“I am well aware,” Cole said, “but I told you, I don’t know who has it. They knocked me out, and I saw someone take it, but truthfully, sir, I don’t remember much beyond what happened after they got me to the bunker. I’m not sure it was my contact who picked it up.”
I watched him drag a bandaged hand over his close-cropped blond hair, wondering if it was as obvious to Alban as it was to me that he wasn’t telling the truth.
“And that’s understandable considering the circumstances,” Alban said, leaning back in his chair. He threaded his fingers together and rested them over the bulge of his stomach. “This is where Ruby comes in. She’s been instrumental in helping…to jog the memories of assets. She’s helped us track down more than one piece of information that’s gone astray.”
Please, please, please, not him. I didn’t want to see inside his mind; I didn’t want to see flashes of Liam or their life. I just wanted to get away from him before my shrinking rib cage shredded my heart.
Cole went pale under his tan, from the creases between his brows down to the fingers clenching the armrests of the plastic chair.
“Oh, come on now.” Alban laughed. “I’ve been told it’s completely painless—and if it’s not, we’ll have her stop immediately.”
That, I didn’t doubt. Even if I went rogue and didn’t release Cole’s mind, all of the advisers and senior agents carried these hand-held speakers that functioned like miniature White Noise machines.
“You’re the first to volunteer to jump off bridges and infiltrate the PSFs, and you can’t let a girl take a quick peek inside your memories for the good of your family here—for the good of your country?” Alban’s smile never wavered, despite all of his needling.
Clever, I thought. The Do It for Your Glorious Country speech was one step above a direct order, and Cole was smart enough to realize how much better it would look if he agreed by his own “free will.”
“All right,” Cole said, finally turning to look at me. “What do you need me to do?”
It was several moments before I found my voice, but I was proud of how strong it sounded. “Give me your hand.”
“Be gentle with me, sweetheart,” Cole said, his fingers giving a slight twitch as they touched mine. Alban laughed outright at this, but Cole blew out an uneven breath and closed his eyes.
His hand was ice cold and slick to the touch. I tried to ignore the insistent press of his thumb against mine. I’d always felt like Liam’s hand swallowed mine when he held it, but this one was somehow bigger, the palms rough with the kind of calluses that only came with years of being shredded by weights and weapons and fights. The way the fingers on his left hand kept twitching every few minutes.
I didn’t want to think about any of it. I kept my eyes on his left hand, the two fingers that twitched now and then as he quietly fought through the pain of his injuries.
“Try to relax,” I said. “Can you tell me what it is that I’m looking for? What it is, what size, what color—as detailed as you can possibly get.”
Cole’s eyes were still closed. “A standard-size flash drive. A little black stick about the length of my thumb.”
I had done this so many times over the last six months that I no longer felt any kind of pain, but I braced myself anyway. His hand was shaking slightly—or maybe it was mine? I tightened my fingers around his, trying to steady the both of us. “Think back to the last moment you remember having it. Try to bring it to mind, if you can.”
The breath went out of Cole in two short bursts.
It felt like slipping beneath the still surface of a sun-warmed river. For all the effort it took to get through his natural defenses, there was nothing cold or still about the smears of colors and shapes streaming past me. But they were moving too fast. Here and there, I saw faces or objects—a green apple, a lonesome swing, a small stuffed bear burning in dying grass, a door with a messy KEEP OUT! sign scribbled in crayon—almost like he was trying to think of everything but the thing I had specifically asked for.
Cole was practically limp in his chair, his head slowly falling toward my shoulder. I thought I felt him shake it, his hair brushing against my neck.
“Show me when you lost the memory card,” I said quietly. “The black flash drive.”
The memory floated up as quickly as if I had plucked it from the water. A little boy wearing overalls, no more than two or three, sitting in the middle of a sea of taupe carpet, bawling at the top of his lungs.
“The flash drive,” I said again. The scene smeared down and away, replaced by a nighttime sky and a crackling bonfire that cast a warm glow over the nearby tent and the dark silhouettes moving inside of it.
“Philadelphia!” I heard Alban say behind me. “Philadelphia, Cole. The lab!”
Cole must have registered the man’s voice because I felt him flinch against me. I pressed harder, plunging my hands into the stream, suddenly worried about what would happen to me if I couldn’t produce the kind of results that Alban was after. The flash drive, I thought. Philadelphia.
The memory wavered, hovering black and still like a drop of loose ink at the tip of a pen. And with one last shudder, it finally slid free.
The scene shifted around me, throwing me out into a rainy night. A flash of light cut across the brick wall to my left, then another—car headlights. I couldn’t hear the squeal of brakes or the accelerator revving, but I was Cole, seeing things as he was seeing them then—and Cole was running.
Dirty water and stray garbage flew up around my ankles; I kept one hand against the brick wall, feeling through the dark. The concrete flashed as if something sharp had sparked against it, then again and again, until I knew exactly what was happening. I was being shot at, and their aim was getting better.
