I manage to retrieve a parachute and strap it onto my back, despite the rushing wind and chaos all around me. This, too, was part of our training at the Executive, not that I’ve ever actually had to use it. I can only hope that the bug transmitted part of the explosion to Alpha before it was obliterated. Even if we manage to make it out of this without dying, we’re going to need help surviving the ocean below.
Jamie is still struggling with his parachute. I lurch over to him, not letting myself acknowledge the terror washing over me, and take hold of the straps. He glances at me with surprise, but lets me finish buckling his parachute for him. We need to jump soon, and we need to get far enough away that the jet doesn’t entangle our parachutes.
“We have to jump out the back!” I yell at him.
He nods, his face pale. “Go!”
Jamie doesn’t ask me why I know how to do all this. He doesn’t ask why I know exactly where the emergency exit at the back of the plane is. He doesn’t ask why I know how to swiftly open the door without even hesitating. And when we leap out into the sky, me first and then him, he doesn’t ask why I know how to use a parachute.
None of these are things that Lily Bass would know. But I’m Eliza, an operative sent by the Executive to kill him, and I could be anyone. I could do anything.
I could even defect to his side.
When we’re far enough away, I pull the cord on my parachute and he follows suit, clearly following my lead at this point. Our rapid descent is abruptly cut short, and then we float up slightly into the sky before beginning to drift down toward the ocean. It’s cold up here, but I don’t let myself feel it. I can’t let myself feel anything right now. I was supposed to keep getting close to Jamie, and this is it. This is the part where I have to act more convincingly than I’ve ever acted before.
And if I falter for even a second, I’m going to die.
By the time we land in the ocean, I have a new plan ready to go. Already shivering in my strapless dress, I detach the parachute from my back and let it float away from me. But when I swim over to Jamie, he’s on the verge of passing out, sinking rapidly into the water. I barely manage to float him onto his back and remove his parachute. As his eyes flutter open, he begins to struggle, swallowing a few gulps of water, and it’s all I can do to keep both of us from drowning.
“Stop it,” I gasp.
When his only response is to start dragging me down with him, I haul back and slap him in the face, as hard as I can.
Jamie sputters, coughing up water. His eyes focus briefly on the sinking plane wreckage before returning to me. “Did that really just happen?”
“It’s your jet,” I snap. “You tell me.”
He raises an eyebrow at my tone. “I meant the part where you slapped me. No one’s ever dared to do that. Or wanted to, in fact.”
“I just saved your life,” I say pointedly. “I think we’re even.”
“Fair enough,” he says, flashing me a grin that seems entirely too flirtatious for the fact that we’ve only just recovered from almost dying. “So I know you’re the one trying to kill me. But who’s trying to kill you?”
The question hits me with enough force that I almost forget to tread water for a second. As far as I know, no one else wants Jamison Hart dead, which means the bomb on the jet could have been aimed at me. Even if Gallagher Hart sent the butler to take me out, he’d never risk killing his own son in an explosion. But maybe the Executive has grown tired of my repeated failures to kill my target, and they’ve decided it’s time to close the mission and retire me in one fell swoop.
Or maybe whoever killed Kilo is coming after me next.
“It has to be the Executive,” I say, going with the only response that lets me stick to my new plan. “They’re retiring me because I won’t kill you.”
“And why exactly are you refusing to kill me?” he asks.
I take a deep breath. “Because I’m falling in love with you.”
The words sound false even to me. Can he tell that all this is just an act? It feels so wrong to be claiming that I’m in love with him, even though it’s what I felt when we first met. But that was only ever a fleeting attraction, mixed up with the adrenaline rush from running up a staircase and colliding with a handsome stranger, and it’s all I can do not to think of August right now. I’ve never been so worried before that a target might not believe me.
But Jamie doesn’t seem to notice. His gaze is focused only on my lips, and I can tell that he isn’t interested in anything else at the moment, not even the possibility that I might be lying. All he wants to know is what about me is so dangerous that the Executive can use me to kill people. The fact that I might be responsible for his plane exploding is apparently the most attractive thing he’s learned about me so far.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” says Jamie, sounding satisfied. “When my father told me someone was trying to kill me, I thought it was Lawrence Fisher at first. He kept trying to talk to me about Ophidian, and he was getting way too close to my stepmother. But when the Claire exploded, I realized it couldn’t be him. And then I thought to myself, out of all the people in the world, who’s up here with me in the lighthouse right now? A girl I met only a week before, who somehow seems to be everything I’ve ever wanted, and it’s like she practically fell into my lap out of nowhere. Lily Bass, who told me her name was Eliza when we first met.”
“But you invited me to your treehouse,” I say in disbelief. “You even invited me to a wedding. Why would you do that if you knew I was trying to kill you?”
“What can I say?” He laughs. “I like the excitement of a chase. And by then I knew you wouldn’t kill me. You’d had too many chances for it. I wanted you to tell me about it on your own.”
“Well, I just told you,” I say, flushing. Is he not even going to reciprocate my alleged feelings?
“Not all of it,” he says intently. “Tell me how you were supposed to kill me. Tell me what your lips can do. I’ve been going crazy trying to figure it out.”
