by Tracey Ward
“Calm your tits, Black Widow. The men are talking.”
“He is getting on my last nerve,” Alex whispers fiercely.
“Over.”
“Ugh!” she cries, hanging up on him and handing me the phone. “If they need to give us an update, they can call. I can’t listen to him anymore today.”
The phone chimes in my hand. They’ve sent us a text message.
“What does it say?” she asks warily.
I snicker when I read it. “You don’t want to know.”
“I think I already know.”
“I think you do. Over.”
She glares at me, fighting a smile. “Don’t you dare start. You’re already on probation.”
“Got it. I’ll be good.”
We sit in silence in the cab of the pickup, where we’re watching the entrance to a warehouse. We went to Fry’s house this morning only to find out from her neighbor that she works nightshift here on the outskirts of town. We’ve been staking the place out for the last hour, with Alex and I in the car and Campbell and Brody on the roof of a building a block over. Brody has his rifle, his scope, and his impossible sight. He also has a very unfortunate sidekick and codename.
The phone rings in my hand, making me sigh. Campbell again.
“Nick,” Alex says urgently, opening her door, “there she is.”
“Whoa, hold on. Don’t get out.”
“We have to catch up with her. She’s heading for her car.”
“Just wait.” I answer the call. “Carver.”
“She’s there,” Campbell says curtly. “Yellow shirt. Great butt.”
“I see her.”
“Can I get a copy on the butt status?”
I hang up the phone. “They see her too,” I tell Alex. “Let’s go.”
We walk casually across the large, potholed parking lot toward the crowd of people leaving the building. All of them are heading to their cars with exhausted, beaten down looks on their faces. Even the girl in the bright yellow shirt.
She looks exactly the same as her photo in her file—meaning she couldn’t have left the clinic that long ago. She’s tall, almost as tall as Campbell, with chocolate skin and short hair pulled back tight. I can’t see her face beyond her profile, but it’s striking: angular and proud. I’m not the only one to notice, either. Pretty much every guy out here is aware of her, watching her out of the corner of their eye, but she just walks on without noticing. She’s either completely oblivious or utterly unaffected by the attention—the way only a person accustomed to attention can be.
“Kimberly Fry?” Alex calls out, her voice rushed and breathy. She’s nervous and it shows.
The girl stops midstride and looks her up and down appraisingly. She’s not just sizing her up; she’s looking for weapons. It’s a shrewd move, one only made by someone who’s used to fighting.
I’m instantly interested in this girl’s every move.
“Yeah, I’m Kim,” she answers slowly. “Can I help you?”
“I’m hoping you can.” Alex pauses. I watch her throat move as she swallows thickly. “I wanted to talk to you about Texas.”
Kim rocks back on her heels before taking a step toward Alex.
I match it.
“Texas?” she asks in a hushed voice. “I haven’t been there since right after my mom died.”
“When you were nine. I know.”
Something clicks in her expression. A light turns on inside her that burns brightly through her eyes. “You’re from there, aren’t you? The clinic.”
Alex looks for me over her shoulder before nodding. “Yes.”
“Yeah! Hell, yeah!” Kim shouts, jumping up and down.
Alex immediately falls back, letting me step between her and the dancing girl just as we talked about, just as I begged her all last night to do if Fry showed any sign of erratic behavior. I don’t draw my weapon yet, but I’m ready to. One more major movement like that and she’ll be staring down the barrel of my gun as I back us all out of here.
“It’s about time!” Fry yells happily. She smiles at us, dropping her hands but still bouncing from foot to foot. “I knew it. I knew you’d show up eventually. I just figured it would be sooner. I’ve been trying like crazy. I was about to take this whole place down.”
“Trying what?” I ask.
“Trying to get your attention. What’s a girl gotta do, you know? Seriously!” She beams, shaking her hands out, reining it in. “What did it? What finally got you?”
I relax a little now that she’s stopped bouncing. “We don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, come on. Was it the water tower?”
“What about the water tower?”
Fry quickly peeks over her shoulder at the people walking past us through the parking lot. “The fact that I crushed it like a soda can,” she answers quietly, as though it were obvious. “I got drenched in that one. Cops nearly got me too. It wasn’t nearly as close as the train car or the old factory. The—how do you not know this? Haven’t you been watching me? This is why you’re here.”
“It’s not,” Alex calls from behind me. “We’re not here because of anything you’ve done.”
“Okay. Then why are you here all of the sudden? You ignored me for years after you threw me out and now you show up out of nowhere. What’s changed?”
“The clinic threw you out?”
She takes a step back, Alex’s phrasing putting her on alert. Her joy sours immediately into suspicion. “Who are you?”
“We’re from the clinic, but we aren’t in charge. We’re not here to bring you in. We’re here because we got out.”
“Got out? Why would you leave?”
“Why would we stay?”
“Why would you…” Her voice trails off in disbelief. “Are you serious? You stay to become somebody! To make it all mean something. I was trying to become one of them. One of the elites.”
“You mean the matured?” Alex asks.
Fry glowers at her. “I am one of the matured. I mean one of the elite. One of the fighters. The soldiers. I would kill to get back in that program, and you cowards ran?”
