Agent Zero

by Lilith Saintcrow

  She gasped, staring at him—now with his back to the door, his hands loose and easy. The look of frank openmouthed surprise might have even been funny, in another situation. “How did you do that?”

  “Weren’t you listening?” Another deep breath, struggling to bring his pulse down. “I can do a lot of things, babe. You are not leaving this room.”

  “You can’t watch me all the time.” Scowling, a line between her eyebrows, and with her mouth puckered up that way all he could think of was getting his hands on her and—

  She flinched, because he’d moved again. Her backpack slid, he caught it, snapping her hand down neatly as she grabbed for it, and they ended up nose to nose, Reese holding the goddamn pack and mirroring her stumbling steps as she backed up.

  “Try me,” he answered, very softly. Her smell wrapped around him, delicious and warm and comforting. “I am not going to let you do anything stupid. You’re with me now, and it’s going to stay that way.”

  Those big, smoky blue eyes, now full of crystalline tears. The faint lines beginning at the corners of her eyes—even her wrinkles were pretty, goddamn it all, and she was shivering again. Not with cold; he’d turned the heat on in here.

  Probably with fear.

  “I’m going to have to teach you to trust me,” he continued, searching for the right thing to say. “I’m sorry I left you alone in there, but I won’t do it again. I have never...”

  What was he trying to say?

  I have never really had anything in my entire life. Maybe he could say that. Or, They made me. I was a lump of meat and they turned me into this. I’m not even human. He could follow it up with The only time I feel like a human being at all is when I look at you, for Christ’s sake. Because you’re so goddamn naive and sweet, and you’re more than worth fighting for. More than worth protecting.

  How would she take that? It balled up inside his chest, all the things he wanted to say, and he lost his chance when she shut her eyes and inhaled as if to scream.

  The backpack hit the floor, he clapped his hand over her mouth, and her frantic backward motion to escape him turned into him pushing her just enough to tip her balance.

  They landed on the bed, Holly suddenly struggling, and it ended with both her wrists pinned over her head and his other hand still over her mouth. His knees on either side of her thighs, and her thrashing softness underneath him threatened to blow every circuit in the mess his head had become.

  How in the hell did I get here? He went still, just letting her strain against his hold and his greater weight. That smell all over him, bathing him, and the physical contact had its effect. An iron bar with its roots sunk into the lowest part of his belly, everything that could make him a man instead of a killing machine narrowing to a single still point—she was sweating now and the urge to lean down and flick his tongue against her throat to taste it almost drowned him.

  “Calm down,” he whispered. Please. I don’t want to hurt you.

  That was the problem, though. He probably would before this was over.

  He already had.

  When she finally went limp, tears sliding down and soaking into her tangled hair against the twisted pillow crammed sideways under her head, it got a little easier.

  Only a little.

  He peeled his hand away from her mouth, cautiously. Hopefully he hadn’t suffocated her. “Let it out,” he managed, his voice a husk of itself. “Let it out, Holl. Go ahead and cry.”

  “I w-want to go home,” she whispered.

  It was enough to break a man’s heart, if he had one. Was that why his chest felt so tight? The exhaustion made it difficult to think, and God, if she moved the wrong way he might add another goddamn reason for her to want to do something stupid to escape him.

  “I know.” His throat, desert dry, all but clicked as he swallowed, hard, searching for control. “I know, baby. I’ll make you a home. A nice one, whatever you want. We just have to get through this, and I’ll make you everything you’ve ever wanted. I know I can.” I’d better. It’s the only way to make up for all this.

  Will I feel human then?

  Her eyes flew open, and she stared up at him through that welling screen of tears. Her lips, reddened by the pressure—Christ, had he bruised her?—parted just slightly, and she twitched as if to try to throw him off.

  Reese lost the battle. His hand tightened around her wrists, his entire body threatened to explode...and his mouth met hers.

  * * *

  She couldn’t breathe. Somehow the air must have been getting in, though, because she didn’t pass out. He kissed her like he was drowning, as if he wanted to crawl inside her, and the confusion added to everything else inside her skull, turning it into a whirlpool.

  It had been so long since someone had...well, at least she hadn’t forgotten how. He was heavy, way heavier than he looked, but braced on knees and elbows he didn’t crush her. A weird, undeniable feeling of safety swamped her, utterly crazy, but her body wouldn’t listen. Heat all through her, concentrating way down low, but it was Reese who tore himself away, sliding to her left, landing on the bed and going still. He let go of one of her wrists but kept the right one, his fingers gentle but undeniable. That slight contact sent buzzing electricity down her arm.

  Holly gasped. The ceiling sparkled in places, acoustic tile full of little bits of glitter. Slowly, her breathing evened out. The tears kept trickling, hot and shameful.

  “I’m sorry.” Hoarse, rough, as if he’d just finished running a marathon.

  Maybe he had.

  Her mouth felt full. Ripe. It had been forever since she’d done that. Why did it have to happen now?

  “Why...” She couldn’t even find a reasonable question to ask. “Why do you...”

  “Do you really not know?” A bitterness to the scraping in his tone, and it took all Holly’s courage to turn her head against the pillow.