No, I can’t tell him the truth about my lips. It’s terrifying how much he’s figured out already. But what if this is the final test to see if I’m really baring my soul or not? And yet if he already knew the truth about my aberration, he’d be asking me a different set of questions entirely.
This is the one thing he doesn’t know.
“Electricity,” I say finally. “My lips won’t do anything on their own. But against someone else’s lips, they’ll conduct an electric current. After a few seconds, you’ll start to feel a tingling. Another minute and you’ll be dead.”
Jamie treads closer to me, fascinated by my supposed aberration. As the plane wreckage disappears underneath the surface of the water, he reaches out and grips my hand.
“Join me, Eliza,” he says. “We can change the world together.”
“Even after I was supposed to kill you?” I ask.
“Especially after you were supposed to kill me,” he says. “That’s how I know you’re on my side. You were ordered by the Executive to assassinate me, and you didn’t. You saved my life because you’re in love with me. I’ve been watching you do it again and again, so it’s time I saved yours. If you join me, I can shelter you from the Executive. I can make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
“We were in a plane that just exploded,” I point out.
“Oh, that?” Jamie says dismissively, as if he’s already forgotten that we almost died. “Once I take over my father’s company, the Executive won’t be able to kill either of us. With you at my side, I’ll be able to show Ophidian’s board of directors that my vision is possible. I’ll represent the future, not the past. And I know you don’t want to keep killing. I can see it in your eyes. You want to use your powers for good, not evil.”
So that’s why Jamie wants me to join him so badly. He’s going to claim that the gene therapy worked on me, that I’m an example of what his vision for the future holds. The board of directors will believe him, of cour
se, because my aberrant DNA isn’t in any registry. And maybe it’s true that I’m finding it harder to fit myself into the mindset of Echo, the operative who kills target after target for the Executive without ever asking why. Maybe it’s time I admit to myself that I never wanted to kill anyone at all. But this isn’t the time to pull at that thread, to feel any doubt about who I might have to kiss down the line.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I need a better reason than that to turn my back on everything I’ve ever known.”
“Isn’t it obvious by now?” Jamie shakes his head, as if disappointed. “I’m falling in love with you as well, Eliza. To tell you the truth, I’ve always gone from one relationship to another without any lasting interest. But you’re the first person I’ve ever met who makes me want more. I want all of you, and I want you to join me.”
It’s such an honest confession that I almost believe it as much as he does. The infamous serial dater finally wants to settle down, and it’s with me. But the second he says it, the moment those words leave his mouth, I can see what has allowed me to succeed in my mission thus far. The truth is Jamison Hart doesn’t actually feel anything for me. Not really. When he said that just now, when he said that he was falling for me, the only emotion in his expression was one of triumph. All he’s been interested in is how I might enhance his own life and help him take over Ophidian. The way I look, my attitude, even my aberration... They’re all just aspects of myself that he views as attractive trophies to make him worthy of other people’s respect, including his own.
The fleeting moment in which I thought I’d fallen in love with Jamie, back at the Woodland Castle, is long gone. I’m pretty sure it washed away with my blood as I cried in August’s arms in the shower. I can’t trust my target at all, can I? He let me continue this charade long past its expiration date, and he looks at me as a plaything, a commodity, a priceless toy that serves best to piss off his father. He doesn’t look at me as Eliza, even though he’s started to use my real name.
But I can’t let him see it. I can’t let him see that I no longer feel anything for him. I’ve somehow managed to convince Jamison Hart that I want to join him, and it’s only now, when he believes we’re on the same side, that I can finally find out everything else. By the end of the trip, I’ll have the manifest. I might even figure out who killed Kilo and who might be trying to kill me.
As a bright spotlight begins to shine on us, a patrol boat thrumming in time to the steady beat of my heart, I curve my lips into the warmest, most genuine fake smile of my entire life. “Yes, Jamie. I’ll join you.”
twenty
The patrol boat named the Vivaldi is controlled by Mongoose. There’s no other explanation, even if no one will admit it to me. Most of the crew members don’t seem to be operatives, so I can’t exactly blame them. But I’m positive that the captain and several of his officers are from another Executive. Alpha must have sent for help when the plane exploded. We’re beyond lucky that the Vivaldi was already close enough to pull us from the ocean and take us the rest of the way to Paris.
In the guest cabin, Jamie shrugs off his suit jacket and wrings out his tie. It took us so long to give our report to the captain that we’ve mostly dried off. We’re going to miss the actual wedding, of course, though we’ll still be there in time for the reception. But my overnight bag and everything else in it have fallen into the ocean, sunken all the way to the bottom by now. That includes the compact mirror and anything I could have used to defend myself.
I have no way to contact Alpha if I need him.
Jamie takes a step toward me and rests his hands on my shoulders. “How are you holding up?” He’s misinterpreting my worry as shock. It’s totally off-base, but I might be able to use this to avoid any physical contact until after the wedding.
“I don’t know,” I say shakily. “What about you?”
“Not sure yet,” he says. “I’ll rest easier when I know the Executive has stopped trying to kill me.” A roguish grin crosses his face. “In fact, I think I should make sure you aren’t packing any heat right now.”
