by Meli Raine
“Nothing you need to know,” Josephs says. “But you do need to know that the way Romeo died is a problem.”
“The way? The cyanide?”
“No. That he was left alone in a room with McDuff.”
“You think he spilled secrets?”
“I don't know. McDuff, though, well – it's personal for him. He doesn't know about Stateless, but he knows little pieces of it. No way has he put them together to find the whole, but he's closing in.”
“You said it's personal for him? Why? Is he Stateless?”
“Too old to be Stateless.”
“Then what?”
“You'll see.”
“How will I see?”
“Because he's your new assignment.”
“My what?”
Josephs stands, the movement ponderous, gravid, dull with a kind of sadness I don't understand. A long sigh pours out of him, and then he says, “You need to kill McDuff.”
“Okay.”
“As soon as possible. We're dispatching you to DC.”
“Sir? I thought I was here to hide out. Lay low.”
“It's not that simple. Turns out, McDuff saw that.” He points to my birthmark. “And he is out to find you.”
“Why?”
“To avenge his girlfriend, of course.”
“So it's mutual. We both want to find each other.”
A weird grin covers his face. “That's one way of putting it.” He starts to leave.
“That's it?”
“Isn't that enough? What more do you want?”
“Nothing, sir.” I'm not about to draw negative attention to myself. My hand itches to read the flash drive, but I can't.
Not yet.
“Sleep here. Clean up. Head back to DC tomorrow. You can surveil him and figure out what he knows. Don't kill him immediately. Spend a few months gathering intel. Right about now he's sitting in a hospital waiting room, wondering if Lily Thornton is about to die. He's weak and vulnerable and that's when guys get sloppy.”
A hard look tells me he thinks I have the potential to be that way, too.
Svetnu stands. “Callum. Goodnight.”
They leave.
I stare out the window.
Air enters me, leaves me, the cycle uncounted for a long stretch of time, until my fingers graze my pocket and I remember.
The clock now reads 5:01 a.m. Wired with a renewed sense of purpose, illicit and tempting, I make sure to find the connector cables I need for the flash drive and phone. I'm already wearing my gun. Leaving the room is no big deal, the security guys giving me odd looks as I walk into the woods.
No one stops me.
And as word gets out, I'm sure no one will, either.
The waterfalls are a balm as I quickly hook everything up, hunched over my phone in the shadows. Drones could catch me, but I have to take that chance.
The first files load quickly on my phone. Flipping through, I read nothing new about me.
Until I get to the seventeenth file.
A woman named Alice Mogrett has a series of handwritten letters to another woman named Mary. Then a private investigator's reports from 1993. What the hell does this have to do with me? I wasn't even born then.
Why does the name Alice Mogrett ring a bell, though?
History class pings inside me. A vice president. A Supreme Court justice. Alice was his wife? His daughter? Something like that. Why the hell would private documents attached to her be in my file?
The file I can't see with my own access.
And why the hell does Kina have access to this?
A crunch to my left makes me set down the phone and grab my gun. Attacks don't stop just because Svetnu orders them to cease. He made that much clear. I'm in a lone wolf situation, like it or not.
“It's me,” Kina says, moving to sit next to me, ignoring my gun. She's in new, clean clothes, her hair slicked back off her face, wet. A shower and a change of outfit still makes her look wan and stressed.
I reach for her hand. She doesn't pull it away.
Eyes glued to my screen, I keep scrolling, opening and closing folders until I finally see it.
The report on what happened when I was four.
“Subjects terminated,” it says, going into a series of short sentences in code. I've seen this kind of report before, but this time, there are pictures. Pictures of people face down, dark blood covering the backs of their heads, a bald man on the ground next to a campfire.
A lanky pre-teen with one arm jutting at a strange angle, a shoe off.
A woman's hair spills over a folding chair, her body on a picnic table bench, mouth open, one eye gazing lifelessly at the camera, a hole where the other eye should be.
“Callum,” Kina says, squeezing my hand. She points to a word. “Wyatt. Four years old. Acquired. It says 'acquired.'”
“Wyatt,” I whisper.
“The man was beaten to death. Woman shot. Wyatt was acquired. Other kid beaten to death, except...” I scroll on. “Here's a small note. Eleven year old lived. Grandmother took custody. Made to look like she's crazy for trying to find a four year old with no birth certificate.” I squint, trying to read the margin notes.
“That must be you.”
The next document is a gut punch.
Two little boys, blondes, one about eleven with his arm around a much younger kid.
“Do the kids in the pictures have names?”
“No. None of this does. The parents aren't noted. The other kid doesn't have a name. It's an incomplete file. Why isn't there more?”
“Because they don't want you to know more.”
“What about you?”
“Me?” Her fingers dig into my knee. “What about me?
I find her file. I point. She nods.
I flip.
Subject terminated, it says.
Kina gasps.
Her file is co-mingled with Glen’s, and has pictures galore, different from mine. Detailed and crystal clear, the file is easy to read and lays it all out.
