Cursed
Date: 2017-02-07 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Urban Fantasy; Fantasy; Paranormal; Thriller; Fiction; Crime; Shapeshifters; Mystery; Magic
Description: My name is Mac Brennan and that’s the only thing I can remember about myself. Not why I woke up in a dumpster. Not why my right arm is as black as pitch and covered in glowing red tattoos, and certainly not why a vicious death cult is after me. Actually, that last part isn’t true. I know why the death cult is after me. It’s because I saved that damned girl from them. I didn’t know who she was at the time, but I’d have done it anyway. I just don’t like it when girls get beat up, call me old fashioned. Still, I can tell she’s hiding something behind those devilish eyes, and if I want to find out

May Contain Spies

J.A. Cipriano

Copyright © 2015 J.A. Cipriano

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For my son Damon,

When you can read, we’ll read this together.

Chapter 1

Good girls did not smile at strange, new boys. And I was a good girl, wasn’t I? I thought I was, but when I saw Stephen, it made me wonder… not if I was a good girl, oh no, it wasn’t that simple because, when I stared into Stephen’s sapphire eyes, I wondered if I wanted to be a good girl.

Stephen was so beautiful that looking at him was like watching the sunrise. It wasn’t just his high cheekbones and his perfect nose that made him look so damn good. It was more how he carried himself, how his clothes clung to his body just so and in that way to show off his muscled physique. It made me want to jump over the counter and run my hands along his chest, made me want to feel his skin pressed against mine.

I swallowed. My mouth hadn’t been dry before he had walked up to the counter, had it? He said something, but I couldn’t hear it over the hammering in my chest. My heart was beating so hard, it sounded like a runaway train.

No one in my entire sixteen year life had ever made me feel this way before, made me want to leap onto them and never let go. It was a new sensation for me, and that alone made it scary. He was so pretty that I almost forgot…

His golden brows knit themselves together in confusion, and I shook my head. With deftness I hadn’t known he possessed, he placed a forty-two ounce drink cup on the counter and gestured at it with one perfect hand. His fingers were so slender and delicate. They looked like something out of a jewelry commercial. Yet, they had a sense of strength to them I couldn’t quite define, a certain nimbleness I had never seen before.

“Diet Coke,” he said, and his words were like rich cream, full bodied and definitely bad for you. They danced over my ears and sent shivers down my spine, tightening things low inside my body. “No ice,” he continued.

I don’t know how I did it, but I somehow managed to nod dumbly at him, and swept his cup off the counter. Ha! I didn’t knock it over… not that time at least. A smile crept along his face until he was beaming, and it was like someone turned on the sun. I blushed and took a step back.

Hastily, I turned my back to him as I headed for the soda machine. I was also suddenly aware of how ridiculous I looked in my bright red and white uniform. It even had a matching hat.

The worst part was that the uniform had no curves to speak of. I knew the reason why, my mom hadn’t wanted to sell sex in her restaurant, and she felt that putting everyone in one of these things helped that.

I reached up and tucked a loose strand of brown hair beneath my cap and sighed. Stephen Jacobs had been coming in here every day for the last two or three weeks. I hadn’t seen him before, and I only knew his name because I’d seen it on a credit card he’d used to pay a couple times. Truthfully, our exchanges had been limited to his standard order of chili fries and Diet Coke, which, I’ll admit struck me as a bit strange. If you’re going for the chili fries you might as well get the regular Coke.

Still, there was something about him that made me want to tie up the angel on my right shoulder and leave him in a dumpster, and it wasn’t just his natural good looks. Sure, I liked to look at him, who wouldn’t? With his tousled blond hair and good-natured smile, he was definitely eye-candy. Yet, there was something… alluring about him. Whatever it was, he was definitely making something in my gut say “me gusta.”

“One Diet Coke, no ice,” I called as I turned back around.

The way Stephen Jacobs stared at me made my insides turn to mush. When he looked at me I didn’t even feel like a person. I felt like a thing, a thing someone might want to possess. He smiled at me, but the look never reached his eyes. They were as cold as a glacier as he tapped one finger to his forehead in a salute.

“Thank you,” he said in that same sing-songy dream voice he used. He turned and went back to his table and sat there… staring at me. I glanced at the wall clock. I still had three hours left on my shift. I sighed again and turned to glance around for another worker, but I was the only cashier who worked this shift. The only other person here was the cook.

Stephen was still staring at me. He raised his Coke toward me as though toasting, and in that moment, I knew he was dangerous because if given the opportunity, I’d well… I glanced down at my register as a blush spread across my cheeks. It was going to be a long night.

The next hour crawled by like a snail swimming through molasses. Then again, it hadn’t helped that I kept alternating between staring at the clock and trying to think of reasons to go talk to him.

When the night finally ended, Stephen disappeared, vanishing into the ether like a ghost before I could work up the courage to say even a single word. That had been about an hour ago, and now I was home staring at a backpack full of homework. Part-time afterschool jobs and homework was not a good combination.

I flopped down at my desk and sighed. Which was pretty much when my phone rang, scaring the crap out of me. I snatched the phone from my desk and glared at it.

“Hey Lisa,” I said into the phone. “What’s up?”

“Did you see Stephen at the restaurant today? He’s totally into you, Abby,” my best friend, Lisa, told me without even so much as a “hello, how are you?” “If I had a guy that hot staring at me every day, I’d be all over him.”

I smirked into my cell phone. I could always count on Lisa to be totally boy crazy. The walls of her room were covered in pinups of the hottest new singers, shirtless of course, and she often carried around a small binder in which she would continually write her name, Lisa Ann, with whomever she was crushing on at the time’s last name.

Still though, except for the time that she had accidently fallen in that one guy’s lap at Homecoming last year, I was positive she had never even touched a boy before. It was easy to be boy crazy in your mind, not so much in practice.

“No you wouldn’t, Lisa.” I laughed into the phone. “You’d totally do the same thing as me, which is be struck totally dumb the second he started talking to you. You’d probably turn bright red like at Homecoming last year with Russell Grant.”

Russell Grant had been the aforementioned boy who owned the lap Lisa had collapsed into. Not one to make a scene, Russell had tried to help her up, but they’d wound up so tangled together in the gobs of pink and purple fabric that made up her dress, he’d fallen on top of her. To make matters worse, they’d actually rolled into the middle of the dance floor, so twisted together by their clothing, they’d both had to partially undress in front of the whole school before the teachers were able to free them.

“Nope!” Her voice echoed in my ears, a little too loud for the conversation we were having. “That event freed me. I am at perfect peace with my body now. I am sure I could go right up to that boy and not be struck deaf and dumb.” I knew she was nodding to herself on the other end of the phone. In fact, I was pretty sure she had already slipped into daydream mode.

“Yeah… maybe,” I sighed. “But I don’t think it’s meant to be. I can’t help but think that even if something did happen, well it wouldn’t be all ponies and sunshine.”

“I bet he’s got a third nipple.” And here we go. Lisa was about to launch into a tirade about how he probably had some kind of deformity and was hiding it because no one could look so ooey gooey delicious and not have some kind of debilitating flaw. Then, when I’d start to defend the fact that he probably didn’t have a tail or secret arm, she’d pronounce I did, in fact, like him. She’d even draw out the word like. That’s when I’d hang up on her. You might say I’d been to this particular rodeo before.

“Um… Leese, I think I’m just going to skip to the part where I hang up on you. It’s getting late, and I’m trying to get ready for bed. Besides, I still haven’t studied for that math test.”

A loud sigh emanated from the phone. “Fine, but when you get to problem twenty-three, the answer is twenty-seven. It’s easier if you work it backwards. You won’t be able to figure it out otherwise.”

“I will too! I’m not as dumb as you think I am,” I snarled into the phone.

“Uh… huh. That’s why you have a perfectly good guy crushing on you, and you haven’t even asked him his name. You found out by sneaking a look at his credit card.”

“Shut up!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lisa replied. “Get to work. The first ten problems… those are the easy ones.”

She hung up, and I was left listening to an empty phone. Just because Lisa was the class smarty pants didn’t give her the right to call me stupid. I was in all the same classes as her… I just didn’t get the grades she did. But no one else did either! I grumbled and flopped down on my bed. In truth, I’d finished my math homework while I was at work. I just didn’t want Lisa to bother me about Stephen anymore.

I didn’t know what it was about him, but he just made me uncomfortable. Whenever I was around him, no scratch that, whenever he was close to me and I was looking at him, I became a complete klutz. I wished I had a better explanation for it, but I didn’t.

I had even gone so far as to try and track him down one day at school, but I hadn’t even seen him there. What’s worse is not only had no one seen him at school, no one had known who he was. That made no sense. A guy that hot would surely have attracted the attention of Shelly Johnson, Folsom High’s resident queen bee. She’d have definitely dumped her slavering idiot of a boyfriend in a heartbeat for a chance at a guy like Stephen.

The only place I ever saw Stephen was in my mom’s restaurant. He always showed up just a few minutes after my shift started and always left a few minutes before it ended. The only time Lisa had seen him was when she’d come to visit me after school today. She’d sat there drooling until my mom had asked her to help in back. Then, Lisa suddenly had tons of things to do and had scampered home.

My mom was great like that. She always knew how to make Lisa go away when I couldn’t. It was a real skill, let me tell you, because, even though she was my best friend in the whole world, she could be a little grating at times. Still though, Lisa was right. I should at least say something to Stephen. If he was going to sit and stare at me all day, the least he could do is engage me in thoughtful and meaningful conversation.

I smiled and stared at the ceiling of my bedroom. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I was going to talk to Stephen Jacobs, and I was going to say more than “would you like to make that a large?”

Chapter 2

I yawned and glanced at the Spanish slathered across the board in near-unreadable print. Of all my classes, Spanish was the one I liked least. I just wasn’t very good at it. There were just too many rules that I never bothered to memorize, which was likely the reason I wasn’t good at it.

Our teacher turned, faced us, and ran one boney hand through his hair before pointing back at the board. This was our queue to copy what had just been scrawled on the board. Mr. Hawthorne was, to put it nicely, a dry husk of a man. Watching him move around the classroom was like watching a rickety scarecrow get tossed about by the wind. His clothes seemed to dangle off his aged frame as though they might have once fit him, but he had lost so much weight that they made him seem even scrawnier and feebler than he might have otherwise. I wasn’t quite sure how old he was, but I was pretty sure it could be measured in centuries. I yawned once more and shook my head.

“Why on earth do you keep yawning, Abby? You’ve been doing it all day. Did a certain someone keep you up all night long?” Lisa grinned and poked my ear with the eraser end of her pencil. I swallowed once. Lisa regularly chewed on her eraser and now I could feel Lisa-slime on my ear.

“No. I just kept hearing weird noises in the middle of the night. They kept waking me up,” I said as I reached back and touched my ear. Good, it was saliva free… for now. “It also doesn’t help that my cat has decided that my legs are something she must attack with unholy vengeance at four AM every morning.”

I don’t know why, but for the last couple weeks my cat had started acting like a crazy animal. She was a feral kitten we’d rescued from the neighbor’s dog about six months back, and she had never really gotten used to humans. You might say that she was deathly afraid that all people, other than me, were going to eat her. She had been particularly frightened as of late, and I just didn’t get it.

Now, every time I came home, she followed me around like a dog, jumping into my lap at all possible times and generally invading my personal space. At night, she had taken to sleeping on my feet, which seemed normal enough, but every so often she pounced on me, leaping on my legs like a terror and scaring the bejesus out of me.

“I’m surprised you still have that cat. You are the least likely person in the history of the universe to own a cat. And I thought your mom was allergic.”

“Why would I get rid of the cat? I like her fine. Besides, animals love me.” I smiled and glanced back at Lisa. Her notes were covered in weird drawings and that made me a little sad. Lisa never studied or took notes. She just got perfect scores on everything like some sort of super-genius robot. Then again, she could be a robot. Both of her parents were super-engineers, able to design tall buildings in a single evening. If anyone could design a genius robot daughter, it would be them.

“But Abby,” Lisa replied, “you’ve killed every single pet you’ve ever owned. You remember the summer of fish, don’t you?”

I did, in fact, remember the summer of fish. It was two summers ago, the summer before Lisa and I entered high school. For my ‘making it into high school without burning down the house’ gift, my mother had bought me a fifty-five gallon fish tank.

Lisa and I had poured through various fish books until we had selected a tankful of hopeful fishes that promptly died within a week. So we’d tried again. More dead fish. Every week for an entire summer, we replaced every single fish in the tank, and every single week they all died. I’d done everything I could think of to fix the problem, from checking the water every ten seconds to paying a creepy guy at the pet store to come help me with the tank.

No matter what we did, every stupid fish died. Then my mom had come along and put a single goldfish she’d won at the fair in my tank. The damn goldfish was still the only thing in the tank.

“I think a cat is a bit harder to kill than a fish,” I murmured.

“We’re not talking a single fish. We’re talking hundreds of fish. The pet store even has a rule about selling you things now. Normal people aren’t banned from buying fish at a pet store,” Lisa continued as the bell rang, dismissing us from the last class of the day.

I shoved my stuff in my bag and jumped to my feet. My stomach did a tiny flip flop as we headed toward the door. I was supposed to head straight to work. My mom would be waiting when I got there, and if I didn’t know any better, so would Stephen. This time, I was going to talk to him.

“So are you excited for your big date?” Lisa asked as we walked to her car. It was a beat up old Chevy that was older than Lisa by at least five years. Her parents had said she could have any car she wanted, and she’d chosen this thing. Someone had been trying to trade it in while she and her parents had been at the car dealership, and she’d declared it cute. She also said I was cute, so my self-esteem didn’t allow me to take her opinion of cute very seriously.

“It’s not a date. I’m just going to ask him what his deal is,” I replied.

“And then you guys are totally going to make out, aren’t you?” Lisa scrunched up her face and made kissy noises as she unlocked her car.

Without waiting, I threw open the back door of her car and was assaulted by a cloud of warm, stagnant air.

“Yeah, so, I spilled some grape juice this morning. I sprayed it with deodorizer though, so it should be okay soon,” Lisa murmured, getting into the car without further comment.

I hesitated for a moment and touched the floor in front of the passenger seat. My finger sank into the damp fabric. I sighed. There was no use in complaining about it. Silently, I got into the car and with an awkward sort of squelch, placed my feet into the swampy mess.

“So how much juice did you spill?”

“About half a liter but I sprayed deodorant, so it should fix itself,” Lisa assured me once again.

“And you aren’t the least bit worried about the horrible damage to your car, or the possibility of bacteria growing down there?” I inquired.

“I sprayed deodorant,” Lisa replied as though she wanted to end this conversation.

“Ah… I see. You have a dangerous amount of faith in that stuff,” I said with a smile.

“A world where deodorant doesn’t fix grape juice spills is a world I don’t want to live in,” Lisa said as she shifted the car into gear as she sped down the road. “It’s not a world anyone wants to live in.”

My mom was waiting for me at the restaurant. Sometimes I wondered how she had come into possession of the place since she had all the cooking skill of a half-frozen iguana. She burned water once. What kind of person burns water and decides it would be a fantastic idea to open a restaurant?

My mom.

Then again, she didn’t cook in the restaurant. Other people did that. She just handled all the business stuff and paid her staff, namely me, nothing to run the place. To say that Esmeralda Banks was a slave driver was being cruel to slave drivers. I’m serious. Last Christmas, Mario, the night cook, had given her a whip as a gag gift. It was now hanging in her office.

“Hello Pun’kin,” my mom said in her melodic voice that made her seem less like a businesswoman and more like Cinderella. I didn’t know what it was, but nearly every time I heard her voice, I could imagine small woodland creatures coming to her beck and call like they would for one of those Disney princesses.

“Hi, Mom,” I said as I slipped into the backroom to change into my formless uniform. My voice, unfortunately, could not summon wayward wildlife to my aid. In fact, most everything about us was pretty different. My mom was five-foot two inches with waist length blonde-hair, brilliant green eyes, and huge boobs. I, on the other hand, was five-foot eight inches with almond-colored hair, hazel eyes, and well, let’s just say that I sometimes wondered if the family boobs had decided to skip my generation.

I was also super-klutzy while my mom could have thrown a string through the head of a needle from fifty feet away. I guess hand and eye coordination skipped me too.

“How was your day?” my mom asked. I wasn’t sure if she actually wanted an answer. She asked me various questions about my day every day, but I’d put the actual listening to what I said ratio somewhere around twenty-five or thirty percent. Which, if she was a professional baseball player, would be an awesome batting average. For a professional mother? Not so much.

“It was awesome. Mr. Olson let us play jump-rope with the boa constrictors,” I replied, totally straight-faced.

“Really? How many jumps can a boa constrictor do before it gets tangled in the ropes?”

“Forty-two,” I replied with a smile. So she had been listening after all.

“Well, you’re on your own for dinner, dear. I’m fairly certain you won’t starve. Oh, and I hired another person. He’s starting today. Try and behave yourself.” With that, my mom was out the door. That was probably all the bonding time I was going to get for the day. She’d probably be asleep by the time I got home. Early to bed, early to rise and all that.

Then it dawned on me. She had hired someone? My mom, the infamous cheapskate, had hired another person? For the night shift? That didn’t seem right. Then again, I’d been begging her to hire someone so I could get some time off. Maybe this was an early Christmas gift? Whatever, I was going to train the new guy and be out of here before Stephen showed up to stalk me.

I hurried toward my station at the front. Someone was standing at the station next to mine, turned toward a customer so I couldn’t see his face. Still, he looked familiar, which made sense I suppose. He probably went to my school. Chances I knew the person were pretty high… and my mom hadn’t even asked me about it. What if it was someone I didn’t like? Or worse yet, someone I did.

I took a deep breath and forced myself not to blush or jump to insane conclusions before I had even said hello. One glance at the line told me that I should probably step up and help the new guy. He was probably going slowly because he didn’t know the register. That had to be the reason for the line. We were never this busy at three-thirty on a Wednesday.

“Hi, welcome to Esmeralda’s. How can I help you?” I asked, stepping up to my station and waving over the first customer in line.

He was an older gentleman with graying hair and a nice suit. A little too nice to be in a place like this. Now, granted, we got a lot of out of town business because we were the best burger place in town. Another thing that made no sense since my mom had made up all the recipes. But still. This guy’s suit had to have cost more than I made in a month, maybe a year. Why was he buying a six dollar hamburger?

The man smiled, his white teeth flashing as his hand flew up to point at the menu behind me. So he was one of those people who pointed at the menu as though I’d never seen it before. There was always at least one.

I keyed in his order, turned to my new man-at-arms and gasped. There, standing next to me helping customers, was Stephen. Even in the stupid uniform that made me look like a sexless, curveless troll, he looked like a movie-star.

Stephen flashed a million-dollar smile at me and went back to helping guests. I gulped and put my hands numbly on my register as questions raced through my mind. Why was he here? Why had my mother hired him, the crazy stalker, of all people? Did my breath smell okay?

I shook my head and tried to ignore him and focus on my work. Maybe if I didn’t say anything he would just vanish from sight. Yet, even as I steadily worked my way through the throng of customers, doing my best not to even look at Stephen, I knew he was there. It was just too tempting to look over at him, to want to touch him to see if he was real. I know it sounds a little gross, but trying to ignore him was like trying to stop scratching at a scab. The more I tried to ignore him, the greater my urge to look at him became.

When the last customer had been helped, I sighed in relief and turned toward Stephen. He was already staring at me with those piercing blue eyes of his. If I could have, I’d have taken a step back. The breath I’d taken whooshed out of me as he took a step toward me and took my hand in his. I wanted to say something to him. Hell, I wanted to pull my hand from his, but his hand was so strong, so warm and comforting, that I just couldn’t bear the thought of pulling mine away.

I was strangely glad that Lisa had just dropped me off and decided not to follow me inside once she’d caught sight of my mom. If she saw me holding hands with Stephen in the middle of the restaurant I’d never live it down. I’d have to move, change my name to Veronica, and live out in the middle of a forest picking berries and foraging for wild roots… and I really disliked berries and roots.

“I asked your mom for this job so I could spend some more time with you.” Stephen’s smile seemed to light up the entire room, and the only thing I could do was nod dumbly. Part of me was freaking out. He had gotten the job so he could spend more time with me? Time sanctioned by my mother no less? This guy was good, a little too good…

The other part of me could have floated off into the clouds under the power of his smile. I’d never been the dopey girl in one of those movies that gets asked out by the captain of the football team or anything, but right now? Right now, I was pretty sure I knew how that girl felt.

Chapter 3

“I’ve been coming here for a while, I don’t know if you’ve noticed.” Stephen blushed and for a second, uncertainty flashed across his face. “I’ve been trying to keep a low profile.”

How could I have not noticed the super-hot guy staring at me every day for the past few weeks? Even if I wasn’t boy crazy, I’d have had to have been blind not to notice him. I swallowed once and tried to search for something to say, but as the butterflies fluttered around in my stomach, I couldn’t figure out how to talk. I couldn’t even make sounds, let alone words.

“Every day I’ve been trying to think of a good way to talk to you and every single day I got too embarrassed. Today, I finally decided I was going to talk to you,” he said, shaking his head as if dismissing an errant thought. “It’s important that I talk to you.”

He pulled his hand away from mine and wrung it nervously. I think this conversation might have sounded better in his head because it was sounding a little bit creepy to me. I mean, yeah, I was beyond flattered. This was exactly how it happened in those movies and everything, but… in real life, things like this don’t happen, and especially not to me, little miss average. I was neither special enough nor unspecial enough to have things like this happen.

Then again, he could have been waiting for me to say something. I wasn’t exactly holding up my end of the conversation. To be honest, I’m not sure what I would have said if I could have said something. When I replayed this scene in my head a few minutes from now I was going to come up with tons of awesome things I could have said. Unfortunately, right now my mind was tapping out.

“I… er… um…” I mumbled, my mouth moving awkwardly like a fish out of water. I was pretty sure I knew other words to say and that the ones I had said weren’t helping the conversation along. I just didn’t know why.

I put my hand on the counter and smiled dumbly. My hand still tingled from where he’d touched it. His skin was so soft, so smooth. I blushed again and tried to ignore the things that tightened low in my belly, tried to resist the urge to leap on him and kiss him all over. Part of me knew that if I tried, my shaky knees would collapse under me, and I’d topple to the ground, but strangely, I couldn’t think of a good reason not to reach out and run my hands over his well-muscled body.

I started to say something when Stephen turned back toward the counter, flashing his smile. “Hello, sir. Welcome to Esmeralda’s. How can I help you today?” The man in the nice suit was standing across the counter from him, and for a moment, I couldn’t figure out why.

Then it hit me. We were still at work. I was still standing here in my mother’s restaurant. That meant everything that happened was real. He had really touched me, really taken this job just to talk to me. It made me feel special. I grinned again, turned to look at the man at the counter, and found myself staring into the barrel of his gun. The world shrank in an instant, distilling down until all I could see was the gun.

Oh my god, I was going to die. The thought hit me like a wrecking ball, and I don’t know how I managed not to melt into a puddle. There were so many things I never got to do, so many things…

“Don’t move.” His voice was firm, direct, and said that he was clearly in control of this situation. It didn’t hurt his position that he had one gun pointed at me and another pointed at Stephen. My mouth opened and closed once, and I made a strange squeaking sound.

“And you,” he said, waving one gun at Stephen. “Keep your hands where I can see them. I don’t want any funny business out of you.” The gun moved another fraction of an inch toward Stephen as though angling for a better shot.

The weapons seemed so huge in his hands, all black and shiny. They seemed real, seemed dangerous. It was so much different than in the movies. My heart beat so hard in my chest, I was worried it might escape. My eyes had gone as wide as saucers as I stared at the guns. They were so huge and so very, very scary. I swallowed and found my mouth had gone dry. I needed some water and to sit down… and to crawl under the counter and hide.

“Are you trying to rob us?” I blurted out, but my voice was barely a whisper. “We don’t have very much money.”

Why had no one noticed that this guy was pointing guns at us? At me? So far, we had not alerted the other guests. I didn’t know if this was good or bad. If people got scared we might be able to escape from this maniac. On the other hand, people might get hurt. I know it was selfish, but I cared very little for their safety at this point. I was ready to be in full flight mode, consequences be damned…

“No.” His voice was like granite. There was no arguing with him as he shook his head in a gesture that meant I was to be very, very quiet. “I’m here to take you with me, Ms. Banks. You’re very important to some very important people. Unfortunately,” he gestured toward Stephen with his gun again, “I’m going to have to leave your bodyguard behind. I don’t want him following us.”

So this was a kidnapping then—wait—what? Why was he kidnapping me? Why? Who could possibly want to kidnap me? My family didn’t have any money or anything to ransom. There was virtually no upside to taking me with them unless… I shook my head. Surely, he wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble if he just wanted to do dirty things to me? I gulped once and tried to keep the hysteria from my voice.

“Um… we don’t have anything of value. I don’t know why you’d want to take me, my mom—”

“Is one of the most powerful women in the world,” the man finished.

I laughed then. I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the stress or something, I don’t know why exactly, but I couldn’t stop myself. I put one hand on the counter to steady myself as hideous guffaws tore from my throat.

“My mother?” I choked as tears began streaming down my face. “One of the most powerful women in the world? Have you met my mother?” I gestured at the restaurant. “This is all my mother has.”

“Esmeralda Banks is not your real mother.” He said the words with cold certainty. I tried to catch my breath but it seemed impossible, as impossible as my mom not being my mom. What he said couldn’t be true? Could it?

“Abby.” Stephen’s voice was cold and strangely calm. Very slowly, he reached over and placed one of his hands over mine. The man’s eyes narrowed, and he waved his gun as if to signify that Stephen ought to move his hand, and fast. “Don’t listen to anything this guy says. He’s a putz,” Stephen said, grinning as he began to walk around the counter.

The man’s eyes looked as though they’d bug out of his head. I wasn’t sure what the look on Stephen’s face was exactly, but he sure seemed like he knew what he was doing. The guy with the guns on the other hand looked livid. His face scrunched up into rage, his eyes two orbs of seething hate.

Stephen reached over and poked the man in the chest with one finger. “You, sir, are either very dumb or…” Stephen scratched his cheek and hummed as if thinking. “No, that’s the only explanation. You’re just very dumb.”

It happened so fast I barely followed it. The only thing I really registered was the aftermath. Stephen stood over the man holding both guns. The man’s blood pooled on the white tile. I shook my head and covered my mouth to keep from screaming or gagging as the metallic smell of blood filled my nostrils.

The man’s face had been reduced to hamburger. One of his eyes stared absently at the corner of the counter; the eyelid had been torn off. I took a step away from the mess, from Stephen. Already people were starting to move forward, anxious to find out what had happened.

