Enemy Exposure

by Meghan Rogers

  Misty’s forehead crinkled. “She isn’t special. At least, she wasn’t while I was there. They treated her just like everyone else.” Her eyes narrowed in confusion. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  I laced my fingers together, giving her a beat to prepare. “We found intel that suggests Python is important to KATO, so we located her and went after her. She’s at the IDA now.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

  I nodded. “We pulled her out of a house in Russia. We believe it was a test house, and we’re pretty positive she was used for some kind of medical experiment.”

  “They what?” Misty’s expression hardened. “What’s wrong with her?”

  I shrugged a shoulder. “We don’t know yet. But she’s not the fighter you talked about—at least, she’s not fighting them anymore. She’s afraid, and she’s doing exactly what KATO would want her to do.” I fought off a shudder thinking back to how our last conversation had gone. “She’s barely talking, but most of the time when she does, she’s saying your name.”

  Misty’s eyes lifted, and I understood why. Kindness between agents was rare. The fact that they had maintained a friendship at all was a miracle.

  “This is why we need your help,” I said. “KATO’s planning something massive. They’ve got agents planted around the world, and now they did something to Eliza—to Python—that we have reason to believe they want to do to everyone else. You’re in a position to do something to stop them.”

  She held my eyes and for a moment I thought she was in. Then she shook her head. “I can’t. Not after all this time. I’ve survived this long by staying as efficient and unnoticed as possible. What you’re asking—there’s too much to risk.”

  I leaned over the table, determined to make her understand. “We don’t know what they did to Python, but if they use it on everyone, you won’t be able to avoid it. You can’t outsmart medicine.”

  “I won’t tell them you came here,” she said, standing. “But I cannot give you what you want.”

  I had one more card to play. “AISE knows you’re KATO. They also know who you were before KATO took you, and they want to help. But if you won’t agree to work with us—if they think you’re loyal to KATO—I honestly don’t know what they’ll do to you.” I hadn’t wanted to force her into this, but I couldn’t leave here without her knowing that much.

  There was a flash of hope in her eye, but it fizzled out in seconds. “I’d rather be their enemy than KATO’s.”

  I bit my tongue and dug one of the phones out of my pocket and slid it across the table. “The offer stands if you change your mind.” She was the perfect candidate for this team. She resisted them, she wanted to get away, and she’d had a friendship with another KATO agent. Plus, she was smart enough to keep herself alive with subpar skills. I had to believe at some point she’d come around. “Is there anything I can say to Eliza? Something so she’ll know I’ve talked to you?”

  Misty thought for a moment. “As much as I tried to get her not to fight them, a part of me liked that she did. No one put up a fight like Python.” She swallowed. Centipede stood rigid behind her, and I caught a small tremble in her chin. “Before I was relocated, I told her not to let them take her light. Tell her that and she’ll know.”

  “Thank you.” I looked her right in the eye, hoping she understood how much this meant. Misty nodded. “Call me if you change your mind.”

  “I won’t,” she said as I stood.

  “You might.” I glanced at Centipede. Her arms were crossed and her hands gripped her biceps. “Let’s go.”

  I didn’t get what I wanted from this stop—at last not yet—but I had something I could use with Eliza. For now, that would have to be enough.

  Chapter Seventeen

  UNEXPECTED VENOM

  Centipede needed an extra push to leave Misty’s house.

  “You didn’t make her agree,” she said when we were outside.

  “I didn’t make you agree either,” I reminded her. “It’s a lot to take in.”

  “She could go back and tell KATO everything.” She was trying to be calm but I saw a touch of panic in her eyes.

  I shook my head. “She won’t. What she said today was consistent with her file. She is successful in KATO because she keeps her head down.”

  She crossed her arms. “I don’t like it. You need to go back in there and—”

  “Hey.” I cut her off completely. “I’m glad you’re so invested, but this is my operation. You don’t tell me how to run it.” Centipede glared at me, and seemed to be searching her brain for a leg to stand on, but she didn’t have one. “The way I see it, you have two options. You can either fall in line or take your chances with KATO.”

  She breathed hard through her nose and I knew what she was thinking. The damage had been done and she was too far in to back out.

  “Now, we have one more stop to make,” I said. “If you have questions I can answer them on the plane.”

  I started walking again, and this time she silently fell into step next to me.

  • • •

  Centipede didn’t say another word during our walk to the plane. I spent the time trying to keep the situation in perspective. She was the only one who still reported directly back to KATO headquarters. She didn’t have the safety of a cover agency to hide behind, which put her even more at risk than I had been. She was bound to push back on occasion.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, the second we were on the plane.

  I looked over the mission file Simmonds had sent with me. “We need to retrieve a painting,” I said. “It’s being kept in a warehouse in Turkey.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed. “Why do we have to do it?”

  “Because it’s a low-risk mission and we need practice,” I said. I left out the monetary importance. I didn’t want her to know how the IDA got its funding.