Paula Moray, CIA agent. Mother of twin girls conceived through in-vitro fertilization. Single, forty-three. Returned to the field after six months of maternity leave. Assigned to study extremist groups. Stumbled across nascent Stateless project.
Identified for termination.
The twins weren't supposed to be at home that day, but the operatives killed Paula anyhow. My eyes rush over the details, trying to ignore the curly-haired blonde girls who look like carbon copies of each other.
“My mother,” Kina whispers. “From my dream.”
“Your real names are Sawyer and Madison.”
She squints. “The one with the birthmark on her hip is Madison. That's Glen. So I'm Sawyer.” Hearing her say the names fills me with a sick feeling.
Wyatt.
My name is Wyatt.
The phone buzzes suddenly, spilling out of my hands from the shock of interruption, the flash drive reader pulling out, the cord and flash drive falling to the ground and rolling down the riverbank, into the pond.
“SHIT!” I scream.
“It's okay. I have mine,” she says, pulling hers out.
“Can't leave evidence.” The riverbank is soft after a recent rain, and like it or not, I'm going in. Peeling off my jacket and shirt, I climb down, fishing around in the muck. Kina's behind me, eyes everywhere. The mud is cool as I flatten my palm and pat the murky water to find the device. Something soft scurries out from under my palm at one point.
Probably a frog.
The corner of something hard brushes against my pinkie. Aha. I curl my fingers around it and pull up.
It's a rock.
Muttering curses to myself, I try again. This time, I succeed. Tree roots scrape against my lower abs, my belt buckle catching on one as I stretch a little more than is comfortable, but I get the damn flash drive.
Relief floods her face as I come back to her.
So does a flicker of something else as her eyes take in my half-dressed
body.
“Soaked,” I grunt as I put on my shirt, shaking off as much water as possible before dressing.
“Mmmmm,” is all she says.
“It's unreadable.” I gesture to the flashdrive and connector cord. “Maybe if I dry it out, it'll work.”
“We can take mine and duplicate it.” She pats her pocket.
Before I can tell her to just give it to me, my phone buzzes. I read the message on my screen. It's a notice from Svetnu, telling me my flight leaves in two hours.
Change of plans.
“No kidding,” I mutter at the screen. Change of plans, indeed.
“Callum, what does all of this mean?”
“It means we aren't who we think we are. But we knew that already.”
“Did we?”
“Yes. You and I knew we came here when we were four. That isn't new.”
“We were told our parents were abusive. That we were rescued. Why would they kill them, then? And my mother – ” The word catches in her throat, as if caught on a hook and snagged, “ – used in vitro fertilization to conceive us. People don't do that unless they desperately want a baby. We were wanted, Callum.” She frowns. “Wyatt?”
“Call me Callum,” I growl.
“We've been lied to in so many ways. Over and over.”
“All for the good of the Stateless project.”
“Really? You really believe that?”
“I don't know what I believe, Kina.” I pull her closer. “I don't know who to trust.”
“Years ago, you trusted me.”
“I still do. You're the only person I can.”
She stays silent, breathing hard against my chest. I reach down and touch her chin. She turns toward me, the sun rising over her shoulder, the woods at peace.
“Do you trust me, Kina?”
She shivers. “I do. You killed those men for me.”
“No. I killed them for me. I couldn't bear to let that happen to you. I wasn't here nine years ago to stop what happened to you, but I'll be here from now on if you'll have me.”
The rise and fall of her chest is my only answer.
My phone buzzes again. I ignore it.
“We're taught,” she says, her face inches from mine, “to lie to each other. To gain an advantage. To detach emotionally so we can always find the best approach to have the upper hand. Manipulation is our emotional outlet, Callum. We find satisfaction from it.”
“I don't.”
“You do,” she insists. “In the field. You've been trained to find that satisfaction. It's not something you unwind easily.”
“I'm not like Glen or Jason or those guys, though, Kina. I don't enjoy the thrill of the hunt. Pride, for me, comes from knowing I'm a worthy adversary as I proceed in fulfilling my mission. Not in making other people weak, but in being stronger.”
We're on the edge of something bigger than both of us. She has to trust me. Has to. The only way any of this will work is if she can find it in herself to give me that chance.
Curling up against my chest, she lets out a sound of pain and pleasure, an odd combination. “If I don't trust you, I'm alone. If I do, I might be a fool. What do I do, Callum?”
Bzzzz. My phone intrudes again. I ignore it. Time is wasting, but nine years ago they gave me two minutes to say goodbye.
This time, I'm the one who decides how long I have with her.
I tip her face up to me. “I can't decide that for you.”
And then just like that, she decides.
She chooses to kiss me.
Clumsy and a bit awkward, she presses her lips against mine, my mouth moving fast to change the tenor of the kiss, her body warm against mine as she clings to me. We're quenching so many thirsts in one moment, the embrace so risky, the kiss a step too far into emotional territory we're supposed to have abandoned long ago.
This woman is so much more than I ever realized, stronger than she should be, smarter than anyone gives her credit for, and more passionate than I could have hoped as the kiss lingers, my tongue parting her lips, my hands holding on for dear life as she opens herself up to me, giving me access to a world that only exists inside her.