In a matter of moments, people would start screaming and someone would call the police. The police… I should call the police. I numbly reached into my pocket to fish out my cell phone when Stephen put one hand on my wrist and stopped me. It was like a vice had clamped onto my arm. I couldn’t move. A chill sprinted down my spine. I struggled to draw one good breath, but my throat had closed up.

“We have to get out of here before someone else comes. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to protect you if more of them show up.” Stephen’s voice sounded a bit off. It was more high-pitched than before and almost had some kind of strange accent to it, as though he focused on the wrong syllables in the words he said.

“M-more of them?” I stammered. “Why would there be more of them? There shouldn’t have been one of them.”

“I don’t have time to explain,” he said, pulling me toward the exit, one gun pointed at the door. “But I will. That’s a promise.”

“Gun!” Someone screamed, and we were outside. The light was so bright, I had to squint to see, and if Stephen hadn’t been guiding me, I was sure I’d have tripped and fallen to the ground.

The staccato crack of a gunshot filled the air, so loud that even as it faded I couldn’t hear anything else. My mind was spinning as Stephen jerked me between a pair of parked cars and pulled me into a crouching position. Were people shooting at us? At me? There’s just no way that was possible. I turned toward Stephen desperate for him to tell me it was all a big gag, but the icy look on his face made my heart leap into my throat.

“Listen very carefully, Abby. These men want to kidnap you. They want to do all sorts of terrible things to you, and I’m trying to take you somewhere safe. I can’t do that if you don’t let me help you.” He put one hand on my cheek and steered my head so that our eyes met. “Will you let me help you?”

Another crack split the air. The driver’s mirror in the car behind me shattered. Bits of plastic and glass rained down over me as Stephen pulled me forward, not waiting for my response. His entire presence seemed to have changed as he led me forward, each muscle straining under his clothing like he was some kind of jungle cat.

“Abby, get down!” Stephen cried as he flung both of us to the ground. A loud crash sounded a few meters away, and the entire earth shuddered. I glanced over to see thick plumes of black smoke rising from the ruins of a car to our left.

“What the hell are they doing? Shooting at us with rockets?” I screamed as Stephen pulled me to my feet. I had no idea where we were going but I hoped we got there soon… and that it was bomb proof.

“Nothing that primitive.” Stephen almost chuckled and that scared me. In what world were rockets primitive? Primitives used spears. Rockets were demonstrably greater than spears.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a green light flash, and the asphalt in front of us melted into slag. Steam rose from the ground in tendrils, and I had to clamp my own hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

Stephen turned and fired his stolen gun at where the light had come from. The sound of it was so loud, I was pretty sure it’d blown out my ear drums. My head was still ringing as he pulled me forward. I’d never been that close to a gun being fired before. Hell, I’d never been anywhere near a gun before. As far as firsts went… well, there were a lot of firsts for me today.

And wait a second… didn’t the robber have two guns? Where was the second one? And, more importantly, if there was another gun shouldn’t I have a gun?

“We’re here,” Stephen said as he slid the manhole cover off of a sewer access point. “Go down the ladder. I’ll be right behind you.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I glanced down the hole. It didn’t smell or anything, at least not like what I expected, but it was dark. It was so dark I couldn’t see more than a couple of rungs of the ladder. “There could be all sorts of things down there…”

“Yeah, well…” Stephen glanced around as another green light lanced through the air by us. “I don’t think the things down there will try to shoot you.”

Which, all in all, was an excellent point.

Chapter 4

I hit the ground and stumbled, my tennis shoes slipping on the wet concrete below. I wobbled, arms flailing out like a pair of windmills as I crashed onto the cold stone. I swallowed once, nausea rising in my throat as I felt something wet and slimy seep into my jeans. There was a thud beside me and something grabbed my wrist and pulled me to my feet.

“Well, that was fun.” Stephen’s voice echoed in the sewer like we were in an ancient cavern. “That wasn’t exactly how I envisioned today going.”

“Oh?” I murmured and before I could stop myself, blurted out. “How did you expect it to go?”

I felt his hand grow warm, and somehow, I knew he was blushing. He let me go rather suddenly and took a step forward into the murk.

“Not like this,” he mumbled. His voice had lost that strange confidence it’d had during the gunfight. I watched him fumble with something and a beam of light pierced the darkness. His flashlight was so bright in the gloom that I had to shield my eyes from it.

“We need to keep moving or they’ll catch us,” he added before taking a few steps away from me. Evidently, he felt safer with at least a foot between us. If my mom could see us now she’d laugh. Then she’d get a ruler to make sure we stayed at least twelve inches apart at all times. Then again… maybe she wasn’t my mom… but if she wasn’t, who had watched me all these years?

Still, there were men with guns trying to shoot me. That hadn’t happened to me before. Nothing like this should have happened to me either. That left the only logical solution to be the one the crazy guy at the diner had proposed. My mother was an all-powerful genie and someone wanted to kidnap me because of it.

But… if my mom wasn’t Esmeralda Banks, who was my mom? I glanced behind me and shuddered. I don’t know if knowing more was better than knowing nothing in this case, but I was suddenly lost in a sea of questions with no way to anchor myself… and I was treading through a sewer with some kind of James Bond.

“What the hell is going on, Stephen?” I said. “I just got shot at. Shot at! I’ve never even seen a gun before and now there are people shooting at me. Then there’s you and you’re all like ‘oh look I’m a super spy here to rescue you.’” I paused taking a deep breath. “What the hell am I supposed to think? How do I even know you’re one of the good guys?”

“Abby…” Stephen’s voice hit me like a cool breath in the damp sewer. I glanced at him and found him staring at me, his glacial eyes sparkling even in the darkness. “You need to calm down,” he added, putting his hands up in one of those universal I surrender gestures.

“Calm down?” I said, barely keeping the edge out of my voice. “I will do no such thing!”

“Look, if you keep making noise, the guys shooting at you will find us. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather that not happen,” he replied, smirking at me, in what I think was an attempt to use his charm on me.

I shook my head. “That’s not going to work, Stephen. You can’t charm your way out of this. Some guy just told me I’m adopted by a person who lied to me my whole life. He said my real mom was trying to use a terrorist army to come kidnap me.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “And then there’s you. Some guy who showed up out of nowhere and saved my life.”

“Abby, if you trust me, I will continue to save your life and keep you safe,” he replied, looking away from me and staring off down the tunnel. “What do you say? Will you trust me to keep you safe?”

I wanted to tell him no. I wanted to scream it at him… but I didn’t. Why? Because a man with a gun had tried to kidnap me, and Stephen had rescued me. Sure, it could all be part of Stephen’s plan to make me trust him, and if it was, well it was working because I didn’t see any other options. What was I supposed to do? Go back on the surface where people were shooting at me?

“Abby?” he said, his voice startling me.

I glanced at him and tried to ignore how angry I was at him and the kidnappers for putting me in this situation. “Yes?”

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions.” He watched me, not the path ahead of us, mind you, but me as we walked along. “I don’t really have a lot of answers, but suffice to say, I am on your team.”

“What team is that?” I asked.

“Team I-don’t-want-Abby-Banks-shot-in-the-head.”

“I like that team.” The words sort of tumbled out of my mouth like a spilled box of crayons. “I think everyone should be on that team.”

“If everyone was,” he said with a smile and pointed at his chest, “I’d be out of a job. And I trained a long time to get onto this detail. From the first time I saw your picture, I knew I had to be the one to guard you. Something told me that if someone else guarded you, you would die.”

I gulped and tried to steel myself. It was a little weird to have such dark banter about my possible execution for being the daughter of a yet unnamed super-powerful woman.

“Well…” I swallowed again. “I’m glad you’re here. But… why are you here now? No one had bothered me for the last sixteen years.”

His face turned red again, and I could tell he didn’t want to tell me. That was fine. I’d let him keep his secrets for now. As much as I wanted to know, I also wanted to not get shot in the head because I’d distracted my bodyguard.

“Never mind,” I said after a moment of awkward silence. “But I really hope you have some kind of plan. You aren’t just playing it by ear are you?”

“I have the sewers committed to memory, and we’re on the way to meet your handler.” He tapped his head and smiled at me, but it didn’t seem quite as reassuring as it should have. “Unfortunately, no other plans have been made. We weren’t expecting them to come after you for another couple months.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“If you really want to know,” he turned and took one of my hands in his, “I’ll tell you. But I think you’d be happier if you didn’t know.”

“Well… I’ll trust your judgment then,” I replied, trying to smile at him. He turned away from me but didn’t stop holding my hand. I don’t know how he did it but just that simple touch made me feel safe, bullet-proof even. Maybe it was because I was pretty sure that Stephen would protect me, or worse, die trying. I didn’t know why I thought that, for all I knew he was a crazy axe-murderer taking me to his underground axe-murdering lair.

I smiled to myself. That would be a great headline. Lisa would laugh too. “Abby Banks found axe-murdered in underground sewer lair. Sources say that Ms. Banks made googly-eyes as she followed her captor down to her death.”

“We’re here,” Stephen said a few minutes later. His voice carried with it a sense of finality. It was like the period at the end of a sentence. The way he said it, he might as well have said, “the end.”

I shook my head and took a deep breath. We were standing in front of a metal door that looked like it had spent about a decade at the bottom of the ocean. Rusty orange cracks crisscrossed its entire surface. A big valve wheel was perched precariously in the center. It might have been riveted to the door at one time, but now there were just rusty holes where the rivets had been.

“Are you sure you can open that?” I asked. Stephen’s eyebrows twitched in confusion, and I hastily added, “It just seems like it will fall apart if you touch it.”

A smile crept across his lips, and just the sight of it warmed me. For a moment, we weren’t being chased by gun-carrying psycho killers. No… for a moment there was just Stephen and his gorgeously soft-looking lips. I swallowed, my mouth having gone dry as I put my hand against the wall to steady myself.

“Appearances can be deceiving, mon petite chou,” he said, his smile melting into an eerie smirk as he turned back toward the door. He grabbed the wheel on the door with both hands and tugged, which seemed to be completely the wrong thing to do. Aren’t you supposed to turn those kinds of things?

There was a loud crack, and for a moment I thought we were being shot at again. I dropped down to my knees, covering my head with my hands. That’s when I heard Stephen laughing.

I looked up and found myself staring at an empty space where the door had been only seconds before.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I gasped as he took my hand in his and led me through the door.

Standing before us was some kind of god. Long platinum blond hair flowed down across a back so well-muscled that I could tell he was ripped beneath his white-collared shirt. Whoever he was had been standing at one of those water dispensers with the big jug of water on the top. As we stepped further into the room, he turned toward us, wiping his mouth with the bottom corner of his shirt.

“You brought the girl?” the guy asked as he flung himself down onto one of those green balls that people in exercise commercials use for crunches and put on a pair of black, emo-nerd glasses. They were so thick that they actually seemed to magnify his bright green eyes, making it seem like two gigantic gold-flecked emeralds were staring at me.

Behind him was an absolute wall of technology. All kinds of things whirred and blinked, and about sixteen computer screens stared at me from all around the room. This place was definitely a techie’s wet dream.

“Yeah. We ran into a bit of trouble along the way.” Did Stephen’s voice have an edge to it? I glanced at him and for the first time, noticed how clammy his hand had become. His face was covered in a sheen of sweat, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was nervous. Surely Stephen, who waded through a bunch of rocket-wielding bad guys with little more than a casual smile, wouldn’t be scared of this guy.

“Aww…” the man said as he ran a hand through his shimmering hair, a predatory gleam in his bright emerald eyes. He bolted to his feet so suddenly that I leapt back. He moved toward me so fast that I could barely make him out even though my senses went on high alert the instant he’d started moving. I backed myself against the wall, feeling the cold press of the damp stone through my shirt. I gulped once and shut my eyes, trying to brace myself for the inevitable attack. Only it didn’t.

Very slowly, very cautiously, I opened one eye. The blond was standing there, head so close to the ground that it very nearly touched the floor as his body held a sweeping bow. He was as unmoving as a statue as I opened my other eye and stared at him open-mouthed, unsure of what, exactly, I was supposed to be doing right about now.

“Mademoiselle, we have not had the honor of meeting as of yet,” he said, rising to his feet and taking my hands in his. “But I assure you, that is something I plan to correct.” His lips were so close to my hands that the warmth of his words danced on my flesh, which I’ll admit, was a little creepy. I mean, I barely knew him, and here he was, acting so… so… I don’t even know. Didn’t he realize I’d just been shot at?

He stood, swinging me around until I was bowed backward in a strange sort of dip, his body pressed against mine. His eyes loomed there, mere inches from mine, our lips so close that I was sure he was about to kiss me. That thought scared the hell out of me, and I shoved at him, flailing wildly in his grip.

“Let me go!” I shouted as he peered into my eyes, not saying anything, not moving as he held us in this strange position. “Please…” I whispered, shutting my eyes, steeling myself for whatever he was going to do to me. In that moment, my body spun as he flung me around, my body moving under his direction until I had my back to him.

His chest pressed against my back as he leaned in, his breath was warm on my neck. His lips so close that they very nearly nipped at my flesh as he spoke. “I am Donovan DeMarco.” He spun me back around until we were facing each other and dipped into another low bow. “Stephen’s boss.”

I turned bright crimson. I had become so caught up in Donovan’s little show, I’d completely forgotten Stephen even existed. Anger surged through me as I glanced around for Stephen. Why hadn’t he done something? Why had he let Donovan manhandle me like that?

Stephen stood near the door, a strange look in his eyes that made me think he didn’t like it any more than I had. I took a step toward him, not sure what I was going to do when Donovan spoke up behind me.

“Maybe we can get back to business if you’re all through being distracting?” Donovan said as he flopped back down on his stupid exercise ball.

Had he just accused me of being distracting when he had just done what he’d done? Clearly, Stephen didn’t think Donovan was all bunnies and daydreams so that meant on a scale of one to people who agree with me, Stephen was firmly behind my decision to hate Donovan.

Still I didn’t say anything, didn’t glare at him for being a giant ass. I wasn’t going to give him that kind of satisfaction. This was also my mom’s fault, and my school’s fault, and television’s fault. I was not prepared for this situation. Not in the least. If I survived this, I was definitely going take that self-defense class my mom had been pestering me with for at least a year.

I swallowed as a chill ran down my back. Was this why she had tried to get me to take it? I’d never seen her so hell bent on it before, but at the last moment, I’d had to help Lisa with one of her school projects. I sighed and mentally smacked Lisa. If I survived this, I was never helping her again.

“So I suppose it’s time to get down to brass tacks as it were.” Donovan’s low, almost earthy voice seemed to fill the room completely. It was so hard to ignore that I almost didn’t think it was odd that he talked like that. I mean that’s something my mom would have said and she was like forty something. Donovan looked like he was only a few years older than me. He was way too young to talk like that and way, way too young, to be Stephen’s boss. And besides he wasn’t the boss of me.

“I’m sure you have all sorts of questions and I, being the generous guy that I am, have decided that I will answer one question.” His eyes met mine and he nodded to himself, obviously enjoying himself very much. “Only one.”

“Well, I only have one question.” I smiled to myself. “What’s going on with me, my mom, and everything?”

“Oh.” Donovan sighed so loudly that it could have awakened the dead. “I was hoping you were going to ask an interesting question, maybe ‘why are we here?’ or ‘will you make out with me?’ then I would have had a good answer.” He waved his hand as if blowing me off. “Yours is barely worth the effort. I’m half-tempted to just answer with forty-two.”

Beside me, I could hear Stephen physically bristle. I would not have been surprised if Donovan had replied many times with simply “forty-two.”

“Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?” I glared at him. Had he really thought I was going to ask him to make out with me? Was he on drugs? “Just answer my damn question.”

“Here’s the answer. Everyone in your lovely town of Folsom, everyone from the janitors at your school to the guys feeding pigeons at the park, every last Tom, Dick, and Harry is either in foster care or they work for the government. The vast majority are, like yourself, fostered. That’s what we call you, ‘The Fostered,’ in case you wondered. That’s because there are people out there.” He paused to wave his hands at the globe sitting on his desk. “That we need to do the things we want, whether they are billionaire oil tycoons, or religious leaders, or international spies. The only way to ensure that they walk the very straight and very narrow path we’ve laid out before them is to kidnap someone in their family and hold them hostage. You follow?”

I tried to breathe, tried to think about this in a way that made sense. Was he saying that someone had kidnapped me from my real parents and brought me here? Brought me to live with a lady who pretended to be my mother for the last how many years? And why didn’t I remember my real family? How long had I been gone?

“Yeah… I guess so, but, and this is a big but, assuming I believe you, why were they trying to kill me?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him in my best show of determination. I was not going to let his cavalier attitude rattle me. Not today.

“Oh, the rocketeers outside?” Donovan laughed, throwing his head back as great peals of laughter exploded from him. “They weren’t trying to kill you. Maybe him.” Donovan jerked his thumb at Stephen and smiled. “They were trying to ‘rescue you’ from us. Your real mom was trying to get you back… but, and trust me on this, your real mom is one bad mama-jama. You do not want her to find you.”

The world spun as his words crashed down on me, threatening to drag me down with their weight. Was that really true? Was I really, like really, really, just some pawn that had been stolen from my parents as leverage? Was that all I was? Was that all my friends were too? I reached out for something to steady myself, and inadvertently, grabbed Stephen’s hand. I spun, and was about to hit him or scream that he was nothing but a filthy liar, but the look in his sapphire eyes stopped me cold.

“No, seriously,” Stephen’s voice was calm and understanding. “Your mother is one of the most powerful women in the world. The thug from earlier told you that. She’s also the world’s most dangerous terrorist. She runs the world’s largest private army. She holds allegiance to no one. Let me be straight with you. The real reason the US hasn’t fallen and countless cities haven’t been fire-bombed in the last sixteen years is because we have you. If she gets you back, no one will have any leverage over her.”

“In short,” Donovan continued, and I had to struggle not to feel both overwhelmed and double-teamed, “your mom has found our super-secret lair, and you are no longer safe here. Now that she knows where you are, she has already begun mobilizing forces to get you back, which sounds all nicey-nice, but trust me, not nicey-nice. Not even nice. Once your mom gets you back, she will, not to sound cliché, but she will totally, unequivocally, take over the world.”

“You’re all crazy!” I snapped at Donovan. “My mom runs a restaurant in the middle of a Podunk town. If my ‘real’ mom is as horrible as you say, why did it take sixteen years for her to find me?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

“It took sixteen years to find you because we’re pretty good at keeping the place where we hide all our most important hostages secret. It’s one of the main reasons we think there might be an insider working with her,” Stephen said, and as the words left his mouth, Donovan shot him a glance. Stephen blanched and looked away.

“Your real mom is sick, Abby, and she has gotten desperate,” Donovan said, turning his emerald gaze back on me. “She needs your organs if she is to survive. You are the only one whose organs her body won’t attack. Right now, she gets new transplants whenever she needs them, but the length of time they last is decreasing at an exponential rate.”

“So you expect me to believe that not only have you guys kidnapped me for my entire life, but my mom is a crazy person who wants to take over the world and who also wants to cut me open and take my organs for herself?” I asked. The idea was ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.

“Basically,” Donovan said and smiled. It pissed me off so much, I wanted to smack him. “She never claimed to be mother of the year or anything.”

“Um…” I bit my lip and swallowed. “So why don’t you just shoot me in the head and be done with it?”

“Oh, believe me,” Donovan said as he turned back toward his computer screen. “The thought had occurred to me. But your mom chasing a living you is much safer for the world than her going unhinged and trying to take out her wrath on us for killing you. She’s made it very clear that if we execute you, she’s going to nuke a couple cities.”

The room spun a little as he said this, the words reverberating around in my head like a bass drum. I was being fostered by a government agency who would like nothing more than to kill me so I wouldn’t fall into the hands of my real mom. To make matters worse, the only reason they hadn’t just shot me in the head and dumped my body into the sea was because my terrorist mother had said she’d nuke cities if they did so. It almost made me hope that Donovan’s people didn’t find the nukes because I was pretty sure if they did, I was going to be dead-as-a-doornail-Abby.

That thought sobered me. Who was I to be so special that I was worth a couple cities? Would I really condemn entire cities to death just so I could live? Surely there had to be another way. Surely, I was missing something, right?

“So is there a plan going forward?” I asked a bit more timidly than I’d have liked. I mean, you’d think I’d have something better to say after all that but really? Really I didn’t. It was so crazy sounding, so fantastical to say a crazy terrorist army was mobilizing on my tiny town of Folsom to steal my organs. It was something I could only deal with by not dealing with it. That meant I had to focus on something. Right now, the easiest something to focus on was what we should be doing next.

“The plan going forward is simple,” Donovan said, already tapping away at his keyboard, filling his screen with all manner of interesting graphs and statistics. He wasn’t even looking at me anymore and I had the impression I was “this” close to being dismissed. “Stephen is going to take you the hell out of dodge and try and keep you safe until we can find a new place to keep you safe or your mother dies. Whichever comes first. And I want you to know this up front. He will kill you before letting your mother get to you. Make no mistake. We’d rather endure her wrath then let her heal body…”

“So, theoretically, the cities could get nuked, and I could still die anyway?” I asked, and as I did so, Stephen stiffened.

“I won’t let that happen, Abby. I will keep you and the cities safe,” Stephen said.

“And if you can’t?” I asked, swallowing back the rising tide of terror that seemed to well up inside me from nowhere.

“Then he’ll kill you,” Donovan said, voice strangely jovial as he stared at Stephen. “Isn’t that right, agent?”

Stephen bristled. For some reason, I got the distinct impression that while he knew that potentially killing me could be part of his job, he’d long since dismissed it from being a real solution. It was like saying you were either going to be an astronaut or a rockstar when you grow up. It was something that you never really considered. And… admittedly, that made me feel a lot better.

The reason why? Because if our positions were reversed, much as I hate to admit it, I’d probably smile, then take him out back and put him down like Old Yeller. My life versus the fate of the whole world? Did they think I was stupid enough to think that a super-secret organization that specialized in kidnapping children from deranged psychopaths would have any qualms about drowning me like an unwanted kitten?

No, sir. If there was one thing I was, it was practical. It was why I couldn’t believe a guy as hot as Stephen would have any interest in me at all. I nodded absently to myself. It was why Lisa Ann was my best friend. We were so alike but so very different. And that was pretty much when it dawned on me.

“So Lisa is fostered too?” I asked even though Donovan had long since dismissed me.

“Yes,” Stephen said as he took me by the hand and led me toward a door in the far wall that I hadn’t seen before. “Her real parents make biological weapons. Weapons that we’d rather not fall into the wrong hands.”

“The wrong hands being not your hands?” I asked, glancing up at him.

“Bingo!” Donovan chimed in from behind me. “You catch on quick, love.”

Chapter 5

“Is he always such an ass?” I asked as Stephen led me down one of the endless tunnels we had been following for the last few minutes. He had been talking the entire time but I hadn’t really been listening. I’m sure whatever it was he was saying was important. I was also sure that there’d be a time in the not too distant future where I will wish I’d paid better attention. Unfortunately, my mind was still reeling from the last few minutes of conversation. The conversation where I’d found out that my entire life was a sham.

Even my friends’ lives were all shams too. My best friend Lisa’s life wasn’t real either. Hell, she was the daughter of some super geniuses somewhere and while that made a certain amount of sense because she was like way smarter than me, that didn’t make it okay to steal her, me, and everyone else from our real parents. They couldn’t all be as horrible as Donovan had claimed, could they?

“Donovan was using his charming voice,” Stephen said so matter-of-factly, I’d have sworn he had said the exact thing several times before. “You don’t want to hear his annoying voice, or his angry one, for that matter. He was being as nice as he could. It’s a hard thing to do when you’re broken inside.” Stephen stopped for half a step as he said the words. “Don’t tell him I said that,” he added a moment later.

“Next time he tells me my real mother is trying to kill me, I’ll make sure to remember not to tell him that you said he was broken inside,” I said a little more harshly than I probably should have. I thought about apologizing, but didn’t. Instead, I shook my head and glared at the neon blue lights that lit up the pathway beneath my feet. “He was telling me that my mom wants to gut me like a pig and that, not only is my life a lie, but my friends’ lives are too.” I turned on Stephen in that instant, whirling with a speed I didn’t know I had. My hands balled into fists. “You will not defend this. You will not give me your little smile and your stupid words after leading me into a dark tunnel under the sewers!” I was hitting him over and over as tears clouded my vision. He raised his arms to ward off my blows, not trying to stop me, but keeping me from doing any lasting damage. “My mom’s restaurant was attacked by people with rockets. I got shot at! My entire life is a LIE!” I flopped down on my knees, sobbing. “Just go, get away from me. I can’t deal with you right now.”

He stood there, looking at me like a kicked puppy. He didn’t say anything, didn’t move. No, he just stood there looking at me, and the more he looked at me, the more I wanted to smash his stupid face in. I closed my eyes tightly, wishing the tears would stop, wishing I could do something, anything, to make it better. But no, I was stuck here in this stupid dark tunnel with him and with Donovan’s stupid laugh ringing in my ears, gnawing at my brain.

He touched me. Nothing inappropriate, mind you, just a light touch on the shoulder. Oh, I’m sure he was trying to comfort me as he awkwardly placed his hand on my shoulder. Maybe they didn’t cover this part in super spy school or something.

“Don’t touch me!” I screamed, throwing his hand off as I leapt to my feet with such force he took a step back, preemptively warding off the blows he was sure would follow. That’s when I took off running.

I sped off into the distance, unsure of how big this tunnel actually was. Yet, the tears kept coming, and the more I tried to stop them, the angrier I became… and the more I cried. Finally, I came to a door. Another stupid, rusty door with one of those dumb valve handles. I hit it. It was like hitting an immovable object, like hitting everything that had happened in the past… what? Fifteen? Twenty minutes ago?

That had been all it took for my entire life to be ripped out from under me. Exhausted, angry, and defeated, I slumped against the door. I wasn’t sure how long I sat like that, with my face cradled against my knees, when Stephen showed up. I hadn’t heard him. Whether that was because he had moved all stealthy-like or because I was too wrapped up in my own drama, I wasn’t sure.

“Alright,” he said, and I was pretty sure he was simply telling me that he was here. And, though I don’t know why, it made me feel a little better. Granted only a little, but that was still something. Despite the fact that they had shot at him, that he had been scared of Donovan, and that he now had to defend me, he was still here. Even after I unfairly screamed at him and attacked him, because really, this wasn’t his fault. I knew that, and I’d still yelled at him. Yet for some reason, he was still right here, by my side.

