Irina plops down next to me. Her eyes are darting from her watch to the living room door and back to me.
“I feel very safe here in the safe house,” I say. “I thought places like this were bare-bones and only used for emergencies, but I could vacation in here. I bet all the other assassins want to hang out at Irina O’s.”
“It’s not for me,” she says. “Sometimes the people I was assigned to erase didn’t deserve to be erased. Not a lot of times, but sometimes. So I brought them here and arranged for them to disappear.”
“Oh,” I say again.
“So I’m not quite the villain you think I am.”
I’m about to protest when she says, “But I am a bad guy. I did lie about Strike to save myself and I probably did ruin any chance of us ever being a family.”
Irina gets up and goes over to a shelf filled with figurines. She begins arranging and rearranging them.
“A real bad guy wouldn’t have checked up on me,” I say.
Irina turns back to face me, a china clown nestling in her palm. “I wanted to know you were with good people. That you were happy and healthy and living the life I wanted for you.”
“I was,” I say. “I am. They’re the best. Well, Ryan’s kind of a tool.”
“I can’t believe he got away with stealing the red fox from the zoo,” she says.
“Right?” I say, amazed. “Wait, you knew about that?”
“Spy.” She shrugs.
Irina suddenly lets out a little gasp and lets go of the china clown. I watch it fall to the ground and smash.
“Irina?” I say, scared. I jump off the couch and run to her.
Irina’s eyes roll up in her head. Her legs buckle and she collapses onto the floor, where she lies motionless.
“What’s wrong?” I shout.
The air behind Irina starts to ripple. A shape forms, transparent at first; then it becomes whole.
A girl not much older than me, with blond, sideswept hair, wearing a black cocktail dress, stands over the still body of Irina Ouspenskaya brandishing a syringe.
She holds both palms up to me and smirks. “The wrong hands,” she says in an upper-class English accent. Who is this? Where did she come from? And why is she acting like she knows me?
“She’s not dead. In case you were worried,” the girl goes on. “She’ll be good as new tomorrow. She might drool a little. She may also have trouble swallowing or blinking or remembering her name, but other than that, she’ll be in tip-top condition.”
I can’t form words. All I can do is stare and shake with fright. The more terrified I am, the more poised and amused the girl seems.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” she solemnly intones.
I must look baffled because she points to the top of my head and smirks, “That’s a good look for you.”
I’m still wearing my stupid foam Statue of Liberty crown! And my I Love New York hoodie! I go to pull the crown off my head but then I stop. Something about this girl strikes a familiar chord. Her high heels give her a few inches, her eyes are blue instead of gray, her lipstick-reddened mouth is bigger, and her voice is different, but I know this girl.
“Bl—Blabby?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Intern
“Being an intern sucks,” the girl with the English accent says with feeling as she steps over the body of my birth mother and walks toward me. I take a few stumbling steps backward until I bang into the couch and I can’t help but sit down. I stare up at this blond girl with the syringe and the cold smile who doesn’t look anything like Ryan’s silent, freakishly annoying girlfriend, Abby Rheinhardt. So why can’t I shake the feeling that it is her?
“Do this, go here, clean this up, take this away, call this number, pick up my lunch,” she says, as if we’re in the middle of a conversation. “That’s all you’re there for. No one knows your name, no one notices you, no one says thank you. But the upside is, you get to spend time on every floor of the Forties. When no one notices you, no one knows what you’re learning, what you’re reading, what you’re overhearing, or what you’re stealing.” She wiggles the syringe at me. “Trusted agents with years of experience need their department heads to approve of them being issued a single vial of the cloaking liquid. I stole a few teaspoons here and there. Not enough that anyone would miss.”
She lets out a melodic trilling laugh. I hug a cushion to stop myself from trembling.
“Y-you’re her. You’re Abby. Aren’t you?”
The blond girl looks down at her long red nails, then gives me a pitying smile.
