“She’s here. Sounds like she’s a fucking basket case. I haven’t found her yet, though.”
“Yeah, well, not everyone is lucky enough to escape the Branch with their sanity.”
I knew that all too well.
“You going to look for her today?” Sam asked.
“Yeah. But first I need—” I cut myself off. I was about to say a proper drink. Instead I said, “I need to eat.”
“Call me later and let me know what you found. I’ll get Anna on the files again.”
I ended the call and looked around my room. I had one more night here before checking out. I had enough cash to pay for another night, but I hated wasting money on a bed. I could sleep in the truck if I had to. Wouldn’t be the first time I’d lived out of a vehicle.
A lot of what I did for the Branch was still buried in a pile of shit in my head, but the memories of my life before the Branch had started to come back a while ago. When I left my dad’s house for the last time, long before the Branch, I’d lived in his car for months. I used to con women for money to get by. Sometimes they made it too easy. Sometimes I felt the old guilt of that life creep back into this one. And then I reminded myself that sometimes you do what you have to do to survive, and the guilt quickly went away.
After a long, hot shower, I left the hotel just after four and headed toward the restaurant-slash-bar I’d seen when I first got into town.
Merv’s Bar & Grill was the type of place that went too far with the whole themed bit, and Irish was apparently Merv’s theme of choice. Everything inside was covered in clovers or painted green. Irish music blasted through the sound system.
I already hated Merv’s, and I hadn’t even sat down.
I picked an empty stool at the end of the bar and pulled out my fake ID.
The bartender, a shorter guy with overgrown blond hair, came over. The pin on his polo shirt said his name was Evan.
“What can I get for you?” he asked.
“Whiskey,” I said, and flicked him the ID. He poured a drink and set it in front of me before hurrying to the other end of the bar.
I sipped the drink as I thought. Elizabeth definitely lived in Trademarr, otherwise the librarian would have mentioned she’d left town. There wouldn’t have been any harm in giving out that information.
Maybe the bartender knew her. Bartenders know everything.
I took another long sip and scanned the mirror over the bar, checking the windows and the exits behind me, when I noticed a row of pictures taped above the register. Some of them were of customers raising their drinks to whoever had snapped the photo. But there were some of the employees, too, and when I saw an image of a girl with dark brown hair and eyes as round as quarters, my mouth went dry.
“Hey,” I called to the bartender, and he gave me a look like, Wait a goddamn second, but I needed to know who that girl was and I needed to know right now.
I tapped the bar top with a finger.
The guy finally ambled down and looked at my half-empty whiskey. “Something wrong with the drink?”
“Who’s that girl?” I asked, and pointed at the picture. I had realized, the second time I looked at it, that she was standing next to Evan, his arm around her. “That girl who’s with you.”
“Who?” he said, and frowned. “Lissy?”
Lissy. Elizabeth.
“Yes,” I said, quick and quiet. “Does she still work here?” I turned around and scanned the restaurant. “Is she on shift right now?”
Evan’s frown deepened. “No, she just got off. I can give her a message—”
I threw a ten on the bar, slid off the stool, and hurried for the front door, the need to go overtaking all my other senses.
I scanned Washington Street and the faces of the people walking past.
Evan slammed through the door behind me. “Dude,” he said. “Who the hell are you?”
When I didn’t spot Elizabeth on the main strip, I cut to the corner of the building and slipped around to the south side where I figured the employee entrance was.
“Dude!” Evan said again.
There was no one there.
I went to the back parking lot.
Empty.
My hands tightened into fists at my sides.
Evan’s footsteps thudded on the pavement behind me. I whirled around, grabbed the collar of his shirt, and pulled him to me. “Where is she? Which way did she go?”
Evan scowled, but didn’t pull back. He was five inches shorter than me, but full of bravado. “You think I’m going to tell you? You’re a friggin’ space case.”
“Evan?” someone called.
I looked up and over the top of Evan’s head.
Something shattered against the pavement as it was dropped from a trembling hand.
She met my eyes. Her lips moved, but nothing came out. All the color drained from her face.
My heart stopped. The world bubbled around me.
“It’s you,” she said.
14
ELIZABETH
I SET MY HAND AGAINST THE BRICK exterior of Merv’s and leaned into it.
Was it really him?
Gabriel.
I didn’t want to tear my eyes away, afraid that if I did, he’d disappear again. As it was, I worried that he was a figment of my imagination, caused by my questionable sanity. Although the night I’d been rescued was a blur, I did remember Gabriel clearly. He was the person who’d saved me after all.
But my broken mind must have seen him as older than he really was back then, because he didn’t look much older than me now. I would almost swear he hadn’t aged a day since that night.
“Are you real?” I whispered.
Gabriel let go of Evan and took a step toward me. I staggered back, my fingers dragging across the brick.
He must have read the fear on my face because he stopped and froze and stared at me.
He didn’t say anything.
I couldn’t feel my feet, my legs, my knees, the air in my lungs. I was reduced to a jumble of thoughts.
