Once they’d exhausted their list of details and instructions for me, they discussed this upcoming raid on Schultz’s offices. Apparently, Aiden was going with them.
If he’d known that last night, he hadn’t told me, but I had far too many other immediate problems to deal with. I could yell at him later then obsess about the possibility he might not return.
Eric pulled into a parking lot of what appeared to be a small school. I looked around nervously and squinted at him. “What happened to covert? You guys don’t do anything covertly. You’re a huge disappointment to my entire belief system about the way spies operate.”
“I’ll work on that,” Eric promised. “I’ve been trying to get Langley to upgrade to James Bond level cool for years, but so far, they’re still stubbornly nixing any plans for high speed car chases and gratuitous damage to public property.”
“And we still don’t have an Aston Martin,” Aiden pointed out.
Eric nodded but added, “Dietrich would pull strings to forbid it. We could totally switch to Porsches though.”
I was sitting outside of Lily’s daycare center listening to these two joke about what kind of sports cars the CIA should provide for its undercover agents.
Seriously, I couldn’t make this shit up.
“You could at least have some clandestine parking spot and sneak me inside the building,” I insisted. “Something worthy of the trouble of saying yes to you guys in the first place.”
Eric smiled at me and pointed to the edge of the parking lot. “No point. There’s only one camera that monitors this lot and we just disabled it. And you’re supposed to be her nanny, remember? Why would you need to hide? Just go to the office and sign your name as Janet Finch. They’ll bring her to the office and you can explain exactly what we’ve discussed.”
I pulled my hand out of Aiden’s and wiped it on the leg of my jeans. Even from the car, I could see the playground equipment filled with screaming, squealing children. I had no idea what age group they could be in. They all seemed so small and helpless. My throat constricted and I couldn’t breathe. The air in the car had vanished.
“I can’t…” I cried.
Aiden immediately began to tell me I could but it wasn’t his voice I heard.
I’ll be with you the entire time, Bella. Just listen to me. I’ll tell you what to say.
“Do you promise?” I whispered.
I promise, love. I will never abandon you.
“Ok,” I breathed.
I pushed the door open and climbed out of the car, approaching the gate slowly as I watched the thin, small legs of the children on the swings pump faster and faster so they could swing higher and higher. A group of kids chased one another on the grass behind the swing set and my heart pinched as I studied the features of each little girl, wondering if this was the child whose life I was about to derail.
I focused on the metal door in front of me and quickened my pace.
Inside, the glass walls surrounding the office allowed me to find my way easily. I rubbed my palms against the legs of my jeans again and approached the counter.
A middle-aged woman with a bun tied loosely on the top of her head hardly glanced up at me as she mumbled, “May I help you?”
“I’m Lily Hanover’s new caregiver. You should have received notification from her guardian, Stuart Schultz.”
The woman put the stack of papers she’d been shuffling down and scowled at me. “So? You here to introduce yourself or do you want something?”
I’m… going to have to ask you to punch this bitch, Mason said.
I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t laugh. The woman just kept scowling at me.
“Of course I’m here to pick her up,” I responded as sweetly as possible. “Mr. Schultz hardly sees any point in paying both me and this place.”
The secretary rolled her eyes and pushed a clipboard toward me. “Sign your name, her name and the time you’re picking her up. I’ll need to see your driver’s license.”
I pulled the fake license from my back pocket and handed it to the most unpleasant secretary I could imagine hiring to work around children all day. I signed my fake name and Lily’s as she’d asked and waited nervously as she confirmed all of the paperwork was, in fact, in their system and I was authorized to pick up this child.
“She’s in art. I’ll call her teacher,” the woman said, turning her back to me and allowing me to breathe for what felt like the first time since I’d walked into this office.
You’re doing great, Bella, Mason encouraged me.
This is the easy part. Confronting Lily is the real challenge.
Mason didn’t need to answer me. I already knew he agreed with me.
I didn’t know what to do with my hands or my feet or anything else. It was like waking up in this strange body for the first time and not knowing how to move it or force it to obey me. An eight-year-old girl had paralyzed me with fear when no man had been able to.
The door to the office opened and a far more pleasant looking woman entered with a small girl cowering by her side, her soft brown hair hanging in waves by her shoulders and her round brown eyes as terrified as mine almost certainly looked as well.
She was so slender, so fragile. She clutched a backpack to her chest and a lunch bag with Disney princesses on it in her fist and stared at me with those wide eyes that seemed to accuse me of the truth.
Kneel in front of her, Mason instructed. Make yourself smaller so you don’t seem so intimidating. Avoid telling her your name if you can so you don’t have to completely lie to her right away.
I lowered myself to the ground and hoped I smiled. “Mr. Schultz thought it would be better if you had someone to stay with you this summer. We’re going to get to know each other and maybe even go swimming later. Do you like to swim?”
Swimming? Mason asked.
There’s a pool at the hotel. What kid doesn’t like to play in the pool?
Lily blinked at me then nodded.
“Do you have everything?” I asked.
The girl nodded again.
I held my hand out and asked her, “May I help you carry this?”
