CHAPTER TEN
My bullet splintered into the wall of the living room. It hadn’t hit anything.
But Griffin was turning, stretching his shoulder, lifting his gun.
The black streak was closer.
Griffin’s shot took him down.
He ran to the dark figure and turned him over on his stomach with one foot.
Another corking noise.
I felt something streak by me, moving quickly. I touched my cheek. Blood?
“Down!” Griffin screamed. “There’s more than one. They’re shooting with silencers.”
I hit the floor. I’d been grazed by a bullet. It had been right next to my cheek.
He turned, taking shots in the direction that the bullet that had nearly hit me had come from.
Bullets kept coming.
I crawled across the floor, raising my gun to send shots after Griffin’s. Maybe I wasn’t hitting anything, but maybe I was. I didn’t know what else to do.
Griffin grabbed me, and we stumbled for the door to the garage, his body between mine and the bullets.
He yelped.
“Griffin?”
He hurled us inside the door. We tumbled down the steps.
“Under the steps, doll,” he gasped. “Lie down and don’t move. I’m going dark.”
He’d been shot. There was blood trickling down his forehead. “Going dark?”
He pulled me under the steps. There was a tarp lying there, and we crawled under it. He lay on his back.
“Give me a couple of minutes,” he said.
And then he went motionless. It was like when I’d been shot before. When I’d been pulled down into Alice in Wonderland world for a few minutes. It was like death, only he wasn’t dead.
He wasn’t dead.
I clung to his inert body.
Someone on the steps. I heard the noise.
I froze, afraid to even breathe.
Under the tarp, I couldn’t see anything. I had to wait in the stifling darkness, holding tight to Griffin. I heard footsteps on the concrete. Then a door opening and closing.
Did that mean whoever was out there had gone? I didn’t know.
I let out a cautious breath, trying to be as quiet as possible.
More footfalls on the steps.
I tensed up again.
The door opened back up.
“You’re awake,” said a voice.
“Yeah, he got me good,” said another voice. “He was always a good shot, wasn’t he?”
“Lucky I was there. He was about to cut your neck open.”
“Thanks.” A beat. “So where is he now? Where’s the girl?”
“I don’t know. I saw them go down the steps, but when I got down here they were gone.”
“Don’t tell me that. If we go back in, and we botched the job, they’re gonna murder us. It would be better to die out here.”
If only I could see them. If only I was a better shot. From the sound of their voices, they were close. If I could be sure, I could shoot them both right now. But I couldn’t be sure. I might not hit them. And all that would do is give away my hiding place. I didn’t move.
“I looked outside. They might have gone back into the woods,” one of the Op Wraith agents was saying.
“The woods? Seriously? You think we should go after them?”
“I don’t know. Like you said, we show up at headquarters empty handed, it doesn’t look good for us.”
“You’re right. I know it. But damn it all. The motherfucking woods.”
“Come on. The longer we sit here talking, the farther away they’re getting.”
I heard the door open and close again.
I let out a noisy sigh of relief. They were looking in the woods. That was a good thing, right?
Griffin gasped beside me. “Doll?”
I kissed him. “You’re okay.”
*
I took the stairs to my apartment two at a time, Griffin urging me on from behind.
I felt numb and cold, like I was deep inside a refrigerator and the world was running past me too fast. Everything had been turned upside down. My best friend was dead. It was my fault. Op Wraith knew where I was. I wasn’t safe here in Thomas anymore.
And Stacey.
If it weren’t for me, Stacey would still be—
“Move it, doll.” Griffin’s voice was strained. “We’ve got to be in and out of here in no time.”
I threw the door open and hurtled inside.
“Pack food, pack clothes,” said Griffin from behind me. “And do it in ten minutes.”
“Leigh?” said another voice.
I turned on the light. “Who’s there?” I yanked my gun out, flipping off the safety.
Clint was in front of me. At the sight of the gun, he raised his hands. “Jesus, Leigh.”
I lowered the gun. “For fuck’s sake, Clint, what is your problem? Get the hell out of here.”
“You got a gun, Leigh,” he said. “You got a gun.”
“No shit,” I said.
Griffin glared at Clint. “I didn’t think you were still friends with this guy.”
“I’m not.” I strode into the apartment, flinging open one of cabinets and knocking out a jar of peanut butter and some applesauce. That was good road food, right?
“Leigh,” said Clint, “we’re still friends. Of course we’re still friends.”
I turned to face him. “Get out.”
“You’re different now, aren’t you?” he said.
“Get out.”
“I thought maybe you might have some blow. I’m out. I know I bother you for this all the time, but—”
“I haven’t seen you in over a month, Clint.”
“Really?”
“And you show up now trying to be friendly, when I haven’t seen you in weeks?”
“Well, it’s not exactly—”
“We were never friends. You used me for drugs,” I said. “Now get the hell out of my apartment before you get yourself killed.”
“I’d listen to her,” said Griffin, opening the door wide.
Clint put his head down, and he slunk out the door. Once he was outside, he yelled, “Well fuck you very much.”