The old bullet wound vibrated in my chest.
He tilted his head. “You know me.”
It wasn’t a question, but the look in his eyes said it partly was.
I inhaled. Swallowed. Exhaled. Nodded. “Gabriel?”
The corners of his eyes pinched, and his jaw tensed, full lips pursed.
“No. Yes.” He sighed. “Yes. Gabriel. For now.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it was all I needed to hear.
“You know him?” Evan asked.
A car zoomed past on the street, a bunch of girls singing to the radio. It was nothing but a buzz, like flies, in my ears.
“Yeah,” I said to Evan. “I know him.”
“Are you… I mean…” Evan looked at Gabriel, and then at me. He came closer and lowered his voice. “Should I stay? I kinda left the bar unattended and—”
“No,” I said too quickly, and licked my lips. “You should go back in. I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Evan looked at Gabriel, as if unsatisfied with my assurances. I wasn’t even sure if I was sure. Was I safe, alone with Gabriel? Was I even safe in Trademarr?
I’d always wondered, after I escaped, if staying in the same town where I’d been held captive was a risk. If they’d wanted to find me again, it wouldn’t have been hard. But I’d never had the resources to leave. I didn’t have any family left, and child protective services wasn’t in the position to move me out of town.
I was as trapped here as I’d been in that lab. And now my greatest fear might have been coming true: They’d returned to finish the job, and I’d made it so easy.
“I’m fine, Evan,” I said again, and he finally went back inside, leaving me alone in the parking lot with Gabriel still staring at me and me staring at him and the silence between us growing taut like a rubber band.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know who’d make the first move.
&n
bsp; Turned out, it was Gabriel.
He took another step toward me, and I startled. He held up his hands.
“I’m not here to hurt you.”
My breath was coming too quickly, so my response came out shaky. “I’m not sure if I believe you.”
I glanced at my smashed cell phone on the pavement. I’d dropped it when I saw Gabriel. He scooped it up and handed it to me slowly, as if I were a skittish rabbit he didn’t want to run away.
I took it from him and tried turning it on, but the screen stayed dark.
I backed up along the side of the building until I stood in front of the large windows that looked in on Merv’s. So there were witnesses.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
His eyes flicked away from me, to the intersection, to the cars passing through. So many cars and so many people with normal lives, doing their normal things. I wanted desperately to be one of those people.
“I have memories of you,” he finally answered. “And I’m trying to figure out what they mean.”
I frowned. “You say that like you don’t know. Like you don’t know what happened.”
“I don’t.”
“How is that possible?”
As soon as the question was out, I immediately wanted to retract it and swallow it back down my throat. What a stupid question to ask when there was a very clear answer.
“Amnesia,” he said.
“Sorry, I…” I looked at the ground, heat racing to my cheeks. “That should have been obvious.”
He didn’t say anything.
“How did it happen? The amnesia.”
His jaw tensed. “Long story.”
“So you’re not here to”—a lump settled in my throat—“kill me?”
The sharp planes of his face softened, and he took another step. “I saved you back then, didn’t I?”
I nodded.
“Then why would I come back six years later to kill you?”
“I don’t know… I don’t—”
“I’m not that person anymore.”
A breath rushed out of me, and I turned, pressing my back against the building. Were we really having this conversation? No one should have to have such conversations on the sidewalk outside of an Irish family restaurant.
I scrubbed at my face, trying to realign my life into an order that made sense. But then again, nothing had made sense for a very long time.
“Can we talk somewhere?” he asked. He gestured to the coffee shop across the street, and I nodded. That’s what I needed. Caffeine. A familiar place. A chair beneath me to keep me upright.
The stoplight at the intersection was green, so we had to wait together at the curb as traffic passed.
I was immediately aware of how tall Gabriel was next to me, how solid and real he was. How broad his shoulders were in the black T-shirt he wore, how the cut of his biceps could be seen even through his sleeves. How the veins stood up on his hands, how rough his knuckles were. Scars covered his right hand more than his left.
He smelled different.
Not exactly like the memory I’d chronicled in the glass bottle sitting on my shelf. The balance of scents had changed.
There was a very faint undertone of pine trees clinging to him, and musk and maybe a touch of lavender. Something floral. Maybe that was laundry detergent.
When the light switched, allowing us to cross, Gabriel kept in step with me. We didn’t talk.
At Declater’s, he held the door open for me. I went inside. The rich scent of roasted coffee beans made me relax. Just a little. It was a normal smell. A normal thing for me to do, buy coffee. But who I was with wasn’t normal, none of this was normal.
I ordered an iced latte. Gabriel ordered a black coffee. He picked a table near the windows, near the exit, and I was thankful for that.
We sat.
My stomach turned.
“My name,” he started, looking down at the steam rising from his cup, “my name is Nick. Not Gabriel.”
I might have been surprised by the revelation had I not already decided long ago that he didn’t seem anything like a Gabriel.
“Nick,” I repeated. “Why Gabriel?”