Slowly, I raised my head and looked at him, my entire body trembling, and asked him the most obvious question in the world. “Why are you here?”

“To protect you,” he replied, shifting uncertainly in the dimly lit hall. The blue lights in the floor cast innocuous shadows across his face as he ran a hand through his hair. Even now, standing there so unsure of himself, he looked gorgeous. His blue eyes filled with such depth, such hurt, that I knew he wanted to comfort me, only he didn’t know how. Really, I didn’t know how I wanted him to comfort me either. I just wanted him to know what he should do to help me. Was that too much to ask?

“Why?” I squeaked.

“So the world doesn’t end?” he offered with a shrug as a smile crossed his face for a moment. Was he trying to lighten the mood? If so, he was failing.

“Lies. The world is better off without me. We both know that,” I said with a shake of my head and buried my face against my knees again. The cold floor was starting to numb me through my clothes, but I was determined not to move one more step until I knew why he was so hell bent on protecting me. Why did he want to help me when, despite what Donovan said, throwing me into a dumpster behind a liquor store with a bullet in the back of the head was the most logical solution to the world’s problems?

He bent down toward me, took my chin in his hand, and tilted my head until I was looking at him. A shiver ran down my spine as I stared deep into his sapphire eyes, and a wave of sadness washed over me.

“You aren’t the first girl I’ve been assigned to protect,” he said, and I wondered if he was trying to will understanding into me. He swallowed once and something in my chest tightened. I’m not sure why, but I was pretty sure the story he was about to tell me was not going to end with unicorns and sunrises.

Stephen opened and closed his mouth a couple times, as though the words were on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t bear to actually voice them. Something was holding him back, something was making tears well in the corners of his eyes. He shook his head and stood up. “Let’s just say it didn’t end so well for me last time. But if you were wondering, yes, the girl is fine and you probably know her.”

“I probably know the girl you saved?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“Yes. Every assignment I’ve had has been successful. I am with you despite the fact a bullet to the head would be the simplest solution because I am the best. The best chance you have for survival is with me. Just because your mother is evil, just because it seems like we’re bad guys too, it isn’t your fault.” He bent down and took my hands in his. They were so warm, so comforting, I could feel myself becoming calmer just by his touch. As he pulled me to my feet and enveloped me in his strong arms, I couldn’t help but cry. The tears started, and they wouldn’t stop.

“You need to remember that, Abby. None of this is your fault. You aren’t a thing, you aren’t leverage, and you aren’t expendable. You are a person, and you haven’t done anything wrong. That’s why I am going to protect you. That’s why I am here.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. It sort of escaped me as I buried my face in his chest, soaking it through with my tears. It sounded so ridiculous. Was I really to believe this gorgeous, hunky guy was going to take on the world’s most powerful terrorist army because I was a good person? Did he know I cheated on my last math test? That Lisa had slid me the answers when she took the test the period before? Did he know about the countless other bad things I’d done? Even if they were minor compared to say, nuking Rome, they were still something.

“You are the dumbest, most naïve secret agent in the world,” I said with a sniffle as I extricated myself from his arms and turned back toward the door. I was going to do this. I was going to go into hiding, and I was going to survive. Besides, what was the alternative? Sit here waiting for Donovan to roll me up in a carpet and throw me in the lake?

“That’s why I’m good at my job,” he said, trying to be casual. Deep down though, I knew he was trying to make sure I understood him. “I care too much.”

“Is that so?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

“It is so,” he replied, turning away and pressing his hand against the stone near the door. Red light began to emanate from the stone around his hand and then the entire door slid downwards into the ground to reveal an immense cavern. It was so bright, I had to shield my eyes to keep from going blind.

“Come on,” Stephen said, taking a step past me into the room and gesturing toward the center. It sprang open with a hiss of grinding metal and whooshing air to reveal a plane. “The plane is waiting,” he added, grinning at me like an idiot.

“Okay…” I said, following him toward the plane and up the stairs to the door in its side. It was the biggest one I’d ever seen, but then again I’d never actually seen a plane before, so there was that. It was almost forty feet long and had at least three engines on each wing. “That’s pretty cool and all, but aren’t we underground? How are we going to fly a plane underground?”

“No,” he said, yanking open the door and pulling me inside because I was too stunned to move. “Well, sort of.” The door snapped shut behind me with a clang that made me jump and whirl around.

“What do you mean ‘sort of?’ How can we be sort of underground?” I asked, glancing around the interior. It was fully stocked with all sorts of bottles, food, and a wall-sized television.

“We are underground, right now,” he said, pressing a button next to the door. There was a whoosh of air and the clanking sound of gears filled my ears. My stomach did a little flip flop like I was in a high speed elevator as I stared at him. We came to a stop with a sudden jolt that made me stumble. “And now we’re at ground level. Ta da!”

I glanced out the window and was surprised to see that he was right. At least it seemed like he was right because I could see what looked like a runway stretching off into the distance.

Stephen went up to the bar and began to pour himself a drink. I watched as amber liquid sloshed into his glass. He was drinking while serving as my bodyguard? Was that allowed? It didn’t seem like it should be allowed. I was about to ask him that when a red light toward the front of the cabin began to flash.

“Please fasten your seatbelts, we’re about to take off,” intoned a melodramatic robotic-sounding voice.

“You’re not the pilot?” I asked, still staring at the light like an idiot. “You mean to tell me you guys have a hidden plane underground fully stocked with everything, including a pilot?”

“The plane is automated,” Stephen said from behind me like it was a totally reasonable thing.

“Yeah, because that’s so realistic,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at him. “Okay smart guy. Where is your magic plane taking us?”

“To Chicago,” he replied, sipping his drink as he flopped down in a brown leather seat. “The Sears Tower, in fact. Though I don’t think they call it that anymore.” He waved one hand at me, gesturing to the seat across from him. “Now buckle up.”

That’s when the plane lurched forward, and I found myself scrambling into the seat. I grabbed hold of the seat belt, barely fastening it as my stomach did a flip flop as the plane rocketed forward.

“The Sears Tower? In Chicago?” I said several minutes later when I’d finally regained some of my composure. My hands gripped the armrests of the airplane seat so hard that my knuckles were white. I wasn’t going to come right out and say I hated flying, especially flying in a nice chartered jet… but flying wasn’t exactly something I enjoyed. Not that I’d even flown before. This was definitely the first time I’d been more than ten feet off the ground.

In fact, the more that I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn’t know anyone who had ever flown. Only Shelly Johnson had ever claimed to have flown before, but she’d claimed to do lots of stuff since she’d arrived about a year ago, and I mostly dismissed her anyway. The things Folsom High’s queen bee made up were so far from my realm of caring that I didn’t think about it. I mean it’s not like I was allowed at the A-list table for lunch or anything anyway. Lisa and I had been firmly relegated to lunch tables of significantly less social stature.

Still, I was now flying, and that was not making me happy. Stephen seemed unperturbed in his seat across from me. He alternated between staring out the window and reading through the pile of magazines next to his seat.

“It’s a public place. No one is crazy enough to bomb a giant national landmark nowadays. It’s safer because there are so many people around. If someone starts shooting, cops, the army, hell, alien defenders will be called in to stop the destruction of Chicago’s largest building. The same sense of urgency will not be given to a hotel room in an out of the way turnpike,” he said with a shrug.

“If she’s willing to nuke cities, what’s one building, even a famous one?” I asked even if there was a certain amount of logic to his argument. The chances that a terrorist army would besiege me in the middle of one of Chicago’s biggest landmarks was definitely a lot less than say the rural plains of Missouri.

“Okay fair enough, but the way I see it.” Stephen shifted in his seat and put his magazine down beside him. Apparently, he was giving me his attention and wanted me to know it. “We might as well have a little fun while we’re running. I’m not saying we should go around shouting your name. I’m not going to make you wear a shirt saying ‘I am Abby Banks’ or anything, but a couple kids going through some famous landmarks aren’t going to get a whole lot of attention. I want to make your mother look for a needle in a bunch of needle stacks. Not a needle in a big field in the middle of nowhere.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard…” I said, glancing at him. “Have you thought this through, like at all?”

“Yes, but,” he sighed, “I have to follow my orders and they say to take you to Chicago.” He smiled at me and took one of my hands in his. He was starting to do it so often that I was beginning to think it might be more of a nervous reaction for him than it was to comfort me. Every time he had done it, bad news he hadn’t wanted to tell me had been involved. If this kept up, I was going to start having a complex about cute boys holding my hand.

“Hopefully nowhere else. Your mom should be dead within the next three or four days. All we have to do is hang out in Chicago until she kicks the proverbial bucket.”

“Well, that’s dreary,” I muttered to myself and stared out the window. “And Chicago is safer than just flying around in a plane for a few days?”

“You have no idea. I could rig up something to shoot a plane out of the sky with a cell phone and some duct tape.” Stephen flashed me a sly grin.

“Just because people on TV shows can do that, does not mean you can,” I responded, crossing my arms over my chest and huffing for effect.

He smiled and ran a hand through his hair, brushing it out of his face. “If all goes well, we should have you back to Folsom in a few days, no harm, no foul.”

“You mean your grand plan is to take me back to my fake life?” I stared at him. I hadn’t really thought about the ‘after everything happened’ things. I hadn’t exactly been given a bunch of time to make plans, hadn’t drawn out my day planner for the events to follow my mother’s tragic death of body decomposition. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I might go back to Folsom High. Might go back to sitting at the D-list table with Lisa Ann. That seemed so… unfair.

“Um… where else would you like to go? Those people are still your friends. Esmeralda Banks really does love you. You should have seen the arguments she’s had with Donovan. I only wish someone cared about me like that,” Stephen said.

I had one of those moments where you came to a fork in the road. One path was to scream at him about how my mother lied to me for sixteen years about not being my real mother. The other was to ask Stephen about his past, about why no one cared for him like that, about why it almost seemed like he wished our roles were reversed.

“She’s not my mother,” I said it firmly and flung myself out of the chair. I was about to say something more, about to run as fast as I could down the road on the left of the fork when I realized that, to my horror, I was still wearing my restaurant uniform. I was still wearing the formless red and white garment that I’d been working in. It seemed like it’d been so long since I’d been at the restaurant, but had it been? Could it have really been more than a couple hours? Max?

Even so, regardless of how long it had been, my face turned bright red. Sure, a couple kids touring Chicago might not look odd, but with me dressed like a reject from a take-out restaurant I was going to stick out in posh Chicago like a sore thumb. If I didn’t find some new clothes, and fast, I was going to be a very obvious needle in a very, very small haystack.

I glanced at Stephen, sure he was about to say something when I held up my hand to silence him. “I don’t want to argue with you about my mother right now. I have a much more pressing concern.” I tried to make my face as stern as possible as I waved my hand at my uniform. “I don’t think this will do in Chicago.”

Stephen looked at me, a very strange look of humor and confusion in his eyes. “I’m sure getting you a change of clothes can be arranged.”

“Well… good then.” I’m not quite sure what sort of an answer I had been expecting. I mean, I hadn’t really expected him to say no or anything like that. However, the whole ‘take a girl shopping’ thing never really seemed to be high on any guy’s ‘to do’ list.

“So where are we going shopping then?” I asked.

“Anywhere you like. I’m sure the local Walmart has excellent selections.”

I gulped, and I’m sure my face must have had some strange look of horror on it because Stephen suddenly started laughing. I balled up my fists, resisting the urge to punch him as hard as I could and instead took a deep breath.

“I kid, I kid,” he said with a smirk. “We have basically an unlimited budget. We can go somewhere nice. Pretend you’re the bell of the ball and go wild. That way, you’ll have fewer regrets if you die.” He had turned rather serious toward the end of that sentence, and it struck me a little morbid.

I knew that part of his cheery, self-determined attitude was a mask he wore. I could tell that deep down was something tragic and tear worthy, but it was like he was having trouble melding the two. Rather it was starting to seem that he had two distinct personalities that randomly decided to display themselves.

Awesome. My secret agent was totally crazy. And we were going to a national landmark to hide from my deranged, dying mother’s private army.

Somehow, my chances of success didn’t seem all that good.

Chapter 6

I’d never seen so much lace in my entire life. There were lace socks and lace panties, which I guess weren’t that odd, and even lace pants. It was a little disconcerting to be surrounded by so much lace, and that was just the first room. We hadn’t even ventured into the silk room or the cobalt room yet. I wasn’t even sure what a cobalt room was, but if the price tag on the lace socks was any indication, someone’s pocket book was going to take a huge hit.

We had been in the store maybe thirty seconds when a blonde girl in her mid-twenties dressed in a black lace mini skirt, red and black lace camis, and a small silver mantis pendant, sauntered over to us. One glance at her told me one thing. She did not think we belonged in Le Château de Tissu Extraordinaire. She smiled one of those polite smiles that never quite reached her eyes and glanced from me in my hamburger serving uniform to Stephen in his similar uniform.

“Welcome to Chateau de Tissu Extraordinaire. My name is Chloe, and I would be delighted to assist you. What are you in the market for today?” Even as she finished her sentence she glanced around, looking for something else to go do before turning her attention back to us.

“We were hoping you could give us both complete wardrobes. We are going to need at least a week’s worth of clothing, each, something stylish and ‘in,’ but not memorable. We will also need you to have someone do the lady’s hair and makeup, again, stylish but not memorable. Is that something you will be able to provide?” Stephen’s voice was crisp and no nonsense. It sort of reminded me of the rich kids at school except that it didn’t have their arrogant, bored edge to it.

“We do not normally do such things without appointments. All of our clothiers and beauticians are busy at the moment. I can make you an appointment if you like. I think we may have something open in the next couple weeks.” Chloe was already turning away, heading back toward the service station.

“Is that so? Mr. Franco assured me that there would be no problem with us dropping by today. Should I give him a call? I’m sure he can sort this out.” Stephen had his phone out already and looked as if he was flipping through his contacts. Chloe turned, a strange look of horror on her face, and lunged toward him, clamping her well-manicured fingers around the phone.

“Oh no, that won’t be necessary.” Her voice was clipped and hurried. “You should have said you were personal friends of Mr. Franco.”

Stephen laughed and shook her off. “I guess I should have started with that. I can give you my customer ID number if you like?”

“Oh no, that won’t be necessary. I trust you.” Chloe winked at him, and taking us each by the hand, led us into the cobalt room.

I don’t quite know what happened. I think that maybe Chloe had slowed down time because there was no way we had spent only a couple hours in the shop. I tried on close to a million outfits and had my hair and makeup redone at least fourteen times. Each time, Stephen would glance at me and shake his head. He would murmur something along the lines of, “oh no, that won’t do at all. Those colors are much too memorable.” Then it was back to the makeup mines.

He succeeded in making me, Abby Banks, never want to shop for clothing again. That was some feat since I was in one of the most posh and expensive places in all of Chicago with an unlimited budget. Now, I couldn’t wait to get out of the damn place and back into the real world where a terrorist army was trying to hunt me down and give all of my inside bits to my deranged mother.

Then again, if I had to admit it, the clothes were a little much for me. From the first tank top they handed me to the latest trendy pair of jeans, I felt really out of place. My mother, by whom I mean Esmeralda Banks and not the deranged psycho out to kill me, never really dressed up or had me dress up for that matter. It wasn’t like we were poor or anything. It was more that my closet contained an inordinate amount of big box store jeans, knock-off tennis shoes, and less than brightly colored t-shirts.

The other problem was that many of these clothes would have worked on someone a little more endowed than I was. Maybe someone with a bit more junk in the trunk perhaps, a little more full-bodied? I was not that, and though these clothes clung to me in all the right places, they just made me more self-conscious of my distinct lack of curves.

So yeah, I was pretty much done. Here these people were giving a super human effort to transform plain old Abby Banks into glamour star, and it just embarrassed me. I was right about to go tell this to Stephen and Chloe and the whole lot of them when Stephen, clad in a simple blue v-neck and stonewashed jeans, looked up from his magazine and smiled.

“Magnifique.” He thought I looked good? I stared at him, open-mouthed, for a minute. He made a little twirling motion with his slender fingers.

I tried to say something, anything, but my voice had disappeared itself. I didn’t know how it could have done so without my knowledge, but for some reason, the gift of gab had evaded me. I was wearing a black tank top under a thin black jacket that was little more than a pair of long sleeves. A red skirt with painted roses was tied around my waist with a large black belt that resembled more of a ribbon than anything else.

I looked back toward Stephen, but he was no longer sitting there. I whirled around to find him, but before I knew what was happening, Stephen was next to me, spinning me with one of those dance moves that makes it so you either move with your partner or crumple to the floor in a pile of fabric and flailing limbs. My skirt fluttered around my legs as I spun in a wide arc. He flicked his wrist and reeled me back in until we were close together.

His breath was warm against my cheek as I gazed up at him. I could feel the heat of his perfect body pressed against me. I started to close my eyes and lean toward him when a cough made the whole spell shatter. It was one of those polite little sounds meant to draw the attention to oneself without being rude.

Color rose on my cheeks as I looked around to see Chloe watching us with a bemused expression on her face. Stephen smiled even as I pushed him away and backed a few steps from him. I swallowed and tried to catch my breath while my heart pounded in my chest like a runaway locomotive. The back of my feet struck something, and the floor slipped out from under me.

I screamed, my arms flailing like miniature windmills as I toppled over backwards over a bench. Fortunately, I landed on something soft. I think that was the only reason I didn’t smash my skull into little bits on the white marble floor. I sucked in a loud breath and rolled over onto my stomach, trying to think of a way to play off my innate klutziness.

An unmoving, bloody face stared back at me. A twisted gash rent the body in front of me from shoulder to crotch, spilling fluid all over the floor. With horror, I looked down at my clothes and saw I was covered in blood. Pieces of mashed, I’m not sure what, clung to my skin, and I had to resist the urge to vomit.

The feeling swelled up from the center of my stomach, and I think the only thing that stopped me from losing my lunch all over the corpse was that it’d require me to stop screaming. I hadn’t even realized I’d started screaming.

“Abby!” Stephen yelled, and I barely heard him. I looked up blankly and felt my mouth move awkwardly. I think I was trying to point out the body to him. I also think he probably knew about it already.

He scrambled toward me, one perfect hand outstretched. He wrapped his fingers around my blood-soaked sleeve and pulled me to my feet with a grunt. He had some sort of shiny object in his other hand, though I couldn’t quite make out what it was.

Stephen pulled me behind him. That was when I realized there wasn’t just one body in this place. There were at least six more corpses littering the walkway. Most of them were workers, faces frozen in shock. There was one that looked different.

That corpse was wearing dark green khaki pants with a beefy black vest over the front. The gas mask that had covered his face had been shattered by a broken chair leg. It punctured the middle of the mask like an exclamation point.

I glanced back at Stephen and saw two more men dressed similarly standing in front of him. He let go of my hand and brought both of his hands up in front of his body like one of those English boxers in the movies.

The two men looked at each other. One of them grabbed Chloe by the arm and tried to fling her toward Stephen. Yet even as he did so she sort of spun her body in an arc, her hand latching down on the man’s wrist. Before I even knew what was happening she had slammed the guy face first into the marble with a sickening thud.

As she did so, Stephen had launched himself forward, his left fist lashing out in an arc that caught the other man on the side of the head. He sort of listed sideways as Stephen turned and drove his other hand into the man’s throat.

Before the guy had even hit the floor, Chloe had grabbed me by the wrist and was tugging me down the hall.

“Careful, if those three got this far, there’s got to be a lot more of them. No one makes it this far into Le Château without an army,” Chloe said. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Stephen taking up a position behind us. I guess Chloe was on our side?

“Unfortunately, that’s just what her mother has done. I can’t believe they already found us… we just touched down a couple hours ago. She must be more desperate than we thought.” Stephen’s voice was strained as though he was trying to make sense of what had just happened.

Chloe stopped so suddenly that I ran into her back. She turned and glanced from me to Stephen and then back. “I heard you call her Abby before. Is this Abby Banks? You can’t mean to say you actually brought the Abby Banks to Chicago.”

Stephen shrugged his shoulders, and without stopping, grabbed my hand and pulled me past Chloe. “This is where Central said to hide her. I’m just following orders.”

“Then someone in Central is a goddamned traitor,” Chloe spat. “Because Gabriella de la Mancha is in Chicago. You idiot.”

“De la Mancha, like Don Quixote?” I asked, trying desperately to ignore how angry Chloe seemed to be. She was simmering with rage, the likes of which I had never seen before. I didn’t believe in auras or anything, but I almost felt suffocated under the hatred that was peeling off of her as she charged past us, Glock 9mm in hand. Though don’t quote me on that, a Glock 9mm was the first gun that popped into my head when I saw the one she was holding, and I don’t think I’d even seen one before.

“No, not like Don Quixote,” she snarled, and it made me shiver.

“No. What the delightful Chloe Devereux is trying to tell us is that your mother is in Chicago, so essentially, I’ve brought you to the one place I shouldn’t have brought you,” Stephen said, glancing back at me.

“Pretty much. You’d be safer free-climbing inside an active volcano,” Chloe replied.

The gunfire started so suddenly that I was already on the ground with both Chloe and Stephen using their bodies to shield me before I realized we were being shot at. Chloe swung her arm over the railing and fired back. Her weapon boomed like thunder and a section of the wall directly behind where she’d fired fell to the ground. Sunlight streamed in through the hole, marring the soft light of the boutique with its harsh glare.

“Abby, I’m going to need you to follow me. We’re going to crawl forward, there’s an exit on the left.” Chloe’s voice was no nonsense as she started moving forward on her hands and knees.

I started to follow her and something stuck the wall just above my head. I guess I’d inadvertently straightened into viewing position while moving. I hit the floor as bits of plaster rained down on me. My heart started to pound in my chest as I lay there unmoving, trying to catch my breath. I’d nearly died.

“What in god’s name are you doing?” Chloe screamed, glancing back at me, rage painted across her features. “Hurry up!” Chloe snapped and her face reminded me of movie drill sergeants. Which, I guess made sense. I mean we were being shot at. People all around us were dead. People she probably knew pretty well. All of this, somehow, was my fault, and instead of putting a bullet in the back of my head, she was trying to get us out alive.

“Sorry,” I muttered and ducked my head a little lower trying to hide my face from her gaze.

“Chloe, you don’t need to be so hard on her,” Stephen said from behind me.

“Look, idiot,” Chloe snarled. “When I want your goddamned opinion, I’ll give it to you. Now shut up and shoot the bad guys before they kill us.”

We were nearly to the spot Chloe had indicated earlier when she pulled out a small compact. She angled the mirror so she could see around the bend toward the stairs of the first floor. I could almost make out what looked like a hundred men with guns crammed together in the small landing below.

“I really hope we’re not going down there,” I mumbled.

“Why? They won’t murder you. Probably.” Chloe’s face was wearing a weird expression. One that I took to mean she was considering just cutting me loose and letting me fend for herself. She sighed and threw up her hands. “I guess that’s why I’m a good guy.”

Stephen snickered behind me. “Yeah, I’m sure all those people who nicknamed you the Praying Mantis totally think you’re a ‘good guy.’”

“It’s a very noble bug,” Chloe said and lurched sideways through the wall. I don’t know exactly what happened, but one second she was in front of me, and the next she’d disappeared.

A hand darted out of the wall and grabbed me by the arm and tugged me forward. I screamed and threw my hands out as I tumbled forward through the wall and onto Chloe. We wound up in a heap with her tiny body trapped under mine. Her skirt had ridden up her thighs, revealing the edges of her panties to my view.

“Is it good for you?” Chloe asked as she tried to push me off of her. “Or do you want to keep laying here until those men figure out what happened and come to kill me?”

Before I could respond, Stephen burst through the wall, the twin guns in his hands still firing as he landed on his back next to us. He rolled and came to his feet, holstering one of the weapons. He held a hand out to me, and I reached out to take it. His touch sent a warm tingle running down my spine.

Chloe threw herself to her feet and charged past us, gun held in a two-handed grip. We were in a long, steel tunnel. Bright LEDs lit it up as far as I could see. Chloe tapped one of her hands against a section in the wall, and a giant metal door slid shut behind us.

“How long will that hold them?” I asked, staring awkwardly at the space.

Chloe shrugged. “Way less time than we need to get out of here.”

Stephen tugged on my hand, pulling me forward along with him while Chloe took up the rear. I was sandwiched between them as we made our way down the mile-long corridor. Which was probably the idea, now that I thought about it.

“So, you two know each other?” I asked.

“No,” they both answered in unison.

“So how… um…”

“This is one of our depots. It functions as a normal store as well, but it’s mostly here as a supply run. Mr. Franco is the code name we use for identification.” Stephen’s voice was warm, but strained as though he wasn’t paying that much attention to what he was saying. I guess that was somewhat reasonable because he was trying to keep me alive. I liked being alive, and I liked that he was trying to keep me that way.

“And you knew who she was because of her pendant? Is that why you called her the Praying Mantis?” I asked.

“Well, it was a guess,” Stephen said with a shrug.

Behind me, I heard Chloe bristle. “And what if I’d been a decoy?” Her shrill voice cut through me like an icepick.

“No one would dare impersonate the Praying Mantis, and we both know it,” Stephen said and his voice made a shiver scamper down my back.

Chapter 7

The metal chair flew across the room and slammed into the wall next to us with a metallic clang that made my teeth chatter. A squeak of surprise escaped my throat moments before Stephen tackled me to the ground, covering my body with his and blocking most of the room from view.

“You pull something like this again, and I’ll clip your wings, Praying Mantis or not,” the man in the center of the room snarled. His voice was ragged and tired sounding, and if he hadn’t flung his chair at us the moment we’d entered the room, I’d have assumed we’d woken him from a long overdue nap.

“Marco,” Chloe rasped as she put one hand out toward us as if signaling for us to let her handle this. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Is that supposed to make up for the fact that you don’t call, that you don’t write?” There was a crash a few feet away and Stephen shifted on top of me.

“Can you stop throwing things for one damn—” A loud bang cut off Chloe in mid-sentence as what sounded like a trashcan smacked into the spot she’d been occupying just a moment before. Empty soda cans spilled into my field of vision, clattering across the floor.

“Chloe…” Stephen said and his voice had that “you better do something right now” tone to it. I was in agreement. If Stephen kept shielding me with his body, I was going to lose circulation in my legs. Already those weird little pinpricks that meant your foot was falling asleep were starting to nip at me. Besides wasn’t Marco a good guy? I was assuming he was since Chloe hadn’t shot him, so why was he throwing things at us?

“If you throw one more thing I am going to shoot you,” Chloe said, and her voice was empty and emotionless. I swallowed. I didn’t want anyone using that voice on me. It made me think of a tornado ripping apart homes and not giving a damn about it. Not at all.