“Ignore him,” said Griffin. “Now we’ve only got eight minutes to pack.”
“Shit,” I muttered.
I dashed back to my bedroom, got a bag from the closet and began tossing clothes in it. I didn’t look at what they were or if they matched. I just shoved stuff in, zipped up the bag, and came out into the living room, where Griffin was zipping up the same pack he’d had when I first brought him to Thomas.
“You were always prepared to leave, weren’t you?” I said to him.
“That’s life these days, doll,” he said. “We’ve got to go.”
I looked around at my apartment. All my stuff was here. Not just my clothes, but my movies and my music and my computer. And other things, like the cool plates I’d found at a thrift store, or the nifty pillows I’d bought for my couch. But I’d rather not have that stuff and be alive than keep it and be dead. I nodded. “I’m ready to go too.”
He crossed the room to me, folding me in his arms. “It won’t be like this always. I promise you. I’m going to figure something out, so you can stay in one place and still be safe. I promise.”
I pulled away. “You can’t promise that.”
He wouldn’t let me get away. He held me tight. “I will do whatever I can to keep you safe. Whatever I can.”
*
We had to steal a car. I didn’t want to, but Griffin said it was necessary. He said that we couldn’t take a chance that the Op Wraith guys had seen my car. He stole one that was parked on the street and off we went. I didn’t feel great about stealing the car, but then I didn’t feel great about anything.
Griffin drove east on Route 50. It was early morning, and the sun was climbing high into the sky. It was going to be a warm spring day. But I still felt cold. Like my insides had turned to ice. I fe
lt like everything was ruined.
He told me to try to sleep.
I scrunched down in the passenger seat and closed my eyes, but whenever I did, all I could see was Stacey’s eyes staring wide at the ceiling, and the red mess that was her throat.
So, I didn’t sleep. I watched the foliage outside the window instead.
Route 50 was a scenic drive but also very turny and twisty. We couldn’t go fast, because the road never flattened out. I was glad no one was following us.
Wait. Could I be sure that no one was following us?
I turned in my seat.
“What are you doing?”
The road was empty behind us. At least as far as the last turn, it was. I couldn’t see farther than that. “Making sure no one’s following us.”
“If someone was following us, we’d know it,” said Griffin. “They’d have shot us by now.”
I wasn’t sure if he meant that to be comforting. It wasn’t.
“We don’t have any money,” I said.
“I’ve got money,” said Griffin.
“How?” I said. “Were you working a job before you came to rescue me or something, saving up?”
“No. Not that I wouldn’t work. I was too busy running from Op Wraith. I have money because your dad gave me a good chunk of change when we agreed to watch each other’s backs.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “So he paid you off. That’s why you’re doing this.”
He shot me a quick, confused look. “Really, doll? You think I’m doing all of this for money?”
“Maybe.”
“Because the money is there to help you survive. To help us both. Your dad managed to get some of his cash when he left Dewhurst-McFarland. Not everything, you understand, but some. He gave me money, but not in payment, just because he had more than he needed, and because he wanted me to have it.”
I sighed heavily. “I’m sorry.” I studied my fingernails. “I guess I’m just angry.”
“At me?” he asked. “At your father?”
“At everything,” I mumbled. I closed my eyes. Stacey was staring at me again. Her expression didn’t look blank anymore. It looked accusing.
“Anger’s good,” said Griffin. “It keeps you sharp. Fear, sadness, guilt? They’re paralyzing. So stay angry, doll.”
Without warning, I was crying.
“Doll?” He reached for me with one hand, the other still on the steering wheel.
I pushed him away. “I’m angry at myself.”
“There’s no reason for that.”
“I made friends with her!” Talking while crying made me sound like a whiny six-year-old, and the fact that my stupid body couldn’t muster something more appropriate, given the gravity of the situation, made me sob even harder. “I knew there were people after me. I knew that I was in danger. But I did it anyway.”
Griffin was quiet.
“If I’d left her alone, she’d still be alive.”
The car was completely silent, except for my sobs.
When he finally did speak, his voice was hesitant. “It’s hard to know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. I killed my best friend. The only best friend I’ve had since I was a little girl. The sweetest, nicest, most outgoing girl in the entire world. And I killed her.”
He reached for me again and grabbed my hand this time despite how I struggled against him. “That isn’t true.”
“It is. I made friends with her. And when I did that, I marked her for death. I can’t have friends anymore.”
Griffin’s grasp on my hand was a vice grip. “No, no, doll, that’s not the way.”
“It’s the only way.”
“No, it’s not,” he said. “When I was in Operation Wraith, I was trained to kill people. And you know what they taught us? They taught us to disengage. Trust no one, befriend no one. Because you never know who you’re going to have to kill. See, the higher-ups used us assassins to keep each other in line. Someone became a liability? The word would come down that he was supposed to die. And that could be the guy who was your buddy, who you’d been working with for weeks. You’d be assigned to kill him.”