“It was an alias.” He turned the coffee cup a quarter of an inch and looked at me.
During the years that’d stretched between when I’d met him and now, I realized I’d forgotten a very important detail about him—his eyes. They were the iciest blue. Ringed with a faint trace of black. The kind of eyes that knew things.
His black hair was longer than I remembered, and curled around his ears. His face was clean shaven. His teeth white as sugar.
“Why are you here?” I asked. “Why now?”
I didn’t see any reason to dance around the question. I wanted to know. I needed to know.
He shifted and looked out the window, the stark light of day making the blue of his eyes almost white.
“That’s a complicated answer. A long one.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He gazed back at me. “A lot has happened since…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but I knew what he meant. Since that night.
“Are they…” I wetted my lips, my mouth bone dry, my heart ramming against the back of my throat. “Are they here?”
He shook his head quickly. “I don’t work for them anymore, and from what I can tell, they aren’t around.”
Work for them. Like he was a stock boy at a grocery store. Or a plumber’s assistant. There was nothing normal about what he did. Or used to do.
“Who are they?” I asked.
Ever since I’d been kidnapped, I’d asked myself that over and over again. Why had I been taken? What did they do to my mother? Why did they do the things they’d done to me?
I hadn’t told anyone what had happened while I’d been missing. No one would have believed me if I had. But the silence, keeping the secret, meant that the longer it stayed with me, bottled up, the more it seemed like a nightmare, and the more I felt crazy for believing what had happened.
Maybe it hadn’t.
“They’re called the Branch.”
“What are they?”
“A private organization known for creating bio-weaponry, usually for the government.”
The café’s door opened, and a girl walked in, a cell phone glued to her ear. She was talking loudly about a dress she’d just bought. When she got in line at the register, she twisted, catching sight of Nick. Her whole body changed, elongating, back arched, eyes heavy and appreciative.
He’s a killer. I’m sitting across the table from a killer.
My throat constricted.
“What is bio-weaponry, exactly?” I asked.
“Turning the human body into a weapon. Genetic alterations. That kind of thing.”
I straightened. Several things clicked into place. Nick caught my morphing expression, and he frowned my way. “What?” he asked. “What is it?”
I arranged my face into an expression that I hoped was innocent. “Nothing.”
His frown deepened. “If you know something, tell me.”
I’d never breathed the confession to a single soul. I wasn’t going to start now.
“It’s just…” I shrugged. “It’s hard to believe, that’s all. I feel like I’m in an action movie or something.”
“No.” He laughed, but there was no hint of humor in his voice. “That’s just my life.”
“You say you remember me, but how much do you remember?”
“Well…” He scanned the coffee shop. “Do you have somewhere we can talk without…” He trailed off.
Without people hearing.
My old wounds pulsed with warning. Gabriel—Nick—hadn’t harmed me that night, but he was still tangled in those memories, and even though he’d saved me, I was still wary.
“The park?” I replied. “We could probably find a bench or something where we’d have some privacy.”
He nodded, and a lock of hair fell across his f
orehead. He swiped it back. “You lead,” he said, “and I will follow.”
15
NICK
I KNEW WHERE THE PARK WAS, BUT I wanted Elizabeth to feel in control, so I pretended I didn’t know the way. She was extremely wary of me, and for good reason. I was part of a memory she probably wanted to bury.
It took us only five minutes to reach the park. She picked the bench. We sat in the shade of a maple tree, the fountain rushing behind us. The playground was packed, and the sound of screaming kids put me on edge.
Despite that, I pressed my back against the bench and took a deep breath and tried to act like I had my shit together.
For the next twenty minutes, I told Elizabeth half truths. I told her about the flashback, the one in the woods, because that was something she’d already know anyway. I didn’t tell her much about the Branch, only the barest of details. I made her think that I’d been out of the Branch for a few years, that I’d been piecing together my past since then. I wanted her to think she was a trivial memory on a long list of heavy shit.
I didn’t want her to know too much about me until I figured out why she’d been involved with the Branch in the first place, and why she’d been injured that night in the flashback. If I really had been sent to kill her, I needed to know why. There would have been a very good reason for it—the Branch didn’t go out of their way to kill inconsequential people.
When I was finished, Elizabeth stared at the grass glowing in the sunlight beyond the reach of the tree.
I cracked a knuckle. And another. I needed a drink.
“So this Branch,” she said, “they were the ones who took me?”
I tried to get a read on her face, tried to gauge whether or not she was playing me. Did she know why she’d been taken? Was she playing dumb to fool me?
Her eyes were squinted against the sun, her mouth relaxed, lips wet, shoulders drooped. I couldn’t read her very well, which was either an indication of my shitty-ass perception, or of her talent for hiding things.
“I don’t know for sure,” I said, “but they were involved. Especially at the end.”
What I didn’t tell her was that I’d been tasked with killing her. Me, specifically. Once I found out her name, it hadn’t taken a lot of deduction to figure out that the Target E named in my file was Elizabeth.
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