Chasing Truth

by Julie Cross

  “Considering Teen Rambo took my fucking gun…”

  I’m soaked through my clothes, and it’s only forty degrees out, so my teeth begin to chatter. Miles presses his cheek into mine, attempting to stop the chattering and giving me a good view of his temple. The one I elbowed this morning. A wave of regret hits me. I lift my hand, brushing my fingers over the bump.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Shhh,” he says again, his lips right beside my ear.

  We both listen for a moment, judging the distance of the footsteps, guessing how many there are. Miles shuffles closer, his feet tucking right beside mine, framing them between his.

  “Surround the place,” another new voice says. “Let them freeze to death, and we’ll collect the bodies in daylight.”

  Miles stiffens but then sags against me shortly after. They’ve moved farther away. For now. I try not to shake, to not be the girl who gets cold easily, but it’s freezing and I’ve been soaking wet for at least thirty minutes.

  “Pretty sure we broke Beckett’s arm getting him in that trunk,” Jack says.

  Miles raises his head, speaking in a low whisper. “What do you see behind me?”

  At first I’m surprised by the question. It sounds like we’re in the school, Miles prompting me with questions as part of his self-defense lessons. Some good those do when you’re trying to operate a moving vehicle. But then I realize that he can’t look over his shoulder, not with it dislocated.

  “Nothing.” I shake my head. “Trees. More trees.”

  “There must be something out here,” he whispers. “Jack was leading you this way and at least one other person is out here—” He stops, listening to the footsteps carefully. “Two other people.”

  I stare and stare at the shadows of trees in front of me and finally, I spot a slight opening. “I think maybe there’s a cabin or some sort of building. I can make out an opening in the trees.”

  Miles nods. He lifts the stolen gun, raising it to both our faces, and opens the barrel. “How many bullets?”

  I look and feel, giving my best assessment. “Four, I think.”

  “Okay, that sucks.” He snaps it closed again and holds it at the ready. “You don’t have a cell phone on you, I assume?”

  I shake my head. “Rider smashed mine and yours.”

  His forehead wrinkles at the mention of his phone.

  “I found it at the party,” I explain.

  Miles rests his cheek against mine again. “You came looking for me?”

  “A few minutes too late.”

  “Ellie?” Miles whispers, and my heart takes off again. Is this the part where he reminds me that he hates me? Or where he admits that he doesn’t? “I need you to help me pop my shoulder back in place.”

  Or there’s that.

  “How?” I say.

  He starts to explain and then stops; his whole body turns to stone against me. The slosh of footsteps nearby is barely audible. I open my mouth to warn Miles, but he’s already raising his gun.

  I squeeze my eyes shut when he pulls the trigger. He only fires one shot. A cry of pain follows.

  Miles pushes away from me. “Go!”

  He points in the direction of the cabin or building or whatever I had guessed was out here, but I can’t move. I’m in shock. He just shot someone.

  “Jesus Christ!” a voice yells.

  “Rider’s down,” someone says.

  “Ellie, go!” Miles says again.

  I come to life finally and we run, our cover blown from Miles’s gunfire. I keep moving forward, but he turns around twice to shoot at someone. His back is to me when a large bright light shines right in my eyes from a distance. I stop, and Miles bumps into me from behind.

  “What—” he starts, but spins to face the light. He aims at the source holding the flashlight and pulls the trigger. It clicks but no shot fires. Our eyes meet and I can see him panicking. He’s out of bullets. Two more flashlights appear on either sides of us.

  We’re surrounded.

  “I’ve been counting your bullets,” Jack says, revealing himself as the one with the flashlight. “Knew you didn’t have enough for all of us. Though I must say, you’re quite the marksman, son.”

  A man I don’t recognize appears beside us. He’s got a rifle, a bulletproof vest and head cover—government issued. “Move! Both of you.”

  I can see Miles debating in his head, calculating any possible ways to get out of this.

  “Go on,” the guy repeats. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “How about I follow you,” Miles says. “And you leave Ellie here in the woods. She’s not gonna tell anyone about this. She’s a gifted secret keeper.”