“Look at your little peanut-shaped head straining to understand. Don’t give yourself an aneurysm, Bridget. The name I used under the terms of the agreement was Abigail Rheinhardt. And Abigail Rheinhardt was a very good, very obedient intern and, not to toot Abby’s horn, a very, very quick study. She learned from the hackers, the gangsters, the leakers, the con artists, the kidnappers, the bank robbers, the blackmailers, the home invaders, the hired muscle, and the assassins. And she picked up a few skills of her own: she became a chameleon. She could adapt her look, her posture, her accent. She could become an entirely different person. All of which, you might think, would result in Abigail Rheinhardt rising up the ranks from intern to full-fledged employee of the Forties.”
I glance past the scarily calm and articulate blond English girl to see if there are any signs of life in Irina’s body. Nothing. Not even a twitch. I feel a sudden pain shoot up my big toe. The girl kicked me! I stare up at her.
“Shall I continue?” She shoots me a dirty look like I’m the rude one! “Thanks so much. Abigail Rheinhardt did, in fact, get her richly deserved promotion. What was her important, world-altering first mission? I’ll tell you: she was sent to a bland, boring suburb in California to mess with the life of a painfully average middle school student.”
I wonder if I know the poor unfortunate victim she’s talking about. Then I realize I do.
“Oh,” I say. The dots start to connect. This posh blond nightmare pretended to be Ryan’s girlfriend to get access to me and to my family. She was the one who framed me by sending Cheerminator choreography to the Bronze Canyon Valkyries. She was the one who invited the world to a fake party on the same day as Casey Breakbush’s birthday. She was in my house. She kissed my brother. She was in his room. She was probably in all of our rooms. And she poured soda on my laptop. But why? My head is about to explode. Her invasion of my privacy is beyond anything I can comprehend.
“You” is all I manage to get out.
“Aw, peanut.” She wrinkles her nose at me. “I could have done so much more, you don’t even know. I had such elaborate plans for you. There was going to be a cyberbullying scandal. I was going to steal from your father’s employees and plant the evidence in your backpack. Neighborhood pets would have been abducted and you would have been exposed as the evil head of an animal smuggling ring. I would have turned your funny little family against you. Honestly, you would have been a pariah living in a cardboard box by the time I was through. I would have done a smashing job.”
She sighs at the thought of this missed opportunity.
“But the program was accelerated. The orders were to forget you and concentrate on Strike.”
“So you stole my mom’s van and . . .”
“You would think I had earned that level of responsibility,” she says, nodding at me. “But no. My job was apparently done. All I was considered capable of were missions involving idiot teenagers or whatever you are. Do you even qualify as a tween?” She says the word tween like she just smelled something rancid.
“I’m almost fourteen,” I say.
“Almost,” the blonde smirks, and then returns to her story. “And that’s when I realized: I can follow the rules, I can excel, I can work hard in silence and hope someday my worth is recognized. Or I can take what’s mine.”
The blond girl puts a hand on her hip and strikes a dramatic pose.<
br />
“All my father cares about is getting Irina Ouspenskaya to do the one last job she owes him, so I’m going to do it myself and he’s going to see what he’s been taking for granted all these years.”
“Wait, what, I’m sorry,” I say. “Your father?”
“Oh, didn’t I say? How rude of me.” She lifts her chin and straightens her shoulders. “I’m Vanessa Dominion.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Broken Home
Edward Dominion’s daughter was in my home. Edward Dominion’s daughter dated my brother. Edward Dominion’s daughter turned people against me. Edward Dominion’s daughter stuck a needle in my birth mother, who is now lying on the floor showing no signs of life.
“And now I bet you’re wondering what Edward Dominion’s daughter is going to do to you,” says Vanessa, showing she has her father’s irritating talent for anticipating reactions.
“Actually, I’m not,” I say. “I’m Carter Strike’s daughter, and last time I looked, Carter Strike was using your father as a human shield. But that was the last time I looked. There probably isn’t enough of him left to make an effective shield by now.”
