I’m completely on my own.
“You aren’t going to serial kill me, are you?” I ask, mostly joking.
Jamie doesn’t laugh, though he does give me a wry smile. “People are dead, Lily. Don’t you think it’s too soon?”
“Sorry,” I say, a little too quickly. But he doesn’t seem to notice.
When we reach the treehouse, I follow Jamie up a ladder to find myself in a surprisingly cozy and modern space. There’s a retro mini-fridge, a plush area rug, a gray futon, a large projector screen, and throw pillows everywhere. Several windows are letting in sunlight and fresh air, and there’s a full case of vinyl records beneath a high-end turntable.
“Welcome,” says Jamie with a flourish, “to the Woodland Clubhouse.”
“Wow,” I say, still looking around. Part of me idly wonders how many girls he’s taken up here. “This is really great.”
“Want a drink?” he asks, retrieving a couple of beers from the mini-fridge.
“Sure.” I take a sip from the bottle he hands me. It’s a relief to be here on my own terms, to not be surrounded by other operatives, as if I really am normal. Following Jamie’s lead, I sit down on the futon, close enough that our arms almost touch.
“So you seem pretty okay for what happened at the marina,” he says. “Any word on Lawrence Fisher’s body?”
“No,” I say, shrugging. “But we weren’t that close, so I’m not emotionally invested either way. The only reason he was even on the yacht was because he ditched me for your stepmother.”
Jamie whistles. “Ice cold, Eliza.”
His use of my real name startles me for a second, but I manage to keep my expression neutral. “I was only on a date with him as a favor to my father. And I’m pretty sure Lawrence only wanted one thing from me anyway.”
“Oh?” His blue eyes linger on my bare legs. “And what was that one thing?”
“I don’t know,” I say, playing coy. “Maybe you could tell me.”
Jamie grins and takes a swig from his beer. “Sure, but only if you’ll come with me to Damien Fabre’s wedding.”
“What?” I ask, almost choking on my own beer. The wedding is where I’m supposed to kill him, of course, but I haven’t even planned that part of the mission yet.
“My friend and colleague is marrying a French model near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris,” he says. “My plus-one canceled on me since she thinks I’m a danger, seeing as how so many people have died around me lately.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Are you a danger?”
Jamie shoots me a playful look, leaning closer until he’s staring straight into my eyes. “What do you think?”
My heart skips a beat. He’s about to lean in for a kiss. I didn’t even realize how badly I wanted it until now. After what happened with Reese at the safe house, my body has been desperate to feel more of the same, urging me to jump on Jamie and do everything I’ve been thinking about ever since we met at the Woodland Castle.
But if I kiss him, he’ll die.
I turn away abruptly, with enough force that my beer sloshes out of the bottle. Jamie gazes at me, confused, but I can’t make myself look him in the eye. I’m behaving erratically, and he must think I’m unable to decide how I feel about him. I can’t come up with a decent excuse for what just happened.
I need to know about Ophidian.
I might have to force a manifest out of you.
I’m probably going to kill you.
“Sorry,” I say, after a moment. “I... I’m sick.”
“Sick?” His eyebrow is cocked.
“I can’t kiss anyone,” I say. “Not just you.”
He stares at me for a second. “You’re an aberrant.”
I blink innocently, but my pulse is racing. How did he figure it out based on that? “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come on, Lily,” he says. “Haven’t you ever been tested?”
Every child across the world is tested at the age of five for aberrant traits. My parents wanted to keep me off the national registry, and so I was never tested. They could have gone to jail because of it. Instead, they lost their lives when my aberration emerged in the form of poisoned lips. The Executive took me in after that, which is why I was never registered at all.
“Yes,” I say defiantly. “I’m normal.”
“Oh, Lily,” he says, giving me a small smile. “You could never be normal. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is that has drawn me to you ever since we met. And that’s it, isn’t it? You’re an aberrant.”
I feel so lost, like I’ve forgotten every bit of my training. Without a script to guide me, I have no idea how to steer the conversation in a different direction. Jamie can already see the answer in my expression, and it’s far too late to lie.
“Okay,” I say finally. “You’re right.”
“So what is it?” he asks, with interest. “What makes you an aberrant?”
“You’ll be hurt if you kiss me.” Technically true.
“Sounds like it could be dangerous,” he says, his tone making it clear that he couldn’t imagine anything more attractive at the moment.
I shrug, as if it’s not a big deal. “Just trust me when I say that it won’t be fun, and you won’t want to see me again.”
Jamie hesitates, as if wanting to disagree, then nods. “All right. But you have to tell me what it’s like.”
“What?” For a moment I think he’s asking me what it’s like to kill.
“Being an aberrant.” His gaze flickers to my lips again. “Is it like everything else? Do you just stop noticing it after a while?”
No. This is entirely too much. I can’t just start talking about being an aberrant as if we’re discussing our favorite movies. My brain has been on autopilot ever since Alpha ditched me, and I have to think carefully about my next move. I know Jamie won’t try to kiss me again, at least not anytime soon. But I need to shut down this line of conversation before he realizes my lips are fatal.