  That feels like a dig, like he may still sort of hate me. “Or…” I interrupt. “You can leave the valuable asset here in the woods and take the girl with virtually no identity.”

  “The girl with no identity,” Jack repeats. “You know I was counting on that. Counting on you. But it looks like I was wrong.”

  “Enough talking!” The tip of the rifle wavers, but the guy holds it steady again and then pokes it right into Miles’s dislocated shoulder.

  He’s brushed against me, so I feel him wince but he makes no sound of pain.

  “Move!”

  Miles concedes, walking forward. I move beside him, fighting the urge to reach for his hand.

  “I’m sorry, Ellie,” Jack says when we reach him. “I didn’t want it to be this way. You have so much potential.” He looks at Miles and shakes his head. “St. Felicity’s had your name on their list, right beside your buddy Simon, but I told them you’d never go for it. Your father wouldn’t even give them the time of day.”

  With all of that creepy shit, it takes me a moment to realize he’s about to shoot us, or rifle guy is, but the whoosh of a helicopter flying above sends them all in a panic.

  “What the hell?”

  Rifle guy pokes Miles with his weapon again. “Did you call someone?”

  “Get them inside, now!” Jack shouts.

  CHAPTER 50

  A helicopter flies over us yet again. I feel around on the walls looking for any possible exit.

  “If there’s a window in this room, it’s way above my reach,” I say through chattering teeth. It’s freezing in here. Nearly as cold as outside.

  “I’d estimate eight feet by eight feet,” Miles says.

  “Why are they freaking out about the helicopter?”

  “I don’t know.” But his tone indicates he might know something.

  I jump up and down in the dark, hitting the walls in various places, feeling for a window. “Where are we?”

  “South of Fredericksburg,” he says immediately. “Maybe eight or twelve miles.”

  “I know that,” I snap. “But what is this place? What is this thing that I have so much potential for? And why are you on the St. Felicity’s list with Simon? Does that mean they’re going to kill you?”

  “Assassins. Honorable ones who devote their lives to a mission to serve without personal gain,” Miles says. “I think that’s what St. Felicity’s is. I’ve heard rumors of a group but I never knew…”

  “Okay, but why would Jack think I have potential in this league of assassins?” I demand. “I would suck at assassinating.”

  “I think Jack is doing his own thing on the side,” he says. “Some kind of splinter organization.”

  “Something for money,” I assess, the truth hitting me square in the chest. “Something an invisible, experienced con artist could help with.”

  Miles is quiet, but it sounds like he’s sitting down. I roam in the dark until I bump into him. I feel around for his face and end up poking him in the ear.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. “Of course you’re not, your shoulder’s fucked up.”

  Outside the door, the voices grow louder. They’re arguing.

  “Get into the damn dispatch system and find out where the chopper is coming from!” someone shou
ts.

  “I’m a little busy keeping Rider from bleeding to death!”

  “How bad does it hurt?” I drill Miles. “Scale of one to ten?” The nurse asked me that after my root canal. I figure it might be a good question.

  “I don’t know,” Miles says, his voice strained. “Six…maybe eight.”

  My gut twists, but I rest a hand on his good shoulder and say, “Okay, if you want me to help you, I will. Just tell me what to do.”

  He pulls himself up straighter. I wish I could see his face, see if he’s as scared as I am. I listen carefully to his directions and then place my hands exactly where he tells me to. But before I do anything, he stops me. “You can’t go halfway. Might make it worse.”

  “Got it.” I shake my hands out and take a breath. But then I lay my hands on the dislocated right shoulder and freak out all over all again. “Tell me everything one more time.”

  Miles rests his left hand on my cheek and draws me closer until our foreheads touch. “I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t think you could do it. I trust you.”

  I exhale. My eyes burn with tears. “You shouldn’t trust me.”

  His thumb brushes over my cheek. “But I do.”

  “Okay…” I place my hands on him again but hesitate. “Okay.”

  “Do it fast,” he instructs.