Lily looked down at her lunch bag as if she were surprised to find it in her hands. She slowly handed it to me but kept the backpack clutched protectively to her tiny chest. My heart pinched again but I led her from the office and into the steamy, hot Atlanta summer air.
The children were still swinging and chasing each other and climbing on monkey bars, but Lily never even glanced at them. She kept her eyes on the parking lot in front of us, her face stoic and unreadable.
Aiden had moved into the front seat and I paused by Eric’s rented Prius, my hand hovering by the door handle. I didn’t know what to tell her about the men inside or why so many people had come for her if I were only a nanny.
Lily hardly paid attention to them. She kept her eyes on my hand, waiting for me to open the door. I pulled it open and she climbed into the backseat, finally placing her backpack next to her so she could pull the seatbelt around her. As Mason had feared, she was too small and it didn’t fit her properly. I looked helplessly at Aiden as Eric reached behind his seat so he could take her backpack and check it for any tracking devices. He smiled at the girl and promised her he would give it back. I handed the lunch bag to Aiden so he could inspect it, too. They meticulously but efficiently searched her belongings then passed them back to me.
“Put the shoulder belt behind her,” Aiden instructed. “It’s not safe, but she can’t have that thing in front of her neck.”
I tucked the gray belt behind Lily’s back and she snatched her backpack into her arms again and hugged it to her chest. Her big brown eyes remained focused on the back of Eric’s seat.
God, Mason, what’s wrong with this child?
Mason was quiet for a moment, his compassion and concern so overwhelming I wanted to cry the tears he could no longer cry himself. Talk to her. Tell her your name and promise her she’ll be safe with you.
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I put her lunch bag by my feet and Lily’s eyes quickly flickered to her smaller bag then settled on the back of the driver’s seat again.
“My name is Bella,” I said. “You’re safe with us, Lily. I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Lily blinked at the seat.
“He’ll find you,” she whispered.
“He’ll…” I bit my lip and begged Mason to guide me. I begged the universe or god or anything or anyone who was listening to let me fix this broken child.
Ask her why she’s so scared of him, Mason directed. Don’t tell her you’re cops or anything because he’s probably warned her about ever talking to the police.
Then what the hell am I supposed to tell her, Mason? We’re just random adults who decided to rescue her?
No. Tell her you’ll explain once you know exactly why she’s so terrified, but you have to know first. And you have to assure her Schultz can’t find you or ever hurt either one of you.
I had no choice but to deliver Mason’s message because I had nothing else to offer this girl. Lily kept her arms around her backpack and didn’t answer me.
Aiden twisted in his seat so he faced her and asked, “Do you believe in Santa?”
I just stared stupidly at him. Even Mason seemed dumbfounded.
“No,” Lily said quietly.
“Me either,” Aiden said. “How about God?”
“No,” Lily answered.
Aiden nodded. “That’s a tough one for me. Guess I’m with you on that one, too. How about those princesses on your bag?”
“They’re just cartoons,” she replied.
Aiden smiled at her and shrugged. “Ok, I’ll give up on waiting for Cinderella.” Aiden’s smile faltered and he asked, “Do you believe in aliens?”
I sucked in a sharp breath, but I wasn’t the only one. Lily’s eyes widened as she stared at the man in the front seat like he’d just revealed he were really the boogeyman. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Oh, my God,” I said.
“What has Schultz been telling you?” Aiden asked.
Lily swallowed and continued to stare at him. Her little fists blanched as she gripped her bag tighter.
Tell her the truth, Bella, Mason suddenly told me.
But you said…
I know! But I never thought the bastard would tell her anything about our former lives! She needs to know we’re not all dangerous.
“Ok,” I breathed aloud. “Lily, I believe in aliens, too. I used to live on a different planet and eight years ago, I left with a young man I was in love with so we could get married and be together here. But it didn’t work out that way. Our bodies on my old planet…”
“Are energy,” Lily finished for me. She watched me with equal parts curiosity and astonishment.
“Yes,” I acknowledged. “And when Mason healed the body he was given so he could live here, it didn’t work the way it was supposed to. Schultz works for this company…”
“I know,” Lily interrupted.
I sighed because more than ever, I wanted this asshole dead. I wanted him to pay not for what he’d done to Mason and me, but for traumatizing this child instead of letting her have a normal life. “I’ve been hiding from him for six years, Lily. He doesn’t want me to live because I knew Mason, and for some reason, they feel threatened by that. But these guys are going to help us. They’re going to catch Schultz and the others and we won’t have to be so scared anymore.”
Lily’s eyes flickered to Aiden in the front seat who was still watching her carefully. “But how do you know you’ll catch him? And what if he escapes?”
“He won’t,” Aiden assured her. “We have lots of help and there’s no way Schultz or any other guy who works for him that’s made you feel scared or unsafe can get away from us.”
Lily exhaled slowly and her grip on her backpack slowly loosened. “But if he does… they want to figure out how to send me back,” she said softly. “One day, they’re planning to kill me to try to send me back.”
