Jamie. I said Jamie.
Not Jamison Hart.
“Certainly,” August says at last. “What would you like me to do?”
There are so many things I could say right now to indicate that it didn’t mean anything when I called Jamison Hart by a nickname. My entire mission was to get Jamie to fall for me, after all. But I wasn’t supposed to fall for him, and August knows me well enough to realize it means something when I’m calling a target by his nickname and not by his full name, the one we’ve been using the entire time we’ve been preparing for the mission. I’m too flustered to think of the right thing to say, the one that fixes what just happened without directly acknowledging it.
Finally, I say, “I’ll meet you at the extraction point.”
“As always, Ms. Bass,” is all he says.
I get up and push aside a pair of frilly curtains, unlocking a sliding glass door that opens out to the balcony. I can climb up to the roof from here, then cross over to the back of the mansion and drop down to the garage. From there, it’ll only be a short sprint to reach the extraction point at an access road meant for deliveries.
Trying not to look down, I step onto the railing of the balcony and carefully balance my sneakers on the ornate metal. Then I grab hold of a drainpipe and climb up to the roof, hauling myself over the edge with relative ease. It’s not that difficult when you’ve had to go through obstacle training every month since childhood. But when I stand back up, I realize I’ve made a fatal mistake.
Someone else is up here.
The British man with the shaved head is lounging against a stairwell door, smoking a cigarette lazily, watching me with cool gray eyes. He saw me climb onto the roof just now, which means I’m definitely going to seem guilty if he talks to the police.
But then he comments, “Nice trainers.”
And I know, instantly, that he’s with the Executive. Not mine, but a different one. I don’t know how I missed it before. I’ve never met anyone from the British Executive, but it’s always obvious when I encounter another operative. The way you speak, the way you hold yourself, it’s never the same as a person who isn’t used to killing. Even though he’s still slouched against the stairwell door, I know he could be at my throat in a split second.
I should use my brain. I should exercise care. I should behave like Alpha would and approach the situation logically and rationally, without giving in to my deepest impulses.
But I’m pissed off. Really, really pissed off. This operative just screwed with my mission and got in the way of everything, which has to be why he was smirking at me earlier. He knew I was from the Executive. He probably even knew I was trying to kill Jamison Hart. But did he bother trying to meet up with me and coordinate our efforts? No, not even when he could have signaled something to me in the kitchen. Instead he went straight for his kill and let me fail at mine. All my emotions are channeling into white-hot rage directed solely at him, and I’m pretty sure August would tell me it’s undeserved.
But right now, I just don’t care.
“How did you do it?” I spit out, marching across the roof to face him. “Cyanide, right?”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but I can see an expression of surprise flash across his face. It’s gone in a heartbeat, and then he stubs out the cigarette and smirks at me, indicating with his body language that he doesn’t consider me to be a threat.
But if that was really true, he wouldn’t have to indicate it to me at all.
“You’re the Echo,” he says. “Did you kill Jamison Hart yet? Looked a bit close from where I was standing. Too scared?”
Every Executive uses the same set of code names. As an Echo, I’m the girl next door who gets close to her targets by echoing their personalities to create the illusion of love. It takes me longer to close my missions, but I do it without leaving any trace of foul play or drawing attention to myself. Alpha, on the other hand, is the sniper who kills his targets from a distance. The location has to be just right, but no one will ever catch him.
This man is ridiculously handsome and dressed for the occasion. He’s cool and suave, not distant or unfriendly, and he just killed Zoe Evano. There’s only one gentleman who uses charm like this to get close to his targets.
“I’ve met Romeos before,” I say angrily. “You act like you don’t care, when really you care more than anyone else. You won’t have to fake it with the police later, because you’ll actually be upset that Zoe Evano had to die. There’s a reason you’re up here smoking, and it’s not because you don’t want to blow your cover. Don’t you dare talk to me about being scared.”
He narrows his eyes, contemplating me with a neutral expression. I’m right, of course, and we both know it. But he’s never going to admit it. Not to me, maybe not even to himself. The Romeo that August and I knew, the one at our Executive, was like that as well. He could charm any target into taking a drink from his flask, but he bottled up everything inside, always kept up a shield and never let anyone see past it.
Up until he shot himself a month ago.
“Overkill, don’t you think?” says Romeo casually. “You could’ve just said you weren’t scared.”
“I’m the only one of us who had to watch Zoe Evano die!”
“Then you need a drink more than I do,” he says, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out his flask. He takes a long swig, his eyes still on mine, before offering it to me. I grab the flask from his hand, then hesitate when I catch a whiff of what’s inside.
Cyanide. The alcohol is poisoned with cyanide. And he just drank from it.
What the hell?
I should be climbing down the side of the mansion, sneaking back to the limousine, telling Alpha about everything that just happened at the Woodland Castle. But something about tonight has made me feel unsettled inside. I still have no idea what I’m going to do about Jamison Hart, and I rarely have to stick around to see anyone die. Watching Zoe Evano lose her life has shaken me more than it should have.
