Code Name Echo

by Autumn Clarke

  I didn’t need another one.

  “Tell me what’s going on,” I gasp. “Now.”

  His eyes are glazed over, his hand hovering in midair, as if he doesn’t know what just hit him. “Sorry?”

  “The explosion at the marina.” I’m struggling to control my breathing. “Tell me.”

  Reese doesn’t react for a long moment, but then he clears his throat and glances at me. “Why do you think Mellie Hart had to die?”

  “She was an enemy of the nation,” I say automatically.

  “No,” he says. “Ophidian is deeply intertwined with the Executive. Yours, mine, all the other ones as well. Half the targets we take out are threats to Gallagher Hart’s status at the company. Mellie Hart was going to divorce him, and so she had to go. She knew too many of his secrets.”

  “But we work for the government—”

  “We work for the Executive,” he says. “And all the Executives have been working with Ophidian since the very beginning, in exchange for the most advanced technology in the world.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t believe you.”

  Reese shrugs. “I don’t know what bullshit they feed you here, but this is what happens to aberrants. Imprisoned by the government, watched by the government, or used by the government.” He draws his fingers into a fist. “Yes, we save lives. But the means used by the Executives to achieve their end is wrong. They all need to be stopped, and bringing down Ophidian is the key to doing so.”

  I can’t understand anything he’s saying right now. Sure, the Executive uses technology developed by Ophidian. But so does everyone else, and it’s certainly not anything worth killing over. For all I know, Romeo is weaving an elaborate cover story to save his own skin. If I tell the Executive that he went rogue on a mission, he’ll be shipped back to the United Kingdom immediately. He might even be sentenced to solitary confinement for what he did.

  I turn away and take another drink of gin. “I won’t tell anyone you screwed with my mission again, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Reese gives an exasperated sigh. “It’s not about the mission. A clandestine group of operatives is working against Ophidian and the Executives, and Mongoose is the code word to know if you’re with us or not. I didn’t tell you about the change of plans at the sailing race because I wasn’t supposed to involve you in it. But this is the only way. You have to be brought on board.”

  “That’s great,” I say sarcastically. “But I didn’t exactly need to be initiated into your secret club.”

  “I’m serious, Eliza,” he says, ignoring my tone. “We need you to find Ophidian’s shipping manifest before killing Jamison Hart. The company has a top-secret facility on a private island, and we have to stop certain shipments from reaching it. But no one’s ever been able to figure out where he and his father keep the manifest.”

  This has to be some kind of joke. Like, okay, maybe the Executive isn’t some idealistic protector of the nation. We’re aberrants who kill the enemy, and the people who should be thanking us for saving their lives will never know we existed at all. But I’m not going to agree to something that could get me locked up in solitary confinement, if not retired. My job is to close mission after mission, to defend the nation without ever asking why, and believing otherwise would destroy me.

  “Sorry, Romeo,” I say flatly. “I won’t do it.”

  He narrows his eyes, and I’m almost sure he’ll try to antagonize me again. Throw a punch at my shoulder, maybe. Kiss me hard and never let go. I don’t even know what I want to happen anymore. But instead he says, “It’s just a manifest. You’re the only one of us who’s been able to get close enough to any of the Harts to find it. All this time killing target after target, and you haven’t asked yourself what the Executive isn’t telling you?”

  “So what?” I ask, but my chest is beginning to tighten. It feels as if my world has suddenly become unstable, as if he’s trying to burn down the very floor beneath me, and I don’t understand why any of this matters. “We’re saving lives. It shouldn’t make a difference if the Executive is working with Ophidian. What’s so wrong with that?”

  But Reese shakes his head. “I’m not allowed to say. This is the one line I can’t cross.”

  “Why not?”

  He glances away, his eyes unreadable. “Because the truth would break your heart.”

  Part of me wants to push back against what Reese is saying, but he believes he’s telling the truth. I don’t care if he actually is or not. I’m never going to work against the Executive. Because of what I am, because of my poisoned lips, I could never survive anywhere else.

