You Won't See Me Coming

by Kristen Orlando

  I push down all my mole-related questions and focus on the pressing one in front of me. “Then what the hell do you want from me?” I ask, my mouth spitting out the words.

  A wave of fury contorts Fernando’s face and I immediately regret the agitation in my tone. He slams down his knife and takes several large, commanding steps around the island before standing directly in front of me. He crosses his thick, muscular arms in front of his chest and stares directly into my eyes, that chill returning to my spine.

  “You have taken everything from me,” he says, each word deliberate, his voice shockingly calm. But his face gives him away. Crimson streaks across his cheeks and crawls up his pale neck. “Your parents killed my nephew. You killed not one, but two of my brothers. You’ve sent my cousins to prison. You’ve weakened my business. So now … you will help me get some of the pieces of my life back. You will do what I tell you to do.”

  Spit lands on my cheeks, forcing my face to cringe and turn away. But Fernando grabs my cheeks with his brutal fingers, crushing my jaw and pulling me toward him, so close I can smell the acidic tomatoes and potent rosemary on his breath. His gray eyes pierce into mine. “Do you understand me?” he says through gritted teeth. I don’t speak. I don’t blink. I just stare. After a few seconds of silence, he tightens his grip, shakes my face, and booms, “Do you?”

  “Yes,” I somehow manage to whisper.

  “I know where everyone is,” he hisses. “Cameron Conley. Your father. Anusha Venkataraman. I will go after them one by one if you don’t give me what I want.”

  His eyes narrow into slits before he pushes my face away in disgust. He turns his back toward me, returning to his side of the island, where he picks up his knife and starts chopping again.

  “What do we do with the girl?” one of the men at the island asks, his eyes on Harper. “Should we just kill her now?”

  Harper sucks in a sharp breath, her gasp echoing in her throat. I turn to look at her and wish I hadn’t. Her body trembles, her eyes are filled with fresh tears, her mouth opens, and I pray a scream or sob doesn’t escape.

  Fernando looks up from his chopping and slowly walks over to Harper, the heel of his polished black shoes echoing against the cathedral ceilings, the knife gripped in his hand with the blade pointed out, one quick and easy thrust away from ending someone’s life. He holds out his free hand, silently halting the assassin rising from his seat.

  Fernando makes his way around the island until he’s directly in front of Harper. He looks her up and down, slowly raising the tip of his knife up to her face, pushing back the wavy hair that hangs over her face. Her face shudders as the shiny blade passes just centimeters away from her eyes. Fernando scans her body, dressed in a gray T-shirt, my pajama pants, and borrowed fuzzy socks from the plane. He lowers the knife to Harper’s chest, the harsh blade a half an inch away from the center of her sternum, and I feel my own body begin to tremble.

  Dear God, no. Please. Don’t kill her. Don’t kill her.

  “No, please no,” Harper whispers, trying to keep her pulsating body still and away from the knife. Tears claw their way up my throat and I am paralyzed, helpless. I want to jump in front of her, knock the knife from Fernando’s hand with my forehead. Scream at him to leave her alone. But if I move, they’ll still kill her. One act of defiance from me won’t save her. It will only guarantee that knife will be plunged into Harper’s heart.

  After a moment, the blade finally leaves her body and is returned to Fernando’s side. He shrugs with indifference before saying, “Keep her alive for now. Reagan, I will send for you later. And you will help me.” He then points again at Harper with the tip of his knife and threatens, “Or you’ll watch me slit her throat.”

  As Fernando lowers his blade once again and walks back toward the island, tears break free from Harper’s eyes and she sucks in her bottom lip, trapping the cry that’s surely lingering in her throat.

  My tight shoulders fall. We’re still alive. But as I stare at a trembling Harper, I realize an hourglass with the remaining moments of our lives has been flipped upside down. Those precious grains of sand pull through, counting down the seconds until we meet our end.

  I close my eyes. And in that gray space, I see my mother, her arms reaching for me, and I cannot tell if this is a memory or my imagination.

  Help me, Mom. Please. Help me.