Vanessa shrugs. “You’re asking me to shed tears over a man who dumped me in an English private school ten seconds after my first pee. Not for a moment am I worried about Edward Dominion. But if I were you, I’d worry about Carter Strike. My father thinks three steps ahead of his enemies. That’s why he’s still alive and they’re either dead or working for him.”
“Carter Strike threw him under a gargoyle and then sat on top of it,” I shout back.
Vanessa smooths back her hair, smiling at my raised voice.
“Maybe your daddy can beat up my daddy,” she says. “Maybe not. Who knows? But I’ve already put your mummy to sleep and I’m about to step into her somewhat cheap-looking shoes.”
“Or not,” I say. At first, I was too freaked out to think straight. Now I’m thinking straight. I give my backpack a sudden kick. It starts to shift and squirm. The flap opens and the marbles come shooting out. They form into the shape of an arrow and hurtle straight at Vanessa.
I scurry behind the couch and peer over the top. She takes a few steps backward, reaches down into one of Irina’s black boots, and pulls out a gun. She swings her arm around and starts blasting.
The room is filled with explosions of powdered glass. Vanessa doesn’t even break a sweat. She methodically fires at each of the marbles, hitting her target every time. I watch in horror and mounting sadness as I see these little glass heroes that served valiantly by my side, that kept me alive all day, shatter under her relentless barrage of bullets. It seems to last for hours but it’s probably more like seconds. Finally, the last of my marbles is a pile of fragments on the floor.
Vanessa grins at me as I cower behind the couch. “I think you’ve lost your marbles,” she says, savoring every syllable.
I hate her. I hated her when she was Blabby. I hate her more now that I know who she really is, but most of all I hate her for what she just did. I charge out from behind the couch and rush at her. I don’t even think about what I’m doing. I just know that anger of a sort I’ve never felt before is coursing through me.
“Really, peanut?” mocks Vanessa, pointing her gun straight at me. I stop running and push a hand into my pocket, where I feel something soft and squishy. The magnetic chewing gum Irina slipped into my pocket as I boarded the elevator in the Dominion Brothers Building. I yank it out and throw it up at the ceiling. It sticks.
“I think you might show a little respect for other people’s property,” she smirks.
She stops smirking as the gun flies out of her hand and hits the ceiling barrel-first. Vanessa’s air of calm condescension deserts her. She stares up at the ceiling and then back at me. Then the syringe is pulled from her hand and speeds upward, leaving Vanessa jumping up in the air trying to grab it.
While she flails around, I do a backward somersault onto the couch—yes, even without the aid of nanosneakers, I’m still capable of a half-decent somersault. I land on a pile of cushions. I let myself sink down and then, with all the strength I can muster, I jump as high as I can go. I hurtle over Vanessa’s grasping hands, grab the gun and syringe from the ceiling, and land on the ground with a stumble.
“Like a graceful young swan,” she scowls.
Clearly, I got to her. I shook her unshakable air of superiority. I’m the part of her plan she didn’t plan on, if that makes any sense.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” she says.
“You don’t know that,” I say, feeling cool and in control.
“I fired every bullet,” Vanessa points out. I see her confidence returning. She’s so sure of herself she doesn’t even bother lying.
“I can still put you to sleep,” I say, brandishing the syringe.
“But you won’t.” Vanessa almost yawns. “Because you’d never find out the answer to the multiple choice question.”
“What multiple choice question?” I ask, and immediately wish I hadn’t.
Vanessa holds up a finger indicating her desire for me to wait in silence for her next move. She’s so irritating. I can’t stand her. She reaches behind her to the bookcase, picks up her phone, and tosses it to me. I try to catch it while holding on to the gun and the syringe. The phone hits me in the chest but I bring my face down and catch it under my chin. Lightning-fast spy reflexes still intact. I sink toward the ground, put the gun on the floor, and then let the phone fall into my free hand.
“Click it on, there’s a dear,” says Vanessa.
I do, and Ryan’s face fills the screen. His eyes are closed and his mouth hangs open.
“Ryan Wilder: A) sleeping, B) drugged, or C) dead?” asks Vanessa. “These are your choices. Put the syringe down and you may find out.”