“Sorry,” I say abruptly. “You can’t tell anyone about me. My father paid a lot of money to make sure I didn’t end up on the registry.”
“No, don’t worry about that,” he says dismissively. “I just want to get to know you. That’s it. I’ve had more fun with you than I’ve had with anyone else in a long time, Lily. It’s refreshing to be with someone who’s different. You delight me. You are delighted by me. I’d never do anything to disrespect you.”
Jamie’s tone is so genuine that I almost forget where I am for a moment. I reach out and catch his face, drawing him toward me, as if I really am Lily Bass. His fingers are entangled in my hair, and it’s almost like we’re about to kiss. Our lips are so close that it might actually happen. But we both understand that I’m testing him. He has to be able to not do it, to not kiss my lips, if he wants to get closer to me.
And then Jamie lowers his mouth, slowly, and kisses my bare throat.
I shiver with how good it feels, warm and delicious, like a chocolate cake soaked through with melted ice cream. His lips are soothing, his tongue massaging my neck, and it’s all I can do not to return the favor. It’s too dangerous for me to even kiss his skin. At the very least it’ll make him sick enough that he realizes the truth about me.
“So I can’t kiss your lips,” Jamie murmurs against my throat. “But I can kiss you anywhere else. Is that accurate?”
“Yes,” I gasp. “Anywhere you want...”
But we’re interrupted by a voice calling to us from beneath the ladder. “Excuse me, Mr. Hart?”
Jamie pauses with his lips still on me. Finally, he lifts his head and says loudly, “I’m busy.”
“There’s a call for you, sir, from your father. He says it’s urgent.”
“Tell him I’ll call him back!” He gives me a roguish wink.
“It’s about the next shipment to Ophidian—”
Jamie instantly releases me and gets to his feet. He looks distinctly unhappy again, the same way he did when he was
speaking to his stepmother at the sailing race. “All right, I’ll be there in a minute.” He shoots me a brief glance. “We’re on for the wedding.”
It isn’t a request, but I nod anyway. I follow Jamie down the ladder, starting to feel a rush of adrenaline. This is exactly what I was hoping for when I came to the Woodland Castle. An opening to learn more about the shipments and why Mongoose wants the manifest.
But when we reach the ground, Jamie grabs a cell phone from the butler and strides off without even waiting for me. Has he seriously forgotten that I’m here? I start after him, trying to keep close enough to hear what he’s saying, but a sudden grip on my arm prevents me from moving forward.
I glance back to see the butler gazing at me with pale green eyes. His hand on my arm is a major breach of etiquette, but I’m too distracted by trying to catch up with Jamie to realize what it means yet.
“Allow me to escort you to your limousine, Ms. Bass,” the butler says to me. “I didn’t see your driver anywhere, but I’m sure we’ll be able to locate him.”
“Oh, I took a cab,” I say, shaking his hand off my arm. “I didn’t come here with anyone—”
“Perfect,” says the butler, and then he pulls out a gun with a silencer on it.
thirteen
I react almost too late. I haven’t been expecting it, this kind of danger outside a treehouse at the Woodland Castle. Somehow I manage to fling myself to one side as a bullet drives into my ribcage, missing my heart by several inches. But something hot and warm rises to the surface of my skin, and it’s all I can do not to scream at the sight of it.
My own blood.
The butler shakes his head and takes aim at me again. Shit. This hurts way too much for me not to pass out. It feels like my flesh is burning too hot, like something has gone wrong, deeply wrong, like I’m about to burst into flames. This is the problem with going rogue and letting my guard down around a target.
I can’t remember anything I ever learned as Echo.
There’s another pop and I flinch, shuddering, waiting for the next bullet to lodge itself into my throat. This is the end, isn’t it? And I can’t do a single thing about it. But as the world spins around me, I turn my head to see that the butler has collapsed onto the ground, his gun lying off to the side.
A bullet has pierced him straight through the chest.
I push myself to my knees and crawl over to the butler, grabbing the gun and pressing it against his forehead. “Why are you trying to kill me?” I ask desperately. “What are the shipments to Ophidian?”
The butler doesn’t respond at first, but then his lips stretch into a wide, pained smile. He gives either a strangled laugh or a cough, I can’t tell which. But he’s trying to say something to me.
“Aberrants,” he chokes out, “are a lie...”
“What?” I find myself shaking him, terrified. “What does that mean?”
But he’s already dead.
A wave of horror crashes over me as I drop the gun and scramble back from his body. I’ve seen yet another person die in front of me, one who just put a bullet in my side, and I can’t understand why. It doesn’t matter. I’ll probably never learn the truth about any of this. No, I’m definitely going to bleed out in the forest, unless Jamie returns to the treehouse, assuming he wasn’t the one who ordered the butler to shoot me in the first place. I should have never tried to go rogue. I should have at least told someone where I was going. And now my target knows what I am, and someone in the Hart family wants me dead.
This is the end after all.