I raise the flask with as much dignity as I can muster and take a drink.
“Cyanide,” I say, trying not to cough as I hand the flask back. “Just the way I like it.”
But I’m freaking out inside, fighting the urge to ask him all the questions running through my mind.
Are you aware that we just drank cyanide?
Are you immune to poison?
Are you like me?
Romeo is watching me carefully. He’s expecting me to do something about the cyanide. Spit it out, maybe, or retrieve an antidote from my purse. But I just stand there with my arms crossed for what feels like an eternity, waiting for him to figure it out. Finally, his expression clears and he returns the flask to his pocket.
“Interesting,” he says. “I’ve suspected that you existed for some time now. I tried to have my Query hack into your Executive’s files to search for you, but he couldn’t get past the firewall. That’s how desperate I was getting. To find someone else who...”
He’s playing the Romeo game, waiting for me to fill in the blank, being as vague as possible to make me feel like we belong together. Which means he’s still not sure what makes me an aberrant. Regardless of what I say, he’ll agree with it, and it won’t matter if it’s true or not.
“No,” I say flatly. “I’m not going to fall for that. Either you tell me what you are, or I’m leaving.”
He blinks, then lets out a sigh. “Fine. What I searched for was another operative with immunity to poison.”
So he’s not exactly like me after all. I feel momentarily disappointed, but only because I haven’t registered what this means yet. Soon enough, another thought begins to emerge in the back of my mind. If Romeo is immune to poison, it’s as if my lips aren’t poisoned anymore—at least not for him.
I could kiss him without consequence.
But that can’t be all, can it? Because if he was only immune to poison, he’d still be like everyone else. He could kiss anyone he wanted, and he wouldn’t be
asking another operative to find someone like me. There has to be more to it.
“Sorry,” I say. “But you’re going to have to tell me the rest.”
Romeo appears to be smirking again. But then I realize he’s actually showing me his canine teeth, pressing a finger against one of the pointed tips, sharp enough to draw blood. He shows me a substance on his finger, and I know what it is instantly.
Venom.
“I can’t kiss other people,” he says. “I can’t share food with other people. And I can’t do what I want in certain situations with other people.” The smirk is back again. “The name is Reese, by the way.”
No. I can’t do this right now. First I’m falling for Jamison Hart, and then I’m watching Zoe Evano die, and now I’m meeting another person who can’t kiss anyone else without killing them? A sound breaks through the silence, the wailing of sirens approaching in the distance, and it’s the last straw.
I can’t stay here anymore.
But as I turn to climb off the roof, I glance back at Reese. He’s watching me leave, his gray eyes unreadable. He is like me, about as close as you can get, and even I have to admit that part of me wants to know what it’s like to kiss someone without knowing they’ll have to die. Even if it never happens, I have to at least keep open the possibility that we’ll eventually mean something to each other because of what we are.
“Eliza,” I say simply.
And then I begin my descent into the night, leaving the Woodland Castle behind, with nothing to show for it but a beating heart and cyanide in my veins and blue, blue eyes on my mind.
five
When we return to the Executive, which is located beneath a secured government building, Alpha leaves the limousine in the parking garage and heads for the elevator without looking at me. The ride back was uncomfortably silent, and neither of us tried to talk at all. I haven’t been able to figure out if he’s disappointed because I failed to close the mission, or because I might feel something for Jamison Hart, or because of something else entirely.
I follow my partner into the elevator, waiting silently as he presses the button combination for the Executive. But as we descend to the main floor, he stands far enough apart from me that I can’t take it anymore. I have to say something.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, hating how small my voice sounds.
“Nothing,” says August, still not looking at me.
“I tried to close the mission,” I say. “I really did. But it was too late—”
“I know, Echo,” he says, sounding tired. “I know.”
The tone of his voice makes it clear that he knows exactly what happened between me and Jamison Hart in the Woodland Castle. He might even have seen me with Romeo up on the roof. But I can’t understand why he’s giving me the cold shoulder for only doing what I’ve been trained to do, the same thing I’ve done in every other mission we’ve been on together. I’m supposed to get close to my targets. I’m supposed to do whatever I can to avoid detection. Alpha has his job and I have mine. That’s all. It’s always been this way, and it hasn’t ever affected our partnership before now.
I first met August when I was five and he was nine. I’d just been taken away from my home by Agent Novenine, a handler with the Executive. She had spectacles and dark hair pinned up in a tight bun, and there was a gun in the holster at her side. We’d left in a limousine while my parents were sleeping. No, not sleeping. Your parents are dead, Echo, she said in the elevator, the same one I’m in now. I’m sorry.
My name isn’t Echo, I protested.
Agent Novenine glanced at me with a strange expression on her face. It is now.
She brought me to the dormitories for operatives and introduced me to my new roommate. Juliet was a few years older than I was, and she wore white gloves that fully covered her hands. What’s your name? she asked me. Eliza, I said, then corrected myself. I mean Echo.
