by Meli Raine
I want to lie to her.
“No.”
But I can't.
Alarm fills those wide, naïve eyes as she just blinks.
“We never know. All we can do is plan and think and do our best.”
“That feels like it's not enough. For them.” Smacking her palm over her mouth, she regrets the word feel.
How do I know?
I feel it.
“It's okay,” I say, meaning it twice, on two levels. “Do your job. Do it well. I'll do mine, too. The rest will sort itself out. Follow your instincts.” I squeeze her hand. She leans in to the touch. “Your instincts are good.”
“Thank you.”
Footsteps in the hall, crisp and purposeful, tear us apart, Phillipa wiping her eyes hastily before picking up a baby who didn't need attention, but who is thrilled nonetheless to be staring into her sweet face.
He gives her a raspberry.
We chuckle just as Glen enters the room.
“How nice to have a job where you get to laugh at beings who cannot speak,” she says. “I only get to do that when they're dead.” The gruff attitude is meant to clear the room of Phillipa.
It works.
“We need to talk,” Glen says to me.
“Yes, we do,” I counter, taking her into my apartment. I don't offer her a seat.
“You first,” she says, taking one anyhow. In another life, we would be two sisters hanging out, having coffee or tea, wasting hours just being.
Not in this life, though.
“I know more about who we really are.”
“How?”
“It doesn't matter.”
“It certainly does.” The way she reacts tells me she already knows.
“What do you know, Glen?”
A beat of silence. “I think we both know the same information.”
“That we were stolen when we were four?”
“Stolen? Pffft. Rescued.”
Emotion has a role. Use it at the right moments and it's more powerful than self-control. Calling on that inside, I let it fly.
Which means I have to trust it, because it won't listen to reason now. People have a biological need to trust someone. Just one person.
Especially when they're blood.
“My dreams! That really was our mother! The files say she was a CIA agent who discovered the early stages of the Stateless project and our leaders eliminated her. Took us. Stole us from her and murdered our mother, Glen!”
“She was a traitor to humanity, Kina.”
“Your real name is Madison. Mine is Sawyer. I've seen the files with my own eyes. I've searched for our real names. The cover story claims she threw us off a bridge and jumped, too. That's what I've found in newspaper archives. But it's all a lie, Glen! ”
The slap comes fast, furious, and hard.
“You're ranting, Kina. It's obvious the attack from Brian and Jordan did something to you. Something emotional. Something deeply troubling.”
“I'm not inventing this! It's in our files.”
“Which files? I've never heard any of this before.”
She's lying.
“What if we're not rescued children who get a second chance at a good life through Stateless? What if we were loved and wanted, by parents who worked for the government and who stumbled across something bad? Something wrong? My God, Glen, what if we're the bad guys?”
This time, I dodge her blow.
And grab her wrist, wrenching her arm behind her, careful to angle her shoulder blade in the most painful way possible.
A spasm wracks her, making my grip shift, just as Angelica appears, gun pointed straight at me.
“Let her go.”
We are raised to undermine authority for the sake of chaos. To lie, cheat, steal, hurt, all without second thoughts or conscience.
I draw on my training.
I elevate.
And the world turns red.
“Or,” I whisper in my sister's ear, a guttural sound of control being lost, of pain coming forth from her throat, “what if it turns out you were wrong?”
“Kina! Stop it! Why are you doing this?” Glen hisses, pulling hard, her movements thwarted by my hold. A low-grade panic seeps into her skin. I can feel it. Taste it. Smell it. She is me and I am her and right now, she’s realizing she cannot get out of my grasp.
I am stronger. This is impossible. Her sense of how the world works is shattering with every inch of my skin that dominates hers.
“Oh, Glen,” I hiss back, remembering her words from so long ago. “Don’t be pathetic.”
A jolt, like lightning striking her, ripples through Glen’s body. She fights harder.
She fails.
“Angelica!” Glen shouts. I don’t need to look. The gun’s on me, but for some reason, Angelica’s finger is frozen.
I tighten my grip. It feels so good to use my arms to hold her in place, my biceps growing, expanding, locking in place as they do the work I’ve wanted to do for so long. Each maneuver she uses to upend me does not succeed, sweat breaking out along her hairline, her legs ready to lunge, my foot moving to destabilize her. Nothing my sister does frees her.
And every time I best her, something in me gains flight.
“You’re the pathetic one, Kina. This is bad,” she grunts, her words fueling me further. Desperate words for someone who is top of her class, the lone wolf in The Field who shares a bed with the President of the United States. Accustomed to mastery, she’s bound in a simple wrestling match with her lesser sister.
The one she did everything possible to leave behind.
“Bad?” I whisper, the tip of my tongue touching my inner lip, still feeling the raw spots from earlier, when my own blood became a defensive weapon. “You want to talk about bad?”
Our bodies find pleasure in so many different ways — food, sex, scent, entertainment, sport —
And, yes, this.
My lips brush the curl of her ear as I laugh, years of frustration leading up to this moment, the bloom of elevation sweeping through my body, up the base of my skull, rippling across my scalp like an electromagnetic impulse, fueling all that I am and all that I wish to become as I add:
“What if I'm the bad guy?”
* * *
—
Now that they know their true identities, Kina and Callum — or is it Sawyer and Wyatt? — face a series of enemies — some from within the Stateless project — and find unlikely allies as they learn that their entire way of life may be a lie.
Fulfilling The Mission means redefining it — and themselves — as dark forces work to kill them both.
But what if it turns out they truly can’t trust anyone? Including each other?
Continue the story in Traceless, Book 2 in the Stateless trilogy by USA Today bestselling author Meli Raine.
Find the audiobook wherever you listen, the story continues with Andi Arndt and Joe Arden narrating.
* * *
Get Traceless now.