“I’m not a coward for not wanting to kill anyone in cold blood,” Alex replies defensively.
Kim’s eyes widen. “You? They wanted you? A woman?”
“Yeah.”
“What’d they want you to do? Tell me it wasn’t the Super Soldier gig or I’ll lose my mind.”
“Not really. They wanted me to…” Her eyes dart around, taking in the crowd still near us, still in earshot. “They were going to hire me out.”
“As an assassin?” Fry pushes, not caring about stealth anymore.
Alex nods warily. “Yeah.”
Fry drops into a crouch on the ground, slams her palms furiously against the cement, then bounces back up on a curse. She rattles off a string of unintelligible anger as she paces.
I’m close to either telling her to keep it together or straight up walking away. She’s drawing a lot of attention, something we could do without, and I honestly just don’t like her tone. She’s obviously been waiting for the call up to the Big League, sending in her own highlight videos, but no one’s biting. If it were me, if I had the skills and the PJs hadn’t wanted me, I would have lost my mind. Would I have gone rogue? Do I think this girl might? I don’t know for sure, but the fact that the thought occurs to me is enough warning. It’s all I need to start planning our exit.
“So, what is this, huh?” Fry demands. “You showed up to rub it in my face? Why are you here?”
“We’re here to ask for your help,” Alex replies.
“Help with what?”
Alex looks at me weakly. She knows the honest answer to that question is not going to go over well with this girl. She’s angry she’s a reject. She’s still looking for Daddy’s approval. No way she’ll help us sneak his car out of the garage and go for a joyride.
“We’re shutting them down,” I tell her firmly. “No more Dr. Evans.
No more programs. No more tests. No more trials. No more cast-offs wondering what’s wrong with them.”
It’s that last part that strikes a nerve with her. She doesn’t show it on her face, but her silence tells me I’ve hit a nerve. It’s too controlled. Too carefully in place. She’s hiding something.
“I couldn’t do what he wanted me to do,” she says deeply. “I couldn’t move things the way he planned, but I could do so much more. You know what he told me the first time I shattered the glass? He said ‘Another disappointment.’ That was the last time I saw him. I had been with him every day for weeks, he was like a father to me, then he just disappeared. So I couldn’t care less what you do to Dr. Evans or any of his crew. Kill ‘em all, leave ‘em alone—it doesn’t matter to me, but I won’t help you with any of it either.”
“I thought you were anxious to get back inside,” Alex points out. “Why so much hate for the doctor if he’s the one who can make that happen?”
“Because he’s not in charge. He never has been.”
Now she has my full attention.
I keep my face composed, calm, but inside I’m churning. “What makes you think that?”
“When he forgot about me, it turned into a string of nurses. Every single one of them tried to get me to move a new glass, but every single time I shattered it. I stopped trying to move it—I crushed it on purpose. And when that got too easy, I moved on to bigger things. TVs. Chairs. Tables. Dressers. I got stronger and stronger, but he never came back, and eventually I didn’t care anymore. I stopped thinking about him and I focused on me. On what I wanted. I got better at the things no one cared about. Then one day someone did care.”
“Who?” I ask immediately.
She smirks at me. “Someone bigger.”
“Higher than Dr. Evans?” Alex asks.
“Higher than everyone there.”
My blood rushes eagerly through my veins. Here it is. This is what I need. What I thought she couldn’t possibly know. It’s the final step before ending all of this and it’s so close, so real, I don’t trust it. I feel like it’s a lie before I even ask.
“What’s his name?” I demand.
Fry studies my face for a long, drawn-out moment. “They’re after you, huh?”
“Name.”
“You’ll find out soon enough. Trust me, if they want you, they’ll get you. In fact,” she takes a step away from us, “you’ll probably bring them to my doorstep.”
“Give me a name. What’s the point in hiding him? Can’t he defend himself?”
“Do you think if I knew where they were that I would be here right now? I’d be at the door begging every day.”
“But you know who they are. That’s all the information I need.”
“If you want to find them, stop running. Stand still. They’ll find you.”
The alarm goes off, sounding the start of a new shift. Bodies flood from cars to wander bleary-eyed toward the building. They drift around us, between us, cutting my view of Fry’s suddenly smiling face into shattered glimpses.
“Thanks for stopping by,” she tells me genially. “I’ll see you soon.”
She disappears into the crowd because I let her. She won’t tell me anything more, I know that, and even if I thought getting violent with her would get me anywhere, I can’t do it here. I can’t lay a hand on her in front of all these people. So I watch her walk away with the flow of the worker bees returning to the hive, and I hope she’s right: I hope I see her again real soon.
∞
Fry was a bust, but not a waste of time. I didn’t get a name and that’s frustrating, but the meeting was also enlightening. The faceless shadow I’m chasing is taking a stronger form. He’s becoming real, and the fact that he’s been in the driver’s seat for years is news, but not surprising. Her knowledge also gives me hope that maybe I’ve been wrong, and Beck will know something too. Maybe he had some kind of interaction with the mystery man while he was in the clinic, just like Fry.