  She looked around the plane, taking in every detail. It was nicer than the planes KATO usually used, though the interior wasn’t all that special. I passed the mission file to her so she could see. “We’re going in together.”

  She looked at me sharply, and I understood why. This was entirely new to her. It was how I had felt the first time I went on a mission with Travis as a partner. Since it was just the two of us, I would be the one calling the shots. Which meant I could ease her into this. We would each have our own job, similar to how KATO worked. To Centipede, it would still feel like the solo missions she was used to, but both of our assignments were dependent on each other.

  I tipped the folder down so I could see it too. She was looking at the rough blueprints. “There’s a room here.” I pointed to the left of the page. “That’s where the sellers operate out of. It’s going to be your job to keep them from finding me in the room next door.” That was where that painting would be kept. “I’ll come in through the roof.”

  “I’ll get the painting,” Centipede said. There was no way I was letting her anywhere near the IDA’s money—especially not when she sounded so eager.

  “The painting is mine.” I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. “Unless you can’t handle a couple of art thieves.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course I can handle them.”

  “Good,” I said, shifting away from her. “Because if we can’t work together here, we’ll never stop KATO.”

  She breathed through her nose, and I could see she was trying to wrap her head around this.

  “I don’t want to go back to them,” she said. Her voice broke in a way I’d never heard from her. I met her eyes and I was taken aback by the pain and determination they held. “You know, it’s worse for me than it ever was for you.”

  This wasn’t a debate I wanted to have. “It was hard for both of us.”

  “It was.” She nodded. “But I was a Korean who was beaten repeatedly by an American. It was harder for
me.”

  I blinked. I hadn’t thought about it like that before.

  “How long have you been off the Gerex?” she asked, sitting back.

  She was hesitant but genuinely curious. I rubbed the crease of my elbow, giving myself a beat before I answered. “It’s been four months, three weeks, and five days. And I can figure out the seconds if you really want to know.”

  She swallowed visibly. “How does it feel?”

  “Amazing.” I thought about all of the times I’d gone running to my handler, desperate for the drug, knowing he held all the power. It really did feel fantastic to know no one controlled me like that. Then those thoughts were replaced by the shaking and the extreme uncontrollable need that still filled me on a semi-regular basis. “And also terrible.”

  She watched me carefully, taking in every detail. “Do you miss it?”

  I remembered how it felt to have the needle break my skin and feel that incredible rush—

  I snapped my head away from her, focusing on the sky outside the window on my left. I refused to let myself go there, but I knew my silence said everything.

  • • •

  Centipede and I moved in on the warehouse together. I had a harness on, prepared to rappel down from the skylight. Centipede was going in the front door. According to the IDA, this location was a warehouse for an underground art auction. Everything in this place was stolen, though most didn’t have rewards attached to them. The auction was slated for the next night, and the operators of this venue were staying on the premises until all of the merchandise was purchased and claimed.

  “You know what you have to do, right?” I asked Centipede before we separated.

  “These are low-level art thieves.” She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “I can keep them occupied for five minutes.”

  I took a step way from her. “Give me three minutes to get in position, then make your approach.”

  “I know.” We’d gone over this five times before we got off the plane, but I wanted to make sure she knew what she was doing. “You better hurry up.” She tapped the watch I had given her. It was already running, counting down my three-minute prep.

  I narrowed my eyes at her, but headed toward the fire escape on the side of the building. It was the middle of the day by now, but the area we were in was practically deserted. Reaching the roof undetected wouldn’t be a problem.

  There were five skylights along the top of the warehouse. Three of them showed no signs of art or people. One showed three people inside, who had to be the sellers. The last skylight gave way to the collection. All of the art was boarded up, making it impossible to distinguish one painting from the other. I pulled out my tablet and plugged the dimensions of the artwork into a program, then let the tablet scan the room. It located the painting in seconds.

  It was off to the side, propped up against the wall—the smallest of the three that rested there.

  I jumped back over to the office and saw the three occupants were involved in a tense discussion. I caught a glimpse of Centipede through the door window. She hadn’t acted on them yet, which I found impressive. As long as they were occupying themselves, there was no reason to interfere.

  I went back to the collection room, eased the skylight open and hooked my rope to the edge. I lowered myself down quietly, paying attention to the voices in the next room, which were getting louder and louder. I released the rope, quickly moving to the painting the tablet had singled out. My fingers had just brushed the board protecting the painting when a sound a few paces away made me freeze.

  I began to turn around, but I hadn’t gotten more than half a step when a hand twisted my arm behind my back. While the force was enough to bring me to my knees, it was the needle against my neck that made my heart stop.

  “You have been a very bad agent.” The voice was female, with a thick Turkish accent. She released my arm and circled around me, dragging the needle along my collarbone. I forced myself not to react when I saw her. Her face was round and framed with wavy hair that looked largely unkempt. She cocked her head to the side, similar to how a dog might if it saw something curious.