  This is the best thing I could ever do with my life.

  As Reese slowly rebuttons his shirt, I make my way into the bedroom and collapse onto the mattress, pulling the covers over my head. If I try hard enough, I can imagine that I’m still a little girl, that my lips aren’t poisoned, that I’m not caught up in the middle of whatever he was talking about. All I want is to feel safe, and I wish more than anything that August was sitting on the other side of the bed right now, reading a comic book to me. Even the supervillains in those stories have people who love them, who want to be with them, who stand right beside them as they burn the world to ashes. But who do I have?

  No one.

  For the first time in forever, it feels like I’m freefalling.

  eleven

  I wake at sunset to the sound of voices and a moderate hangover. It takes me a moment to remember where I am. The safe house where I drank gin and made out with Reese and listened to him tell me about Mongoose. Is he going to try to convince me to help him again? My stomach does a queasy flip as I climb out of bed and step over to the door. But when I peer into the living room, there’s no sign of Romeo. Instead, two other Executive operatives are sitting on the couch.

  Juliet and Fox.

  It’s obvious that a lot more has been going on between them than I’ve been told. She isn’t wearing her white gloves, and they’re murmuring to each other in low, intimate voices. I have no idea why they’re in the safe house instead of the dorms.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, still too groggy to understand what’s going on.

  Juliet immediately gets up and comes over to me, clasping her bare hands before her. She exchanges glances with Fox, who gives her an encouraging nod. Then she turns back to me and says the last thing I ever expected.

  “Mongoose needs your help, Echo. We need you to retrieve the manifest from Jamison Hart.”

  So that’s why they’re here. I’d assumed Romeo would leave and Mongoose would never come up again. I can’t believe my own roommate is involved. How many of my fellow operatives have been keeping this from me? They’re all involved in some kind of secret club, and no one ever bothered to say a word about it. But now that they need my help because of Jamison Hart, they’re falling all over themselves to get to me. I’d have to be a total idiot to trust any of them.

  The hangover isn’t helping either.

  “I’m not doing it,” I say flatly.

  “Please, Echo. If the shipments reach Ophidian, innocent people will die—”

  “They’ll die if we don’t close our missions!”

  “This is different,” Juliet says helplessly. “You’re just going to have to trust us.”

  “Sorry, but no,” I say, starting to feel pissed off. “I don’t have any reason to help you. None of you will tell me what’s actually going on, not to mention that you’re working with possibly the most infuriating person I’ve ever met. I don’t want to be involved with Mongoose.”

  “But you do,” she insists. “If you knew what was going on, you’d want to help more than anyone. We’re all just trying to protect you.”

  I give a harsh laugh. “By keeping me in the dark?”

  “We should tell her,” says Fox, getting up to stand next to Juliet. “It’s the only way she’s going to work with us.”

  “No!” Juliet clutches at his sleeve. “We’
re not supposed to, not after Ryan—”

  “Echo.” Fox takes a sudden step toward me. Startled, I look at him without thinking, inadvertently making eye contact. Oh, no. That was a mistake. Or was the real mistake that I never realized how handsome he was before now? I can feel myself drawn to him instantly, wanting to listen to everything he has to say.

  “The shipments that Ophidian receives—” he starts.

  But that’s when Fox abruptly stops talking, leaving the sentence unfinished, turning to Juliet instead. She’s gripping the back of his neck with her hand, preventing him from thinking about anything other than being with her.

  “Just go,” she says to me desperately. “Don’t tell anyone about this, okay? Not even Alpha.”

  As if I’d ever tell anyone about any of this. Half the people would probably think I was crazy, and the other half would kill me for it.

  And August hasn’t even been talking to me anyway.

  Out in the hallway, Kilo is waiting for me. His muscles are practically chiseled, on the verge of terrifying, and I have no idea why he’s looking at me like I just killed a puppy. I’ve never talked to him much, except when he’s checking up on Juliet.

