving,” Wade called. Z jumped from the beam, landed on one foot, rolled beneath a swinging padded bar, and came up running. Another ball came from somewhere behind him. His right hand snapped backward. Caught it. He never stopped. Wade stood twenty yards away drinking coffee. “Left hand.” Z groaned. “Why?” “Because you have one.” The next ball came faster. Z switched hands and caught it. Another. Caught. Another. He nearly missed that one. Wade raised an eyebrow. Z threw the ball back hard enough that most people would have struggled to follow it. Wade moved his coffee cup six inches to the left. The ball passed beside his head and buried itself in a bush. Wade took another sip. “Temper.” “You’re lucky I missed.” Wade looked at him. Z looked back. A tiny smile appeared beneath Wade’s beard. “You didn’t.” For a moment, neither of them said anything. Then Wade checked his watch. “School.” Z exhaled. “Finally.” “After fifty push-ups.” “You just said school.” “School still exists after fifty push-ups.” Z dropped to the ground. “One day,” he muttered, “I’m putting you in a retirement home.” “Pick one with a pool.” ⸻ At school, nobody called him Zair. To teachers, he was Mr. Backwood when they were annoyed and Zair when attendance was being taken. To everyone else, he was simply Z. “Z!” A basketball flew across the gym before he had completely stepped through the doors. Z caught it one-handed. Marcus Carter grinned from the other side of the court. “You ever gonna miss one of those?” “Eventually.” “You’ve been saying that since freshman year.” Z tossed the ball back. It traveled cleanly across the gym and dropped directly into Marcus’s hands. Marcus looked down at it. “See? That. That’s weird.” “You catching a basketball?” “You doing whatever freaky geometry thing you do.” Z smiled. “Talent.” “Witchcraft.” “Jealousy.” “Deep jealousy.” Marcus jogged over and slapped him on the shoulder. School was easy in a way home wasn’t. Not the classes. Calculus had personally declared war on him. But people were easy. Z knew how to smile. How to joke. How to talk to teachers. How to remember somebody’s birthday even if they had mentioned it once three months earlier. He knew which freshman needed help finding a classroom. Which teammate was pretending not to limp. Which friend had been unusually quiet all morning. People liked Z because Z noticed people. By lunch, he had helped someone carry a science project upstairs, agreed to cover part of a teammate’s workout after practice, explained a homework problem he barely understood himself, and lent twenty dollars to someone who promised to pay him back Friday. “You know he’s not paying you back Friday,” Imani Brooks said. Z sat across from her at the lunch table. “He might.” “He won’t.” “He could.” “He has owed Marcus twelve dollars since March.” Marcus pointed his fork at her. “Thank you.” Z shrugged. “Maybe Friday’s his day.” Imani studied him. That was something she did often. She had known Z long enough to understand that his smile could mean approximately twelve different things. “You coming tonight?” Marcus asked. “Where?” Marcus stared at him. “The thing we have discussed every day this week.” “That narrows it down.” “The party.” Z opened his drink. “Oh.” Marcus looked personally offended. “You forgot?” “No.” “You definitely forgot.” “I remembered eventually.” Imani leaned back. “You’re not coming.” Z glanced at her. “I didn’t say that.” “You didn’t have to.” Marcus sighed dramatically. “Here we go.” “What?” “You always do this.” “Do what?” “Disappear.” Z frowned. “I don’t disappear.” Marcus and Imani both looked at him. Z reconsidered. “Okay. Bad choice of words.” For half a second, the table became quieter. Marcus looked down. Imani’s expression softened. Z hated when that happened. That tiny change. The moment someone remembered. He smiled again. “I’ll try to come.” Marcus pointed at him. “Actual try.” “Actual try.” “Not that thing where you say you’re coming and then text me at nine-thirty saying something came up.” Z nodded solemnly. “I would never.” “You did it last week.” “I was busy.” “Doing what?” Z took a bite of his sandwich. “Stuff.” Imani watched him again. Z focused very hard on the sandwich. ⸻ Track practice ended at 5:26. Z could have stayed. Marcus was going to grab food before the party. Several teammates were heading with him. A girl from his history class had asked twice whether Z was coming. Part of him wanted to. He liked being around people. That was the strange thing nobody seemed to understand. He wasn’t avoiding his friends because he didn’t care about them. He cared about them enough that sometimes being around them made everything else harder. Because normal people worried about grades. Dating. Sports. Parents embarrassing them. Their younger siblings stealing clothes. Normal problems. Z remembered when those had been his problems too. At 5:41, he pulled into the driveway of the Blackwood estate. Wade was sitting on the front steps eating something from a bowl. Z stopped. “Is that cereal?” “Yes.” “It’s almost six.” Wade looked into the bowl. “Still cereal.” Z walked past him. “Any news?” It came out casually. Too casually. Wade stopped chewing. That was enough. Z knew the answer before he heard it. “Nothing solid.” Z nodded. Wade put the bowl beside him. “The team in Europe is checking another lead.” “What lead?” “Possible financial activity connected to one of your father’s old companies.” “Where?” “Z.” “Where?” Wade watched him for a moment. “Belgium.” “Which company?” “I don’t have everything yet.” “You have something.” “When I know something worth telling you, I’ll tell you.” Z laughed once. There was no humor in it. “You always say that.” “Because it’s true.” “Right.” Z started toward the door. “Zair.” He stopped. Wade rarely used his full name. “We are looking.” Z stared at the door. “I know.” “I haven’t stopped.” “I know.” “I’ve spent years and more money than you realize trying to find them.” Z turned. “Then why does it feel like I’m the only one who thinks they can still be found?” Wade’s expression changed. Only slightly. But Z saw it. He always saw little things like that. The tightening around Wade’s eyes. The way his fingers stopped against the bowl. Then it disappeared. “You’re not.” Z held his gaze. For a moment he wanted to say everything. That there had to be something they were missing. That people didn’t simply disappear. Three people did not vanish from the same family without leaving something behind. That his father had told him to protect his sister and he hadn’t. Instead he nodded. “Okay.” Then he went inside. ⸻ At 11:37 that night, Z was supposed to be asleep. His laptop said otherwise. Twenty-seven tabs filled the screen. Two missing-person databases. Three newspaper archives. An old Blackwood company registration. A social media profile belonging to someone who had worked with his father nine years earlier. An archived travel website. Four maps. A forum discussing unidentified persons. And a photograph Z had looked at so many times he knew every pixel. His family. His mother stood behind him with both hands resting on his shoulders. His father was beside her, smiling like whoever had taken the picture had said something stupid. Z was thirteen. His sister stood next to him. Eleven years old. She had one eye closed because Z had pinched her side exactly as the photograph was taken. He remembered what happened afterward. She punched him.