But as I keel over on the ground, I can see a shadow approaching from off to the side. A man, tall and muscular, carrying a long weapon in his gloved hands. I should get up instead of passing out. I should at least try to fight for my own life. But there’s only one person who could have shot the butler from a distance, who could have been watching over me, who would have seen what was going on and saved me in the nick of time. One operative with a sniper rifle and X-ray vision.
Alpha.
With nothing more than a glance to make sure I’m okay, he picks up the silenced gun and shoves it into his waistband. Then he bends over and rolls up my shirt slightly, pressing a folded handkerchief against my wound to stem the flow of blood. He doesn’t say anything, just briefly looks at me. I understand that he needs me to take over now. Somehow I manage to hold the handkerchief in place and crawl away from the butler without passing out.
Alpha is already retrieving a flask from his back pocket, splashing liquor over the blood on the ground. Then he lights a match and tosses it through the air, and everything goes up in flames. The dead butler, the fallen leaves, the blood with my DNA in it.
A moment later, I feel August picking me up and supporting my head against his chest, his arms warm and solid around me. He’s only ever carried me like this once before, after our first mission together, when I was in a bloodied ballgown. I can still remember the way it felt, as if I was completely safe in his arms, as if nothing could ever hurt me. Maybe this is what I’ve been waiting for my entire life. Maybe this is what I’ve wanted to feel again, even if I didn’t know it until now.
But this time, because I’m wearing a strapless shirt and shorts, his skin is touching mine everywhere. It’s the one forbidden thing we could never do, and yet he isn’t flinching away. I almost can’t believe he isn’t. I’m the one who wants to flinch away, even, because I don’t want to hurt him. I almost can’t stand to be this close to him, because I don’t want the moment to come when he releases me and I never feel the touch of him again.
But August doesn’t put me down. He doesn’t flinch away, or frown, or anything like that, even though this is the same person who’s always been incapable of physical touch. I keep waiting for a look of pain to flash across his face, but it never comes. He’s always been there for me when I needed him, hasn’t he? He must have followed me here to protect me, to keep me safe, despite the fact that we aren’t partners anymore. How much did he see with his X-ray vision this time?
I’m terrified of saying anything.
A motorcycle is parked next to an overgrown path, waiting for us. I’ve ridden on bikes before, with targets who wanted to impress me, but never with my own partner. He doesn’t ask if I’m okay to ride. He knows me well enough to understand that I’ll protest if anything hurts. I’m not much for sucking it up and doing what I don’t want to do. And I know him well enough to understand that he wouldn’t be offering me this, an unprotected motorcycle, if it wasn’t the safest way out.
He sets me down on the back of the motorcycle seat and drapes a leather jacket around me, keeping my wound hidden. After jamming a helmet onto his own head, he gathers up my blond hair and ties it into a small knot with an elastic band. Then he carefully fits another helmet onto my head and gently secures the strap underneath my chin, making sure my hair is completely obscured.
So he came prepared to save me. There’s no way he would have brought two helmets and an elastic band otherwise. It’s as if we are still partners after all, as if he never asked to be reassigned to someone else. For now, at least, Alpha is mine. He still cares about me. He’s still going to protect me. I know that I am safe with him, and I know he will take me where I need to go.
When August climbs onto the motorcycle in front of me, I instinctively latch my arm around his waist. Because his shirt is slightly raised, my forearm ends up nestled against his bare abdomen.
It feels like my skin is on fire.
He pauses, but doesn’t move my arm. I still can’t believe that I’m actually touching him like this, skin on skin, and he isn’t saying or doing anything to indicate he can’t bear it. All these years, I’ve stayed away from my partner because I didn’t want to inadvertently hurt him. That would have been the worst thing imaginable.
So when did things change?
It’s all I can do not to pass out as the motorcycle drives down the overgrown path and into the city, taking turn after turn through the streets, dou
bling back along our route to make sure we aren’t being followed. For a while I manage to cling to consciousness without sliding off the seat. But finally, just as I find myself losing grip, we stop outside a townhouse.
August gathers me in his arms and carries me indoors, where he sets me down in a bathtub. I huddle there, shivering, afraid to remove the handkerchief from my side. I watch numbly as he pulls open a cabinet and retrieves a pair of pliers. I’m so out of it that I don’t even realize why he needs it at first.
But then I remember the bullet still in my side.
Oh, shit.
He climbs into the bathtub and kneels down beside me, jeans and all, glancing at me with his eyebrows raised. We did our medical training together, so we both know this is the part where the foreign object inside my body needs to come out. I force myself to move the handkerchief away, trying not to wince at the sharp pain.
But then the pliers dig into my flesh, gripping onto the bullet and extracting it from my side, and it’s so much more agony than I ever expected. I have to bite down on my tongue, hard, to keep myself from screaming at the top of my lungs. But at least I’m doing something right today, even if a strangled cry does escape my lips for a split second.
There’s a clink on the bathroom counter as August sets down the bullet and bloodied pliers. Then he opens a first aid kit and sews up the wound in my side, his fingers brushing against my skin with enough care that it almost makes me cry. If only the pain wasn’t overwhelming everything else entirely, making even his touch seem like a vague sensation in my mind.
“Okay?” August asks me when he’s finished.
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