“Fine,” the man I presumed was Marco said. “But if you shoot me, I won’t be able to help you with whatever it is you want.”

“What I want is to get out of here with the package intact. There’s an entire army trying to get in here right now. I need you to do something to ensure they—” Chloe’s voice was suddenly drowned out by the sound of an explosion.

It was so loud that it left my ears ringing. The room shook, walls swaying as bits of plaster fell from the ceiling. Stephen tensed before throwing himself further on top of me in an attempt to better shield me from whatever was coming.

“That should buy us a few minutes,” Marco said.

“Did you really just blow up the store?” Chloe asked.

“Yes.”

“You what?” I yelled, pushing Stephen off of me with both hands. He glanced at me before very slowly moving off of me and helping me to my feet.

“The delightful Ms. Devereux said we were being invaded by an army. There’s only one army in town, and they are after a young girl. You are a young girl. Ipso facto, I blew up the store.” Marco glanced at me in a way that said ‘deal with it’ and crossed his arms over his sky-blue sweater.

“Do you have a way out of here?” Stephen asked, glancing at the only door in the room. We had come straight down a hallway that led only to this room. If Marco had really blown up the store, there was no way we could go back the way we came. Even if there wasn’t an army of mercenaries out there waiting to gut me like a trout.

“Do I have a way out?” Marco exclaimed, flinging his arms out in front of himself in exasperation. “Do I have a way out of my own super-secret bunker when there’s only one obvious entrance inside? When I just blew up that entrance?” Marco narrowed his dark brown eyes at Stephen and raised his left hand to point at him. “Where did they find you? Did you just fall off the turnip truck? Of course, I have a way out.”

Marco turned toward the large stainless steel desk behind him and snatched the laptop off its surface. He spun back around, holding the laptop in one hand and gesturing at its screen with his other hand. “You see this red dot. That’s the package,” he pointed at me, then back at the screen. “These two blue dots are Chloe and you,” he added, spitting the last word out like a piece of sour candy. “See anything else interesting?”

The screen itself was an overview that reminded me of those maps you see at the mall. There was a small rectangle in the center with two blue dots, a red dot, and a green dot. But, from the looks of the screen, there was another passageway directly behind Marco.

“So there’s a trap door behind you?” I blurted out.

Marco glanced at me once more before narrowing his eyes at Stephen. “Which one of you is the secret agent? Because it sure seems like the package is the brains of the operation.” He threw his hands up in the air, flinging the laptop back on the desk as he did so. “Why that idiot son of mine sent you to protect the package is beyond me.”

“Wait… are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I asked, looking over at Stephen.

“Yeah, he is,” Stephen said through clenched teeth. “That’s Donovan’s dad.”

“I’ll thank you to not compare me to my son,” Marco said as he punched a command into his keyboard. “If you’re the kind of person he sends to thwart Gabriella de la Mancha, then I never should have gotten him that job as handler.”

“Look, sir. You don’t have to like me, but I’m very good at what I do. I’ve never failed a case before,” Stephen said, moving just a little closer to Marco.

“You’re, like, twelve. You’ve had all of one other case. You couldn’t even save one girl without falling in love, and after months of therapy, my idiot son decides your first case back should be to guard another young girl.” Marco pounded his fist on the keyboard, and a door opened up in front of him with a whoosh.

Stephen turned bright red and a tremor ran down his spine, visibly shaking him. If I hadn’t been staring at him, I probably wouldn’t have seen it. That meant it was probably true. Not only had Stephen only had one case before, but he’d fallen in love with the girl. Wasn’t that one of those cardinal rules of spy club? Don’t fall in love with the girl?

Oh my god. I was the rebound girl.

“I’m sure he’ll do fine Marco,” Chloe said, and her voice made me jump. I’d totally forgotten she was there.

“Of course he will,” Marco snarled, shoving us through the door. “Because you’re going with him.”

“This was not how I expected my day to be going,” Chloe said as I followed along behind her in the dimly lit underground passageway. Red lights lit up the sections as we moved so that about ten feet on either side of us was illuminated and the rest of it was dark. It made me glad that Stephen was behind me. If something came to kill us, it’d either get him or Chloe first, which, I suspected, was why I was sandwiched in the middle.

“You didn’t expect the store to get blown up? Shocking,” Stephen mumbled under his breath.

Chloe wheeled on him, fixing him with a gaze that made my blood run cold, and it wasn’t even directed at me. Stephen stopped, his left foot moving slightly in front of him so he was poised on his feet. His hands moved just a fraction of an inch, edging upward into some kind of fighting position.

“No. I hadn’t expected that either,” Chloe spat, her eyes running up and down his body. Taking the entirety of him in. “But I, especially, hadn’t expected to be carting around you and her,” she jerked a thumb at me, “through a sewer all day.”

“Sorry,” I said with a nervous glance back down the corridor. I wasn’t sure how far we’d come or where we were exactly, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t far enough away from the bad guys. “Maybe we should keep walking anyway though.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, package!” Chloe snarled, her eyes narrowing into slits.

“Fine,” I said, putting my hands up in front of me in a conciliatory gesture. “What do you suggest we do?”

Chloe sighed and hung her head before turning back down the corridor. “We keep going,” she droned. She trudged forward, shoes scraping on the rough concrete of the tunnel.

“Maybe we could play a game?” I offered, unsure of what to do. Chloe’s attitude was getting me a little upset. I mean, she was supposed to be protecting me so she was doing her job. But, I mean, I don’t know, wasn’t this supposed to be fun? Everything I knew about spies told me that their jobs were fun. At least they seemed fun in the books I’d read.

“Like what?” Stephen asked from behind me. “It’s not like we can play I Spy.”

“I spy with my little eye, something red,” I said with a smirk.

“Is it a light?” Stephen asked.

“It is. Your turn,” I said.

“Oh. My. God. Will the two of you just shut the hell up?” Chloe screamed, putting her hands on her temples and rubbing. “Always yapping and talking. Just shut up before I tear out your skulls with my bare hands and leave your bodies in a dumpster.”

“That’s against protocol,” Stephen said.

“I’m going to ‘against protocol’ your face if you don’t shut the hell up!” Chloe yelled so loudly the sound echoed in the tiny tunnel.

“Uh… guys?” I asked cautiously.

“What?” Chloe whirled around to look at me with narrowed eyes, her pink lips twisted in rage.

“What are those?” I pointed at the ceiling behind us where a gaggle of dark creatures scurried toward us.

“Run!” Stephen screamed, grabbing my hand and taking off down the tunnel like a bat out of hell.

That was pretty much when the explosions started. Fire leapt down the tunnel behind us, superheating the air and making it impossible to breathe. Stephen glanced over his shoulder, face stricken in fear, and swept me into his arms. He pressed my body close to his, and I felt the heat of the blaze rush through me as he sprinted past Chloe.

She was facing us, a peculiar device in her hand that sort of reminded me of a remote control only it had one large green button in the center. She was pressing it as hard as she could, and I wondered if it was like a video game controller. You know, the ones when you press the buttons harder, they do more damage to the enemy?

Every single time she hit the button, a piece of the tunnel would explode in a flurry of flame and rock. Unfortunately, the black creatures dodged nimbly by the explosions. If this kept up, booby-trapped tunnel or not, we were going to get overrun.

“Chloe, do we have a way out of here?” Stephen yelled over the din, and I could barely hear him over the ringing in my ears.

“What, do I have to think of everything?” she screamed back at him, now hot on his heels. “Aren’t you some kind of secret agent? Do something.”

“It’s your tunnel,” he said as he flung me over his shoulder, and the breath whooshed out of me. He grabbed something out of his pocket with his now free hand. It was all shiny and silver with lots of flashing lights.

He flung the thing in front of us as far as he could. It sailed through the air, landing several feet away. Stephen dove to the floor, and my breath exploded out of me in a rush as he pulled his body on top of mine. “Down!” he screamed.

Chloe hit the floor in front of us and rolled into a ball with her hands covering her head and neck like one of those duck and cover drills.

The device began to flash with angry red light and started chirping in an angry machine sort of way. Stephen’s hand covered my face, shielding my eyes as he started counting softly. When he reached six, it felt like the world ended. I’d never really given much thought as to what I’d do if the world actually ended, but the wave of heat and smoke that exploded through the tunnel when he counted ‘six’ made me wish I had a backpack full of MREs and an underground bunker in the woods.

A sharp ringing filled my ears making it impossible to think as Stephen pulled me to my feet and dragged me toward the wreckage. I opened my eyes. Through the haze of smoke and rubble, I saw sunlight. Real, live, honest to god sunlight filtered through the hole in the tunnel ceiling.

“I tell you to do something so you blow a hole in the tunnel? Because that’s not going to attract anyone,” Chloe snarled as she scampered over the debris like she was some kind of goat.

“Catch!” Stephen called and flung me bodily upward to Chloe who caught me by the wrist. Pain tore through my shoulder as I hung there for a moment as Chloe fell on her butt and tried to pull me up out of the tunnel. Stephen climbed up the rock next to me.

He reached the top in the space it took for my shoulder to feel like it’d torn from the socket and helped Chloe haul me out into the sunlight.

Toppled cars and blown out store windows greeted me on the surface. High above the buildings, helicopters circled like a bunch of angry hornets after someone kicked their nest. Only they weren’t news or police helicopters. No, these were those army helicopters you see in movies with musclebound actors pointing machine guns out of the side while biting down on huge cigars. Except… I was pretty sure they weren’t actors this time.

People were running and screaming. A fire hydrant was spraying water up into the air like a macabre fountain. I swallowed. Had we hurt anyone trying to escape? I mean, Stephen had just blown up a city street in what looked like downtown Chicago. Someone had to have been hurt by the blast, or worse… had someone been inadvertently killed because they were trying to save me, Abby Banks? That was crazy, right?

Chloe grabbed me by the wrist and yanked me to the side as something smacked into the ground where I’d been standing with a wet thunk. I turned toward the small green object, about the size of a softball, with blinking green lights that cycled to red in the space of time it took for Chloe to throw me to the ground and shield me beneath her body. An explosion ripped out of the device, throwing us across the ground in a wave of heat that tore a scream from my lips.

I hit the ground hard and stars shot past my eyes moments before Chloe, and a million tons of rubble, landed on top of me. And then the world went dark.

Chapter 8

When I woke up, I was staring at a mauve ceiling which was an altogether strange color for a ceiling. A single bulb hung loosely from a string of black wires on an exposed fixture. It bathed the room in fake, amber light that made shadows sway across the walls.

I looked around but didn’t see Stephen or Chloe anywhere. Where were they? Were they okay? I shook my head. The last thing I remembered was an explosion throwing me to the side. Still, they had to be around here, somewhere, right? I nodded to myself, biting my lip to keep the dread from welling up in me and taking over. I was probably just in one of their super-secret hospitals somewhere.

I sat up, and the scratchy white sheets covering my body fell away into a pile on the floor. Okay, so I was in a bed. It was the only thing in the room. The rest of the room, barring the light above was completely bare, mauve walls and white tile floor. There were no windows either, only a door that looked like it only opened from the outside. At least I was pretty sure that was how it worked because it didn’t have a knob.

I pressed my hand against the mattress as I got into a sitting position and felt it squish beneath my hand. I was still wearing my blood-soaked clothing, which was a little… gross. I pulled at it, and it stuck to my body as I moved.

“Well, at least no one saw me naked,” I said to no one in particular because I was half-sure I was a crazy person and that’s what crazy people did, right? They talked to themselves? “Because if someone stripped me down and put me back in my gross bloody clothes, I’m going to just cry.”

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand as my feet touched the cool white tile. “I might just cry anyway,” I said as I moved toward the doorway, ignoring the bloody sheets next to the bed. At least it wasn’t my blood…

I pressed my hand against the door and pushed but it didn’t open. “Well, who didn’t see that coming,” I said, leaning heavily against the wall and sliding down to the ground.

“So you’re awake,” buzzed a cool female robotic voice next to my ear. I screamed and nearly leapt out of my skin as I threw myself away from the door, heart racing like an out of control rollercoaster.

I spun, one hand clutching my chest, the other held up out in front of me to ward off whatever it was. Only… I didn’t see anything.

“Usually people respond when spoken to. What were you, raised in a barn? And what are you wearing… no this won’t do, no, not at all. No daughter of mine should be wearing that,” the robot voice continued.

My stomach leapt into my throat as I realized that the voice was coming from the wall next to the doorway. So there was no one in the room with me, which was— wait, hold up, did she just imply she was my mother?

“Um… sorry,” I murmured, swallowing my stomach back down into place. “Are you my mother? Did I hear that right?”

“Of course I’m your mother,” the inhuman voice snapped, and the modulated sound of it made me shiver. “Who else would save your from those horrible people?”

“The one who killed all those people at the store?” I whispered, the words slipping out of my mouth as I sank to my knees, shaking my head. I was so screwed.

“I rescued you from a government cell. Sure, we had to kill a few people, but omelets and all that. You know how it is,” the voice intoned, but I couldn’t quite concentrate on it because it felt like the world was spinning so fast that I couldn’t orient myself to it. If she had me… if my real mother had captured me then I was as good as dead. How could this have happened? How could Stephen and Chloe have allowed this to happen?

“Did you kill Chloe and Stephen?” I asked, almost afraid to hear her answer.

“No,” the voice replied and there was a trace of humor beneath it. “At least, not yet.”

A wash of relief swept over me. Okay, at least my protectors weren’t dead. I shook my head as I got to my feet and put on my best brave face. “So what’s the plan, now?” I asked, doing my best to stand brave. “Are you really going to gut me and steal my heart?”

There was a silence so long that I wondered if she had stopped talking to me. When she finally spoke, the edge in her voice nearly made me jump. “No… my plan is not to take your heart. Who told you that, the same government who kidnapped you from me for your entire life?”

“Well… yes, actually,” I said, my cheeks reddening because what if she was right? I mean, she hadn’t done anything to me, right? “But you could still be lying.”

“I could be, but why would I lie? I have you in my base,” the voice said and an electronic sigh filtered through the air. “I can do anything I want. The only reason you are still alive is because I will it to be so.”

“Okay… that’s a fair point,” I conceded, and tried my best to push away the notion that she was correct. I needed some time to think, some time to come up with a plan. Besides, for all I knew, she was telling the truth. Maybe she wasn’t evil? “But you left me in my bloody clothes. Who does that?” I asked, hoping she would do the reasonable thing and let me shower. That would give me some time to plan. For what, I wasn’t quite sure yet, but stalling seemed like the best solution.

“Oh honestly,” the voice said, and I heard scuffling come through the speaker. “See, I told you she’d want to be changed,” the voice said, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t directed at me. “Roberto insisted that a young lady like yourself would not want us to see you naked. I told him he was crazy, but he insisted that you would feel violated if we undressed you while you were unconscious.”

“Tell Roberto ‘thank you.’ I’m not quite sure I’d have liked to be undressed while I was knocked out,” I was about to say more, but there was the sound of a scuffle behind the speaker.

“Don’t tell me ‘you told me so’, that’s so high school,” the voice snapped.

“Um… if it wouldn’t be too much bother, I’d like to change now, if possible.” When there was no immediate response, I added, “and shower…”

If they let me take a shower, it would take time. Then maybe I could think of a way out of this, or… or maybe Stephen could do his job and come save me. I sighed. I was still thinking of Stephen as the good guy, for all I knew him and Donovan could be members of an evil clan of devil worshippers. Somehow though, I doubted it because they’d kept me alive, and in good health, for sixteen years. Generally evil people don’t do that, right?

“Okay,” the voice said. Before I could respond, the wall to my left slid up with a hiss. Behind it was a stainless steel room with one of those gigantic showerheads hanging from the center of the ceiling like an enormous sunflower. Water began to pour from the spigot, and even from here, I could feel the steam hit my skin.

As the water splattered against the steel floor and vanished into an immense circular grate, I glanced back at the speaker. I was about to ask about clean clothes, but just as I opened my mouth, I felt my cheeks flush.

“You’re watching me, aren’t you?” I asked as I tiptoed toward the shower and reached one hand out to touch the water. It was perfect.

“Of course,” the voice replied.

“Well,” I swallowed, my face burning so much that I turned away from the speaker so that I wasn’t looking at it. Which, I’ll be honest, was a little ridiculous because I wasn’t sure where the cameras were. “I don’t know how comfortable I am showering in front of a bunch of strangers.” Having her watch me bathe was creepy, but not as creepy as having a bunch of completely random strangers do it.

“Oh for Pete’s sake,” my mother growled. “Okay, fine you do know more about teenage girls than I do.” I was pretty sure it wasn’t directed at me. There was a long pause as static filled the air. “I’ll instruct them to shut off the monitors while you bathe. When you return to your room, clean clothes will be waiting, is this acceptable?”

“Yes,” I said, swallowing. “But what if I don’t believe you?”

“Then stay in your damn bloody clothes!” The panel buzzed and went silent. Not like ‘oh it wasn’t talking’ silent, but ‘switched off’ silent. I sighed and began to undress. This was my chance to stall, after all. Still, as I stripped to my bra and panties, my blush spread down my chest and shoulders.

“I’m never going to be a webcam girl,” I mumbled to myself as I discarded the last of my undergarments and stepped into the shower. The first thing I noticed was the smell. Cool spearmint hit my nose, and I smirked. So they added bath scents. That was cool.

As I sat there staring at the water, a thought I’d been keeping buried in the recesses of my mind finally surfaced. If the other guy from the diner had succeeded in taking me from Stephen and bringing me back to my real mother, would I be thinking of her as the bad guy? Or would I be thinking of Stephen as the bad guy? The answer was obvious, baring no other evidence. I would assume my mother was the good guy because, well, she was my mother and not part of an elaborate conspiracy to keep me locked up. So why wasn’t I giving her the benefit of the doubt now?

The shower spray hit me like a waterfall as I stepped under the metal sunflower. It cascaded down my body and washed the blood away with remarkable ease. I stuck my tongue out, and as the water hit it, I nearly gagged. The taste of motor oil and smog filled my mouth as I brushed frantically at my tongue with the back of my hand.

“Eww!” I squawked. “No wonder the blood came off so easily,” I sputtered to myself like a crazy person. “It isn’t even water!”

Without thinking, I darted out of the creepy water and back into the room. The cold hit me at once, and I shivered as parts of me stiffened. That’s pretty much when I felt my eyes get as big as saucers. Standing in the middle of the room was a man.

He stared at me slack-jawed, a look of horror plastered across his face. He was wearing white scrubs and had black hair that was buzzed close to his scalp. He was huge, more mountain than man, and it looked like he’d borrowed his arm muscles from a freaking elephant.

I screamed, covering myself with my hands as I tried to scuttle back into the shower. My back hit metal, and I turned. The shower wall was closed, leaving no trace that it’d ever been there.

“Look, Abby, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” the man rumbled from behind me. His voice was so low that it could have made speakers explode.

“Get out!” I yelled, whirling back to face him.

He had his back to me, and he sort of half-shuffled toward the door, one hand over his eyes. “I brought you clothes,” he said when he neared the door. “They are on your bed.” With that, he put his hand against the door, and it slid into the ceiling like we were in one of those science fiction films.

I swallowed, still covering myself with my hands as my heart hammered in my chest. Then, very slowly, I looked away from the door and at ‘my’ bed. Sitting on the newly made bed, complete with fresh sheets, was a pair of white scrubs identical to the ones the man had been wearing. It looked like it was exactly my size.

A moment later, I was dressed in the shiftless white scrubs, and as I looked down at myself, I wondered what it was about moms and non-formfitting clothing.

“Okay, I’m dressed,” I said a moment later, hoping someone was listening.

The door slid open in front of me with a hiss, and the man from earlier poked his head through.

“You!” I snapped. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

He wiped his face with one meaty paw and sighed. “Let’s start over, okay?” he asked.

“No,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest and giving him my best ‘I don’t care if you live or die’ look. It was odd because I hadn’t had one previously so I kind of made it up on the spot.

“Look, you can come with me to see your mother or you can stay in this room by yourself, sans magazines and television.” He shrugged. “The choice is yours.”

“Fine, I’ll go,” I said, “but if you try to sneak any more peeks at me, I’m going to tell my mom.”

He swallowed, adam’s apple bobbing up and down so violently that I stared at him wide eyed.

“Please,” he whispered, visibly trembling as I stepped past him into the hallway. “Please don’t tell your mother I upset you…”

A few minutes later, I found myself standing in a gigantic command center. Computers and wires lined the walls, making it look more like the display station of a big box electronics store than a place people would actually, I don’t know, be?

There was a huge chair in the center of the room that reminded me of the command chair that Captain Kirk used in Star Trek. In front of the chair, several black screens the size of the movie theater back home filled the wall like a giant curved dome. It was the only area that was free of blinking lights and brightly colored knobs.

Then, very slowly, the chair started to swivel toward me. The ape of a man who led me here stiffened, his meaty paw tightening on my shoulder uncomfortably.

The chair shuddered into place with a sound that reminded me of snapping plastic and breaking gears. Engulfed in its black leather upholstery was a waif of a woman. She had short, greasy blonde hair and skin so pale it reminded me of a sickly porcelain doll. An enormous green visor covered the top part of her face, reducing her eyes to twin pinpricks of glowing neon light. They pulsed like embers as her thin, cracked lips twisted into a smile.

“Hello, my daughter,” she said in that same modulated, robot voice I’d heard earlier. “Pleased to meet you.”

I stared at her, open-mouthed, trying to think of something to say as her thin, boney fingers began to drum lightly on the arm pads. It made the tubes hooked to her arm shudder around her like a mass of tentacles. Okay… maybe I was wrong. Maybe she was the bad guy, after all. Surely, no good guy looks like a villain from a sci-fi movie.

“What’s wrong, Abigail? Do you not know how to speak?” my mother asked, one thin golden eyebrow arching up above the visor.

The man behind me nudged me minutely, and I stumbled forward, still in shock. He reached out, steadying me, bending down so that his huge head was near my ear. “Please,” he whispered, breath hot on my neck. “Be nice to her… and quickly.”

“S-sorry,” I stammered, straightening up and taking a step toward her, my hand outstretched.

The visor tilted to look at my hand, and she made a small wave of dismissal. “I’d give you a hug but,” she gestured at herself, her scrawny arms barely moving, “I can’t actually get out of this chair. If you like, I’ll let you kiss my cheek.” Her words made a shiver crawl down my back and I had to work really hard not to let my sudden revulsion show on my face.

“Um… pass,” I said. She scowled, and the sight of it made me want to turn into mist and hide beneath the floor. “I don’t want you to get sick from my germs,” I added a moment later.

My mother smiled at this. “So thoughtful, Abigail.” She glanced behind me at the man standing there. “Isn’t my daughter thoughtful, Roberto?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the gorilla behind me warbled. “The most thoughtful girl I have ever met.”

“Indeed,” my mother said as her chair began to swivel back toward the screens. “Now to business,” she said, and just before she was hidden from view, the telltale signs of a smirk passed across her lips.

The immense screens lit up in front of her, filling with pictures of various men and women in every color and style of dress.

“Hello!” my mother boomed. “I’d like you to all meet my daughter, Abigail de la Mancha.” Roberto shoved me forward until I was standing in front of my mother, facing the screens.

I’m not quite sure what it was about me, exactly, but the look of horror that flashed across nearly all the faces made me feel… inadequate. I mean, why were all these people so scared? What was I going to do, fail a math test at them?

“As you can see, your asset has failed,” my mother continued, and a panel in the silver floor slid away. The whirring of machinery and the hiss of expunged air filled my ears as a bound Chloe was propelled upward out of the floor.

So my mother hadn’t lied, after all. Well, at least about killing Chloe. Still, she was captured… if she was captured, then were was Stephen? Trapped in some deep dark dungeon, somewhere? If that was true, there was no way he could save me. Then again, did I really want him to save me? Maybe I was better off where I was?

I swallowed, staring at her, trying to think of how to do just that as she struggled, trying to get free of her chains. Blood poured down a cut from above her left eye and most of her clothes were blackened and charred. A thick clump of hair was gone, and the parts around it had that melted look to it that reminded me of a time at Thanksgiving when I’d leaned too close to one of the candles and caught my bangs on fire.

“Anyway,” my mother said. Her chair clicked and shuddered for a second. It began to move forward, hovering over the floor like some kind of space age device. “As I was saying earlier, you have thirty seconds to deposit oh, I don’t know, let’s say a trillion dollars in my account or I nuke Jerusalem.”

As I watched a huge counter light up behind her, I knew she was evil. It was like a switch in my brain that suddenly switched from doubtful to full on certainty. Even if she wasn’t going to kill me, or whatever, she was going to nuke a couple cities. That made her pretty much the devil in my book.

Another screen glowed to life, showing a dollar sign and a zero as the first screens bright, crimson numbers began to count down from thirty. Next to it,

“You can’t do this, Gabriella. You wouldn’t do this,” said a short, balding man in the center of the screens. His picture enlarged so that he was huge and imposing on the monitor.

“I can do whatever I want, Jordan,” my mother replied, her modulated voice harsh. “I’m the one with the bombs.”

“No, there are rules,” Jordan stammered, his lips peeling back to reveal several overly large yellow teeth as he grimaced.

“New rule,” my mother said, “the one with the nukes gets to make the rules.”

“We need more time!” screamed a man with a navy blue yamaka pushing down his black, curly hair. Behind him, I could see people running around frantically yelling into phones.

I took a quick step forward, edging toward Chloe. My mother must have seen me, because her lips compressed into a thin line, and she moved her chair up so that it was between Chloe and me.

“If any of you talk again before paying me, I kill the agent. Deal?” she asked, and I knew in that moment I had just killed Chloe.

All the color drained from Chloe, and she stopped struggling. She looked up at the screen, and a single tear dripped down her cheek. “Please…” she whispered.

“Now, Gabriella, let’s not be too hasty here,” said Jordan, his palms held up in a conciliatory gesture. “Just give us some time, we’ll get you the money.”

“They don’t listen, do they?” my mother asked, putting a gun to Chloe’s head and pulling the trigger.

The sound was unlike anything I’d ever heard before as crimson sprayed across the steel floor. Chloe’s body collapsed like a bag of wet sand. The smell, like a thousand pennies, hit my nose, and my stomach sloshed. The world spun beneath my feet as I fell. I would have hit the floor if Roberto hadn’t grabbed me. I was about to pull myself away, but instead, my stomach opted to lose its contents onto his shoes.

I shuddered again, unable to look up as tears filled my eyes. Chloe… My mother had just killed Chloe. Why had she done it? Why?

“What have you done!” barked Jordan, face red.