I took one flying leap up, catching the black ladder of a fire escape and dragging it back down to the ground. My hands were stiff and frozen, to the point that I could barely curl them around the bars as I climbed. And still the shooting didn’t stop, not until I was rolling onto the rough finish of the roof, catching dust and loose plaster in my hair. Then I was up and off like a shot, jumping from that building’s roof onto the next. I saw the ground in the second it took for me to soar over it. The flashing red and blue lights of the police car tracked my progress across the building tops like a mocking shadow. Overhead, the wind stirred, plucking at the loose button-down shirt I wore.
I dropped over the edge of the next building, gagging slightly at the overpowering smell of rotting garbage. My feet hit the rubber lid of the Dumpster, and the shock of the impact buckled my knees and hurtled me headfirst into the ground.
There was a heartbeat, maybe two, but I was too stunned by the pain to actually move. I had just gotten my hands under me when the alleyway flooded with pure white light.
You can’t move very fast with a limp, and you can’t go very far with a dead end at your back. But I scrambled up anyway, bolting for the battered door to my left, letting the soldiers and police holler what they would after me. My steps were slow but sure—I knew where I was going, and I made sure the door locked in place behind me.
It took two precious seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim hallway. I stumbled up the stairs to 2A, a pale blue door, and shouldered it open.
The apartment was lit—coffee was still brewing on the counter, but there was no one inside. I checked every room, under the bed, in the closets, before making my way back out into the hall, reaching for the black jacket hanging there.
The building seemed to shake with the force of boots on the narrow stairwell. My hands shook as they grabbed the jacket, feeling the inside lining, running over the bottom seam in disbelief over and over again.
The door exploded open beside me, and there was no opportunity to move, to fight, to run. I was tackled onto the ground, my arms wrenched behind my head and locked there. I saw their boots step over me, heading toward other rooms, their guns up and ready to fire as they cleared each one. And it was only then, after they reappeared
, that I was dragged downstairs. Past the shocked faces of my neighbors, through the battered outside door, back into the rain where a black van waited to carry me off.
There were PSFs, National Guardsmen, police. There was no way out; I didn’t struggle as they lifted me up into the rear of the van and locked my handcuffs into place. There were other people in there, but none of them were familiar. None of them were him.
I don’t know why I looked up then—instinct, maybe, or desperation. The door was slamming shut on my life, and still, the most important thing was that half-second image of Liam’s terrified face beneath the nearby flickering streetlight, disappearing into the dark.
FOUR
“HOW COULD YOU?” Cate’s shrill voice rang out. “She hasn’t slept for the past two days, and you put her through this?”
I kept my eyes fixed on a small garden statue of a prancing boy, half hidden by the American flag hanging from Alban’s desk. I was on the floor, flat on my back, but I had no memory of getting there.
“She is not a trained puppy who will perform tricks for you at the drop of a hat!” Cate had a way of yelling without ever raising her voice. “She is a child. Please do not solicit her services, as you so eloquently put it, without checking with me first!”
“I think,” came Alban’s thin reply, “that’s about all the lecturing I can stand to take from you today, Agent Conner. This child is of an age now to make her own decisions, and while she may report to you, you report to me and I do not—ever—need to ‘check’ with you or vet my decisions with you, and I will ask you now, very kindly, to leave this office before you say something that you will regret.”
I forced myself off the ground and back into the chair. Cate lunged forward to help me, but I was already there, brushing her off. It looked like she hadn’t sleep, either—her hair was matted and stringy, her face as ashen as I’d ever seen it. She had burst in here like a tornado five minutes ago and hadn’t stopped to even take a breath. I don’t know who tipped her off—Rob, maybe—but the only thing she had accomplished in that time was making me feel like a humiliated five-year-old.
“I’m fine,” I told her, but she didn’t look convinced.
“I’ll wait outside,” she said.
“Then you’ll be waiting for some time. We have a guest downstairs that I’d like Ruby to meet.”
Of course. Why would I get a day off from “entertaining” the guests?
“Oh?” Cole’s gaze shifted among the three of us. “Am I invited to this party?”
Alban stood, finally, and came around to the front of his desk, standing between Cole’s and my chairs. He lowered himself back down on the edge of the desk with care, and it was the first time I had ever been close enough to him to realize he smelled like the mildew that we could never fully scrub from the showers.
“I’ll see you at senior staff meeting, Agent Conner.” Then, in a lower voice, “Come prepared. Agent Meadows is bringing his proposal to vote again.”
Cate whirled on her heel, her hands half raised, like she could shove the thought of it back at him. She was still shaking when Frog Lips escorted her out.
Alban didn’t so much as flinch when she slammed the door shut behind her. “So, you found our little missing treasure, did you?”
Cate’s interruption had broken into my haze of fury, but just like that, I was free-falling back into it, twisting my hands under the desk to keep from wrapping them around Cole’s neck.
In the end, it hadn’t mattered a single bit that I had managed to get the League to cut Liam loose. His brother, apparently, had found some way to drag him back into the thick of things. I didn’t really understand what I had seen, which was not, as Alban believed, the flash drive itself, but it was clear enough to me that Liam had somehow been involved.
