Never Miss

by Melissa Koslin

  She liked watching him work. His expression was so intense.

  “I think I have it.” Lyndon’s gaze stayed locked on the screen, and his fingers flew over the keyboard.

  She was quiet and let him focus.

  She looked over at Mac. He was staring at some wires. They were exactly the size that he liked to chew. She shook her head at him, and he curled up and lay down with his head rested on his paws. He looked depressed.

  “I’m in,” Lyndon said.

  “That was fast.” She moved to stand next to him so she could see the screen, though she had no idea what she was looking at. “Can you shut off facial recognition?”

  “I think . . .” He continued typing. “I think I can track the source.”

  “Like where she is?”

  “I doubt she’s handling this part herself. But someone must be monitoring.” He paused as he continued to type. “Someone in DC.”

  “It makes sense she’d want them nearby. Just in case.”

  He finally stopped typing. “I can’t shut off facial recognition, and I can’t sever her connection to anything but the signs in this complex. But I have an address.”

  “Do you think we can cut her off from there?”

  “Definitely.” He did a few more things on the computer, surely covering his tracks.

  She listened at the door to make sure no one was around, and then they walked out into the hall, and around to the exit closest to the car.

  Kadance got behind the wheel. “Where to?”

  He typed the address into the cell phone’s map program.

  Kadance followed the directions, but with some variations. She tried to avoid cameras where possible. “They’re likely going to see us coming,” she said.

  “I know. I’m hoping they’re not prepared for us to find them and will either hunker down or just flee.”

  “What if there’s a group of them? What if they’re armed?” She didn’t have a problem going in, but she knew she’d never get Lyndon to wait in the car. He’d be offended if she even asked.

  “Whoever is working her technology side of things is extremely skilled. I think it’s much more likely they don’t have a plan for what to do if we find them. It’s probably one person in some apartment surrounded by a lot of equipment.”

  “It was that difficult to hack in?”

  “Just as difficult as government servers. If not more so.”

  And he’d done it within a few minutes. “I have an idea,” she said. “Turn off the map program.”

  He did as she asked, and the annoying voice on the phone telling her she was going the wrong way shut up. She stayed on the main road and passed the street the phone had been yelling at her to take. Instead, she watched out the window, looking for an opportunity. A couple of blocks away, there was a huge brick church on the corner. And that little voice in the back of her mind that she’d listened to most of her life said to park.

  She swooped into an open space. “We’re going to throw them off,” Kadance said.

  Lyndon nodded and got out of the car when she did. Mac followed them as they went into the church. Luckily, no one seemed to be around.

  “Help me find the back way out,” Kadance said.

  “I understand what you’re doing,” he said. “We’ll have a shot at taking them off guard.”

  They found their way through the beautiful building and out to a back alley made of brick pavers.

  “Look for cameras,” Kadance said.

  There were a few cameras on the backs of the houses and above garages. They were careful to stay out of their range. They walked along fence lines and around garage outbuildings. Toward the end of the alley, they hopped a fence and cut through a side yard between two houses. Another block over, they made it to the alley they needed.

  Around a corner, they stopped and Kadance looked at the map program on the phone to figure out which of the apartments they needed without being able to see the street number on the fronts of the buildings.

  She handed the phone back and led him to the correct building, while they continued to watch for cameras. They hopped a fence to avoid a camera angle, slid along the back wall, and up to the back door. Kadance picked the lock.

  Once inside, they were in a small hallway. There was a door to an apartment in front of them, mailboxes on the wall, and stairs to the right, surely to upstairs apartments. Lyndon pointed to the mailboxes, to the only one not labeled with a name: 201.

  Kadance headed up the stairs, and Lyndon and Mac followed.

  There were two doors at the top of the stairs. From the door on the right, number 202, she could smell cookies baking. She listened at door 201 for any sound, anything that might tell her if someone was inside, how many, and where within the space. It was quiet. She continued to listen for another minute, and Lyndon patiently waited.

  Finally, she heard a chair push against hardwood. She estimated the location of the sound within the space. She calculated the probable layout given the size and general design of the building.

  She took her lockpicking tools out of her pocket and silently started working the lock. A few seconds later, it clicked.

  Kadance took her knife out of its sheath and mouthed to Lyndon, I’ll go first.

  He didn’t look particularly happy about it, but he didn’t argue.

  Then she looked at Mac and whispered, “Stay.”

  Mac sat, but he didn’t look particularly happy either.

  Kadance listened at the door for a few seconds until she heard footsteps. They sounded to be moving away from the door.

  Silently, she turned the doorknob and then inched the door open. There was a hallway that ended at an open space at the front of the building. On either side of the hall were closed doors, likely bedroom and bathroom. She’d heard footsteps, but not a door, so the person inside was likely not in one of those rooms.

  She silently but quickly moved toward the end of the hall. She felt Lyndon behind her but didn’t hear his footsteps—impressive.