“I warned you,” my mother said offhandedly and shrugged as if to say ‘I don’t know what else you want from me.’

“Five,” sounded a voice that reverberated around the room, and as I wiped my mouth and glanced back at the timer, it said, “four.”

“Please Gabriella, just give me more time,” the man with the yamaka pleaded, tears in his eyes. “All I need is three minutes.”

“Three.”

“Pity, I don’t have any more agents to kill,” my mother said, glancing at Roberto. “They just keep talking, don’t they?”

Wait… she didn’t have any more agents? Did that mean Stephen had escaped somehow? Did that mean he was on his way here, right now?

“Two.”

Roberto nodded minutely to my mother before helping me to my feet, ignoring the mess I’d made on his pants. Points for him.

“Have someone clean that up,” my mother said, gesturing at the corpse.

“One.” The screen with the counter went red. The one with the dollar sign hadn’t changed.

My mother glanced up at it and shook her head. “Politicians,” she said, and the screen with the yamaka guy turned to static. “You try to tell them exactly what you want, and somehow, they try to find a way not to give it to you.” She shrugged. “Well, this time there is no escape plan. Now, shall we try this again? Double or nothing? Where the prizes are twice as big and the stakes twice as high?” She glanced at me, eyes bright with amusement. “Somehow, I don’t think they’ll listen, but you never know,” she added under her breath.

“Did… did you just blow up a city?” I asked, ignoring all the noise coming from the monitors. “All those people…” I suddenly felt sick as the image of millions of people going up in flames filled my mind. Women, children, families, all destroyed in an instant, and for what? So my mother could make a point?

“Yes,” my mother replied. “I nuked Jerusalem, try not to make a big deal about it. Now,” she turned toward the screen, “we’re going to try again with Rome.” She put her hand to her mouth and spoke conspiratorially. “I don’t think they believed me the first time.”

“But you asked for a trillion dollars in thirty seconds, no one has that kind of money,” I said, my hands balling into fists. Someone had to stop my mother, and with Stephen absent and Chloe dead, that pretty much left me.

“I’ll be honest with you, Abigail. College is expensive,” she said with a shrug as the counter behind her flashed with the number fifteen. “Besides, I never really expected them to pay for the first city. That was more to show them I’m serious.”

I took a step toward her, intent on, well I’m not sure exactly, when Roberto seized me around the waist with one giant arm. He held me there, so that I couldn’t move while my mother turned back to the screen and smiled maliciously.

“Okay,” she said, addressing the screens again. “Two trillion dollars for Rome.” The counter started flashing downward. “That’s less than a million dollars per person, sounds like a deal, doesn’t it?”

I turned away from the screen because if I watched, I was pretty sure I was going to start crying. I was pretty sure my mother didn’t expect them to pay her for Rome either, so why was she doing this? For fun?

“Five.”

“No,” the voice on the screen rang out so crisply.

“Four.”

It zoomed in on the pope. He stood there, dressed in his robes. He was on his knees, staring up at the sky. “We will not pay you, Ms. de la Mancha. If it be His will for us to die, then so be it.”

“Three.”

“Let’s not forget, Pope, you don’t rule Rome. I’m sure the others there are willing to pay,” my mother smirked, “Or not.”

“Two.”

“Forgive her,” he said, dropping to his knees, head bowed.

“One.”

Static.

Chapter 9

“Well, the cat’s dead.” Those were the last words my mother said before sending me back to my room.

That’s where I was going now, trudging along the stainless steel hallway with Roberto behind me. “I’d say something, but I’m not sure what to say,” he said, huge paw resting on my shoulder as he steered me through the winding corridors.

“Say ‘it’s okay’ or ‘she was just joking and that wasn’t real’ or something like that,” I replied. Somehow, someway this was my fault, and that made my insides twist up into knots. While I didn’t know anyone in those cities, I didn’t want them to die either. Because I’d let myself be captured, millions of people were destroyed in an instant, and for what, so my mother could prove a point? “Hell, you could even say ‘she’s not always like this,’ you know, anything, really.”

“I’d be lying,” he said with a shrug. “But it is okay. Not for those people, they’re dead, but for you. We have you now. We’ll keep you… safe.”

“You’re lying,” I said, swallowing. “You’re going to chop me up and use me for spare parts, aren’t you?”

Roberto said nothing for so long that I turned to look at him. Only… only he wasn’t standing there anymore. He was lying slumped on the floor, his eyes rolled up in the back of his head.

Stephen, glorious Stephen of the perfect eyes, stood over Roberto. A giant cut that split his left eyebrow was stitched shut, and I wondered what other injuries his tight black long sleeve shirt and matching black jeans hid.

“We have to go,” he said, reaching out and taking my hand, and I swear to God, my heart did a little somersault because he was alive. “I disabled some of the doors so the guards will have trouble reaching us, but I don’t know how long that will hold them,” he added, gesturing for me to come to him.

“Thank god you’re here!” I cried, barely resisting the urge to hug him as relief flooded into me. “I was so worried…” I bit my lip. “I was worried you were dead.”

“You were worried about me?” he asked, his cheeks reddening just a tad before he shook his head as if dismissing an errant thought. “I was worried about you and Chloe too. After the explosion, I was buried under a bunch of rubble. It took me a long time to dig my way out.”

“So how’d you find me?” I asked as the memory of Chloe crashed down on me. Tears tugged at the corner of my eyes, and I fought to keep them from spilling out.

“I followed Chloe’s transponder, but it stopped signaling a few minutes ago…” he trailed off and looked away, staring far off into space. “I’m guessing she didn’t make it,” he added a moment later.

I shook my head. “No,” I whispered, and it was very nearly the hardest word I ever had to say.

“Okay, well,” Stephen said, pulling me back down the hallway. “Let’s get you out of here. Donovan’s arranged for a transport so we just need to get to it.”

An air raid siren went off in the hallway. Flashing red lights began to strobe, filling the room with crimson shadows as I put my hands to my ears in an effort to drown out the noise. All around us doors tried to rise up, but they stopped, screeching to a halt after moving only a couple inches. Acrid smoke drifted out of the mechanisms as Stephen glanced up and down the hallway.

“Dammit!” Stephen snapped over the din, worry crisscrossing his face. He said something else that sort of sounded like, “they shouldn’t have found us so quickly,” but it was hard to hear him over all the racket.

He grabbed something from beneath his brown leather bomber jacket and flung it down the hallway behind him before pulling a gun from the waistband of his jeans. It had that huge ominous look to it that reminded me of old gangster movies, and I wondered how lucky I was feeling. Not really very lucky.

Stephen pushed me forward, not hard, just enough to get me moving. I turned to look at him, and he nodded before stepping in front of me and edging down the hallway. Then the corridor shook so violently I nearly lost my footing.

I glanced over my shoulder as my heart tried to escape through my chest with a battering ram. Behind us, twenty feet away the hallway was just gone. Someway, somehow it had been replaced with a boatload of twisted metal, burning wood, and broken rubble. Thick plumes of grey-black smoke filled the air as Stephen reached back, wrapping one of his slender hands around my wrist and jerking me forward.

“We have to move, Abby,” he yelled over the blaring siren and took a few more steps forward, not bothering to look at me. It was just as well because I’m sure I looked like a hot mess. I wiped my eyes with the back of my free hand and swallowed the lump in my throat.

“Okay,” I mumbled and was pretty sure he didn’t hear me because I didn’t hear myself. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Okay,” he replied, stopping for a moment as we reached the end of the hallway. We were at a fork. Either we went left or we went right. He turned toward me, and his blue eyes fixed on me. Emotion traveled just below the surface of them, like a giant fish swimming just beneath the surface of a lake. I swallowed again and felt my cheeks start to heat up as he stared at me.

“What?” I asked, and he paused for a long time, studying me.

“Do you trust me?” he asked, brow furrowing.

“I don’t really have a lot of choice right now,” I replied, glancing down both the left and right path. It was too dark for me to see much of anything.

Stephen shook his head, blond hair falling over his eyes as he did so. He reached up, pushing it out of the way with his gun hand, which seemed a little dangerous to me, but otherwise made me melt a little inside.

“I know you don’t have a choice right now, Abby,” he said. “That wasn’t what I asked.”

I mulled his question over, and came to find, surprisingly, that I did trust him. I couldn’t say why exactly, given his track record of working for an agency that kidnapped me, but he also hadn’t nuked two cities.

“Yes, Stephen, I trust you,” I whispered, barely getting the words out.

“Good,” he said and released my hand. I looked down at my hand. It suddenly felt very cold, and well, unheld. “I need you to follow me very closely and when I tell you to run, I want you to run. Don’t look back. Don’t ask questions. Just put sneakers to pavement and move. Got it?”

I nodded, biting my lip.

“Okay,” he said and darted into the right fork. As soon as he stepped into the hallway, neon lights in the shape of footprints lit up the floor. Were we following some kind of evacuation path? I was about to ask when Stephen beckoned me to follow. I swallowed, steeling myself for a moment and darted after him.

For some reason I couldn’t explain, I felt really vulnerable and exposed passing by the left fork. Maybe Stephen had another one of those tunnel killers? Then no one could come down the left fork and I don’t know, ambush us from behind? I was about to ask him just that when something zipped through the space to the left of my ear.

“Down!” Stephen screamed, throwing himself backward in a half-twist. His shoulder struck me hard in the chest, as his free hand wrapped around me and pulled me to the ground. Breath exploded out of my chest with such violence that I wasn’t sure I could even remember how to breathe.

Instead, I rolled into a ball on the floor as Stephen swung his body around on his elbows. His gun went off, and its crack shattered my already done for hearing. It rang in my ears so loudly that I couldn’t hear anything but the dull cry of the bullet.

He fired again, the flash off the muzzle so bright that it was nearly blinding in the darkened hallway. More zings pinged off the metal around him, but strangely, they weren’t anywhere near me. Well, that was good, right?

“Abby, it looks like our pathway is blocked. I was afraid this would happen. Remember when I asked if you trusted me?” he asked, but I could barely hear him.

“Yes,” I yelled as loudly as I could even though I didn’t mean to do it.

“Okay,” he said, grabbing me by the shoulder and hoisting me upright in front of him like… like a shield.

“What the hell are you doing?” I screamed, my stomach falling into my shoes as he shoved me forward in front of him.

“Improvising,” he whispered in my ear, his breath warm on my neck as he spoke. He put his wrist on my shoulder, and out of the corner of my eye, I could just make out the barrel of his monster gun.

“Don’t do anything stupid!” Stephen called from behind me, his voice echoing in the sudden silence. “I don’t want to hurt her, but you all know what my orders are.”

Adrenaline surged through me as his words clicked in my brain. Wait, hadn’t he just asked me to trust him, and now, he was threatening to kill me?

Stephen’s gun exploded next to my ear, and I thought I was dead. Only, I wasn’t dead because Stephen held me firmly with his other hand on the waistband of my scrubs. “Don’t run,” he whispered. “If you do, we’re both dead.”

I nodded, but wasn’t sure he could see it as he pushed me forward again. That’s when it clicked. They still wanted me alive, but Stephen, well they didn’t exactly need him to make any points. My mother had just nuked Rome and Jerusalem. What was one more dead secret agent? Now, I just had to assume he was the good guy, and, you know, didn’t actually plan on shooting me.

A moment later, I saw the body of a man in white scrubs. Blood leaked out of his body, spreading out around him in a pool of foul smelling ichor. I swallowed, but that didn’t seem to help my stomach any. I took another step, my shoe squelching in the blood as Stephen moved us past the corpse.

Had he just killed that guy? I shook my head, trying to banish the thought as Stephen reached down and picked up the guy’s weapon. It looked like some kind of machine gun but for all I knew, it was a bazooka.

“Is this where you say ‘Ho, ho, ho, now I have a machine gun?’” I asked, and my voice cracked partway through the statement.

“I will if it will make you feel better,” he said, moving next to me, which seemed sketchy. What if there were more bad guys?

“What if there are more bad guys?” I asked, glancing at him as he took the lead once again.

“Why, Abby?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder and quirking one golden eyebrow at me. “I’m starting to think you’d be sad if I got hurt.”

I didn’t respond to him. What was I supposed to say, honestly? “No you’re wrong, I want to watch your bullet riddled corpse hit the ground so I can go back to my mom who wants to chop me up and make my bits her bits.” I shook my head, dismissing the notion. Nope, I wasn’t going down that road. Then again, it could have gone the other way so easily. Stephen could have been forced to shoot me.

I wiped my hands on my pants and followed after Stephen as he approached a steel door with a large control panel attached to it. He wouldn’t do that, would he? He wouldn’t shoot me…

Stephen pulled on a glove made of black rubber and placed his hand against the screen on the control panel. Electricity arced between his fingers, and he turned to glance at me as wisps of energy darted over his gloved hand.

“Open sesame,” he said, and the door slid open with a whoosh.

I glanced at him, narrowing my eyes and shaking my head. “You think you’re so cool,” I said, trying to shove down thoughts of him shooting me in the back of the head as I stared past him into the dank, dark hole beyond the door.

“I don’t think I’m cool,” he said with a grin and pulled his hand away, lightning crackled between his fingertips and the control panel. “I think I’m positively electric.”

He turned and stepped boldly into the room with his shoulders squared, and I followed more timidly. For whatever reason, he seemed to think we weren’t going to get shot at anymore, but I wasn’t so sure. I mean we were trying to escape a secret base of a woman who had just nuked two major cities. She had to have more than two guards here, right?

The first thing I noticed about the room was the smell, like old salt water and oil. It hit me in a rush that made me think we might be on a pirate ship in the middle of the ocean. Stephen took another step and put his hand out, grabbing the slick bronze railing of a spiral staircase that led down into the dank blackness below.

“Be careful. It’s slippery,” he said, taking a careful step onto the staircase and descending a few feet before turning to watch me.

“What?” I asked, taking a tepid step forward, setting my bloody tennis shoe down on the first corrugated-metal step. “Afraid I won’t follow you down into another dark hole?”

“You never know,” he replied with a smirk before facing forward and moving deeper into the inky darkness.

“I don’t suppose you brought a flashlight,” I replied, a few moments later. I could barely see even a few feet in front of me and now every step was slow and measured because I wasn’t sure if I was going to drop off into oblivion.

“Yes, I have one. No, I’m not turning it on. If there are gunners in here, I don’t want to give them a target,” he said. His voice seemed far away, impossibly far away.

A second later, my shoes hit what felt like concrete, and my next step confirmed I was on the level as it were. “Okay, we’re here,” I said. “Where are you?”

“Heading to the submarine, mon petite chou, like you should be.” Donovan’s voice broke through the darkness and nearly made me leap out of my shoes. I spun toward the sound of it. I could just barely make him out standing next to a hulking hunk of metal. I took a few steps toward him, still bewildered, and something grabbed my wrist.

I screamed and leapt straight in the air, whirling toward the thing and striking out with my free hand. Stephen caught my other wrist.

“Careful, Abby. We don’t want you slipping into the water. It’s really cold this deep under the ocean,” he said, hustling me toward the submarine, evidently unaware that my heart was about to explode from the fright he had given me. Jerk.

Chapter 10

“So… we’re in a submarine, that’s cool,” I said as casually as I could. “Because a secret base at the bottom of the ocean is completely reasonable.”

“Glad you agree, mon petite,” Donovan said, glancing over his shoulder at me in a sweep of blond hair that trailed down his back like a gleaming mane. Amusement flickered across his emerald eyes as he spoke.

“Great,” I snapped, turning away from him and crossing my arms over my chest.

“Oh, she’s a feisty one, Stephen. I can see why you go all googly eyes at her,” Donovan said with a snicker.

I felt my cheeks burst into flames as I stared across the tiny room at Stephen who looked at me like he’d just been caught sticking his hand in a cookie jar. Very slowly, he swallowed, adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he looked down at his shoes like they were the most interesting thing in the room.

I glanced at his shoes for a second, black combat boots, before whirling around, my hands clenched into fists. “You should be nicer to him!” I snapped. “He just saved me. All you did was wait behind in the submarine.”

“Well, love, to be fair, I’m also piloting the submarine,” Donovan said, waving one hand at the controls. “That’s a skill that your boyfriend doesn’t have. He’s more of a blunt instrument. Like a hammer or a rock.”

“You’re a jerk,” I growled, and suddenly, I didn’t know what to do. I mean I wasn’t going to go attack Donovan, and I wasn’t about to turn around and look at Stephen of the ‘oh so interesting shoes’ either.

The whole submarine was like ten square feet so it wasn’t like I could go anywhere. Most of the walls were covered in things that buzzed, whirred, or blinked. I was fairly certain the twenty seconds I’d spent in computer club with my friend, Lisa Ann, was not going to be enough to get this monstrosity working if Donovan suddenly found himself incapacitated.

“So, what’s the plan, exactly?” I asked, changing the topic. “Drive around under water and pray the world doesn’t nuke my mother’s underwater hideout?”

“It’s a lot harder to nuke an underwater base than you’d think,” Donovan said, hunching forward over his control panel. The motion stretched his pink polo shirt across his back so that the muscles stood out. Maybe someone should tell these guys to buy clothes that fit…

“Strangely, that doesn’t answer my question,” I replied, stamping my foot a little.

The reflection of Donovan on the view screen quirked an eyebrow at me. “True,” he replied… and said nothing else.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked again.

Donovan shrugged. “I’m not telling you, clearly. Why don’t you guys go play cards or make out or something?” Donovan turned, glancing past me like I was invisible as rage filled every ounce of my being. Had he just?

“Stephen,” he said. “Can’t you find something to occupy her?”

Stephen said nothing, but a moment later, I felt his hand on my shoulder. He spun me around so I could see him. His eyes were so blue and deep that, for a moment, it felt like I was drowning as he led me toward the back of the room.

We sat down on the faux-wooden bench under all the scuba gear that lined the back wall. I wasn’t really sure what the purpose of the gear would be since we were so deep underwater that I was pretty sure we’d be killed instantly, but hey, I had learned a lot of things today. Maybe it was super-secret spy scuba gear with pressure-reducing knobs or something.

“So Abby,” Stephen said, pausing for a long time and staring up at the ceiling of the submarine. “What do you want to know?”

“What the plan is for me? I mean, okay, my mom nuked two major cities, so why are you still trying to save me?” I asked, shaking my head. He reached out and took both my hands in his, and they were so warm that it made little tingles run up my arms. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Because, we’re the good guys,” Stephen replied, lips quirking into a smile.

“That’s not enough,” I said. “That’s not enough by a longshot.”

“I agree,” called Donovan from the front of the submarine. “I’m not a good guy either. I’m still all for the ‘leave her body in a dumpster’ option in case you were wondering, but for some reason, HQ still thinks that Gabriella has more bombs. They’re hoping to use you as leverage.”

Stephen bristled, his hands clenching around mine until it was just this side of painful. ‘Don’t listen to Donovan,” he said, shaking his head. “He’s an ass. There’s no way we would hand you back over to Gabriella.”

“Of course not…” I swallowed and took a deep breath. “You guys would just kill me.”

“It won’t come to that,” Stephen said, and this time, he leaned closer to me, perfect lips slightly parted. “I will protect you. I promise.”

Just like that, my heart started going crazy and I forgot how to breathe. Was… was he going to try and kiss me? Now? Oh my god. WhatamIgoingtodo?

I turned my head slightly, putting a little space between Stephen’s lips and mine. “Why?” I murmured, my voice so low that there was no way Donovan could hear me. I hadn’t meant to whisper like that, but well, it was hard to make my words come out right, just then.

“Okay, I guess, technically, you’re still leverage, which is why he’ll keep you alive,” Donovan said with a shrug, and I wondered if he had heard me or if he was continuing his thought. “Don’t let tall, blond, and handsome fool you. You’re leverage.”

“Is that what I am, Stephen? Just leverage?” I said, pulling away so suddenly that Stephen’s eyes twitched slightly. Then he leaned even closer. Which was like weird, right?

“No,” he breathed, and the sound of his voice rolled over me like hot fudge and silk. I swallowed, trying to make sense of what else he said, but the words were lost because the only thing I could concentrate on was his lips. His hands settled on my shoulders, so warm and comforting, I started to lean into him as he spoke.

His brilliant blue eyes sparkled, lips curling into a smile as he leaned in toward me. I shut my eyes and tilted my head toward him, parting my lips as my heart sped up to just this side of a sprint.

The submarine lurched violently to the side, throwing me to the ground. I smacked into the metal floor, bouncing hard on my shoulder as the sound of screeching metal and explosions reduced my hearing to a cotton-dulled buzz. My eyes snapped open as I sucked in a breath that was all acrid smoke and fear.

Flames danced along the control panel in front of Donovan who was lying slumped in his chair, head lolling to the side. His chest was still moving, so I was pretty sure he wasn’t dead.

“Stephen!” I cried, glancing around for him.

“Abby!” I heard him yell, but his voice sounded distant and muffled. I swung my head toward him and nearly screamed. Stephen was buried under a bunch of scuba equipment, blood streaming from a cut above his eye as he tried to pull himself free.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said, torn between wanting to help him and rescue Donovan, the submarine pilot, from certain fiery doom.

“Save Donovan,” he gasped, shoving away a giant oxygen tank. It hit the floor with a loud clang and began to roll toward me.

“Okay!” I said because I wasn’t sure what else to do, and as I tried to get to my feet, the whole world tilted sideways.

I slammed into the left side of the sub so hard the world went blurry. The oxygen tank smashed into the metal next to my head, and even though that should have scared me, I lay there, unable to move.

Hesitantly, I reached out, touching it with my hand, gripping the cold steel for some sense of stability until the world stopped swimming. I glanced toward Donovan. He was still in the chair, only now he was being suspended by the straps over his shoulders and around his waist.

The lights went out. I was plunged into pitch blackness in a tin can a million miles below the surface of the ocean. The ‘floor’ beneath my hands began to glow with neon green light as various emergency lights all over the submarine came to life. While some flickered and went out, most managed to stay on, bathing the compartment in their green glow.

It was still too dark for me to make out Stephen beneath the pile of debris in the back of the submarine. From here, it all looked like twisted shadows. I swallowed again, biting my lip as I rolled onto my stomach and crawled toward Donovan. Jerk or not, he was the only one who could pilot the submarine, and hopefully, stop whatever it was from playing kick the can with the sub.

I reached him a moment later, but the way he was lying against the straps made it impossible for me to get enough pressure on the pull tabs to release him. I struggled with it, pulling so hard that my fingers began to hurt from the strain.

That was when I spotted the knife clipped to his belt. I grabbed hold of it and yanked. It slid out about half an inch before coming to a stop as Donovan’s body shifted. I put my back against the wall and braced my feet against Donovan’s side, pushing with all my strength. His body moved the barest fraction of an inch, and I grabbed hold of the knife, jerking it free.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and glanced at the control panel. Black smoke was streaming from the left most compartments, but thankfully, I couldn’t see any more fire. Well that was strange.

Donovan moaned, and I shook myself into action, leaping to my feet and starting to cut him free of the harness. While it was probably only minutes, it felt like it took hours to saw him free. I put my hands under his armpits, and bracing my legs against the control panel, pulled him upright, my arms trembling with strain.

As I tugged him loose from the chair, my arms gave out. His body smacked into me, knocking the knife from my hand as we hit the ground. My head slapped against the hard metal with a wet sounding thud as the knife went skittering off into the dark.

Stars swam past my eyes as the dead weight of Donovan settled on top of me, making it nearly impossible to breathe. I struggled, pushing at him with my pinned limbs but it was no use. Sweat began to bead on my forehead, dripping down the side of my face.

The sound of shrieking metal exploded through the small submarine, and I craned my head toward the sound as the neon lights began to wink out one by one. The flash of blue-white flame filled my vision, blinding me so badly that I had to turn my head away as the fire ate through the steel wall like it was gasoline-drenched paper.

There was a loud clang, like a giant gong being dropped against the ground, and the sound of it reverberated in my ears. I looked back toward the sound, spots still dancing across my eyes, to see a huge hole in the wall. The metal had that bright-red color of superheated steel, and the edges looked like they were dripping.

Beyond the hole, I could see beige light filtering in, and I watched helplessly, as a tiny form stepped through the hole and surveyed the scene. I couldn’t make out the face because it was hidden behind a mask and goggles that made it look like an alien with giant green eyestalks jutting from its forehead.

It peered at the wreckage where Stephen had been buried for several minutes before turning its attention toward me. It took one ominous step forward, clearly not seeing me beneath the massive bulk of Donovan’s body. My heart started to hammer so loudly I was worried it would give away my position as the person began to walk toward me.

I held my breath as the form bent down and grabbed Donovan by the scruff of his shirt and turned him over. I squealed, trying to throw myself backward the moment I was free but got so twisted up in the unconscious body of Donovan still laying over my legs that all I succeeded in doing was drawing more attention to myself.

“I have a gun!” I lied. “I’ll use it if you move even a centimeter closer!”

The person’s lips quirked into a smile as it stared at me.

“It’s okay, Abby,” Esmeralda Banks said. “Mommy’s here to save you.”

“Mom?” I said, but I’m not sure if the words actually came out of my mouth because my jaw hit the floor. Shock rippled through me as Esmeralda Banks pulled off her mask and shook her head, allowing her golden locks to frame her movie-star face.

Then, as she leaned down toward me, presumably to help me up, everything turned sort of red because, well, wasn’t this the woman who had been lying to me for my entire life? Rage swelled up inside me, so thick and choking I could barely breathe as I shoved her hands away from me.

“You’re not my mother!” I snapped, curling my hands into fists. “You’re just some lady being paid to… to…” I gasped as tears tugged at my eyes and started to slip down my cheeks like little drops of wet lies, “paid to pretend you love me,” I finished.

“Abby,” she said, voice comforting, but there was a tremor beneath it, just the smallest hint of sadness in her normal, stoic calm. Her emerald eyes went glassy as something died just below the surface. “Abby,” she repeated and swallowed, hard.

“Stop saying my name!” I snapped and tried to push myself free, which was pointless because I couldn’t move. I was still trapped beneath Donovan’s bulk. “Argh!” I screamed in fury, and without thinking, smacked at him with my fists.

“Abby, calm down, let me help you,” Esmeralda said, reaching out toward me with one slow, tentative hand. It reminded me of someone reaching toward an angry mongrel dog in the streets.

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” I cried, finally succeeding in pulling my left leg free. I put my foot against Donovan’s body and pushed, the muscles burning beneath my skin. He flopped over, his head smacking against the steel with a horrible sounding thunk.

Esmeralda shook her head, snapping herself from some train of thought before turning mechanically to the back of the ship. Then she began to walk toward the scuba equipment.