  He stared at the ceiling, too, a high flush along his stubbled cheeks, and he looked...

  Well, tired. That was some of it. But underneath the exhaustion and the usual set expression, there was something else.

  He looked sad.

  Oh, dammit, Holly, you already have a bad track record and no time for this, don’t do it. She’d survived Phillip, but only just, right? And only delayed the inevitable. The desire to leave had all but evaporated. She had thought it over. Down to the front desk, get a cab to the bus station, use her debit card to buy a ticket, go home to her shattered apartment and sleep for a week.

  As a plan, it kind of sucked, but it had seemed reasonable at the time.

  “This is messed up.” He swallowed, hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing, a strangely vulnerable little movement above his shirt collar. “I thought, you know, maybe I could get you into a nice apartment. Money isn’t an issue, but keeping you secret would be. Coming to see you whenever it was safe. Even if...even if nothing happened.”

  That is really bizarre. “So...sort of like a kept woman?”

  “No, just... Maybe. I don’t know. So you didn’t have to worry. You worried too much, I could see it. And you were too good for that diner. I wanted to...look, I was institutionalized growing up, okay? I never had a girlfriend. I never...”

  “Institutionalized?” Girlfriend? Is that what he wants? I thought I was just baggage.

  “Slow. Developmentally delayed.” A pause. “A moron, that’s what the kids might call it these days. That’s the nicest thing they call you when you just stand there and smile.”

  “Reese—” So much more about him made sense now.

  “I hit eighteen and the streets, sleeping in a state home when I could. The recruiter wanted to get his quota, and he did me a favor. I was smart enough to figure out they’d feed me there, and the rules made it easy. I even liked basic training, being useful. Being worth something. Then
...the accident. They made me into...what I am.”

  “Bionic.” The sheer unreality of the situation could have been laughable, if she’d felt any amusement at all. The image of Reese as a young man, struggling to deal with all this, was...well, it was pretty heartbreaking, when you thought about it.

  You and your strays, Phillip had said once. I won’t keep buying cat food when we’re starving, Holl.

  Had he ever wondered where she went after he told her he wanted a divorce? Had he come back to the house and looked for her? She’d been moving so steadily from one thing to the next, she’d never even thought about it before.

  Reese swallowed hard, again. “You keep saying that. I’m all flesh, Holly.”

  I’ll just bet you are. All things considered, they were having a very calm conversation. Ignoring the soaked crotch of her panties—good God, it had been a long time, but still, she didn’t have enough laundry to have this sort of response to a man—was working out really well. Could he hear the way her heart was triphammering?

  Could he maybe smell arousal, too? God.

  She gathered what was left of her brainpower and her courage, so to speak, and plunged ahead. “You’re not...developmentally delayed...now.”

  “Nope. They fixed that. I’m tired, though, haven’t been sleeping. The little bastards help, but...”

  Wait, what? “Little bastards?”

  He rolled his head to the side, looked at her. “I’m sorry because I’m not sorry, goddammit. I’m glad you’re with me. I’m a selfish little jerk and I have you, and you can’t even run away from me because you’ll end up dead. I’m not above using that to keep you here, and after a while you’ll get used to me. I can’t even be sorry about that. It’s all I wanted from the first time I walked into that diner, and now I have it, and I’m not giving it up.”

  “Well.” She searched for something to say. “That’s, uh. Not very romantic.” And I’m not going to be around very long. It doesn’t matter.

  Of course, if it didn’t matter, maybe she could...what? Just go with the flow? One last hurrah before the curtain call?

  What would he do when the inevitable happened? At least one person would miss her, and though it was awful to think of him feeling the same sharp grief she’d felt when Dad died, it was still...well, sort of comforting. She’d worked so hard to pull away so that nobody would miss her at all, nobody would feel that kind of pain on her account. Because it was unutterably greedy to want someone to miss you, wasn’t it? Compared to that, his own admission of selfishness didn’t seem so bad.

  He blinked a little, and the open surprise crossing his face would have been hilarious, too, if she’d felt like laughing. “I’ll do romantic if you want, Holly. Candlelight, roses, everything. Just...all you have to do is tell me, you know, but you have to work with me, I’ve never done it before. And they’re not going to give up on looking for us. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

  When you say that, I’ll bet it means something really bad indeed. “That’s why you came back to my apartment?”

  “Why did you think?”

  “I thought maybe you felt... I don’t know, sorry for me.”

  “I messed up your entire life, so it was just the least I could do, is that it? Maybe a normal person would feel that way. I can’t tell.” His mouth compressed, and when he spoke again it was very softly. “I’m not normal. But I wasn’t about to leave you there.”

  “Why?”

  “You seriously can’t figure out why?”

  “Maybe it would go a little easier if you just said it.” Oh, my God, am I really having this conversation with him? With a bionic spy?