  TWENTY-ONE

  They pulled in two single mattresses for us to sleep on. They’re thick with quilting and an extra pillow top that’s kind of luxurious compared to what we’ve been sleeping on during our time in hiding. But they smell like dogs. One of the guards told me this is what Fernando’s pets normally sleep on. Lucky pups. The mattresses are in reasonably good shape except for one corner of my mattress that’s been chewed up. I can’t look with my hands behind my back, but I pray for a metal spring or something I could use lying just beneath the fabric. Something to get us the hell out of here.

  Harper lies on her mattress next to me, staring up at the ceiling, her hands resting on her quivering stomach. Without a sweatshirt, her skin must be freezing in our windowless room. I’d give her my own sweatshirt if I could get it off of my body.

  “Are you cold?” I ask as I lie on my side, watching her body shake.

  “Yes,” she says, her quaking voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t stop shaking.”

  “It’s not just the temperature. It’s your nerves,” I answer, clumsily scooting my body onto her mattress. My hands are still tied behind my back so while I can’t hug her, at least I could provide some much-needed body heat.

  Harper rocks herself back and forth to make room for me and I rest my body next to her trembling frame. “Shhh, shhh, shhh, shhh,” I whisper methodically near her ear, trying to comfort her the same way you’d comfort a crying baby. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  Harper’s shaking escalates and a tear runs down her cheek. She pulls her tied-up hands to her face, swatting the tears away, angry that they’ve made their escape. “It’s not okay, Reagan,” Harper says, her voice trembling as the tears fall faster. “We’re going to die in this place.”

  “I know you’re scared. I’m scared too,” I say, trying to keep my voice composed and even, the way my mother spoke to me when I was freaking out. “But we both have to be strong right now. We both have to try to remain calm, because if we don’t, we might as well just give up.”

  “Well, I feel like giving up,” Harper says, burying her face in her hands. “I don’t know if I can take another second of this.”

  “I will get us out of this,” I say quietly as Harper takes deep breaths into her palms.

  “How the hell are you going to do that?” she says, her voice echoing into the small cave of her hands. “You can’t even wipe your own ass right now. So how the hell are you going to get us out of here?”

  “I need to figure out what they want from me first. If it’s something I can give them to save us, I will.”

  “And if it’s not?”

  “Then … then I’ll just have to manipulate the shit out of them. But I will get us out of here, Harper. I will,” I say, the words light as they leave my tongue, their promise hollow. But it’s enough to get Harper to uncover her face and look at me. “First, I need to figure out who is feeding them intel.”

  “The mole?” Harper asks, widening her bloodshot eyes.

  “Yes,” I answer and nod my head. “I thought it was the call to your parents that tipped them off to where we were but now I don’t think so. Did you catch what Fernando said?”

  “No,” Harper says, shaking her head. “I was too busy worrying about being stabbed to death.”

  “Fair enough,” I answer, wiggling on the mattress, attempting to find a more comfortable spot for my aching back and shoulders. “He said ‘How do you think we found you? Luck?’ He was basically saying the mole tipped them off to our motel.”

  “Well, who knew where we were?” Harper asks, her voice getting stronger.

 
“Just my dad and Cam. And neither of them could be the mole,” I reply, shaking my head. “No one else knew where we were…”

  My lips stop moving, my mouth paralyzed and open as her name enters my brain like a hurricane. Words are replaced by a gasp and air enters my lungs like a thousand freezing knives.

  No. Please, no.

  “What is it?” Harper asks, her eyes widening.

  “Oh my God,” I whisper and stare past Harper, my muscles compressing, my limbs immovable.

  Every memory of her is turned upside down, shredded into pieces.

  “What, Reagan?” Harper asks, her voice rising with panic. But I don’t move, I don’t speak. Harper shakes my shoulders as I stare at a single spot on the cinder-block wall behind her, my mouth still open and tears forming in my eyes, fogging my vision. She shakes me harder and asks, “Reagan, what is it?”