  I knew her. Her code name was Venom and she was a KATO agent stationed in Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency. We had her file back at the IDA. She wasn’t based out of headquarters, but I’d heard her name tossed around at lot. She was the first person we ruled out for this team, at Travis’s request, because of how much delight she seemed to get out of her assassinations. In the back of my mind, I knew she was in this country, but we would only be on the ground for less than an hour. I had no reason to believe she would have found us so quickly.

  “You’re Venom,” I said. Because I had to say something.

  An ugly smile snaked across her dry cracked lips. She was pleased to be known. “And you are Viper.” She trailed the needle back up my neck, before letting it come to rest just to the right of my windpipe. “There are people who are looking for you.”

  My heart raced as the needle bent my skin. “How did you find me?”

  “You are in my territory. I am always on watch.” She added a little pressure to the needle on my neck. “I want to kill you, but they say I can’t.” She looked genuinely disappointed, and even a little irritated by this. “They say I should give you the Gerex instead. I’m to give it to you until you are unconscious, then I will bring you to them and be rewarded.”

  My heart pounded furiously. Everything I’d heard about Venom told me she was more than a little unstable, and now she had Gerex at my neck. And she wasn’t just talking about getting me hooked again. She was talking about an overdose. I tried to fight off the sheer panic that was forcing its way into my mind, but I was losing.

  This was it. This would be how I’d go back to KATO, and I’d be higher than I could handle.

  I had been trying to contain my KATO memories, but in that moment, every single one flashed before my eyes. The burn on my neck, the fingernails they yanked, the teeth pulled. The bruises on Centipede’s neck would be a kindness compared to the treatment I would receive. I was certain I would beg to be taken to the execution room just to escape it. I had one fleeting desperate wish that it was Travis in the other room, not Centipede. But I squashed it. Because that wasn’t real. Venom in front of me with Gerex—that was.

  I considered leaning into the needle, letting it break my skin, and accepting the only advantage that would come with going back to KATO. Then I heard the voices in the next room getting louder. It snapped me back into focus. I couldn’t give in this easily—not with Centipede right next door. I brought her into this, and she was my responsibility.

  Venom leered over me. Her body seemed to be made up of nothing but angles. Her finger found the top of the syringe and I pushed myself to find my voice.

  “Hang on!” My words were rough and panicked but enough to stop her.

  She squinted at me, looking very confused. “Why do you want me to wait?”

  I raised my chin enough to look her in the eye. As much as I hated it, I only had one card to play here, and I was pretty sure I had an in.

  “You don’t like that you have to listen to KATO, do you?” Between Travis’s reaction and what I’d heard, I was convinced Venom didn’t have a problem with KATO’s morals. But moments ago I had seen a discrepancy between her and the agency. She didn’t want to drug me right now. She wanted to kill me. It was KATO who said she couldn’t.

  “It is not my choice.” She moved to make the final push, but I spoke faster. The voices in the other room had turned to shouts and I tried not to look at the door behind Venom or think about what Centipede might have gotten into.

  “What if it was your choice?” Her eyes slid from her task to focus on me. I kept talking. “I have a way for you to get outside of KATO’s control.”

  She lessened the pressure, but only slightly, then scrutinized my face intently. “You are
not lying.” She sounded mildly surprised to realize this.

  “No, I’m not,” I said. “I did it. I can help you do it too, but you’d have to help me in return.”

  She took the needle off my skin and took a step back. It was then that I realized my hands were shaking. I thought about attacking her, but in that instant, I wasn’t sure I could beat her. She watched me thoughtfully. “But KATO could catch me doing this, yes?” she asked.

  “They could,” I said. “Which is why you’d have to be careful with what you say to them and when you talk to us. We can also get your Turkish agency to help with a cover.”

  “And if this works I can be free of them?” The hopeful note in her voice would have been heartbreaking if she weren’t holding my future in between her fingertips.

  “Yes.” I glanced at the needle in her hand. “You know how you feel like you can’t live without Gerex?” She nodded. “Well, you can,” I said. “I do.”

  Her eyes narrowed on me, her expression crossed between wonder and disbelief. “You do not take the drug?”

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t for a few months now. It takes some time, though, and it’s not something you should do on your own.” Outside the room, I heard doors opening and closing. Then the voices were angrier and closer than ever. We were running out of time.

  She jerked her head to the side, which I noticed was a habit, and watched me, her face scrunched in contemplation. “Yes, I will do it.” She put the needle away. “I do not like listening to them. I wish to kill whoever I want.” The voices outside stopped.

  Then the door opened and Venom whirled around as Centipede came charging through. Both girls reached for their guns, and I jumped in between them.

  “Hold on,” I said, my arms outstretched. “We’re on the same team.” I made quick introductions. Venom didn’t seem at all fazed by her new teammate. Centipede, however, was less than thrilled about the latest development.