  I try my best to do as Miles says, visualize the shoulder as a ball that needs to slide back over into the right hole. Adrenaline is pumping through me, giving me strength. What I’m not ready for is Miles’s shout of pain and the crunching sound that follows. But even in the dark, I felt it. Felt the bone return to its place.

  “Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay?”

  He slumps back against the wall, his breathing ragged, but I hear him nod.

  I’m shaking all over, my heart pounding, but I fold Miles’s arm carefully against his stomach. I tug my jacket off and use it to make a sling. I’m knotting it at his neck when the lights come on and the door flies open.

  I slide over, sitting against the wall beside Miles. His left hand crawls toward mine and squeezes it.

  The rifle guy has ditched his helmet, but not the gun or vest. “What was that noise?”

  He points his weapon right at us and I hold my breath.

  “Lock that damn door and get over here!” Jack shouts.

  The door slams shut again, and I release all the air in my lungs in one long exhale. Clicking and banging follows the door slam. I listen closely, trying to identify the locks. “God, what is this place? A dungeon?”

  I turn to look at him and realize that the lights are still on. And he’s pale. So pale.

  Miles’s eyes are half closed, but when my teeth chatter too loudly for him to ignore, he looks over at me.

  “Come here,” he says. I scoot over until my arm touches his good shoulder. “Closer…”

  He swings a leg around me and pulls me in until I’m seated between his legs, avoiding the sling. My cheek is against his chest, my leg over his, helping to prop up the sling.

  “What’s your pain level now?” I ask.

  “Six…maybe five.” He touches a hand to my cheek, and then tightens his whole arm around me. “God, you’re cold.”

  “Do you believe there are honorable assassins??”

  “That’s a tough question,” he says. “Apparently my dad turned it down, so that makes me wonder. Then again, if someone had killed Hitler before World War II, how many lives would that have saved?”

  “That’s what St. Felicity’s does? They take out the next Hitler?” I ask, shocked.

  “If the rumors are right, yeah,” Miles says, his voice weak. “But then does that mean someone paid Jack to kill Simon?”

  “No,” I say after a long pause. It’s all making much more sense now—Simon having the photos of Harper, trying to get information out of Rider, letting him play the bait. Simon knew what was going on. He was protecting me. “He killed Simon because Simon was onto him.”

  Miles nods, appearing to put everything together himself. “All this time I thought I owned my secrets, but Jack knew. Simon probably knew. No wonder Jack covered for me when we broke into the Gilberts’. He was waiting to proposition me to join his million-dollar-a-head long con. Maybe he doesn’t know my feelings on firearms? Or my lack of self-defense skills?”

  Miles doesn’t say anything, but I feel him tense, maybe at bringing up my dark side, the part of me he likely hates.

  “If we’d just stayed out of it, none of this would have happened to you.” I press my face against his shirt. “I’m sorry, Miles. For this morning. I didn’t want to—”

  “Shhh.” He leans his head back on the wall again and closes his eyes. “Let’s not do this now. You’re here. You didn’t have to be. You didn’t have to look for me at that party or crash the car for me.”

  “But—” I start.

  “No buts.” Miles’s warm lips touch my forehead. “These guys killed Simon, Ellie. We have no phones, no weapons, no way out. The odds of survival are not in our favor. And the thirty percent of me that is furious at you, the part of me that doesn’t even know who you are—he’s not in this room right now. I ditched him back at that party.”

  Despite my freezing cold exterior, his words warm me from the inside. But it’s bittersweet, because the reality scares the hell out of me. “How are you always so sure?”

  “Because I’ve never really had to make a difficult choice.” He smiles at me. “Until you, anyway.”

  Outside this tiny room, Jack’s voice rises above the others. “See? It’s a medical chopper trying to land in Richmond. The weather’s bad. They’re circling.”

  Miles tenses, and then he tilts my head up and his lips touch mine, gentle at first and then more urgent, more desperate. And sure enough, the door opens and Jack and the rifle guy stand in front of us.

  Miles releases me and pulls himself to his feet. He looks right at Jack. “Where’s your weapon?”