“That’s horrible,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “It was. But you learned pretty quick not to form bonds. Not to make friends. And you know what? It made all of it easier. Because you started to forget what it was even like to have friends. And you killed people all the time, so you started to forget why it was that people were even important.”
I wasn’t sure I understood how this was connected, but I let him finish.
“You have to have friends, doll, and you have to lose them,” he said. “Because, if you don’t, you forget why life is precious, and why it’s important for people to be protected. Caring about people makes them matter. If you don’t care about anyone, then nothing matters.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The thing about Boston is that it was cold. Even in April. I mean, it wasn’t Canada cold or Alaska cold or the North Pole cold. But compared to West Virginia, in which April meant seventy-degree weather, descending to the mid-fifties was a bit of a shock.
I was prepared for it. I’d gone to school in Boston for two years before my car accident with Eric. I used to joke that forty degrees was balmy. But I wasn’t used to it anymore. The mid-Atlantic had spoiled me. I was shivering in the north.
When Griffin told me we were going to Boston, I asked him if that wasn’t actually a really, really bad idea. After all, I was familiar with Boston. Wasn’t it stupid to hide someplace where you actually had ties to people? Weren’t you supposed to run someplace out of the way and foreign?
He said that was why Boston was perfect. Because it was so obvious, they’d never look here. It was also right under their noses, since Op Wraith was located outside of Boston. Furthermore, Griffin had a friend here, someone who could hide us, and who’d been hiding in plain sight from Op Wraith successfully for some time.
I figured Griffin knew what he was doing.
He didn’t want anyone to be able to trace us by the stolen car, so we switched a few times, taking different cars from various shopping centers off the interstate. Finally, we ditched cars altogether and picked up a bus outside of New York City that took us straight to Boston. Once there, we could take the T, the Boston subway, to Griffin’s friend’s apartment.
I wasn’t sure what to expect of this friend. Griffin didn’t tell me much about him, and I didn’t bother to ask. I knew that this guy was also someone who’d run from Op Wraith and that he was hiding out in Boston. I didn’t know anything else. I guess I simply wasn’t curious. I was too exhausted to care, and I was still a wreck over what had happened to Stacey and Jack.
Whether I blamed myself for it or not, it still hurt. I’d lost my father and my best friend within months of each other. I’d been chased, had my life threatened, and been forced out of my home. I guess that thinking about Griffin’s friend wasn’t high on my priority list.
If there was a place where we could stop traveling and lay low for a while, I was all about it.
I should have asked some more questions.
Because when we arrived at the apartment, five floors up in South Boston, the person who greeted us at the door was not a guy.
She was a woman. A very pretty woman. She had blonde hair, like mine, only hers hung in perfect, floating waves that reached halfway down her back. She had sparkling blue eyes, and when she saw Griffin, she started glowing, like some kind of perfect angelic being. I swear, the woman was basically the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“Griffin!” She threw her arms around him. “You could give a girl a heads-up that you were in the neighborhood.”
Griffin wrapped his burly arms tightly around her, grinning wider than I’d ever seen him grin. He planted a kiss on top of her head. “It’s so good to see you, Beth.”
Beth. Wait a second, I had heard that name. That Matt guy had said something about a woman named Beth when he
and Griffin had been fighting with knives in the gas station parking lot at the intersection of 29 and 92. What had Griffin said about her?
Leave her out of this.
I swallowed. But Griffin had said they were friends, hadn’t he? Just friends?
I looked at the way they were clinging to each other.
I bit my lip.
Griffin pulled back. “Sorry I couldn’t call ahead, doll. We were in a bad spot. Didn’t know where else to go.”
Doll? Had he just called her doll? But... that was what he called me. I’d told Stacey that it was his slang word for women, but I had thought... I bit down harder on my lip.
“We?” said Beth, peering around Griffin to see me. Her smile immediately faded as she looked me over. “You brought someone.” She folded her arms over her chest. Her voice had gotten very bright and cheery. I could tell it was false, though. She wasn’t happy I was here.
Great.
Griffin tugged me forward. “This is Leigh. She’s Frank’s daughter.”
I offered Beth my hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Beth blinked at my hand for several seconds. Then she shook it, smiling tightly. “Likewise.” She dropped my hand and turned to Griffin. “So you’re looking out for her. That’s why you’re on the run?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Because you still think you owe Frank,” she said, and I could tell that she didn’t think Griffin owed anyone.
I clasped my hands in front of myself. I wanted to disappear. This woman did not want me here. At all. I’d just lost my best friend, left everything I owned behind, driven across the country, and now this woman hated me on sight. Could things get worse?
From within the apartment, I heard the sound of a baby crying.
Oh, yeah. Worse.
*
Griffin was sitting at the kitchen table, holding the baby, who was gurgling in his arms, grabbing for his fingers as Griffin tickled her tummy. The baby didn’t have blonde hair like her mother. Instead, she had dark curls wreathing her face. Dark curls the color of the stubble on Griffin’s head.
I stood in the corner of the room, my hands in my pockets, just watching. I was at a complete loss. That baby couldn’t be...
Did she look like Griffin?
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