“Are you ignoring me?” I screamed as I got to my feet and took an angry step toward her.

“Do you remember when you were a toddler and you used to throw fits?” Esmeralda wasn’t looking at me but she shook her head and sighed to herself. “You’d get so angry and you’d throw yourself down in the middle of the floor. Then you’d scream and start scooting backward. Well, this one time I got up and left you.” She glanced back at me and smirked. “It was one of my bad parent moments for sure. But what did you do? You ran into my room and grabbed me by the hand, insisting I follow you. So I did, and what did you do?”

“I have no idea what I did,” I said as she bent down and began to rummage through the equipment.

“Well, once we entered the room,” she continued, ignoring me, “you threw yourself back down on the ground and began to resume your fit. You repeated this same act three times, and every single time, I followed you because I thought maybe you wanted something else. You were so calm when you approached me, but all you wanted was to throw your temper tantrum where I could see it.”

“And what is the point of telling me that story?” I snapped, putting my hands on my hips and fixing her with my best glare, which really wasn’t hard because I was so angry I felt like I was going to burst.

“Because if I wasn’t your mother, do you think I’d remember your toddlerhood?” She stood, turning toward me and holding out a black, rubber-looking suit. “I am your mother, Abby. I raised you. I kissed your booboos. I attended your school plays. I helped you with your homework.” She shoved the suit into my hands. “I am not trying to cut out your insides and stuff them in my body to give myself a few more years. I am risking my life to save you.” She fixed me with her mom face. The one that made my legs turn to jelly. “Now put this on.”

Chapter 11

We were in the water. It was surprisingly warm for being a billion miles beneath the surface. This might have had to do with the super-expensive looking gizmos on my scuba suit that kept whirring and blinking with all sorts of lights. I glanced around, but couldn’t see beyond the end of the flashlight in my hand. Its beam extended only a couple feet into the distance before being swallowed by dark water.

I swallowed, still unused to breathing through my Darth Vader mouthpiece, and tried to keep calm like Esmer— my mother— had told me. The more I panicked, the more oxygen I would use. Running out of air didn’t exactly seem fun. Then again, I wasn’t even breathing air. I was breathing some kind of weird nitrogen mixture so my lungs wouldn’t explode. Man… even the air wasn’t genuine.

I glanced back toward where the submarine should have been but couldn’t see it through the inky blackness. I wished once again that my mother had brought a bigger vehicle. Why we hadn’t taken her submarine was immediately clear when we hit the water. Her ship was designed only for one person, so I wasn’t going to fit.

Also, since she’d cut a hole in Donovan’s submarine, if she detached, water would rush inside, killing both him and Stephen. Since they were alive, albeit unconscious, this seemed like a particularly bad plan since they were supposed to be colleagues.

I suppose we could have taken them with us, but well, she didn’t want to do that for reasons she hadn’t quite explained. This meant that now I was swimming under the ocean with my adoptive mother’s hand locked in a death grip.

Still, part of me was glad we were leaving them behind. There was something about Donovan that made him hard to trust, and well, I wasn’t sure I could trust Stephen either because, after all, I was leverage. Esmeralda, on the other hand, had come all this way just to save me. If I couldn’t trust her, I was screwed.

Already, my legs were starting to burn from the effort of kicking, which was lame because as I watched my mom and tried to mimic her perfect, mermaid-like strides… I just couldn’t. My kicks were all disjointed, and I kept swinging my flashlight around at every shadow. This made my body start to spin, and I’d have to kick again to right myself. It was getting very tiring.

“I still don’t think this is a wise way for one to first experience the joys of scuba diving,” I said, glaring at a shadow that turned out to be an outcropping of rock. “You could have taught me to do this, you know, in the comfort of our local pool.”

“Abby,” my mother sighed, her voice coming through the speakers embedded in the helmet just above my ears so it was like hearing her in surround sound. “I could have done a lot of things differently. Do you want me to go back in time and be all ‘Sarah Conner’ for you?”

“No,” I replied, trying to will my breathing to be slower. “We’re not facing any killer machines. If that was the case, the moment I tried to operate it, I’d somehow fill it with spyware.”

My mother’s laughter echoed in my ears, making me relax a little. Even if she wasn’t my real mother, she had raised me, and well, she wasn’t trying to gut me and play mix and match with my insides, which in my opinion, was a huge plus in her favor.

“But you could have taken me scuba diving, or like, taught me some martial arts, or well, anything,” I said a few minutes later.

“I could have, you’re right, Abby. But I wanted you to have a normal childhood. There’re lots of kids in our town just like you, should we be training all of them to be assassins to keep them safe from their parents?” my mother asked, and for whatever reason, it sounded like she genuinely wanted my opinion. “And I did try to get you to take a self-defense class, remember?”

“Well, I… okay fine,” I said, relegating myself to silence for a moment because she had a point. Ninety-nine percent of us would have complained and rebelled if we didn’t know why we were being trained. If we did know, well, that’d sort of defeat the purpose of the fake town designed to give us some semblance of a real life. It was like witness protection on steroids, and I could see the logic in not wanting us to all be crazy assassins. “And I guess no one wants a crazy assassin kid they trained bent on vengeance for being abducted as a child.”

“That, too,” my mother agreed and squeezed my hand.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked.

My mother was silent for a long time before she spoke, so long, I began to wonder if she had heard me. “We rendezvous with some people I know. They’ll take us somewhere safe,” she replied what felt like several hours later.

“Oh, like more agents? Like Donovan and Stephen?” I asked. “Where are they taking us?”

“It’s better if you don’t know, and they won’t be like Donovan or Stephen because… this isn’t exactly sanctioned.”

“Eh?” I asked, quirking my eyebrows even though she couldn’t see my face. “What do you mean it’s unsanctioned?”

“Abby, I was coming to get you whether or not Stephen got you out. That… didn’t sit well with my boss so I stole that submarine. Thankfully, Stephen got you out, but frankly, I don’t trust them. There’s a mole in the agency.”

“Whoa there, Mom. You mean you went AWOL to save me?” I asked.

“Yes, it was either that or put a bullet in Gabriella’s head. Unfortunately, she has some gizmo hooked up that makes it so if she dies from anything… unnatural, it detonates several more bombs,” she replied, and my heart sped up in my chest. “Now we’re going to meet some people I know and they are going to whisk us away to a safe place until Gabriella dies of natural causes. Then I’ll take us back home, and they won’t punish me because I succeeded where they failed.”

I glanced at her as she said the words, all full of bravado and confidence. “Um… Mom have you ever dealt with petty bureaucrats? Like at all? Because let me tell you, in my limited experience, that is exactly the opposite of how they work.”

“I know, Abby,” my mom said, turning to glance at me, before kicking again with one of her mermaid strides.

“Well, you don’t seem worried about it,” I said as water overhead pushed me down and to the left. I glanced upward, but all I saw were drifting shadows.

“Abby, I want to keep you safe. I’m glad you have such faith in me, but it’s still a coin toss. Once you’re alive and well and this is all over, I’ll worry about bureaucrats, okay?” she asked, and there was a strange change in her voice because she just sounded tired.

“Okay, Mom,” I replied as the water on my right surged, making me lose my grip on her hand. I flailed for a moment, my beam cutting through the darkness around me like one of those pathetic lighters in the cave in scary movies.

Then my beam caught the surface of something huge and grey as it swam away. All I could see was a shimmering tailfin. Only…

“Shark!” I screamed. My terror-filled voice ripped out of my throat as my heart felt like it exploded, and the pit in my stomach swallowed it.

My mother swung her body around in an instant, her headlamp illuminating the distance far better than my crappy flashlight could. The creature surged toward us, maw agape to reveal its fifty million teeth. There was a crack in the water to my left and bubbles surged forward in a cloud. Something struck the shark as my mother grabbed me by the arm and yanked my bobbing form behind her body.

She had a gun in her other hand, but she didn’t seem too keen on using it because it wasn’t raised toward the creature. The shark veered to the left, narrowly avoiding us as it passed so close to our bodies that I was sure it was going to turn and gulp us down in one bite.

“Shoot it!” I cried as we swung around to watch the shark. I hoped beyond all hope it would just go away.

“My bullets have an effective range of like three feet underwater, Abby. They’ll peel apart like metal flowers that will bounce harmlessly off of it at this depth,” my mother said as she holstered the weapon.

I couldn’t quite comprehend that. Didn’t people use guns underwater all the time in movies? The shark turned back toward us in one lightning-quick movement that made me shriek.

“Maybe we should try anyway?” I screamed, my voice cracking partway through.

“Stay here!” my mother commanded as she pulled a blade from a sheath on her leg and swam out a few feet in front of me. The monster caught sight of her and barreled forward, all teeth and fury. Its cold, flat eyes glinted menacingly in the glare of her headlamp as my mother swung her body around at the last second, narrowly avoiding its hideous, gaping maw.

With one lithe motion, she jammed the knife into the creature’s gills and tore it outward in a cloud of crimson that darkened the water. The shark snapped, gnashing its horrible teeth as my mother pushed off the creature with her other hand.

“Swim! Now!” she screamed, kicking toward me and pointing. I glanced at her for a split second before thrashing forward.

My mother caught up to me in an instant and when she grabbed me, I jumped and flailed wildly, trying to throw her off as my screams filled my helmet.

“Abby, it’s okay,” my mother’s voice was so labored, it took me a moment to make out her voice over my own cries. “Just swim naturally and try not to look so much like a wounded animal.”

I glanced at her as she surged ahead of me, gripping my hand as she did so. I turned my head back toward where the shark should have been but I couldn’t see it anymore as I swept the blade of my flashlight beam back and forth.

My mother pulled me forward, and as I turned back forward, I made every effort to kick like a normal, non-panicked Abby Banks. “Hopefully it was alone,” I murmured, mostly to myself.

“Or if there are others, they decide he’s the prey now,” my mother replied.

That thought chilled me to the core. Maybe there were others? What if they thought we smelled mighty tasty covered in shark blood? I swallowed, trying to concentrate on breathing because if I didn’t, I was going to freak out, and I didn’t think that would help much, especially given that we were a million miles beneath the ocean with no help in sight.

One breath in. One breath out.

I don’t know how long I swam like that, focused on my breathing, but when I looked up there was a huge underwater mountain looming before us. In its base, a few meters from our position, was a dark hole in the wall. Brown crags of rock jutted up from all angles as bits of fleshy green plant-life floated around.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing with my flashlight so that my mother would see what I was talking about.

“Our destination. That’s where we rendezvous with my friends,” my mother said, glancing back at me, and for whatever reason, I knew she was smiling at me.

I don’t know why, but that made me feel pretty good inside even though we were headed into a deep, dark hole under the water.

“How many secret underwater bases are there?” I asked as we reached the entrance. It was way bigger than I’d initially thought. Maybe even big enough to fit one of those one-person submarines that my mother used earlier.

“A lot,” my mom said, placing her hand against a small metallic pad. It glowed with bright, crimson light for a second before a green light flashed three times. Then a series of lights came on around the entrance, illuminating the sea for several hundred meters in every direction.

“This is a lot bigger than I’d expected,” I said as a metal door opened a few feet into the cave to reveal a solid black rubber room with a grated floor.

“This one is just a baby,” my mom said, and I knew she was smirking at me as she pulled us into the room and pressed a button. The doors behind us snapped shut with a surge of bubbles. Then the water in the room began to drain away through the grates beneath our feet.

A moment later, my mother pulled off her helmet and shook out her hair in a way that made me envious. She smiled at me, and I could see the relief in her face as she took a step toward me and patted me on the shoulder.

“You did great, Abby. We’re almost out of here,” she said, and for some reason, I almost believed her.

Chapter 12

The elevator we were in was weird because it was made of glass. The walls, ceilings, and even the floor were nothing but glass. You would think this meant I had an awesome view, but because we were inside a freaking underwater mountain, the only thing I could see was black rock and cabling.

The moment my mother had pulled off my gear, we stepped into the elevator without changing out of the skin-tight black under-suits. This wasn’t bad if you were my mother because the way the thing hugged her body made me a little jealous because, well, it made me feel curveless. I crossed my arms over my chest and glanced out one of the glass walls. More black stone. Awesome.

“Why is there a glass elevator inside an underwater mountain? There’s no scenery,” I said.

“There will be,” my mom replied, not looking up from the electronic device in her hand. It was about as big as a greeting card and just as thin. The light from its screen illuminated her face, casting it in a blue glow that made her look almost ghostly.

“Will be? We’ve been in this elevator for like an hour, how much more travel could there possibly be?” I asked, glancing up and down in the small space but seeing no discernible change in scenery.

My mother glanced up from her tablet and gave me a look that meant I had confused her somehow. “Abby, we’re not moving,” she said. “We’re only being decompressed.”

“What?” I asked. “The walls look like they are moving. How could we not be moving? It feels like we’re moving.” I stamped my foot and the elevator didn’t move at all.

“Whatever you say, dear,” my mother replied, focusing back on her electronic gizmo.

A moment later, the wall behind her slid open with the hiss of compressed air to reveal a lime green room. White tile with a stripe of lime led the way out of the elevator before turning off down a corridor. My mother stepped out of the elevator and motioned for me to follow with one hand while stuffing her tablet into a pouch on her leg.

I followed her into the agonizingly colored room and cringed. The walls and ceiling were all lime green, and the lights overhead were those fluorescent ones you see above workbenches and in factories. They swung haphazardly on too-thin cables as we passed under them. It was as though our movement was disturbing them even though they were several feet above our heads.

When we reached the corner, I noticed that the colors changed. While one of them was still lime-green, the left fork was caustic-yellow and the right one was blood-red. The middle stripe of tile changed as well. I looked at it for a long time, waiting for my mother to decide where we were going to go.

“Is this whole place color coordinated?” I asked when my mother didn’t move.

“Yes,” she replied. “It’s to help you know where you’re going.”

“So why aren’t we moving then?” I asked.

“We’re supposed to meet my contact at this corridor. It’s why we came in the way we did,” she said, glancing down the hallways and taking a step backward. Her left hand reached down toward her gun, fingers resting lightly on the handle.

“Is there a problem?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “We need to leave.”

“How do you know?” I asked, filled more with confusion than fear. Didn’t we just get here?

“Hawthorne is never, ever late. I’ve been trying to ping him this whole time, and he hasn’t responded.” She reached out and grabbed my hand, yanking me down the blood-red hallway. Our footfalls, or rather my footfalls echoed on the tile like a leaping elephant.

“Maybe he just got tied up, you know, getting to an underwater mountain base?” I asked, but even as I said the words, I didn’t really believe them. My mother was unflappable, and for some reason, she was totally flapped.

“The only reason he wouldn’t be here is if he is dead or captured. Neither of those two scenarios are particularly useful to us,” she replied as we came up to a room with a white door. It was closed, and it had one of those little windows with the steel mesh like you sometimes see in hospitals.

My mother reached out, gripping the knob with one hand and twisted it, but it didn’t move. This should have been obvious since the little red light next to the door was solid red. Didn’t that generally mean it was still electronically locked?

“Um… I think it’s still locked,” I said, pointing at the light. “Isn’t that what the light means?”

“Yes,” my mother hissed. “I’m trying to decide if I want to risk using my keycard or if that will just make bad things happen to us.”

“Bad things?” I gulped. “Like what?”

“Like filling the hallway with nerve gas so that we die puking our guts up. I really don’t want to go that way if I can help it.” She glanced at me. “I somehow doubt you do either.”

I forced myself to smile at her and shook my head meekly. Part of me hoped she was joking, but I didn’t think she was because this really wasn’t the time or place for that. “So let’s not do that. What is your plan B?” I asked.

“Steal a submarine,” she said, tapping the door with her finger. “They are through this door.”

“Well if there is a choice, should we try the yellow submarine instead of the red one?” I asked. My mother smirked at me, and I didn’t quite understand why.

“You’re cute,” she said, pulling out her gun and moving farther down the hallway. The weapon was huge in her hands now that I could see it in clear light. It looked different than the other guns I’d seen, too, because it was all black with a wooden grip.

There was a sound above us. A sort of high pitched whine that reminded me of gears moving, and I glanced upward to see a solitary white camera, its black lens pointed toward us. My breath caught in my throat as I scampered forward and grabbed my mom by the shoulder.

“Camera!” I gasped, pointing at the offending machine.

“Great,” my mother said, swinging her gun up and firing in one quick motion that left my ears ringing. Bits of shrapnel rained down from the spot where the camera had been, littering the ground with pieces of broken white plastic.

My mom grabbed me by the arm and tugged me bodily down the hallway as the sound of pneumatics filled my ears. Evidently, my mother heard it too because she pulled off her ring. It was solid black and had what looked like a chunk of obsidian for a gemstone. She glanced back at the door a couple meters behind us. She bit her lip and looked up and down the hallway before lunging forward and slapping it on the door. It stuck there with a wet squelch as my mom sprinted back toward me.

“Run!” she screamed, shoving me forward. I didn’t waste any time asking why, I just high-tailed it because why wouldn’t I? My mother was telling me to run after she placed some super-spy device on a doorway. The odds of it exploding were exponential.

There was a shriek of metal, and an explosion rippled through the hallway. I glanced over my shoulder to see the door twist inward on itself like an accordion. It was like the device was sucking up the door. It ripped free of the frame with a loud crack that shook the walls.

“Wait, Abby, if you get too close you could get pulled into the gravity well along with the door. It prioritizes organic tissue for some reason,” my mother said, coming to a stop so suddenly that I crashed into her. She grabbed me by the shoulder and steadied me as I stumbled forward. Score one for klutzy me.

I watched as the device began to glow like a red-hot piece of metal as the last of the white door disappeared into its gullet. It fell to the ground with a clang that rang in my ears, but my mother paid it no mind as she stepped past me and walked toward it. With almost casual indifference, she plucked it from the ground and stuffed it back on her finger.

“I can’t believe you wear that on your finger,” I said with a gasp.

“It takes some getting used to,” she said, waving me forward before stepping into the room, shiny black gun still drawn. “Come on.”

I was at her side a moment later, and my eyes bugged out at the sight. What stood before me looked like a giant mechanized orca in a pool of water. It was a huge metal monstrosity painted to match one of the whales if you weren’t looking too closely at it. Only instead of those big white patches at the front of the things head, it had giant windows.

My mom stepped up to the orca and pressed a button on a control panel. The creature’s giant maw opened, and its tongue extended like a ramp until it came to rest on the metal floor at her feet. She stepped around to the front of the thing and put one hand on its snout.

“Abby, this is Jonas. Jonas, this is my daughter, Abby,” she said and disappeared inside the whale’s mouth.

I waited a moment, half-expecting the whale to respond to me, but after a while, I felt a little silly and walked up to the whale. I could already see my mother seated behind the left eye. She made a ‘hurry up’ gesture, and I stepped on the tongue. I was pretty sure it was just my mind telling me it was spongy because I was reasonably sure it had to be pink metal.

“Well, this is creepy,” I said, mostly to myself, and walked up the ramp into the whale’s mouth. I had barely cleared its gullet when the mouth snapped down with a clang, cutting off my escape in a movement that made my heart leap out my throat and beat frantically inside my mouth. I swallowed, pushing my heart back into place as I clutched my chest.

Neon lights lit up the floor, directing me to a chair that was situated in the right eye-pod. I sat down in the brown leather chair and smirked to myself. This wasn’t so bad, right? I mean, I’d always wanted to travel inside a giant mechanized orca.

“Well, now I can scratch this one off my bucket list,” I said to the whale, patting its inside with my hand. “Probably SeaWorld too. I don’t think they let you get this up close and personal with the whales.”

“Glad to be of service,” warbled a low guttural voice from a speaker beside my head.

I screamed, jerking my hand away from the spot when laughter filled the room through the speaker. My mom’s laughter.

“Gotcha,” she said, and I knew she was smirking. I glared at the speaker.

“Oh, right, because today hasn’t been weird enough that I wouldn’t expect the submarine to talk,” I growled and crossed my arms over my chest as the orca-sub began to move backward in the tiny pool.

“Buckle your seatbelt,” my mom said and both the harnesses lit up with red light. I grabbed hold of the tabs and clicked them into place with only three tries. When I’d succeeded the harness glowed green for a moment before winking out. Then the orca dove into the water.

We descended for what felt like forever, and the screen in front of me lit up with some sort of weird imaging. I’m not quite sure how Jonas the whale-sub managed to do it, but it was rendering the surroundings in a full three-sixty view in perfect color.

“That’s pretty cool,” I said, mouth somewhat agape.

“Glad you’re impressed,” my mom said. “Now, we just need to meet the Plan B contact.”

“Who is that?” I asked, glancing from screen to screen in awe as we passed fish and all sorts of other creatures.

“I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you,” she said as an image of her face popped into the top left corner of the submarine and grinned at me.

I glared at her picture, and she laughed. “Well so far, this is going better than my original submarine escape,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “We’ll be there before you know it, and then, a few hours from now, we’ll be lounging on a beach while you watch me drink Mai Tais because you’re too young to drink.”

“Jerk,” I said, rubbing my face with my hands.

“Hey, I’m not all bad. If we make it out of this, I’ll let you have a sip of mine.” She smiled at me. “I’ll chalk it up to a bad parent moment.”

Chapter 13

We surfaced a couple hours later next to an immense cruise liner. My mother ‘docked’ the orca next to a ladder on the hull, and we climbed straight up the side of the ship without incident which seemed a little odd, but then again, I guess the captain of this cruise didn’t expect to be boarded by whale people.

We hit the deck a moment later, and I was surprised to find myself staring at a bunch of old fogeys lounging in lawn chairs around a pool. A mariachi band played in the corner next to a huge bar crowded with people in various states of sunburn. I took a step toward them, fascinated as a particularly spry old lady in a bright red bikini exploded out of a water slide and skipped across the pool before plunging beneath the surface in a spray of foam.

“Come on, Abby,” my mom said, grabbing my hand and tugging me gently along the path. “Let’s get changed so that we don’t stick out so much.”

“Get changed,” I whispered, and somehow, my words squeaked out of my mouth. “How are we going to get changed on a random ship?” I asked and a lightbulb went off in my head as I glanced back over the railing toward the submarine. “Are there clothes in the whale?”

My mother looked at me like I was very dull. “I purchased a couple of rooms onboard the ship before it left. It has clothing and other things stashed inside.”

“When did you manage to do that?” I asked. “I haven’t even been gone that long, have I?”

“Abby, the moment I found out what happened, I decided to come rescue you. I know I shouldn’t have done so… but well,” she looked away from me, “I’ll be honest, I’ve had a contingency like this in place for the last couple of months. Ever since we found out Gabriella was actively trying to find you, I’ve been buying rooms on cruise ships.”

“So… you’ve been planning to go rogue with me? Why?” I asked, staring at her.

“Because I want you to be safe, Abby. I know you’re struggling with things, but I didn’t trust the agency,” she replied. “Now that you’re here with me, I know you’re safe.”

“What if someone finds out you set this up? Won’t they come straight here?” I said, suddenly worried. “If you’ve taken me off the radar, and Hawthorne didn’t show, wouldn’t the most obvious place in the world to look for me be on the cruise ship where you booked rooms?”

My mother bit her lip, chewing on a thought I was sure she’d had a couple times. “Yes…” she murmured. That’s why we’re going to get off at the next port. It’s only about an hour away. “Besides, I set Jonas to sink to the bottom of the ocean and await further instructions. If they do attack this ship, we can escape in the submarine.”

“Assuming Jonas doesn’t have some kind of tracker on it, and men with guns aren’t on their way here right now,” I said, following along behind my mother as she led us into a hallway and down some stairs until we reached a door. “That was how Stephen found me after all. He used Chloe’s tracker. If you guys go through the trouble to put trackers on people, I find it hard to believe there wouldn’t be one on a submarine.”

“That’s why I sent Jonas to the bottom of the ocean,” she replied, swinging the door open, and the most completely ordinary looking hotel room I’d ever seen stared back at me.

It had two beds that took up nearly the entirety of the room. A suitcase sat on each bed, and I smirked, glancing at my mom and blushing. “You brought my zebra-case,” I said as I walked over and ran my hands over the fabric. “How did you manage that?”

“I’ve been stashing luggage in the rooms I bought. I just move it from ship to ship,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll admit I hoped you wouldn’t actually have to use it, but now I’m glad I thought ahead.”

I opened the case, and grinned as I pulled out my most favorite pink bikini. It was two shades of pink and had silver fringe so that it flashed as I moved when I wore it. I glanced up to see my mother shut the bathroom door, leaving me alone for the first time in well… I wasn’t sure how long.

I gripped my bikini tightly in my hands and sat down on the bed, enjoying the feel of it. I took a breath and lay backward across it so that my feet dangled off the edge. I was suddenly so tired that I could barely keep my eyes open.

A moment later, my mom opened the door and smiled at me. She was wearing a black and white one-piece with a little dress type thing around the waist that made me think of a maid. “What do you think?” she asked a moment later, biting her lip as she stared at me. “Is it too much?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied. “Are there millionaires looking for French maids on this ship?”

She narrowed her eyes at me and sashayed forward, grabbing a robe off a hook and slipping it around herself. “I don’t know why I ever ask you anything,” she said, sitting next to me. “I’m going to go get us some food while you get changed. Do not let anyone inside. If something happens,” she swallowed, “there’s a gun in your suitcase. It’s very easy to use, and the safety is off so don’t play with it. If something happens, just keep shooting and I’ll come get you. I promise.”

With that, she stood and walked to the door. She turned back at me and smiled. “I love you, Abby,” she said and shut the door.

I stood and bolted the door behind her, locking both the lock and the little security chain that everyone always breaks in a second in the movies. I turned and took a couple steps toward the bed and laid the bikini down on top of the white comforter. I stared at it and smirked. Originally, I hadn’t actually wanted the thing, but since I’d been invited to my first pool party at the beginning of last summer, Lisa Ann had insisted I wear something a little more risqué than the crimson one-piece I always wore during junior lifeguards.

Against my better judgment, I had complied and let her drag me to the mall where she had piled my arms high with swimsuits that seemed to have a price inversely proportional to the amount of fabric involved. Eventually, I had chosen the pink one because out of everything she had picked, it didn’t make me feel slutty.

I shrugged and grabbed it off the bed as I moved to the teeniest, tiniest bathroom I’d ever been in. I set the bikini on the sink and reached back to undo the zipper on my super-spy wetsuit. It was, basically, the hardest thing I’d ever had to remove. I kicked it angrily into the corner with my mother’s suit and pulled on my bikini. I glanced at myself in the mirror.