  “It’s Sam,” I whisper, my eyes now blurring to the point that I can’t make out the details of Harper’s face.

  How could you? The words rattle around my chest as I see Sam’s face, smiling down at me, her blond hair in a ponytail and blue eyes wide and kind. I try to place the memory, but can’t.

  “No way,” Harper says, furiously shaking her head. “It can’t be Sam. She’s like an aunt to you.”

  “She was more than that,” I say, my voice raw with emotion. I swallow hard, struggling to form the words that are clattering around my brain. “She was like a second mom. She was my only mom now.”

  “I know,” Harper argues. “She would never do that to you. She’s been with you for every part of your life.”

  “Exactly,” I answer, my deep love for her draining from my blood until I’m freezing, the tips of my fingers tingling, numb. “She’s the only one who has been there for every phase. And for every bad thing that’s ever happened.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When I was sixteen, a Torres assassin came to my house in Philadelphia to try to kidnap or kill us. We locked ourselves in the panic room and were safe but … Sam knew exactly where we lived. I remember my dad screaming then that there had to be a mole. There had to be someone who gave us away. And when my parents were taken in Ohio and I was nearly kidnapped at school … again … she was right there. She knew where we were. She tipped them off. And then she did everything she could to keep me from going on that mission to rescue them. She wanted them dead. And last year when a group of Black Angels was attacked by Torres’s people on a mission, she was the only one who survived. And she survived without a scratch on her. How is that possible?”

  “Maybe it’s all just a coincidence,” Harper says, her hands still heavy on my shoulder, trying to reason with me. “Just because you’re near an explosion doesn’t mean you built the bomb.”

  “Then how can you explain last night?” I answer, turning my eyes toward Harper. “She called me on the satellite phone at the gas station. She specifically asked where we were staying. Not just the town, the motel. I told her the name. She was the only one who knew the name. And when Fernando made his threats tonight about who he’d go after if I didn’t cooperate, he mentioned Anusha, my father, and Cam. He didn’t mention Sam. Because Sam is the mole. She’s the one who’s been conspiring with them this whole time.”

  “Oh my God,” Harper whispers, turning her body away from me and staring up at the ceiling. “Maybe it really is Sam.”

  Et tu, Brute?

  My mind races with a thousand furious thoughts, a hundred agonizing questions. But for some reason, this quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar rises to the top. Even you, Brutus? It was the last piece of literature I read in Honors English at New Albany, and I remember thinking then how I’d never felt betrayal like that. But there she is. My Brutus. My constant confidante and protector.

  Sam has to be the Black Angel mole.

  My body feels empty and pained all at once. Like someone reached inside and stole all my vital organs, leaving my body hollow and gutted.

  Memories of Sam start to flash before me. Her kissing my knee when I fell off of my bike when I was little. Her teaching me how to use a tampon. Her lying in bed and gossiping with me about the boys I liked in school. It was all an act. It was all to keep us close. Close enough to know everything. To know every strength and every weakness. All to feed it back to these monsters.

  How could you? How could you? How could you?

  My eyes can’t contain their tears anymore. They fall fast and hot, leaving long trails down my skin like boiling, angry rivers. I trusted Sam with my secrets and fears and hopes. I trusted her with my life. My lips tremble as I try to take in new air that won’t come quickly enough. That hollow spot in my gut that never seems to close shrieks with familiar agony. And I feel like I’m losing my mother all over again.

  “I’m so sorry, Reagan,” Harper says softly, trying to pull my body toward her and into a disjointed hug. “I don’t understand how she could do this to you.”

  “She’s a spy,” I answer sharply, wishing I could wipe the tears off of my face. “It’s what she was trained to do.”

  It’s what we were all trained to do.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I hear the clang of glasses. Real plates, real silverware.

  I open my eyes and, at first, all I see is Harper’s still-sleeping face. I’ve fallen asleep on her shoulder, her hands still looped behind my neck. I haven’t been asleep for too long. I know this because the ratty gray shirt Harper’s wearing is still damp with my tears.