What I want is to talk to Liam, now more than ever. If I could walk into his office and turn myself in, I would. I’m not afraid of being captured or trapped—not as long as I have the white stone. The last stone. What I worry about, what stops me from sending an e-mail broadcasting my location to every contact I have, is Alex. I could leave her with Campbell and Alex but are they enough? Will they be able to hide her?
I’m too much of a control freak to find out.
For now, I’m content to sit in a packed sports bar with all of them eating greasy burgers, drinking cheap beer, and arguing over how the hell we’re going to find Marcus Beck in this Florida college town.
“I said ballpark,” Campbell snaps at Alex. “Ball. Park. Do you know what that means?”
“It means worthless,” she deadpans.
“It means ballpark is what it means. I never promised a full address on Beck. Do we all remember that?”
“Sorry I assumed you would get us closer than the state he lives in.”
“I got you the city.”
“There are over one hundred and fifty thousand people in Tallahassee, Florida. Not exactly a tiny town. We can’t just go walking through the streets asking if anyone knows Marcus Beck.”
“You could, but you’d never find him. And before you get on your high horse to look down on me for not memorizing every aspect of the guy’s life, maybe take a look at the fact that you left the files behind. If it weren’t for me, you’d have nothing to go on at all.”
Alex slumps in her seat, the fight going out of her. “You’re right,” she whispers.
Campbell puts his hand behind his ear, leaning over the table. “I’m sorry, what? I couldn’t hear you.”
“I said you’re right,” she admits openly. “I left them behind. They were my responsibility and I forgot them. That’s on me. Sorry.”
I put my arm around her shoulders, pulling her into my side. “Don’t be sorry. We were all there. Any of us could have grabbed them.”
“Yeah, but I’m the one who has been so dead set on finding these people, then I go and lose our only leads.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“Did we go old school yet?” Brody asks. “Anyone check the Yellow Pages?”
“We haven’t. That’s a good idea.” I squeeze Alex’s shoulder once before standing up. “I’ll go see if they’ve got a phone book behind the bar.”
I have to push through a sea of red jerseys, T-shirts, and hoodies to get there. I carefully avoid being trampled or jostled by the wave of drunk fans going crazy over the game playing on the TVs all around the pub. I’ve never lived in a college town, but now that I’m seeing one, I definitely know I don’t want to.
When I finally reach the long, dark bar, I smile and nod to the girl behind it. She pushes her blond bangs out of her eyes, her fingernails flashing Florida State red, and smiles back.
“What can I get for you?” she asks.
“A phone book, if you got it.”
Her eyes narrow playfully. “That’s not a drink is it?”
“As far as I know it’s just an antiquated piece of reference material.”
She leans forward to look under the bar. “Good, because the last thing I need is one more drink I don’t know how to make.”
“Not the most inspiring thing you want to hear from your bartender.”
“Yeah, well,” she stands up, dropping the phone book in front of me, “I’m new, but that’s a good note. Thanks for the tip.”
“Thanks for the phone book.”
“You sure I can’t make you a drink?”
“Are you sure that you can?”
“Ooh,” she laughs, stepping back from the bar. “That is harsh. I’m taking that as a challenge.”
I open the book and immediately head for the Bs. “I really don’t need a drink, thanks.”
“Too late. It’s a matter of pride now.”
She’s busy behind the bar mixing and pouring ice, but I’m focused on the phone book. I reach
the Bs, find several Becks, but none of them are a Marcus. I curse under my breath as I snap the book shut.
“Didn’t find who you were looking for?” the girl asks.
I run my hand over my mouth as I shake my head. “Nah. No luck.”
“Well, your losing streak continues because that, my friend,” she sets a tall drink down in front of me, smiling slyly, “is a Dark and Stormy, which just happens to be my signature drink. You will never again be able to have one without thinking of me.”
I eye the drink, then her smile, her arms crossed under her breasts, pushing them up into the neckline of her shirt.
I pull out some cash as I stand up, taking a conscious step back from the bar. “Thanks for the phone book and the drink.”
She holds up her hand when she sees the cash. “No, it’s on the house. My treat.”
The crowd around me goes wild over a play. Everyone is on their feet and shouting. I’m about to use the chaos as a distraction so I can throw my money down and flee the scene, but I’m attacked from behind.
“Did you find him?” Campbell asks in my ear. His front is pressed against my back in a too-close-for-comfort move that I’m sure is on purpose just to freak me out.
“No, he’s not in the book. We’ll have to think of another way to find him.”
“I know a way.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask distractedly. I hope that’s his cell phone digging into my hip. “How?”
Campbell points up to the TV hanging behind the girl. “That’s how.”
I look up at the screen to see the announcers going wild over a Florida State player. It’s the one who just made the scoring play. An offensive tackle. Pure strength packed in the most unlikely of small packages, according to the announcer. He just single-handedly punched a gaping hole in the defensive line, clearing the way for a seventy-two yard drive into the end zone. He’s a miracle. A beautiful crime against nature.
His name is Marcus Beck.
“No way,” I whisper.
“Ask and the universe will deliver,” Campbell muses, his breath hot against my ear.
I shake him off. “Did Alex see it?”
“Brody spotted it. Pointed it out to both of us.”