I certainly didn’t look like I would be the object of an international manhunt by spies, government agencies, and terrorists. I ran a hand through my hair and turned away from the mirror. I grabbed the remaining robe off the hook, and as I pulled it on, I made my way back into the room. Sitting there on the table next to my mom’s bed was her super-spy ring, and without thinking, I picked it up, examining it closely. Just holding it made chills run through me.

It was so dangerous, but right now, it seemed so innocuous. I hadn’t really been able to do a lot to protect myself thus far, and as the ring glittered in my hand, the urge to face my fears became overwhelming. I stuck it on my finger, and when I didn’t evaporate, I let out a sigh of relief.

“Okay, now what?” I asked myself as I surveyed the tiny room with its pictures of seagulls and surfers lining the walls. “Mom really should have just waited for me,” I mumbled a moment later as I found myself sitting on my bed.

A minute went by as I sat there on my bed waiting for her. Then an hour. Then four hours. Then a month.

I grumbled and glanced at the digital clock beside my bed. “Okay, maybe it’s only been four minutes since I sat down, but it feels like a month.” I shook my head. “And why do I keep talking to myself?”

I stood and moved to my suitcase, kneeling down next to it and rummaging around until I found what I was looking for. The gun was small and compact, all silver-gunmetal with a black grip. I wasn’t sure what kind of caliber it was or anything, but near as I could tell, it was fully loaded. I picked it up and held it in my hands, pointing it at one particularly spry-looking painted surfer.

“Bang,” I said, making a movement with my hand before swallowing hard. What if it went off and ricocheted? Or worse, pieced the wall and killed some bikini-clad senior? I cursed myself for being so stupid and shoved it back in my suitcase and covered it with panties because who wanted to dig through panties, right?

I glanced back at the clock. It’d only been two more minutes. I let out a sigh as I sprang from the bed and glanced back at the bathroom. Should I shower? No, that was silly. We were going to a pool. If anything, I might need to rinse off, but I wasn’t going to saunter through the halls dripping wet, and besides, my mom was coming back with food. I wouldn’t want to be all wet when she got here and have it get cold while I finished my shower or got re-dressed.

“Maybe I should go find her?” I asked the clock, and felt a small pit of terror well up in my stomach. That was exactly how horror movies started, or how girls got re-kidnapped. No, I was not leaving this room unless I had my mom with me.

The knock at the door made me leap out of my skin, and I spun toward the door, heart hammering away inside my chest. I glanced at my suitcase and dove across the room, tossing the panties aside and ripping the gun free. I spun, bringing it up toward the door in shaking hands as the locks clicked open.

“Abby?” my mom asked as she swung the door open with her knee. She was balancing a huge platter with a lid over it. Her eyes went wide when she saw me, then her lips quirked into a smile. “May I come in?” she asked.

I exhaled slowly, trying to get my nerves under control as I lowered the gun and stared at the floor, sheepishly. “Yes,” I said. “Sorry… I’m just a little on edge.”

“I can see that,” she replied, closing the door and stepping up to me in one stride that somehow let her put the platter down on the tiny bedside table and reach me. She reached out very slowly and pulled the gun from my hands. “But you shouldn’t point guns at people you don’t intend to shoot.”

I swallowed, still not looking at her. The truth was, I was pretty sure I was going to shoot whoever came through that door. That was a little unsettling. Since when was I a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ kind of girl anyway? I shook my head, brushing my eyes with the back of one hand. Since when was I a shoot at all kind of girl?

When I looked up, my mother was staring at me, emerald green eyes squinted up in a look I had never seen on her face before. It made me shiver because it felt like she was reading my thoughts. She turned, looking away and setting the gun down beside the platter. She pulled the lid off the tray and showed it to me.

“I got calamari and nachos,” she said. “Everything our hips need.”

I smirked at her and reached out to take a deep-fried tentacle. I pushed it into some kind of thick white sauce and popped it into my mouth. It tasted mostly like lemon and mayonnaise, and I shrugged at her as she pulled a cheese-covered tortilla chip free and placed it delicately in her mouth. Yeah, that’s right. My mom could make eating nachos look dainty.

“Okay,” I said after swallowing. “Are we going to talk about how I just tried to gun you down for opening the door?”

“No,” my mother said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand even though there hadn’t been anything on her lips. “I expected that, actually. I also sort of expected you to come try to find me. I’ve been waiting outside for five minutes.”

“You thought I was that stupid?” I asked, my voice rising a couple octaves. “Wait, you were baiting me?”

“I was going to make a point,” she said. “But I guess I don’t need to do that.” She smiled at me and reached out, pulling me into a hug that crushed me against her chest. I blushed and tried to wriggle away from her, and after a moment of holding me in place, she let me escape.

“Okay, let’s eat,” I said, turning toward the platter so that she couldn’t see my face because I was sort of embarrassed with myself. She had just risked her life to save me, and I was blushing because she was hugging me? Talk about ungrateful.

“Okay,” she repeated, sitting down next to me on the bed and pulling the platter onto her knees. “I bet you’re hungry anyway.”

A few minutes later, I slid the platter away even though it was still covered in all sorts of half-eaten fried delicacies. “I’m stuffed,” I said.

“It’s about time,” my mother said with a smirk. “I thought I was watching some sort of ravenous sea-creature with a bottomless stomach.”

Before I could respond, she stood, lifting the platter up and delicately balancing it over her head with one hand. “Ready to hit the pool?” she asked. “Or are you too tired?”

“Sure,” I replied, stretching out before bounding to my feet. “But aren’t you supposed to wait twenty minutes or something?”

“That is an old wives’ tale,” my mother said, grabbing the door and pulling it open.

Two staccato cracks exploded through the room in quick succession, and my mother tumbled backward in a spray of crimson, the silver platter slipping from her hands and hitting the ground with a clang that spilled food everywhere.

Everything in me went numb as I watched her hit the ground in slow motion. My ears were still ringing as she turned, throwing herself on her stomach and crawled toward me, teeth biting down on her lips. She reached one hand toward the table, lips moving, but I couldn’t hear her. My head swiveled woodenly, staring at the table uncomprehending. The gun was there, huge and ominous. Was that what my mom was reaching for?

I reached out, grabbing the weapon and as I turned back to hand it to her, Donovan stepped into the room. He had a huge black eye and his blond hair was done in a ponytail so it fell behind his shoulders like a chord of over-sized rope. He pointed his gun at me, lips twisting into a grin.

“Drop it,” he said, moving past my mother’s fallen form, with careful steps around the ever-expanding pool of crimson that was spreading out around her.

“Mommy?” I said, taking a step toward her. Everything suddenly felt cold and empty, like a huge black hole had opened up in the place where my heart should have been. It sort of sucked everything away, leaving me emotionless and dazed.

I took another step and Donovan’s hand lashed out. I turned toward him unable to comprehend what was going on a moment before the butt of his gun hit me in the side of the head. I fell, the world going all topsy-turvy as I struck the ground. My mother’s face stared at me as the world went black, lips opening and closing like she was trying to talk as the light faded from her eyes.

Chapter 14

I woke up in the same mauve room as before which was a little odd because that room was owned by my bio-mom, and Donovan had been the last person I remembered seeing when…

“Mom!” I screamed, swinging my head around to look for her. “Are you alright?”

My eyes fell upon the face of Roberto as he sat in a forest green, metal folding chair. He looked up from the book he was reading and stared at me with huge brown eyes. Very slowly he stood, pulling a crimson bookmark from the end of the book and sticking it in his spot before closing the cover and placing it on the chair.

“Where’s my mom!” I screamed, trying to throw off my blankets and leap from the bed. Only… only I couldn’t move. Not even a single inch. I glared at Roberto, who stared at me, face locked into an emotionless, slack-jawed mask that made it impossible to read his thoughts as he stepped up to me.

He placed one hand on the hem of my blanket, and without saying a word, pulled it back very slowly. I glanced down and saw, much to my horror, that I was bound to the bed by thick brown leather straps that reminded me of the belts you see in movies about crazy people. I shut my eyes and concentrated on not screaming.

Maybe I’d just had a nervous breakdown and imagined the whole thing. I was just in a mental hospital because I was cracked, right? I’d forgotten to take my medication or something and hallucinated the whole thing. Any second, my mom was going to come in with a whole host of doctors and declare I was fine and should be set free.

“I’m not crazy,” I said, opening my eyes and staring at Roberto who was watching me carefully. “You can let me go home now. I don’t need any more treatment.” I began nodding. Still he stared at me, and as he did so, the pit in my stomach grew two sizes as dread ballooned inside it.

I swallowed, and would have waved my hands at him if I could have. “Can you hear me?” I asked, raising my voice more than I’d wanted to. “I said I’m fine and you can let me out of here.”

“Abby,” he said after a pause so long that it wrapped around the globe. “Where do you think you are?” He quirked an eyebrow at me as he rested one hand on the strap around my right wrist. I’d forgotten how huge he was because his hand was the size of a dinner plate. It made my stick-thin arm look like a twig that he could snap by sneezing.

I tore my eyes away from his hand and looked up at him, smiling my friendliest smile. “I’m in a mental hospital because I had a break down. I had a bad dream and freaked out or something, that’s why you guys bound me up. Now if you could call my mom for me…”

“Abby, when you ask for your mom do you mean Esmeralda Banks?” he asked, eyes squishing up into brown slits.

“Uh… yeah? Who else would I mean?” I asked, and despite my best efforts, my heart began to pound as cold sweat ran down the back of my neck.

A look of sadness crossed his face, and I turned away from him so my heart wouldn’t shatter as he spoke. “Abby… Esmeralda is dead. You are not in a mental hospital. You are in the base of your real mother, Gabriella de la Mancha. You are her daughter.”

“Stop,” I whispered, and the words barely scraped out of my closed off throat and through my teeth as tears filled my eyes. “Stop,” I repeated even softer as the world went blurry.

“Abby,” he said, placing one meaty paw on my shoulder in what I can only assume was an attempt to comfort me. “I need to take you to see your mother. You need to pull yourself together. Gabriella cannot see you like this.”

“My mother is dead!” I snarled, swinging my head back toward him, my limbs snapping against the restraints.

He leaned in close to me so that his face was inches from mine. His breath was warm on my face as he spoke, and the smell of tuna fish made my stomach twist into knots. “I’m serious, Abby. If you want to live, you need to pretend that Esmeralda was a horrible kidnapper and you’re thrilled to be home.” His eyes were deadly serious as he stared at me. “Thrilled,” he repeated, and my stomach sank.

I tried to say something, anything. I tried to tell him to go to hell but a tremor I couldn’t control rippled through my body, making my teeth slam shut. My mother would tell me to agree, to do whatever it took to escape, and as I stared up at Roberto’s solemn face, I got the distinct impression he was rooting for me. Why? I have no idea.

“Okay,” I said, choking the word out. He didn’t move, and I nodded my head at him very slowly. “I’ll behave,” I added.

He watched me for a long time before standing, his huge hands moving to the restraints and unfastening them so deftly that I was amazed he could manage it. He stood back a moment later, offering me just enough room to sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed, but not enough to let me try to run away if I was so inclined.

I wasn’t. I was very much inclined to let him lead me to Gabriella de la Mancha. Why? Because I was going to kill her, and as I thought that thought, I felt my heart settle down and a strange ease settled over me. Who would have known that matricide would be so calming?

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood, glancing up at Roberto before looking past him toward the door. “Take me to your leader,” I intoned in my best alien voice.

He stared at me before taking an enormous step away from me and moving toward the door. He stopped in front of it and swung his head back to glance at me over one massive shoulder. “Do you want me to hold your hand?” he asked, and the question struck me a little odd.

“Um… no,” I said, a smirk crossing my lips as I sauntered toward him, hands on my white-scrub clad hips. “You’re way too old for me. I don’t swing that way.”

His eyes pulsed, widening just the barest fraction before he turned back toward the door and cleared his throat. “I was just trying to be nice,” he muttered under his breath as he pressed his hand to the lock mechanism. “Why do I always try to be nice…?”

The door whooshed open in a whir of gears and an exhalation of air before he stepped through. I followed behind him, and the first thing I noticed were the two armed guards standing on either side of my door. They were dressed in white, like Roberto and I were, but they had bulky armor that reminded me of storm troopers from a galaxy far, far away.

The big, angry black guns in their hands didn’t move, but they still made my stomach clench a little as I passed their unmoving forms. Roberto nodded to them as we passed, and as soon as they were out of earshot, I said. “New guards? For little old me?”

Roberto glanced at me as if trying to decide what he wanted to say. Evidently, he thought better of speaking because he looked back ahead without a word. I huffed and moved up beside him, which was no easy task in the tiny hallway. I was reasonably sure two or three people could probably walk abreast in the corridor, but Roberto took up so much space that it was hard for me to fit next to him. That, and he didn’t exactly make room for me either.

“I’m starting to feel like you’re mad at me,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to make you mad. I mean aside from trying to watch me shower, you’ve been really nice to me.”

He glanced down at me, but said nothing as I reached out and gripped one of his huge hands. “I’d love to hold your hand,” I added, dropping my eyes to the floor in front of me as heat spread across my cheeks.

“I’m not mad at you,” he whispered, voice so soft that I could barely hear it. I looked up at him as he squeezed my hand, engulfing it. His eyes were brighter than they had been earlier, and it made me feel a little silly for trying to use my mostly defunct charms on him. Still, this guy, nice or not, worked for my real mother, Gabriella de la Mancha. She had nuked two cities. Nice guys don’t work for people like that.

“Good,” I said, grinning at him like an idiot. “I’m starting to feel like maybe we could be friends.”

“I would like that,” he said before looking away from me. “More than you’d know.”

I thought about prying into what he meant by that, but I didn’t think it would work. Also, it would be a little less endearing than I was going for. I sighed and shook my head as we reached the door that led to the command center. Chances were that my mother was on the other side.

“Are you ready?” Roberto asked, squeezing my hand one last time before releasing me.

I looked up into his face, and it was filled with concern. That was a little weird, right? I bit my lip, steeling myself before nodding. “Yes,” I said, and the cold in my voice made me shiver a little. “I’m ready to see my mother.” And kill her, I added in my head. I still wasn’t quite sure how I was going to manage it, but she was half-dead anyway. Surely it wouldn’t be hard to finish the job.

The door opened with that same hiss that every door in the facility seemed to possess, and half a breath later, I was staring at Gabriella de la Mancha. She was sitting in her mechanized chair, head leaned back against it, as she stared up into a view screen. A huge map of the world was spread out on it with various colors pinpricking their way across it.

Roberto pushed me into the room, just a little bit of force on my shoulder to make me move. My breath caught in my throat as I stumbled half a step into the room before forcing down my fear. Steel filled me with each successive step I took so that by the time I reached her side I was an invincible robot.

Gabriella still hadn’t turned to look at me as I glanced from her to the huge map. “Colorful,” I said, my words cold and uncaring. “What’s it supposed to be?”

“The pink ones are the places I’m going to bomb in the first wave. Red is where we expect the secondary fallout shelters will be. Black,” she turned to look at me as she spoke, “black will be where we unleash the viruses.”

“Viruses?” I asked, running a hand through my hair in a show of brazen nonchalance. “Small pox?”

“Yes, actually,” Gabriella replied, reaching out to poke my arm. Her flesh felt like paper as she pulled up my sleeve to show a bright red pinprick. “I took the liberty of having you vaccinated.”

“Thanks,” I replied, barely resisting the urge to throw off her hand as she started to stroke my arm. “That was very kind of you.”

“I know,” she said, looking past me toward Roberto. I didn’t see what he did but my mother nodded once before switching off the screen. Her chair swiveled toward me, and she seized my hands in hers. The movement was surprisingly quick for a lady who looked to be on her last legs. “You might think my methods are a bit…” she paused, twirling one hand in thought, searching for the words.

Crazy, insane, diabolical? I offered in my mind.

“Extreme,” she said after a moment. “But let me assure you, they are not. My actions will undo centuries of elitist bullshit. We say we have a meritocracy, and that’s how we justify the fact that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. But it’s a lie.” She swiveled around so that her chair was facing the screen. She pointed at it and the huge screen flickered to life, showing a thousand companies in an instant… only it was spread out like a family tree.

“Maybe it’s merit that the son of the CEO of Mega Corp 1 is the executive vice president of Mega Corp 2.” She glanced at me to see if I was paying attention, and then satisfied, she turned back toward the screen. “But all this inter-relation can’t be coincidence. You mean to tell me that the best and brightest all belong to the same couple families?”

She grinned, showing her teeth. “We’re all just serfs pretending that we have choices in countries where presidencies are handed down through families like the kingdoms of old. I’m just going to stop the nepotism. Give us a chance to reset. Besides, if those people are so great, they’ll rise back to the top.”

“With you as the leader?” I asked, not able to tear my eyes from the map because… unfortunately it made her seem slightly less crazy.

“Me?” She laughed, and it turned into a wet, choking cough. “How am I to lead the world, Abby? I’m going to die in about three days. No…” She turned, pulling the visor off her head to reveal a pair of hazel eyes that looked exactly like mine. They were rimmed with red and bloodshot with deep purple bags under them. “My daughter, you are to rule the world.”

“What?” I asked, trying to reach out toward her as the world went all sorts of topsy-turvy.

“It’s why we broke you out, my dear. You are to inherit everything. You are to rule over it all. When my body fails, only your biometrics will unlock the keys to my kingdom. Once I’m done kicking over the elite, you’ll be the most powerful woman in the world.” She coughed again, bloody spittle dribbling down her lips before she could dab it away with a napkin that was blotched with red-brown stains. “It’s why they keep stealing you away from me, my daughter. They want to keep you from your inheritance.”

“My inheritance? You just said you were going to give control over the whole world to a sixteen-year-old girl. Are you crazy?” I asked, unable to look at her because if what she said was true then the government had been lying to me. Which… okay, they had been doing for my whole life, but it also meant that Stephen and Esmeralda had been lying to me too.

“I can assure you, Abigail, I am perfectly sane,” my mother replied, her lips in a tight smile.

“What if I don’t believe you?” I asked before I could stop myself.

“Well, it’s fortunate that my plans do not fully rest in the hands of a sixteen-year-old girl. I have contingencies in place, after all,” Gabriella de la Mancha said, waving one of her hands in dismissal. “In three days’ time, you’ll know the truth for yourself. If you don’t step up and seize control, the world will fall into chaos. Sure, I’ll kill a billion people… but you’ll kill so many more.”

I opened my mouth to say something. What, I’m not sure, but something definitely, but just as the words were about to squeak out, Gabriella gestured at Roberto. “Why don’t you show my daughter back to her room? She has a lot to take in. Besides, there’s a certain someone there, whom I’m sure she’s dying to ask questions.”

The world fell away at the sound of her words. Who would I want to question? Was it my mom? No… she was dead. That left only… Stephen.

Chapter 15

The door to my room swung open to reveal Donovan sitting on my bed. His golden hair fell around his face in a wave that made him seem girly rather than attractive. He was leaning back so that his chest muscles strained his black tank top. When he saw me looking at him, he grinned and raised one hand, waving at me.

“Yo,” he said so casually that I couldn’t believe it. Hadn’t this jackass just killed my mother, and what about Stephen? Was he dead at the bottom of the ocean?

Before I knew what happened, I was across the room. My hand lashed out, trying to slap him across the face, but it didn’t work. Donovan’s hand shot forward, seizing me by the wrist. He held me away as a wry grin spread across his face.

“Mon petite, are you upset?” His voice was cool and calculated. His eyes filled with amusement. “Surely, it cannot be over the Esmeralda Banks business, can it?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow at me.

Behind me, I heard the door whoosh closed, and as I glanced over my shoulder, I saw Roberto was nowhere to be found. I was all alone in this room… with Donovan.

“Yes,” I snapped, turning back toward him in a rush, my other hand already moving.

He sighed, free hand lashing out and smacking into my shoulder. Stars shot past my eyes as my limb fell limply to my side. He stood, jerking me forward off my feet and flinging me on the bed like a rag doll.

I bounced once on the hard mattress, and a predatory gleam swam beneath the surface of his eyes. My heart went haywire as I scooted myself backward on the bed, kicking up the sheets as panic distilled everything into jerky movements.

“Don’t worry, Abby,” he said, licking his lips before leaning back and putting his hands in his pockets. “I’m not going to have my way with you.”

I stopped moving, heat rising across my cheeks as the panic was replaced by embarrassment because I was pretty sure that trying to do something bad to me in the middle of Gabriella’s base was a death sentence. I sighed trying to think of way to ask him about Stephen, and more importantly, whose side he was on.

“I can see thoughts flashing through your eyes, flitting to and fro like tiny fish beneath the waves,” he said, taking a step toward the bed so that his legs were resting against the edge. “Care to share?”

“No,” I choked, my throat closing up so that the word was a sort of half-shriek. That had been my chance to ask him and I’d blown it. Why? Because I was scared he’d tell me the truth. That he was a traitor and that Stephen was dead. As long as he didn’t come out and say it, I could hang onto the last shred of hope that Stephen was still alive and coming to save me.

“Look, Abby,” he said, suddenly serious as he sat down on the bed and patted the spot next to him. “Esmeralda and the rest of them are liars. What Gabriella told you is true. Well, at least as far as the whole, only your biometrics will control her system when she dies, thing is,” he waved his hand dismissively, “I’m not sure about the whole nepotism thing, though. That seems a little crazy.” He grinned at me, flashing his perfect teeth. “The idea that there’s a secret society of elites governing our every move is, to put it bluntly, insane.”

“You work for a secret government agency that kidnaps children and fosters them in a fake town,” I said, looking at the spot beside him. Did he honestly think I was going to sit next to him? After he shot my mom in the gut and left her to die? “And right now, you seem like a traitor.”

“Yes, and because of that, I know just how inept our government is. Yeah, they can hide secrets and things, but what goes around is mostly happenstance and poor planning. There’s corruption sure, but it’s mostly harmless.” Donovan shrugged, and his golden hair bobbed around his face.

“Mostly harmless,” I repeated. “Gabriella de la Mancha just nuked two major cities. She’s going to firebomb a dozen others and unleash small pox on even more. All because they are ‘mostly harmless?’” I asked, making air quotes while I spoke. “I don’t think so, Donovan. Gabriella might be crazy, but if what you’re saying is even remotely true then she has nothing to gain.”

“Exactly,” he said, running one hand through his hair and sweeping it over his shoulder as he turned to sit on the bed. He crossed his legs Indian-style and smiled at me, lips just slightly parted. “She is not crazy. Therefore she must be right. Is that your argument?”

“Well… um…” I bit my lip and shook my head before staring off into the corner of the room. Okay, so maybe my logic was flawed. But Gabriella didn’t seem crazy in the traditional sense. She seemed… coldly logical.

“So, the way I see it,” Donovan continued as if I hadn’t spoken, which was fine because I hadn’t added a lot to the conversation. “Is that you have two choices. You can be part of your mom’s plot and stay here all hunky dory or you can escape and see what happens.” He raised an eyebrow at me. “You feeling lucky?”

“Why is she so angry at the world?” I blurted out as Donovan set one hand dangerously close to my knee.

“Because she worked for those idiots for years. She ran the wars on both sides. And when she started getting sick, they abandoned her. This is her way of getting back at them. Sure, she might talk about nepotism and elites running the world and blah, blah. But in the end, who is she putting atop her throne?”

I swallowed because I knew the answer to that one, and I didn’t want to say it. The answer was obvious. It was me. Whether she was seating me ironically or not, she had said she wanted to put me in control. That was just crazy. I was a sixteen-year-old girl whose greatest accomplishment was almost getting a date for Homecoming.

Even if I wanted to run the world, how was I supposed to do it? I couldn’t even keep a tank full of goldfish alive and oh my god, how was my cat? Had she been fed?

I looked up at Donovan, about to ask him about my cat, when his fingers brushed my leg and what felt like an electric current skipped across my skin. My eyes fell to the spot as his fingers twirled little circles on my flesh.

“What…” I swallowed the revulsion rising in my throat as he leaned forward, his entire palm rubbing against my thigh as he did so. “What are you doing?”

“Who? Me?” he asked, licking his lips. His face was so close to me that if I moved at all we would be touching. He exhaled and the warmth of his breath on my cheek made my stomach clench.

“Are you going to kiss me?” I asked as he leaned so close that our lips were nearly touching.

“Do you want me to kiss you?” he asked, and the words were a sickly breeze on my mouth.

I brought my hands up as hard as I could, and they smacked into his chin with a wet crack that snapped his head backward. He toppled off the bed and struck the steel floor with an angry thud. He lay there unmoving as I leapt to my feet.

My foot lashed out, catching him in the perfect face, and I felt something give beneath the blow. “Did. You. Honestly. Think. I’d. Make. Out. With. You. After. You. Killed. My. Mom?” I cried, accentuating each word with a kick as my vision went red around the edges.

A moment later, Donovan wasn’t moving, wasn’t even groaning. His chest rose in one ragged gasp, bloody spittle dribbling from his mouth as he lay there bleeding. I sucked in a breath, my chest heaving as I curled my hands into fists.

Then I knelt down next to him and began rummaging through his pockets, which unfortunately, were completely empty. I stood and glowered at him.

“You’re useless,” I said, stepping over his fallen body and stomping over to the door. I pressed my hand to the door scanner like I’d seen other people do but nothing happened. Evidently my biometrics weren’t in the system yet. “I wonder if they are held up in IT?” I mumbled to myself as I glanced back at Donovan.

An idea struck me, and I grabbed Donovan by the arm and dragged him over to the door, though I couldn’t tell you how I managed to do it. Adrenaline? Sure, let’s go with that.

Several moments later, I was completely out of breath, but I’d managed to prop him up against the door so that he looked like a broken mannequin. I lifted his arm, supporting him with my shoulder so he wouldn’t fall down… again. I pressed his hand to the scanner, and like magic, the door whooshed open.

I dropped Donovan, and he smacked into the ground with a sound that reminded me of wet meat slapping a kitchen counter. I shook my head, a wry smile crossing my lips. If only my friends back at Folsom could see me now. Kung Fu action Abby.

The soldiers outside the room looked at me, and while I thought about trying to fight them, it seemed pointless. Why? Because there were two of them with huge, angry-looking weapons, and I wasn’t exactly a highly-trained ninja assassin princess. I wasn’t sure why, but being a princess seemed like an important quality.

Instead, I turned to the left guard and smirked up at him through my mask. I couldn’t see his face through his white face shield, but I was pretty sure he could see me, otherwise what good would his visor be?

“Can we go now?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest like a petulant eight-year-old. “I’m done with him,” I added, waving my hand dismissively at Donovan. Then I huffed and tried to move past the soldier. When he didn’t let me pass, I snarled, a low guttural sound that came from the back of my throat. “I have things to be doing.”