Ryan! My rage is mixed with a sudden burst of guilt. I never gave him a single thought. All that time they spent together and I never once worried about what she might have done to him.
“I know, peanut,” says Vanessa, giving me that pout of fake sympathy. “I think three steps ahead, too. It’s in the Dominion DNA.”
“Where is he?” I shout at her. “Did you hurt him?”
“Where’s my sympathy?” she asks, widening her eyes and acting like she’s offended. “I had to spend weeks with him. No easy task, let me tell you. Laughing at his jokes, listening to him plan his next incredible prank, kissing him. . . . Well, actually, that part wasn’t such a chore. Nice full lips.”
Ew, ew, ew! Be ice, Bridget. Be stone. Don’t give her the satisfaction of letting her see she’s getting to you.
Vanessa gives me a nasty little wink. I let out a shriek of rage and throw the syringe straight at her. She doesn’t flinch. As the needle flies, she spins around with a balletic grace that fills me with envy. Vanessa extends a long leg and kicks the needle straight back at me.
I let out a yelp of fright, grab a pillow, and hold it out in front of me like a dartboard. The syringe sinks into the middle of the cushion. I toss it aside and look for a suitable weapon. My eye falls on the iron candlesticks.
“So we’re going to do this?” says Vanessa.
She’s standing by the fireplace, pulling out big, thick pieces of chopped wood.
“It’s getting done,” I snarl, and I try to lift the nearest candlestick off the ground. It weighs a ton. I can’t budge it.
Vanessa pivots and comes running at me, massive chunks of wood in either hand.
I seize two cushions from the couch and throw them at her. They sail straight past her head.
“Nice try,” she laughs.
Vanessa starts swinging her pieces of wood like they’re ax handles. She’s close enough that I feel the wind on my face. I retreat to my familiar hiding place behind the couch, but as I sink to the ground I kick out my feet and shove the couch toward her. I hear an oof of surprise as her knees make contact with the couch and she falls forward. As she does, I leap up and run out the living room door. A secon
d later, I hear her footsteps hit the wooden floorboards of the hallway.
“I’m disappointed, peanut,” she calls after me. “Your brother didn’t put up a fight. I expected more from you.”
I grab the nearest vase of flowers and throw it at her. Never taking her mocking eyes off me, Vanessa calmly sidesteps the vase and smiles as it shatters behind her.
“You know, I’m actually glad things worked out this way,” she says. “I don’t particularly approve of guns. They’re too easy. They keep you from developing other skills.”
Vanessa reaches down to the bamboo umbrella stand and takes out a rolled black umbrella with a hook handle. A lone green umbrella remains in the stand. Vanessa sees me gazing at it. She takes a step backward.
“Go ahead,” she says. “Let’s do this as equals.”
I reach out for the green umbrella. Vanessa lunges forward, wielding her umbrella like a sword. I whip a hand out and grab a picture from the wall. The sharp point of the umbrella smashes the glass of the photo. For a second, she keeps pushing the point of the umbrella into the frame, shoving it into my chest. The more pressure she applies, the more likely the point of the umbrella is going to break through the wood and stab straight into me. In desperation, I kick my leg up and knock the umbrella out of her hand. We both watch as it sails into the air. I jump first and grab it. As I come down, I see Vanessa snatch the green umbrella from the holder. This time my landing is like a graceful young swan.
“Impressive, peanut,” she says, giving me a nod of respect. “Maybe we are equals, after all.”
She steps into her sword-fighting stance, extending her left arm, holding the green umbrella out at me with her right hand. She slowly brings her right knee forward.
Feeling self-conscious, I do the same. In one sudden, fluid movement, Vanessa tosses her umbrella in the air and catches the pointed end. She curls the hooked handle around my ankle and gives a sharp tug. My foot is yanked from under me. She kicks out at my other ankle and I lose my balance. As I flail midfall, Vanessa springs at me, pushing me down to the ground. Her knees dig into my thighs; the midsection of her umbrella presses heavy against my throat.
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