  “You were with Romeo earlier,” he says accusingly.

  “We were discussing the mission.” My head feels like it’s about to split open, and I can’t remember the last time I had a drink of water. I just want to go back to my dorm and forget any of this ever happened.

  “Yeah, not so sure discussion was involved,” Kilo says. “You know Alpha came to pick you up hours ago? The boy returned empty-handed. Said you were busy. If you knew the things he does for you...” He shakes his head. “Let’s go. I’m supposed to take you back to the Executive.”

  But I can’t move for a second. August, who has X-ray vision, was here. So if he arrived when I was with Reese... when I was kissing Reese... when I was with Reese on the kitchen counter...

  I swallow hard, trying not to puke.

  “Thanks,” I say, forcing out the word.

  The drive back to the Executive feels like a funeral procession. Kilo remains ominously silent the entire way, and all I can feel is wave after wave of nausea surging through me. I can barely make myself leave the elevator and walk over to the briefing room. Pausing outside, I raise my hand and knock half-heartedly on the door, hoping that no one answers.

  But Alpha opens the door and lets me in without even glancing at me. He’s wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, and he’s actually going out of his way to avoid eye contact. He sits down at the conference table and motions for me to take a seat.

  My heart in my throat, I sit down next to him, but he doesn’t turn to acknowledge me. His gaze is locked somewhere between his fingers and the surface of the table. Normally I would be respecting his desire for space, but this silence between us has gone on for way too long. I can’t lose my partner. I just can’t. And if things are falling apart because of everything that’s been happening with Jamie and Reese, I’ll just have to fix it.

  I have no other choice.

  Finally, August says, “Jamison Hart was released from jail earlier. His alibi checked out.” He means the statement I gave to the police. “You need to close your mission as soon as possible.”

  “Don’t you mean our mission?” I ask, confused.

  He doesn’t look at me. “We’re being assigned to new partners.”

  I’m suddenly overwhelmed by the same feeling that struck me all those years ago, when I was terrified that he’d request a new partner from the Executive. I never thought any of the distance between us would become permanent. But it turns out that the recent chasm has been widening all this time, carrying him farther and farther away from me, and I failed to realize any of it was happening until now.

  “But I don’t want to be with anyone else,” I say numbly. “You’re supposed to be my partner.”

  “I’m supposed to keep you safe,” he says. “It’s not the same thing.”

  “It is!” My emotions are starting to spill over, the same way they used to after every mission when I was younger, and I can’t stop it from happening. Not without him as my partner. “I can’t do this without you, Alpha—”

  He shakes his head. “No choice, Echo.”

  I should calm down and address the situation like he would. Rationally, there has to be a choice. There’s always a choice. It’s just a matter of whether you’re willing to bear the consequences of it or not. But I’ve completely lost control over my emotions, and they’re mutating into something worse, something made of confusion and distress and absolute fear. I can’t stand how emotionless he sounds, as if we haven’t been in this together our entire lives, and all of it gets mixed up and emerges as only one thing.

  Anger.

  “So where have you been, then?” I hear myself demanding. “You didn’t tell me about the changes to the mission. What if I’d gotten onto that yacht with Mellie Hart? You wouldn’t have been able to stop me.” A sudden thought strikes me out of nowhere. “You can’t... Are you involved with Mongoose?”

  August glances at me sharply, his dark eyes pinpointing me in an instant. It makes my heart stop beating for a second, as if time itself has ceased to move. He almost never looks at me that way, as if I’m the solitary focus of his entire life, but whenever he does it arrests me wholly and I feel the entire weight of it all at once, as if the look has been building up and up since the last time it happened. And now here it is, the tidal force of his full attention on me, drowning me where I am.

  I never want to rise for air again.

  “Where did you hear that word?” he asks.

  “Romeo told me everything,” I say, lying easily. “You can’t just abandon me when something like this is going on.”