And a part of me that only lives there, too.
“Callum,” she says softly, moving her face so we're cheek to cheek.
“Call me by my real name.”
“Wyatt.”
It feels too distant. More transgressive than that kiss.
“Sawyer,” I murmur against her temple, kissing her, stroking her hair.
“No,” she says, a catch in her throat, the strangle a sign of tears. “No. It doesn't feel right.”
I give her distance.
“I didn't mean that! You feel right.” Tightening her grip on me, she kisses me on the lips once, gently, chastely. “The names, though...”
“Yeah. I know.”
Bzzzzz.
“You have to go. Meetings?”
“It's worse than that. They want me to leave the compound.”
“Leave?” Panic pours into her face. “Again?”
“An assignment in DC. But I won't be gone long.”
“Please. No.”
“Kina.” Sawyer, my mind rebels. “I'll bring you with me.”
“I can't!”
“Why not?”
“The children.” She shudders. “Those trainees came into the nursery to rape me. They did it near my – the babies.”
The my does not go unnoticed.
“You view them as your own?”
“I do. I shouldn't, but I do. If I'm gone, they are in more danger.”
“Svetnu wouldn't let that happen.”
“Svetnu let me be the training body, Callum. He isn't your friend.”
“I know that.”
“I trust you,” she says, standing. “I don't trust anyone else. Are you sure you have to go into the field?”
“Yes.”
“Then go. Come back when you can. And help me.”
“Help you, what?”
“Help me make sure the children are safe. I have a bad feeling about all of this.”
“Me, too.”
“Then let's fix it,” she says, kissing me one more time, a quick goodbye kiss designed to close a conversation. “Together.”
“How?”
“You're a leader now, Callum.” She yawns, walking backwards on the trail, the sun rising in full behind her. “Figure it out. Complete your mission. Then help me complete mine.”
And with that, she walks away, the taste of her still in my mouth.
Bzzzzz.
This time, it's the driver for my trip to the airport.
I have an hour.
My brother is alive. He wasn't killed by our parents. He was killed by early Stateless operatives, people like Svetnu and Josephs, the men and women now in power over people like me.
Except he wasn't actually killed.
They think he was killed.
And the secret file makes it clear he's alive. Someone in the Stateless project is hiding information from the rest of the leadership.
Somewhere out there is a man seven years older than me, connected by blood and trauma, who thinks I'm dead, too.
I will find him. I'll find him and come back here, reuniting with Kina and helping her with the children.
But first, I need to complete my mission.
I need to kill McDuff.
Chapter 30
Kina
* * *
Sleep comes in fits and starts, little pieces like torn paper you try to tape together to make a full sheet. My body quivers and twitches, muscles seizing for long stretches before I consciously will them to relax. Every limb seems to need to be called out, acknowledged, and asked to defer to my wishes.
It is exhausting.
Sleep turns out to be harder to get than the truth.
The newborn – I think of her as Tilly, but only sometimes are my name suggestions adopted – wakes up at seven a.m., and Phillipa begs me to help. Dark cir
cles under her eyes attest to a tough night.
I'm not the only one suffering here.
Tilly's mouth sucks on a breast that isn't there. The tiny bottle of formula will have to suffice. An eager mouth and a perfect latch make quick work of the nutrition. I move her so she's perched on my shoulder, her mouth on a burping cloth, my hand patting her until the inevitable, inelegant digestive feat is accomplished.
If only all missions were so clearly defined and attainable.
“Kina.” Phillipa's tired voice startles me, which makes Tilly tremble, my body going into automatic soothing mode.
“Yes?”
“I – ” Her uncertainty fills me with a strange sense of hope.
“Go on,” I whisper, trying to make it safe for her. I know what's coming. I can feel it.
“If I had known they were attacking you, I would have stopped it.”
“Thank you.”
“I would do anything for you.” Phillipa was one of the toddlers in the nursery the year I started here. She was older, nearly five, and considered lower functioning. Every week I would play with her, work on language – though I didn't know that's how I was helping her.
I just thought we were playing.
Now nineteen, she's a wonderful asset in the nursery.
She's also universally viewed as the weakest in her class.
Then again, she's here. She survived The Test. How weak can she be?
“Thank you,” I whisper. “I appreciate that.”
“I mean it,” she says, her voice filled with emotion. I want to warn her. Stop her. Slap her. Do whatever it takes to make her stop, because if the leaders hear her, they'll punish her. The scrubbed-clean hallway hides what happened here last night.
My memory doesn't.
“I know you do.”
“The children are everything. You're so good with the babies. You've been so good with – ” Her voice breaks. “Me. With everyone. Oh, Kina, what are we going to do? Romeo is dead and all these people are coming back and you're being attacked and - ” A sob rises in her throat. She swallows it down, like drowning a person, shoving the head under water, holding it there and using time as a weapon.
“It will all be fine. It will. The right people have a good plan.”
“Are you sure?”