  The clang of dishes fills our small space again, forcing my head up. I look past Harper’s shoulder and toward the doorway. The door is closed, but Mateo stands just inside, balancing an oversized tray. Water fills two long glasses. Sandwiches, cut into quarters, sit on white plates.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” he says, his voice startling Harper out of her sleep. She gasps as she opens her eyes. When she sees me next to her on our mattress, her face falls. It wasn’t a nightmare. We’re really down in the hollows of Fernando’s giant estate, waiting for three options: to be rescued, to escape, or to die.

  Harper hears the metallic ping of silverware as Mateo steps cautiously toward our makeshift beds. She cranes her neck, looking back at him.

  “What are you doing in here?” she asks, her voice raspy from a lack of liquid. The girl usually has a water bottle permanently in her hand or at the very least, her bag. She literally wouldn’t drive the five minutes from my house to hers without taking a water bottle for the road.

  “I thought you girls might be hungry,” Mateo answers, his brown eyes incredibly warm for someone who works for a psychopath.

  “What was your first clue? That all we’ve had to eat all day is crackers?” Harper snaps, pulling her arms from around my neck and pushing her body up.

  Mateo sets the tray down at the edge of our mattress. The wood tray has a glossy dark stain and legs, like the kind you’d use to serve breakfast in bed. The white plates are outlined with a silver rim. The silverware shines; the glasses look thick, hand-blown even. The elegant tray sits in stark contrast to our drab and gray concrete room. All the tray is missing is a clear vase with a single red rose.

  “I’m just loving the five-star service,” Harper quips, crossing her arms over her body. “Aren’t you, Reagan? Isn’t this Christmas dinner of cold sandwiches and tap water just so lovely?”

  Mateo’s face visibly cringes with each of Harper’s sarcastic lashes, confirming the soft heart I suspected, the innocence the other guards lack. These characteristics mean he’s primed for my manipulation. As long as Harper doesn’t bitch him out and screw it up.

  “Thank you, Mateo,” I say, trying to be overly gracious to compensate for Harper.

  “Is Mateo even your real name?” she asks sharply, leaning her back against the cinder-block walls.

  “Yes, it’s my name,” he answers as he stands back up.

  “Wow, something that’s actually true about you,” Harper snaps, her chest heaving with a
n annoyed sigh. “So, how exactly do you expect us to eat with our hands tied together?”

  “I’ll untie you for a few minutes,” Mateo answers, pulling out a pocketknife along with a pair of fresh zip ties. He looks up at Harper, nervous. “But I have to tie you back up once you’re done.”

  “Why not leave us untied?” Harper asks, her face twisting with every angry word. “Afraid you guys won’t be able to rape and kill us if our hands aren’t behind our backs?”

  “No, I wouldn’t. I’m not that kind of guy,” Mateo answers, shaking his head, his eyes cast down at the ground. His sneakers scrape along the concrete floor, as if he’s kicking at imaginary pebbles.

  “So what kind of guy are you, then?” Harper scoffs, her voice rising as she offers Mateo her hands to cut free. He runs a blade through the zip ties and it snaps, releasing her hands from their plastic chains. “Are you just the kind of guy who spends hours and hours getting to know someone but really you’re just setting up a trap for them to get kidnapped? Is that the kind of guy you are?”

  “Look, I didn’t know it’d end up like this…” Mateo says unconvincingly. He walks toward my side of the mattress and runs the blade through my ties. My arms and shoulders fall forward, my strained and aching muscles finally released.

  “What did you think would happen?” Harper yells. “What the hell did you think these people were going to do to us? Feed us cupcakes and have a tickle fight?”

  “I didn’t know what I was getting myself into with Fernando,” Mateo answers, his face sincere. His chest rises and falls twice with deep, contemplative breaths before continuing. “Look, he’s my mother’s cousin. I didn’t grow up in this world. I grew up in a little village a hundred miles away. I only met him once or twice in my life. I didn’t want to do this. But my mother didn’t give me much choice. He’s been taking care of her and my brothers and sisters since my father died. I’m working for him as repayment for all that money.”