  As she neared the end of the hall, she listened to determine where the person was, to the right or to the left. She shifted to the right side of the hall and inched to the end of the wall, where she could see into what was probably supposed to be a living room but was filled with computer equipment and a workstation set up on a large folding table.

  She listened.

  A cabinet door closed.

  She turned the corner, with her knife held in front of her, and at the same time, Lyndon started toward the computer equipment. To the right, she saw a man standing at a kitchen island pouring a glass of Pepsi.

  James.

  thirty-two

  JAMES DIDN’T EVEN LOOK UP. He dropped the Pepsi in his hand and ran around the island, the side farthest from Kadance, toward the computer equipment.

  Lyndon was already there. James threw a fist, but Lyndon blocked and slammed a hook across James’s jaw. James tried to tackle Lyndon. Lyndon stepped to the side and shoved James into the wall.

  Kadance thought for sure he’d go down. James stumbled, caught himself against the wall. Then he turned and lunged at Lyndon again.

  Fear for Lyndon overwhelmed her. Some part of her knew the fear was irrational, but that didn’t matter. She started around the other side of the workstation.

  But Lyndon had already grabbed James and hip-threw him. James smacked to the floor with a thud that reverberated through the floorboards. His breath expelled, and he paused long enough for Lyndon to straddle him and hold his hands to the floor.

  “Stop,” Lyndon commanded.

  James glared up at him.

  Kadance moved closer, and James glanced in her direction. Then he looked again and stared. “Kadance.”

  Lyndon looked up at her.

  “This is James,” she said.

  “I thought we might come across him eventually. I just hoped we wouldn’t.”

  She heard the sympathy deep in his tone.

  Then he turned back to James, and his
expression leveled into deadly. “Cut the feed.”

  James, still staring at Kadance, turned back to Lyndon. James struggled, but Lyndon kneed him in the ribs with surprising force given his position. James grunted in pain.

  “Cut the feed,” Lyndon growled.

  James tried again to struggle.

  Kadance kneeled by his head and held her knife to his throat. “I would do what he says.”

  James was still, perfectly. And he stared up at her. “Kadance.” The way he said her name . . . almost like he was relieved to see her. “Kadance,” he said again. “I can convince her to include you. She has vaccinations. I’ve been working on convincing her how important you could be. You could be the military leader in our new society.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Then we can be together again,” James said.

  “What do you mean ‘be together’? Are you insane?”

  “I can convince her.”

  She glanced at Lyndon, at the way he was looking at her. The gentleness in his eyes. Several things made sense all at once. She felt so much hurt she wanted to curl into a ball and block out the world. All her mistakes. All the things she wanted, so desperately wanted, and could never have.

  Then she looked back down at James, at his familiar face. All this time, she’d feared seeing him again, what her reaction would be. Would she be weak and let herself want him again, be with him? But she didn’t want him, and she knew she never would again.

  Not like the feelings she had for Lyndon.

  The realization hurt worse than being shot. Part of her would gladly go back to Iran, Yemen, anywhere but here.

  She strangled her emotions and threw them into the back of her mind. She’d always tried to treat her emotions like that, like trash to be tossed aside. Lyndon had shown her she didn’t have to do that. He liked that she still cared. But now she cared too much. About something she could never have.

  She focused on James, on her anger at him, on the situation. “Go ahead and convince her. Bring me to her. So I can slit her throat like I’m going to do to you.” She pressed the knife harder against his skin, and blood trickled down his neck.

  “Kadance, please.” His voice was tight. “I love you.”

  Peripherally, she saw as Lyndon looked at her. She couldn’t risk looking at him right now. She just had to believe that he would trust her.

  “You love me?” she growled at James.

  “Yes.”

  “Is that why you conspired against me? The whole thing was fake.”

  “No,” he barely forced out.

  She eased up on the knife a fraction of an inch.

  “It wasn’t fake,” he said. “Not for me.”

  “It was a setup from the beginning. My father hired you to get close and turn me.”

  James said nothing.

  “Admit it.”

  When he didn’t respond, she pressed the knife.

  He grimaced and made a sound of pain. She lifted the knife just enough to stop cutting his skin.

  “Admit it,” she demanded.

  “It all changed,” he said. “I fell in love with you.”

  She gripped the knife handle more tightly and tried to control the urge to slit his throat.

  Lyndon’s quiet voice burrowed through her anger. “I think he’s telling the truth.”

  She gripped the knife so hard her hand started to shake.

  “He saw the same thing,” Lyndon said.

  The same thing Lyndon sees. Her hand stopped shaking.

  Lyndon looked down at James. “Why did you let her father come for her?”

  James shifted his eyes over to Lyndon. “I don’t know why she’s so determined to bring you into the fold.”

  “Answer the question.”

  Kadance appreciated that Lyndon seemed to realize she needed answers and didn’t mind using their limited time on this.

  James shifted his gaze back to Kadance. “I can get her to vaccinate you. You’ll rule over our entire new military.”

  “If you think she wants to rule anything,” Lyndon said, “you don’t know her at all.”