It still felt like a game at the time, like I was playing make-believe, even though I knew everything was changing for real. This was to be my new school, and Agent Novenine was to be my new teacher, and the other operatives were to be my new classmates. I just had to accept it. There was nothing else I could do.
Agent Novenine showed me around the rest of the Executive before escorting me to the training gym, which had weights and mats and other equipment strewn around the polished floor. But what caught my attention was the brown-haired boy standing at the very center of it all. He was watching me carefully, as if afraid to believe I was really here.
This is your new partner, Agent Novenine said to me.
What’s a partner? I asked.
He’ll be your friend, she said. He’ll be there for you when you need him. He’ll keep you safe.
None of it made sense to me at the time. I didn’t know the boy at all, and he looked so lost, probably even more so than I was. How could he ever keep me safe? But even though his face was expressionless, I could see the yearning in his dark eyes. It was the same yearning I saw in my own face whenever I looked in the mirror. He wanted to be my friend. He wanted to have someone to talk to who could understand him. This, at least, made sense to me. For a moment I forgot about my dead parents, about Agent Novenine, about the Executive, and all I could see was someone like me.
“Hi,” I said to him. “My name’s Eliza.” I had to correct myself again. “I mean Echo.”
“Hey,” was all he said. His eyes weren’t looking at me anymore.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
He thought for a moment. “Alpha.”
“That’s a funny name,” I said, giggling. Then I whispered, “What’s your real name?”
“August,” he said, glancing at me cautiously.
“I like that one better,” I said.
“Me too,” he said solemnly. “But you have to call me Alpha.”
I nodded, already acclimating to the new rules. “See you later, Alpha-gator.”
He smiled unexpectedly, and for a brief second he seemed like any other child I might have played with after school. But then any trace of emotion disappeared, almost as suddenly as it had come, and I never saw him smile again.
Ever since that first meeting, August and I have become partners and relied on each other time after time. We’ve trained together and rescued each other from sticky situations and closed hundreds of missions side by side. There have been other moments scattered here and there, too, like when I was crying in my dorm on my tenth birthday and he knocked on the door and gave me a stuffed rabbit that had been through the wash a few too many times. One ear had been ripped off, and one eye had been replaced by a button. It’s for you, he said. His name is Fiver. And then there was that time after I’d finished screaming my heart out at him, when he walked away and I thought that was it, he was gone forever, he was asking the Executive for a new partner as I stood there shaking in the training gym. But he came back after a few minutes with a blanket and draped it around my shoulders. Get some rest, he said. Okay? I nodded, tears spilling from my eyes. Okay.
So even though he isn’t standing next to me right now, even though he hasn’t been talking to me whatsoever, I know August isn’t an emotionless bastard. I know he isn’t ignoring me on purpose. Even if he had an issue with how I dealt with Jamison Hart or Romeo, it would never prevent him from making sure I was okay. So there has to be something else going on, something that’s important enough to make him act differently. But I already know I’ll never be able to make him talk to me. All I can do is trust that he’ll tell me eventually.
When the elevator finally stops at the main floor of the Executive, we disembark together in silence. The hallways down here are sterile and illuminated by fluorescent lighting, even in the middle of the night. It almost makes you forget that you’re underground, being watched over by security cameras at every turn. Sometimes I actually do forget. But then I see an operative with bloodied hands, or a file crammed full of mugshots, or a handler carrying a duffel bag filled with weapons, and I re
member again.
Alpha and I walk together to the briefing room, the same way we always do, with him at my side but one step behind, watching my back even when it isn’t really necessary. Normally it makes me feel safe, but right now it just makes me feel pissed off. If he was going to ignore me, you’d think he would at least be consistent about it.
I speed up slightly, only to glance over my shoulder and realize August has sped up as well, maintaining the distance between us. But my partner isn’t checking for my reaction or anything like that. He’s just staring at the tiled floor as he strides behind me, lost in thought, not even aware of my expression. This is simply automatic for him by now.
My anger dissipates the tiniest bit.
Agent Novenine is waiting for us in the briefing room. Her hair has grayed over the years, and she wears thicker spectacles than when she brought me to the Executive. I’m worried about her reaction to what happened on the mission. She has the power to sentence me to solitary confinement or ground me in my dorm until further notice. And, of course, I have no idea how much Alpha told her while I was getting to the extraction point.
But she isn’t alone.
I stop in my tracks when I see who else is sitting at the conference table. There’s an older man with a pointed beard, wearing a chauffeur’s uniform like the one Alpha has on, which is really nothing out of the ordinary. But lounging next to him is the operative I thought I left behind at the Woodland Castle.
Reese code name Romeo.
He raises an eyebrow when he sees me enter, barely managing to control his smirk. “Why, hello there.”
I ignore his tone. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Echo!” Agent Novenine purses her lips and gestures at a stack of files in front of her. “Please take a seat. We’re ready to begin.”
Still glaring at Reese, I sit down in a chair at the opposite end of the conference table. After a moment, August takes a seat in the middle, somewhere between the two of us. I can’t help but feel a flash of irritation that he isn’t taking my side. Literally.
Code Name Echo Page 3