Before I can protest, Jamie steps closer to me and reaches for the zipper on the back of my dress. Slowly, in a way seemingly meant to torture me, he partially unzips my dress and reaches for the laces on my bulletproof corset, his blue eyes watching me carefully the entire time.
Shit. I should have acted more shaken up than this. He believes we’re about to sleep together, or at least do whatever it’s seemed like I wanted every other time I’ve seen him. Our bodies are so close together that I’ll have no choice other than to reciprocate. It’s too late to make up an excuse. An Eliza who was falling in love with Jamison Hart would be all over him in an instant, wanting our soaking wet clothes to disappear and be replaced by steaming hot water in the shower. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t fantasized about this kind of situation at least once. It’s what I wanted to happen in the treehouse, after all.
But now? Everything is different. Jamie isn’t the person I’ve been thinking about constantly. He’s not the man I’ve been fantasizing about inside the safety of my own mind. All I can focus on is the fact that Alpha would have wanted to make sure I was okay after arriving in Paris. He could be anywhere nearby, watching me with his X-ray vision.
He might even be on the Vivaldi itself.
Before August brought me to his safe house, I wouldn’t have thought twice about getting physically closer to a target. It’s never gone beyond kissing and making out anyway, and taking my clothes off has certainly never been an option before. But sex will be worse, so much worse, than a mere kiss on the lips. I have to get out of this. I don’t care if any excuse I come up with sounds like a blatant lie.
To allow August to see me sleep with a target would be unforgivable.
But a knock on the door saves me. “Excuse me?” says a muffled voice. “There’s a phone call for Jamison Hart.”
Jamie’s gaze lingers on me, but he reluctantly zips up my dress and opens the door. A crew member hands him a satellite phone, then offers me a stack of fresh towels. She’s carrying herself like an Executive operative, which has to mean there’s something hidden in the towels for me to find.
“Please let us know if you need anything,” she says to me.
I nod tightly, clutching the towels to my chest, not trusting myself to speak. This has to be a message from Alpha.
Anything else would be a catastrophe.
Jamie is speaking into the satellite phone, not paying any attention to me. “I’ll stop by after the wedding. They can wait until I get there, all right? And I’m bringing my girlfriend to the island with me, whether you like it or not.” He listens for a moment. “Who do you think? Lily Bass.”
Slipping into the bathroom, I close the door behind me and flip the lock. Then I set down the stack of towels on the counter, searching between the soft layers of terry cloth until I find a small piece of paper. My heart beats wildly against my chest as I unfold it with shaking fingers.
It’s a message from Alpha after all.
But there aren’t any written words. Staring up at me is a coded symbol: an arrow with a circle drawn around it.
It means everything should keep going as planned.
I didn’t even realize I was hoping for another message until now. I fully expected Alpha to say something, anything, other than this. My chest flooding with disappointment, I toss the piece of paper into the toilet and flush it away. Instead of a coded symbol to kill my target, or to meet on the patrol boat, or to get out now, it’s this.
Keep getting close to Jamison Hart.
Back in the guest cabin, Jamie has stripped off his shirt and hung it over a chair to finish drying. But he doesn’t look at me when I sit down next to him on the bed. Not when I place my hand on his arm. Not when I slide it up to his shoulder. Not even when I lightly drag the curve of my fingernail along his neck, a move that would be certain to get a response from a target any other time.
“What’s wrong?” I
ask finally.
Jamie shakes his head. “A shipment was just delivered to Ophidian. I need to be there to deal with it, so I’ll have to leave immediately after the reception. My father wants to hand me an updated manifest on the island.” He shoots me a glance. “You’re coming with me.”
It’s almost too good to be true. If I travel to Ophidian with Jamie after the wedding, I’ll be there when he receives the manifest from his father. I’ll be able to see where they keep it. But Alpha won’t be able to cover me if I end up at a top-secret facility on a private island, and it’ll be dangerous for me to go there on my own.
But I can’t back down now. There’s an expiration date on how long I can maintain my cover story of being in love with Jamie. After a while, it’ll become obvious even to my target that I feel nothing for him. Not to mention that I’ll definitely be sentenced to solitary confinement if I fail to kiss him this time.
If I hesitate now, I might never be able to find the manifest, and even more people will die.
“I don’t know,” I say slowly, trying not to sound too eager. “I don’t understand why someone else can’t do it.”
“The shipments are extremely sensitive,” he says. “Only my father and I have access to the manifest, so I have to personally direct everything to the right place. I wanted to show you around the island anyway. You can see all the stars from the edge of the dock.”
“Wow,” I say, smiling. “Sounds like an adventure to me.”
Jamie grins. “Is there a kind of adventure that ends in heartache? Because I’m starting to get the feeling that you’re extremely dangerous, Eliza who calls herself Lily Bass. I’ll have to be extra careful around you.”
I should play up this aspect of myself again, keep him wanting more than he thinks he has. My target has to trust me, to want to believe that I trust him, for me to be able to pull this off. There are so many things I could say right now to get closer to him.
Not too careful, I hope.
As if there’s any other kind of adventure.
Code Name Echo Page 12