  James continued to focus on Kadance. “Please. I can save you.”

  “Answer the question,” she said.

  He paused. “He loves you, Kadance. Your father. He just wants the best for you.”

  “I almost feel bad for you,” she said. And it was the truth. She realized James didn’t understand, and that meant his betrayal didn’t mean anything. He’d honestly thought he was doing the right thing. She was still angry at him, but pity muted it. A little.

  Lyndon asked her, “Do you mind if I ask him something?”

  She nodded toward James.

  Lyndon looked down at James. “How is it you’re connected to both Kadance’s family and the attack that’s about to happen?”

  “It’s a cleansing. We’re saving the world.”

  “How are you connected to both?”

  “It’s none of your business. None of this is your business.”

  “Please answer the question.”

  No response.

  A part of Kadance hoped he didn’t answer. Lyndon wouldn’t put anything together yet, most likely, but she desperately wanted to keep him as far away from the realization as possible. She promised herself she would tell him eventually, but not yet, not when his focus was imperative to keeping him alive.

  “If you have any hope of getting Kadance’s affection, you’ll need to give her answers.”

  James focused on her. Finally, he said, “She referred me.”

  “What do you mean?” Lyndon asked.

  He continued speaking to Kadance, as if Lyndon didn’t exist. “She’d hired your father for a job at some point, though he’s never met her and doesn’t know her name. I guess he realized she surrounds herself with talented people and asked her if she knew anyone who could help him with a project. She gave him my name. He had the plan, how to get you back, but he needed a man you didn’t know who could handle the task. I met with him, he explained the problem and the plan, he showed me your picture, and I agreed.”

  James continued to stare at Kadance. “Please,” he said. “I can save you.”

  “I don’t need you to save me. We’re here to turn off the feed.”

  “Please, Kadance.”

  She looked up at Lyndon. “We don’t have a lot of time. I’m betting he has to check in with her regularly. Can you turn off the connection?”

  “We should tie him up.” Lyndon looked around the room.

  Kadance was relieved he’d let go of his line of questions for James.

  Lyndon’s gaze stopped at a pile of spare cables on the workstation. Then he asked Kadance, “Will you hold him?”

  “If he moves, he gets a slit throat.” She stared down at James.

  James stared back at her with the oddest mixture of emotion on his face—affection, fear, and attraction. It grossed her out, which wasn’t easily done.

  Lyndon let go of James, stood, and walked over to pick up several cables. Then he pulled the chair from the workstation out into the middle of the room.

  Kadance stood and ordered James, “Get up.”

  James slowly pushed himself up to sitting and then off the ground. He walked over to the chair and sat. Kadance stood over James while Lyndon tied his hands to the arms of the chair and his feet to the legs. While Lyndon tied his waist to the back of the chair, Kadance sheathed her knife, walked over to the small table in the kitchen, and brought a chair over for Lyndon to use.

  Lyndon finished with James and came over to the workstation. “Thank you,” he said to Kadance, sat, and started typing.

  “You really think that guy can hack my system?” James asked Kadance.

  “Obviously, you haven’t been paying very close attention. How do you think we found you?”

  James scowled as he watched Lyndon break the password on the computer lock screen. “That was the easy part.”

  Lyndon kept ty
ping as if he couldn’t hear James, too focused, but she knew he was still fully aware of everything in their surroundings.

  She gave Lyndon a few minutes to work, while James continued to tell her he could save her. She could see only the side of his face, but she caught Lyndon’s slight smirk.

  She moved over to Lyndon and leaned down so she could speak in his ear. “What’s the smirk about?”

  He continued typing. “He thinks you need to be saved.”

  She smiled a little. She knew she needed to move away from him, keep her distance, but instead, she murmured, “How’s it going?”

  “It’s a little trickier than tracing the sign feed.”

  She rested her hand on his arm, his bicep, and whispered, “I’m not worried.”

  His hands paused for half a second before he continued working.

  A loud meow, almost a bark, and scratching at the door.

  “He finally got tired of being left out,” Lyndon said.

  She started toward the door. “Something’s wrong.”

  Lyndon stood.

  “Keep him quiet,” she said over her shoulder.

  Lyndon started toward James.

  At the door, Kadance looked out the peephole. There was someone coming up the stairs. She cracked the door open, Mac scurried through, and she closed and locked the door. Mac stood next to her facing the door. She looked out the peephole again. It was a young man coming up the stairs, wearing a cheap jacket and jeans. As he made it to the top, she noticed he had a plastic bag in his hand. Food delivery? Though neither the bag, nor his clothes, had any logos or the name of a restaurant.

  The young man knocked on the door.

  She looked closely at him, at his posture, or lack thereof, and his expression, kind of bored and unfocused. She was confident he was just food delivery or something else innocuous, but she unsheathed her knife just in case.

  She opened the door and smiled, while keeping her knife hidden behind the door.

  “Oh, hi,” he said. “Did Jim move?”

  “He’s just in the next room,” she said. “I’m his girlfriend.”