  “What else do you want me to say?” Now there was a hint of anger. “I’m not normal. I’m not a real person. The only time I feel real at all is when I’m looking at you, when I’m around you, okay? You’re everything I thought I was protecting when I went out to do my duty for my goddamn country, and I’m barely keeping us both alive. I’m not a hero, goddammit, I’m not even human. I’m a fake, I’m selfish, I’m an agent, I’m unreasonable and hair-trigger and goddamn dangerous, and I’m also going to take care of you. So do me a favor and stop with the rabbit talk and the not trusting me.” He let go of her wrist and levered himself off the bed in one clean, economical motion.

  How fast could he move? One second he’d been by the window, the next in front of her with his back to the door. It was eerie. It was downright terrifying.

  Still...

  I’m not a real person. Was that what he thought? The same man who’d come back to get her, the same man who’d held her and told her it was going to be all right, the same man who had tipped so well probably because he didn’t know what else to do?

  He was inside a shell of his own, except somehow she was in there with him.

  Holly pushed herself up on her elbows, cautiously. Her entire body tingled. It was a nice change. “Reese?”

  He was over at the window again, not peering out at whatever it showed. He just stood there with his head down, and for a guy who had just had a serious chubby pressed up against her just a few minutes ago, he looked a little...lost. “What?” Struggling for patience, maybe.

  “You’re real to me.” It sounded unhelpful now that it was out of her head. “I mean, really real.” Like that’s better. Goddammit, Holly Rachel, can’t you say something useful for once?

  His shoulders dropped, too. The silence between them, no longer dangerous, was still full of something...uncomfortable.

  “I hope so,” he said quietly. “Brush your teeth and get some sleep.”

  “Are...are you going to sleep too?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You can... I mean, there’s the bed, here. You can...we could share.” Oh, Lord. Well, I’ve been divorced for two and a half years. This probably isn’t a rebound. The weird, irrational desire to laugh swamped her again; she pushed it down.

  “If you want.” Offhand, like it didn’t matter.

  I need sleep if I’m going to sort this out. “I, ah, think it would be good. For you. Okay?”

  “Okay, Holly. Whatever you want.”

  Oh, Jesus. She grabbed for her backpack and padded toward the bathroom. Halfway there, she looked back over her shoulder.

  He just stood there. Waiting, maybe. For what?

  Whatever you want.

  Was it really that simple?

  Why couldn’t I have met you before I got sick?

  That might not have made anything any better, though. Because of Phillip, because of...everything. Holly shook her head, wiped at her wet cheeks and escaped into the bathroom before anything else happened.

  * * *

  He waited until she was asleep. Eased himself onto the bed, a millimeter at a time. Clothes still on, boots still on, belt still in place and backpack right on the floor.

  You’re real to me. Really real.

  Maybe she even meant it. The beginning stages of dependence on him. He should have been overjoyed. He was, in a way. When he wasn’t feeling like the lowest worm on the goddamn planet.

  She moved restlessly; he froze. Waited until she settled again. Warm and safe, under the covers. Her inky hair spilling over the pillows, and maybe he could roll over and smell her up close. Maybe even slide an arm around her, just to make sure she wouldn’t get any damn rabbit ideas while he slept.

  So tired. And the weather wasn’t giving him anything but worry. First real serious storm of winter—things were going to get dicey. Add his growing certainty that they were being tracked somehow, and he was a ball of nerves just when he needed clarity and control most.

  Pushed her. Held her down. It didn’t help that her response had been immediate, and pretty goddamn volcanic. Smelling the sudden wash of coppermusk heat from her had just about made him embarrass himself.

  Whi
ch made him think about Tangiers.

  Don’t. He found himself edging closer, hardly daring to breathe, moving up slowly as if she was a target.

  She muttered something formless, moved again, and as his arm curled over her waist, she sighed and scooted backward, settling against him with an absolutely scorching little wiggle of those hips of hers.

  Reese let out a soft breath into her hair, closing his eyes.

  It was just as good as he’d thought it would be.

  No.

  Better.

  He could finally inhale and fill himself with her. It wasn’t as close as he wanted to be, but it was a start. She sighed again, made a tiny sleepy sound and was gone into boneless unconsciousness.

  You’re real to me.

  Even if she didn’t mean it...well, it was a kind thing to say. Just the sort of thing you’d expect from a woman who would hold a dying man’s hand or give every single child an extra peppermint. Christ, of all the reactions he’d expected, that had to be last on the list. She was downright amazing. How could anyone ever have let her go?

  Sometimes, in his head, the kid he had been still showed up. The dopey, happy, stupid little idiot. Hadn’t even realized when he was being hazed, taken advantage of, picked on. Just sailing through the world with everything around him so baffling that the only response was stupid deadness and a wide uncertain grin.

  What would that kid say, if he could get close enough to the woman Reese held?

  It ain’t just the way you smell. It’s that when you smile all of you lights up, and when you sad the whole world goes black. You a pure miracle, miss. You even feel bad for puppies and kittens.

  No, that wasn’t what that kid would say. That kid would probably just stare gapmouthed at Holly, unable to even leave a tip to make her backsore waitress days easier. That kid would never even know she existed.

  Not the way he did now. Maybe he should thank them for that, the whole goddamn clutch of them, from the program architects on down.

  Another deep breath, and he was floating. Relaxing, to just pretend she was there because she wanted to be, was sleeping next to him because he was...