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Alban said. “We need to get protection to the informant as soon as possible.”
Or you need to send someone to kill him for it.
“I just think—” Cole began.
The one thing, the single, solitary gift that Thurmond had given me was the ability to lie, and with a straight, unflinching face.
“I didn’t recognize them,” I said, “so I can’t give you a name. Maybe if I described them, Agent Stewart will be able to give you one?”
“Maybe,” Cole managed to croak. Then, after clearing his throat, he added, “I worked with a lot of people in Philly, though.…”
Alban gave me an impatient wave, his dark muddy eyes on mine.
“It was a woman,” I explained. “I could see her standing near the PSFs’ van. She looked nervous and kept glancing around, until she saw something on the sidewalk—then she must have found it. Late into her forties, a bit heavyset. She had long, dark hair and glasses with green frames. Her nose was slightly crooked at the end.”
And she was also my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Rosen.
Alban nodded with each and every small bit of description, then turned to Cole. “That ring any bells?”
“Yeah,” Cole said, his fingers drumming on the armrest. “I can work with that. I’ll write up the full report for you.”
Alban nodded. “Have it on my desk by eight tonight.”
“Yes, sir,” Cole said, struggling back up to his feet. I was afraid if I looked at him, I’d give myself away. He lingered for a second by the door until Frog Lips ushered him out, too.
Alban stood, making his way over to the row of dull, mismatched filing cabinets behind his desk. He slid a ring of keys out of his shirt’s front pocket, giving me a small wink. I almost couldn’t believe it—every single time I’d come to his office, I’d stared at those ugly things, wondering what was inside, and now, he was actually opening one?
He tapped his finger against the nearest drawer. “The advisers think it’s archaic and backward for me to keep these, considering we’re in the height of our digital game. Isn’t that right, Peters?”
The adviser gave a tight-lipped smile.
Whatever they really thought, to me, it was Alban’s one “old school” trick that actually did what it was supposed to. The records or files or whatever he kept in there were only ever going to be seen by one person: him. There was no chance someone would hack into them or install some kind of backdoor program and download their contents. He’d insisted on installing both a retinal scanner and digital keypad lock on his office door—the two most expensive pieces of tech at all of HQ. If someone wanted in those files, they needed his permission or to be very creative.
He slid a red folder out of the dented black cabinet at the far right, pushing the drawer shut with his hip as he turned back toward me. “I just had a thought, Ruby—I haven’t had a chance to thank you for the excellent work you did pulling this information together about the camps. I know you gave it to me a few months ago, but I’ve only had a few minutes to glance through. I can tell that a lot of effort and thought went into it, which I admire.”
I don’t know that he’d ever actually surprised me before that moment. I’d given up weeks ago on that folder ever catching his attention, when I’d seen only the smallest sliver of a corner sticking out beneath a stack of papers on his desk that was as tall as I was. That was my last hope, I remembered thinking, and it is being crushed.
Why name an organization the Children’s League if you were only going to pretend to help kids? The question stayed with me every day, through every class, through every Op. I felt its teeth tighten around the back of my neck each time I was dismissed without a second look; it had locked its jaws and wouldn’t let me or my conscience go. Most of the agents, especially the ex-military guys, couldn’t have cared less about the camps. They hated Gray, hated the draft, hated having their service orders change, and this was the only organization that was visible and actually trying to accomplish something aside from sending out vaguely threatening messages every few months. Trying to get them to do anything to help other kids was like shouting in a room where everyone was already screaming. No o
ne wanted to listen because they had their own plans, their own priorities.
From the first night at HQ, I knew that the only way I’d be able to face myself in the future was if I tried, as hard as I could, to redirect the League’s resources into freeing the kids still in camps. Over the past months, I planned, sketched, and wrote down everything I remembered about Thurmond, from the way the PSFs patrolled, to when they rotated, to two camera blind spots we’d discovered.
It became an addiction in a way; every time I sat down, it was like being around the fire pit at East River, listening to Liam talk passionately about how we needed to be the ones to help ourselves and one another, that no organization would ever get past its own needs or image to help us. He was right, of course—that had become more than apparent to me over the last six months.
I believed him. Believed in him. But I had also thrown him off this path when we separated, and now I needed to be the one to continue down it.
“I understand, sir.”
“I’ve had copies made,” he said. “We’ll discuss it later at our senior staff meeting. I can’t make any promises, but after all of the hard work you’ve done for us these past few months, you—”
I had no idea where that sentence was headed, and I never would. Without bothering to knock, another one of the advisers, Horse Teeth, stuck his head of silver hair in and opened his mouth—only to close it again when he saw me sitting there. Frog Lips pushed himself off the wall he’d been leaning against and said simply, “Snowfall?”
Horse Teeth shook his head. “It’s what we were afraid of.”
“Damn,” Alban swore, standing again. “Is Professor alive?”
“Yes, but her work—”
All three sets of eyes were suddenly turned toward me, and I realized I should have left thirty seconds ago.
“I’ll be in the atrium,” I murmured, “if you still need me.”
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