Chapter 15
Eric and I didn’t mean to teach Lily so many colorful new words, but none of us had been prepared for her announcement that these sadistic bastards were far sicker than we’d imagined and the words had just… flown out. Eric wanted Aiden to get us out of Atlanta right away – actually, he’d wanted him to take us out of the country to some place like Canada because, really, when’s the last time Canada suffered mysterious bouts of unexplained violence? – but I’d refused.
This child had grown up being told she was nothing more than an experiment and that one day, when they believed they’d figured out a way to harness whatever energy our bodies contained so they could try to extract who she used to be from who she was now, they would send her to a different planet, one completely foreign and alien to her.
And the completely insane part, as if that weren’t insane enough, was how absurdly impossible the whole idea was. None of us doubted Schultz and whomever else he was working with intended to try it, but they had to know they would fail. They just didn’t care because Lily had been an experiment from the beginning, and when Plan A failed, they’d quickly come up with a Plan B to satisfy a perverse pseudo-scientific curiosity.
But they knew they would fail because who we used to be didn’t exist anymore. The only thing that remained of the persons who crossed over were the memories and personalities we’d brought with us.
Lily sat on my bed beside me brushing the hair on a doll she’d pulled from her backpack. She’d told me her doll’s name used to be Grace but her new name was Bella. I’d had to wait a few seconds before I could even answer her, and then I’d asked her if I could hold her and check her out. She’d proudly handed her over and I’d pretended to examine her carefully then praised the doll’s beauty and how well taken care of she seemed. Lily had beamed.
As soon as we’d gotten back to my room, Eric called Dietrich and at least the cursing between him and Eric had been in a different language. Maybe even two or three. After a while, I tuned them out because I couldn’t follow their conversation anyway. Lily pulled another doll from her backpack and I’d played with her until the conversation switched back to English.
“Bella,” Dietrich pleaded, “we can take care of Schultz. And trust me, we will. Get Lily out of there and let us handle this. Please.”
My eyes shifted to Aiden who seemed to be silently begging me to agree with his boss. “What about Mason?” I asked weakly.
My retribution means nothing anymore, Bella. Protect the child.
“We’ve picked up Andrews already,” Dietrich told me. “He’s in our custody and he won’t… be getting out. We’re pretty sure we know who the third man was in your dream, and by this evening, he’ll be in our custody, too. They won’t get away with what they did to your husband. I promise you.”
I sighed and stroked Lily’s hair absentmindedly. She looked up at me, her eyes surprised and unsure, and my heart shattered when I realized this girl had never had anyone love her, had probably never been hugged or tucked in and kissed goodnight and told she was the most precious thing in the universe to someone.
And I knew then she would become the most precious thing in the universe to me.
“Ok,” I agreed, smiling at Lily who slowly smiled back at me. “We’ll go wherever you want us to go.”
All three men sighed in relief. Four, actually, because even Mason sighed in my head. “I’ve got a few guys coming in to help Eric and Johnson tonight,” Dietrich said. “Aiden, I’ll send you everything you’ll need for all three of you to disappear for a few weeks. You should have it in a couple of hours.”
“Yes, Sir,” Aiden responded, sounding far happier about this assignment than he had any other time I’d heard him talking to Dietrich.
The language switched from English to… I honestly couldn’t tell. Russian, maybe? So I tuned them out again and smiled at Lily. “Want to go swimming?”
“I don’t have a swimsuit,” she pointed out smartl
y.
“We’ll go down to the lobby and buy you one,” I offered.
Lily smiled back at me and nodded, bouncing over me and skipping toward the door. Already, she seemed like a different child than the one I’d met only a short while ago, transformed by the promise of a safe and happy future.
Aiden followed us to the door and escorted us to the gift shop where we both had to find swimsuits. Aiden picked up a bikini from the rack and grinned at me, that sexy lopsided grin. He held it up in front of me then shook his head. “Never mind. I’m not into masochism.”
I laughed and pulled a more modest one-piece from the rack. I kept my attention on Lily as she deliberated between a pink tankini and an orange and yellow one-piece with stripes. “Either Mason will have to figure out why he’s here and what we need to do for him to… go back… or he’ll just to have to learn how to hide from time to time,” I murmured softly in Aiden’s ear.
Aiden groaned and shook his head. “The former. Although we could both win the creepy contest by agreeing to the latter.”
I snickered and knelt by Lily’s side. “I like the pink one because it has the ruffles over one shoulder.”
Lily grabbed the pink tankini from the rack and followed me to a dressing room. She held onto her swimsuit and watched me as I undressed instead. “I knew you weren’t really a new caregiver. They would have never hired a woman to take care of me because no women work for them. Other than my teachers, I’ve never even known any women.”
I pulled the straps over my shoulders and sat on the bench so I could be eye level with the small girl. “But you didn’t say anything. You knew I was lying and you left with me. Why?”
“Because you’re a woman,” Lily said matter-of-factly. “I didn’t think you could be one of them since you’re a woman. But then I saw Aiden and Eric in the car…”
“Oh,” I breathed. “I brought you hope and took it away so quickly.”
Lily shook her head. She blinked at me then dropped her swimsuit on the ground and threw her thin arms around my neck. “No, Bella,” she whispered. “You brought me a chance to live.”
The Chosen: A Resurrected Series Novel Page 17