  August considers me for a moment. “Nothing’s going on,” he says at last. “I don’t know what he told you, but repeating that to anyone else could get you killed. Mongoose is an enemy of the nation.”

  It’s a lie, it has to be, but I can’t call him on it. If he’s putting this much effort into keeping up a front, if he’s been lying to me about Mongoose just like everyone else, he won’t reveal the truth to me now, especially if we’re not going to be partners anymore. And it’s obvious that I don’t actually know what’s going on. He knows me too well not to notice how vague I’m being about it.

  Almost too late, I realize August is getting up to leave. I lean forward and grab his arm, terrified, my fingers wrapping around his muscles instantly. Because he’s wearing a T-shirt, I end up touching his bare skin. Oh, I forgot how this felt. It doesn’t feel the same as when I touch Jamie’s skin, or Reese’s skin, or anyone else’s skin. No, it feels like I’m regaining something I didn’t even know I’d lost, like I’m becoming whole again and this is exactly where I want to be.

  I haven’t touched him in the longest time.

  His muscles are paralyzed, as if I’m pressing the barrel of a gun against him instead of my hand.

  “Please, August—”

  Shit. I just used his real name.

  My fingers release him instinctively.

  He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just stands there with his back rigid and his muscles tensed, wrestling with some internal decision. Finally, without looking in my direction, he asks, “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes.” I don’t even have to think about it.

  But his words, when they come, absolutely destroy me. “Then trust me when I say that we can’t be partners anymore.”

  And then Alpha turns and strides out of the briefing room without looking back, as if he didn’t just detonate a bomb in the center of my life. For the longest while I just sit there, struggling not to cry, still not wanting to understand what happened. Never in a million years would I have expected Alpha to actually request a new partner and walk away from me. It’s allowed, of course, but a reassignment is pretty much never granted except in extraordinary conditions.

  So what’s our extraordinary condition?

&
nbsp; That he’s been at my side ever since we were children?

  That he’s saved my life countless times?

  That he’s the one person I would never give up for anything?

  I still remember what August said when Agent Novenine asked him why he’d killed every single member of Javier Angelo’s security detail. His hair was disheveled from where he’d been dragging his hands through it, his shirt bloodied from where my face had rested against him as he carried me through the parking garage and into this very briefing room. He glanced at me for a long moment, then shook his head, as if coming to terms with whatever fate might befall him.

  I can’t let anything happen to Echo, he said. We’re partners. I accept all the consequences of it.

  If August was still in the briefing room now, I’d tell him that he has to accept these consequences of being my partner. I’d tell him that he can’t just shut me out. I’d tell him that he can’t just decide we’re not going to be partners anymore. And I’d tell him that I’m not going to just let him go without even an explanation as to why.

  But it’s too late to challenge the reassignment, and I can’t force Alpha to speak to me or be my partner against his will. But I’m tired of being ignored by the one person who was always supposed to be there for me. Tired of being treated like I can’t handle the truth about Ophidian and the Executive. Tired of being tossed around by external forces without the power to stop any of it.

  There’s only one thing I can do. Something else has to be going on, and I’m pretty sure it involves Mongoose. So I have to find out more about it. I have to know the real reason why August won’t talk to me anymore, why Reese won’t tell me what’s in those shipments, and why everyone wants the manifest from Jamison Hart.

  And if no one will tell me the truth, I’ll just have to find out for myself.

  twelve

  “The treehouse is just a little farther.”

  I duck below a tree branch, following Jamie deeper into the forest that surrounds the Woodland Castle. I’m wearing a strapless top with frayed shorts, along with pink sneakers that match my hair, and I’ve already caught him stealing a look at my bare thighs more than once. My heart is beating faster, but mainly because I’m going rogue right now. I called Jamie a few days ago under the pretense of seeing if he was okay. He asked if I wanted to talk at his estate, and I accepted immediately. I didn’t tell anyone at the Executive that I was coming here. What would be the point? Alpha is still refusing to talk to me, and I haven’t been assigned a new partner yet.