  Jack nods at the rifle guy beside him. “Right here.”

  “Come on,” Miles says. “We know you killed Simon. He turned around to face you, then you shot him dead with his own gun.”

  Jack flinches.

  “I deserve that same respect.” Miles’s voice rises. “If you’re going to kill me, Jakowski, be a fucking man. Grab a weapon and look me in the eye.”

  My legs are shaking so bad I’m afraid they’ll crumble beneath me, but I get to my feet anyway and stand beside Miles.

  With a bite to his movement, Jack snatches the rifle from the other guy and clicks it into place. “Happy?”

  I glance around the room, still searching for a way out. I’m not as good at this martyr thing as Miles. “What I want to know is how you pulled this off, Jack. We wrapped the Dominic-the-murderer theory into a perfect package for the FBI. How did you make everything fit so perfectly to frame Aidan?”

  The end of the rifle bobs up and down. “Dominic DeLuca never fit the profile, wouldn’t have held up through conviction. Unfortunately, he got a peek at Rider, so we had to shut him up, and that got a little messy. Framing Lawrence was plan B. If you two had kept your damn noses out of things, that case would have stayed close.”

  Jack positions the weapon and turns it first on me. “All right, you have one tiny chance at survival.”

  “Let me guess,” Miles says. “You want me and Ellie to join your club of dishonorable assassins?”

  “I’ve always wanted Eleanor on my team. From the moment I dug into Lawrence’s new girlfriends’ family. I reunited them, got Ellie into Holden, set her up to make friends in high places,” Jack says to Miles like I’m not even here. “You haven’t seen her in action. She has a gift that can’t be taught. With the right resources we could bank millions, maybe even without picking up a weapon.”

  Okay, so he hadn’t wanted me to kill people, just lie and steal. And make friends in high places. Basically my old life.

  “But yes,” Jack continues, looking at Miles. “You could also prove t
o be useful.”

  A groan of pain erupts from outside the room, and the rifle guy shakes his head. “We’re gonna need to replace Rider. That your first human target?”

  Miles stands there, his good fist clenched. “Yeah.”

  “Femoral artery on the first try. Impressive. Bet you’re top of your class at Marshall Academy. Who’s recruiting you for internships?” Jack asks. “FBI? CIA? NSA?”

  Miles glances sideways at me for a split second and it’s enough for me to guess, to feel his next move. “Harvard,” he tells Jack, and then he dives forward, shoving me out of the way with his good arm. The gun fires at the ceiling, and I immediately cover my head. I hear the rifle hit the hard floor and land near me. I fling myself toward it, pulling it under me before the guy who owns it has a chance.

  Jack manages to get Miles to the ground, his hands around his throat. I panic, fumbling to get to my feet and aim this rifle at him. Miles’s eyes widen, watching me try to figure out the weapon. I’ve never even so much as held a firearm before. But even as the other guy races toward me, I’ve got the rifle backward. A smirk begins to spread across his face, and my blood instantly boils. Since I can’t figure out how to shoot him, I jam the weapon right into his temple like I’d done to Miles this morning. He stumbles a little, begins to fall, and I swing the rifle like a bat, smashing it against the back of his head.

  I finally get it turned around and aimed at Jack. “Let him go,” I demand.

  But there’s no need for my orders. Miles does some kung fu fighter move and sends Jack flying several feet away. He hits the wall and comes down with a thud, but he’s on his feet immediately.

  Miles carefully extracts the weapon from me and points it at Jack. And it’s like that day in the secret room, all that hatred, that desire for revenge, it’s back on Miles’s face. It fills the room from floor to ceiling.

  “Ellie, leave.”

  I move closer to him. “We’re both leaving.”

  Jack watches this exchange; his gaze falls on me. He glances for a second at his fallen teammate. “Listen to him, Ellie. Get out of here.”

  “I’ll be right behind you,” Miles says.

  I’m literally torn in half, one foot planted and the other looking for the exit. But before I get a chance to decide, a bloody leg crosses into the doorway and then Rider is there, a pistol in his hand.