He glanced down at me. “Sorry,” his voice hummed, half-synthesized through his helmet. “But we have orders.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about your orders,” I snapped, poking him hard in the chest with my index finger. “I want a shower, and I want Donovan removed.” I poked him again with my finger and he seemed to wince. “Or do I need to tell my mother you’ve been mistreating me?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“No, ma’am,” he said and there was a tremor in the electronic hum of his voice. He glanced at another solider. “McKenzie, I’m taking Abigail to get cleaned up in another room. Find out what Gabriella wants to do with the agent,” he barked, before herding me free of the room, and for a moment, I wondered if I’d just sentenced Donovan to death. Part of me hoped I had because of, well, reasons, but another part of me was horrified that I could be directly responsible for someone’s death, even someone as scummy as Donovan.

Chapter 16

A few minutes later, I found myself standing in a shower with armed guards outside the stall. They couldn’t see into the room because, even though all the walls were glass, they had turned opaque when the water came on. Not like with steam or anything, but the glass had turned solid white. I’d made one of them stand inside while I made sure I couldn’t see him from the outside so I could make sure no one was peeking at me. Which, yes, I know was completely ridiculous.

I stepped into the water, and the rush of it made me shiver, but in a good way. I hung my head, allowing the warmth of it to flow over me. Crimson water sloughed off of me and swirled around the drain before disappearing. I wrung out my hands, rubbing them under the water, which wasn’t really water anyway. It was some substance that took the place of water and soap.

It cut the grime from my body like no one’s business, but for some reason, I couldn’t get the sense that I was clean. Maybe it was because Donovan’s blood was circling the drain before vanishing into the ether.

I wasn’t quite sure that was all of it, though. I didn’t know what they’d do with him for sure. For all I knew he was in a hospital bed somewhere. Still, there was something about the fake water that was… off. I shook my head, and brushed one hand through my wet hair, trying to rub away the grime as I sank to my knees beneath the spray.

The moment I left this shower, I was going to have to see Gabriella de la Mancha and probably Roberto. I was not ready for that moment quite yet, and I didn’t know why.

I glanced at the stall doors, and the idea of trying to flirt my way through the guards pinged in my brain for the barest fraction of a moment. I could reach through the door, grabbing one of them, stunning him with my nakedness as I took hold of his gun and… what?

Shot him? Was that what I did now? Shot random guards who hadn’t really done anything to me besides make sure no one snuck peeks at me in the shower? That seemed like a horrible thing to do.

I stood, rubbing my hands over my body as the water finally turned clear. I was going to have to leave this shower sooner or later, and while part of me wanted to wait for Stephen to rescue me, I was really starting to doubt his super spy skills. He’d let me be captured how many times now? It didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Besides, I wasn’t a princess waiting in a tower for someone to rescue me. I was Abigail Banks, daughter of the most vicious terrorist super-criminal the world had ever seen. That was worth something, right?

I reached out, pressing the button on the shower to cut the water. I grabbed the towel off the rack and dried myself as quickly as I could, but my hair was still sopping wet as I pulled on my clothes, a new pair of white scrubs that stuck to my still partially wet body. I was just thankful they had underwear my size. Why they had it was beyond me, but I wasn’t going to complain, even if it was made of scratchy white cotton.

Then I kicked the stall open like a badass. The guards leapt out of their skin, whirling around and pointing their guns at me. I cocked an eyebrow at them as a smile crossed my lips.

“What are you planning on doing with those?” I asked, waving at their guns dismissively before passing between them as I headed toward the door.

Before they could respond, I glanced back at them over my shoulder, my face scrunched up in disdain. “What are you idiots waiting for? My mother is waiting for me,” I said and snapped my fingers at them. “Chop, chop,” I added for effect. I wasn’t sure what the looks on their faces were because they were both helmeted, but they began to move at once, jerking into action like wind-up toy soldiers.

A moment later, I was ushered into the main room for what felt like the zillionth time. This time it was bustling with people, all scurrying about like rats. Soldiers were randomly stationed all over, standing at perfect attention. Had all these people been cleared away every single time for me?

If that was true, why? It wouldn’t have mattered to me if she’d had a dozen people or just one… so maybe… maybe it was for Gabriella? Was she nervous about meeting me? Was that why she’d cleared away all but her most trusted minion every time we’d been in close quarters?

“Move it, you idiots,” Gabriella de la Mancha squealed, her voice high-pitched and angry despite its robotic cantor. “We have to get all the depots in place before the French get wind of what’s going on.” She spun, her chair whirling toward a screen, and as it did, so she spotted me. Her face went sort of slack as she took me in, standing there staring at her.

She shook her head once, her lips compressing in anger. “Why is she here?” Gabriella asked, her voice like a knife in the hearts of the soldiers who had brought me. “I gave you very specific instructions on what to do with my daughter once Donovan was dealt with.”

“Ma’am,” the first soldier said, raising one hand palm out. “She told us you were expecting her, and you asked us to comply with her requests provided they were not ridiculous. Coming to see you hardly seems ridiculous.”

I smirked inwardly because the soldier had just put my mom in her place, and as her face alternated between forced calm and blinding rage, I could tell she knew it too. Why had he done that? Didn’t evil overlords tend to kill subordinates who annoyed them? Wasn’t that like a thing?

“How dare you speak to my mother that way,” I snapped, spinning around and poking the soldier in the chest. “I should have you shot.”

“Abigail,” Gabriella said and her voice was half-strangled. “I appreciate your loyalty, but that isn’t how I do things.” She sighed. “Firstly, killing subordinates who annoy you leads to two very bad outcomes. The first is that no sane person will want to work for you. The second is that you tend to be blindsided because yes-men who fear for their lives tend to keep their mouths shut. It’s why the Death Star was manufactured with such a debilitating flaw.”

Had she really just made a Star Wars reference? That was the only thought that went through my head as she paused to take a breath. The breathing mechanism attached to her face shuddered, reminding me of a macabre Darth Vader. “Unfortunately,” she continued, “what Gregor said is true. I did ask them to comply with your orders and so here you are.”

She glanced around the room for a moment before beckoning me closer. I moved forward, slightly taken aback because this wasn’t going according to plan at all. I mean, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do, but still… this was off.

When I reached her, she took one of my hands in hers and led me toward one of the consoles. Huge multi-colored knobs littered its surface, but since there were no labels I couldn’t tell what any of them did.

“I want to show you something,” she said, pressing down on a huge green button. “I know you’re trying to be tough, hoping your secret agent will come save you, but unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen.”

The screen above us lit up to reveal a room. The bottom half of it was filled with water, and even from my vantage point, I could see shark fins circling. High above, Stephen was suspended from a thin cable.

“Stephen’s alive!” I said, and I was suddenly so happy it felt unreal. I hadn’t been sure if Donovan had killed him or not. Evidently, he hadn’t.

“For now,” Gabriella said, and as I watched, the cable began to unwind, lowering him toward the tank.

“Are you serious?” I asked, my eyes wide as I stared at the screen. “A shark tank?”

“Yes,” Gabriella purred. “He reminded me of a British secret agent I killed a few years back. I felt like it would be fitting to give him a similar ending.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked, turning toward her, my heart pounding so hard in my chest that I could barely hear over it.

“I don’t normally,” she said, grinning at me. “Normally it is just a bullet to the head. But I felt like showing off for my daughter.” She shrugged.

“But why?” I screamed, tears starting to well in my eyes. Was she really going to kill Stephen via shark tank because she wanted me to watch? That seemed crazy… unless?

“Is this a test?” I squeaked, the words rushing past my lips in a jumbled mess.

Gabriella’s eyes glinted like the morning dew as her lips peeled back into a smile. “Yes, my daughter, it’s a test. Either you lower him into the tank or I nuke another city. If you pass, then we can get on with this whole taking over the world business… together.”

“You can’t be serious!” I cried, whirling away from the screen as Stephen jerked to a stop only a few feet from certain doom. I wasn’t sure I could watch if he started moving again.

“I am always serious. I always do what I say. There are two very big holes in the ground that speak to the truth of my words,” she replied, voice calm, and strangely, warm. “Now Abigail, press the blue button to lower him into the tank,” she added, steepling her hands in front of her like a cartoon villain.

“That’s not happening,” I said, my hands curling into fists. “I’m not going to kill Stephen!”

“It is happening, Abigail. His fate is already sealed. Even if you decide not to kill him, I will. He is already dead.” Gabriella smiled menacingly at me and icy toads hip hopped down my spine. “The only question is ‘will you let New York die too?’”

“No… please,” I said as tears filled my eyes and dripped down my cheeks like little rivers of betrayal. I tried to stop myself because, well, crying made it feel like I was agreeing with her, like he was already dead.

“Abigail, I…” She stopped speaking mid-sentence, her eyes going wide as she stared at the screen. “Guards!” she screamed, pointing at the screen as I whirled around.

The cable was still there… but Stephen wasn’t. Had he escaped? How was that even possible? It didn’t even matter. Someway, somehow, Stephen was free and that meant I didn’t have to kill him. Laughter spilled from my lips, filling the room as guards scrambled into the room on the screen.

“You forgot, Mom, James Bond always escapes,” I said, turning toward her and smiling.

“Whatever,” she said, dismissing me. “I’ve killed James Bond like fifty times.” She seized me by the wrist and her grip was surprisingly strong. “Roberto, take her back to her room. Stay with her until we’ve disposed of that agent. I don’t want her escaping again.”

“Understood,” Roberto growled, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me from the room.

The soft scrape of shoes on tile drifted toward me as Roberto led me to who knows where. I leaned in a little closer, my heart starting to pound as the footsteps grew louder.

The sound stopped, just shy of the corner, and I held my breath. My heart began to beat faster and faster in my chest, and I was almost worried I’d been heard or seen. Sweat dripped down the back of my neck as Roberto gripped my wrist harder.

“Who’s there?” Roberto called out, shoving me behind his massive body.

The sound of gunfire exploded in my ears, so loud that I was sure I’d gone deaf. In front of me, Roberto slumped forward, releasing me as he fell to his knees, gripping his stomach.

In front of him stood Stephen with a huge black gun pointed at me.

“Abby!” Stephen cried, dropping the gun and rushing toward me. I stared at Roberto as blood began to pool out of him. There was no way he was going to survive that, and to be honest, it made me a little sad. In the end, he had been nothing but nice to me.

“You shot him,” I murmured, staring up at Stephen, and I saw him for what he really was. He was a killer.

“I’m not the bad guy,” he said, trying to take my hand, but I pulled it away from him.

“Yes you are, Stephen. You just shot someone in cold blood. That makes you a bad guy,” I said, taking a step back from him. I mean, I’d known what he was ever since he’d gunned down the guard in the hallway earlier, but it hadn’t clicked until I’d watched him shoot Roberto.

“Abby…” his voice drifted off as he glanced around nervously. Then he shook his head. “Look, you need to come with me, right now. No matter what you think of me, I am trying to protect you. I will do that by any means necessary.”

I stared at him for what felt like ever before nodding minutely. “Okay,” I said. “In that case, Gabriella is just down that hallway. If we hurry, we can get her before she does something else crazy.”

“Abby, there’s no way we can get into that room. Now that I’ve found you, we need to escape.”

“No, Stephen. What we need to do is stop her. We’ll never be this close again,” I growled, taking a step down the hallway. “If you don’t do it, then give me your gun. I’ll sneak back in and take her out.”

Stephen grabbed me by the wrist. “No. That’s not going to happen. I won’t risk you, again.”

“There’s no other way!” I said, turning to face him. “She tried to make me kill you, Stephen. Tried to make me choose between you and New York.” I swallowed. “And I would have chosen New York…” I said. “I would have killed you.”

Something dark swam through his eyes as he stared at me. “Well, I’ll endeavor not to get betrayed by my team leader next time. Either way, I’m getting you out of here,” he said, before grabbing me by the wrist and trying to pull me down one of the corridors.

I didn’t let him. I dug my heels in and dropped my weight like a stubborn toddler. His eyes went wide and he stared at me. “Abby, we need to hurry—”

“Donovan was a traitor, sure, but he works for Gabriella… he killed,” I swallowed, tears filling my eyes and my voice shattered, “he killed my mom. She needs to pay for that”

Stephen looked at me like I’d just grown a second head. “Gabriella?”

“Yes,” I sobbed. “I need to stop her, Stephen. Don’t you understand?”

“Shh… It’s okay,” he said, reaching out and running his hand along my face. “I’m here now. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

“Okay,” I replied and elbowed him in the stomach. His eyes went wide and he slumped forward, the gun slipping from his grip and hitting the ground with a clang. I scooped it up and took off running down the corridor toward Gabriella.

Stephen caught me barely ten feet later, tackling me to the ground. My forehead smacked against the metal floor with a wet smack and stars shot passed my eyes. Stephen stood, dragging me to my feet and throwing me over his shoulder.

He was holding a small black box in front of my face that was about the size of a pack of playing cards. “Abby, do you know what this is?”

I tried to respond, but I couldn’t because the room was still spinning. “This is a detonator to compact thermos-fusion bomb. It will take out this entire structure once I set it off. I’ve already planted the bomb. It’s what I was doing before Donovan betrayed me. The only thing we need to do now is escape so I can set it off remotely.”

“And how will that stop her plan, Stephen?” I asked. “What if she escapes?”

“We’ll just have to make sure she doesn’t,” he smirked at me and I think he was trying to be charming. “Besides, this is her base of operations. Sure she has others, but they aren’t as robust as this one. Destroying this base will definitely put her plans on hold.”

Chapter 17

Stephen’s plan had seemed way, way better when I wasn’t crawling through a sewage duct. Which, let me just tell you, was totally gross. I was covered in brown and green slime that smelled so bad I’d nearly gagged when Stephen had opened the sewer access hatch.

“Don’t worry about it,” he’d said, and the words kept repeating themselves over and over in my mind, only his voice had gained a dopey quality about fifty repetitions ago because I was worried about it. I felt really stupid for trying to charge Gabriella guns blazing. That was aside from the blatantly obvious fact that I was not value added. With every movement I made through the sewer one fact was evident. Stephen could have stopped Gabriella without me.

I glanced ahead, the light from Stephen’s head lamp illuminating the tunnel as we trudged forward. My poor white scrubs were going to have to be burned. Of that, I was sure.

“See, it isn’t so bad,” Stephen called back over his shoulder, swinging his head toward me and blinding me with his headlamp. “The hatch is just a little farther.”

Stephen swung his head back toward the tunnel, his shoulders sagging a little. “I don’t know what you want me to do,” he murmured. His voice was so low that I barely heard him. It almost made me wonder if he expected a response or if it was one of those hypothetical statements.

“Get us out of here already,” I replied. I sucked in a breath, and felt my throat seize up. My stomach sloshed as the smell of rotting flesh filled my nose. “Ugh… I’m going to be sick.”

“Um… Abby, you should close your eyes,” Stephen said as he slowed his crawl.

“Why?” I asked. The longer this took, the longer I was going to be down here in ickville.

“Because up ahead is a dead body.” He pointed, but all I could see was the outline of his hand.

“Oh,” I replied and a chill filled my bones, echoing up my body in a series of tremors I couldn’t control. For a moment, I’d almost forgotten that we were in a secret base run by a madwoman who killed people. I was so focused on how useless I was, I’d been able to ignore the fact that people died at her hands. Like… like really died.

“I’ll be okay,” I squeaked a moment later.

“Are you sure?” Stephen asked, glancing down the passage toward where I was sure the corpse was, and I saw a shudder ravage his body.

“Yeah,” I replied, biting my lip and shutting my eyes for a second. I could do this. I could crawl over a dead body.

“I can find another way,” he suggested, and I opened my eyes and quirked an eyebrow at him. Was Stephen scared?

“There’s no other way,” I said, moving up closer to him. “Let’s just get this over with. Besides, if there’s another way that doesn’t involve a sewer, and you made me crawl through it for fun. I will be very unhappy with you.”

Stephen didn’t say anything. Instead, he began moving forward mechanically, like a marionette on strings. He slogged through the glop, and I followed along so closely, I was nearly on top of him.

Something squelched beneath my hand, and the smell, like rotten eggs on a summer’s day, made me turn my head away. I covered my face with the crook of my arm, because that was the cleanest part of my scrubs, and fought not to gag.

Tears filled my eyes as I sucked in a slow breath through my mouth that tasted like old socks. When I’d recovered enough to move, Stephen was farther ahead in the tunnel. The light from his headlamp illuminated the corpse. Somehow the body had hit the lip of a huge pit, and instead of falling down below, it stuck there, one mangled arm wedged into a crack in the stone. Stephen pushed the body to the side, careful not to touch it much.

I was about to ask him why, but as I approached, I suddenly knew why. Chloe’s face was frozen in a look of desperate sadness, and as Stephen climbed over her, he paused and stared down. Her corpse was just at the edge of what looked like a large pit, which I guess made sense since we were traveling downward. This must be near where they directly disposed of garbage. The moment that thought hit me, tears welled in my eyes. She was more than just trash.

“I’m sorry,” Stephen whispered, and the sound of his words made my heart break for him. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this, Chloe… I should have known better.”

Her death replayed itself in my mind. The utter pointlessness of it made it even more horrible. She had been shot as an example, and her body had been dumped here, in a trash heap.

I glanced up at the ceiling and spotted a hatch a few meters past Stephen’s head. I shook my head, shutting my eyes so that I wouldn’t cry.

“Abby,” Stephen said, “Let’s go. Let’s make her pay for this… and for everyone else.”

“Okay,” I replied, pushing myself forward. As I climbed over Chloe’s body, I stared into her sightless, unseeing eyes. A tear dripped down my cheek and splattered on her once perfect face.

Stephen was standing a few feet ahead of me, one hand on a ladder that led up. “Come on,” he said, gesturing for me to move, his face set in a hard line. “This should lead up into the separation room. That’s where they decide what they are going to feed into the cogeneration plant. We’ll be able to escape through the emergency exits there.”

“Are you sure?” I asked as Stephen began climbing upward. That was good because the pad beneath the ladder was so narrow that both of us wouldn’t have been able to stand there together.

“Yes,” Stephen said as he reached the top and pressed one gooey hand against the inner mechanisms of the hatch. How had he scaled the ladder so fast? Was he part spider-monkey or something?

I shook my head and began climbing up the ladder. Its rungs were covered with that black sandpaper that was sometimes used to provide extra grip. That was good because my hands were so slick with sludge that each step made my heart palpitate.

I was nearly to the top when Stephen finally pushed the hatch open and warm yellow light spilled into the shaft. I blinked, the sudden change was nearly blinding, and went to cover my eyes. My foot slipped, and I fell backward. I reached out, trying to grab hold of the ladder, and my slimy fingers slid off like I was trying to grab a wet ice cube. A scream ripped from my throat as I careened backward.

A sudden jolt halted me in midair, my head snapped back and stars shot passed my eyes. Stephen was leaning toward me, one hand gripping the ladder, the other on the hem of my shirt. I dangled there, unable to react as strain made his arms cord and bulge.

“Abby, grab onto the ladder and pull yourself up.” His words slipped through his clenched teeth. “I can’t hold you much longer. I’m not Superman.”

Blood rushed to my head as I stared up at him from my inverted position, unsure of how to get myself out of the predicament. As I glanced away from Stephen’s straining biceps and toward the ladder, I really wished I’d stuck out those gymnastics lessons. I’d quit because, for some reason, whenever I did a flip I turned all cockeyed. After almost a year of being the gymnastics equivalent of the girl picked last for kickball, I’d given it up.

Now that I was hanging upside down with my shirt pressing painfully into my shoulders and cutting off the feeling in my limbs as blood hammered in my temples, I was regretting the decision.

“Just reach up and grab my wrist,” Stephen grunted, but his hand seemed so far away that I knew there was no way I could do any kind of vertical sit-up. Wonder Woman I was not. That was when an idea hit me.

“Stephen, I’m going to loop my legs around the ladder, then you can let go and I’ll just be hanging upside down…” Even before I finished the words, I’d thrust my legs through the ladder and wedged my toes up under the slats. I grabbed hold of my legs with my arms and started edging my way upward, pulling myself up inch by agonizing inch.

Stephen let go and a scream tore from my lips as my full weight fell back on my toes and hands. My muscles burned as he reached down, grabbing my wrist and hauling me up into a more normal position.

“Let’s not do this again,” he said when we were on the surface a moment later.

“Okay,” I replied, sucking in a breath of air and rolling onto my back to stare at the ceiling. There was nothing here except rows of bright yellow lights that were set into the white ceiling. It made me feel like I was in one of those clean rooms from the movies.

Any moment, I expected a scientist in full hazmat gear to come strolling by and look at me through the enormous window that covered one side of the room. Then he’d scribble in his little notepad and tap at the glass to get my attention, whereupon a door would slide open to reveal a chocolate treat.

Stephen glanced down at me and smirked. “You should get up,” he said, offering me a hand so covered in grime that I really didn’t want him touching me with it.

“I’m good,” I said, getting to my feet without his help.

He grinned, perfect teeth flashing in the light. “You’re not such a pretty sight yourself,” he said, gesturing at me.

“You don’t think I’m pretty?” I asked, feeling my cheeks burn as I said the words. For whatever reason, my heart started going crazy in my chest, and it was hard to catch my breath.

“Um… that’s not what I meant,” he said, backing away from me several steps before turning and looking at the window. “I think you’re pretty,” he whispered a moment later, his voice strained and low.

I swallowed. Stephen thought I was pretty? No… he was just saying that because he was a secret agent. That’s the type of thing they said, right? I took a step toward him, and he whirled around, eyes like oceans of sapphire as he took hold of my hands and stared at me. Then he leaned forward pressed his lips against my forehead.

“I think you’re amazing, Abby,” he whispered, breath hot on my forehead as he spoke, and my knees turned to jelly. “Amazing.”

“Touching,” Donovan’s voice boomed through the room. “I mean, you’re as good as dead, Stephen, but it’s still touching.”

Stephen reacted so quickly that I almost lost my balance as he whirled around and shoved me behind him. I stared at Donovan as anger and fear fell over me in crashing waves. How dare he show up again? My eyes widened a little as another thought struck me. If he was here, how far behind were hordes of armed guards?

“Donovan,” Stephen said, and his voice was hard and angry. His entire body was tensed into a coiled spring as Donovan stepped through the door, his face still smeared with blood.

Donovan looked past Stephen and grinned at me. “Normally this is where he’d say, ‘Abby, we’ll finish this later,’ but that isn’t happening because I’m going to kill him and shove him down there with the Praying Mantis.” He grinned at me, something dark glinting in his eyes, “That was a nice touch on my part, don’t you think?”

Stephen’s foot lashed out, cutting through the air so quickly that I almost didn’t follow the movement. It sailed by Donovan’s head as he stepped casually to the side and dropped down, sweeping Stephen’s other leg out from under him. Stephen hit the ground with a horrible smack, but somehow, managed to roll to his feet.

“You’ve never been able to beat me before, Stephen. What makes you think this time will be any different?” Donovan asked, smirking.

“I wasn’t trying to let you win before.” Stephen dropped into a low crouch as the two of them started to circle the room.

Donovan’s knee exploded forward, catching Stephen hard on the side of the head. He toppled to the ground like a broken mannequin, all sprawling limbs. He tried to roll, but Donovan’s boot came up, catching him square in the stomach. The wet sound of smashed meat filled my ears as Stephen flopped over on his side, gasping.

That’s when the gun came out. It was huge and ominous in Donovan’s hand as he pointed it casually at Stephen. It was the very same one he had used on my mother, and the sight of it made my head spin. I reached back, leaning against the window for support. Donovan had killed my mother… and now he was going to kill Stephen… and there was nothing I could do.

“Don’t try and resist. It will just be more difficult for the both of us,” Donovan said, gesturing for Stephen to stay put.

Slowly, as if he was a broken marionette, Stephen got to his feet and took a wobbly step forward. He brushed his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a crimson smear along his cheek. “I was just testing you,” Stephen wheezed, drawing his hands up in front of himself like a drunken boxer, and wobbled forward.

He swung, his whole body stumbling forward as he moved, and Donovan sidestepped with ease. The gun lashed out, coming down like a club at the back of Stephen’s head. Stephen turned in a surprising bout of agility and seized Donovan’s wrist with both hands. Stephen’s shoulder snapped upward as he jerked down on Donovan’s arm.

A horrific crack ripped through the air followed closely by a scream that made me turn away as the gun clattered to the ground. Stephen spun, driving his elbow into the other man’s gut as Donovan’s arm fell uselessly to his side, dangling at an unnatural angle.

Donovan bit his lip, rage twisting his once beautiful face into a monstrous mask. “How dare you!” he screamed as Stephen darted forward, all lithe movement.

Stephen unleashed a flurry of blows as Donovan fell backward to the ground, covering himself with his good arm in an attempt to keep himself from getting pounded into oblivion. Stephen’s knee came forward, arcing down and smashing into Donovan’s already hurt arm. Donovan screamed, and his body arced uncontrollably as Stephen’s fist came forward. It crashed into Donovan’s face, and the distinct sound of a broken nose filled my ears.

That’s when Donovan began to laugh. It burbled up from inside him and through his split lips in little gasps of bloody spittle. “Fool,” he said. “You’ve already lost. They are on their way here right now.”

Panic crossed Stephen’s face as he leapt to his feet, turning toward me as the door Donovan had entered through slammed shut in a hiss of compressed air. Red lights began to swivel along the ceiling, casting crimson shadows along the walls.

“Abby,” Stephen said. “We have to go! Now!” He took a step toward me, one hand outstretched.

Donovan surged upward then, the point of a hypodermic needle pressed against Stephen’s throat. It happened so fast that Stephen was already lying on the ground before I’d realized what happened.

“No!” I shrieked, and without thinking, snatched up the gun. I pointed it at Donovan even as tears clouded my vision. “What have you done?”

“What do you plan on doing with that, Abby?” Donovan smirked, one eyebrow cocking upward.

“If you killed him…” I said, trailing off because finishing the statement was too painful. I couldn’t lose both my mother and Stephen to this guy. I just couldn’t…

“He’s just unconscious. Your real mother has plans for him.” Donovan shrugged, taking a step toward me.

“Don’t move,” I said, the gun shaking in my hands as I pointed it at the center of his chest. “Don’t take another step.”

“Oh?” Donovan took another step and grinned at me. Blood leaked down the corner of his mouth, and his tongue snaked out, licking it away before disappearing back into his mouth.

“Please…” I murmured, and he stopped moving for the barest of moments before taking another step toward me.

“I don’t think you have it in you, mon petite,” he said. He was only a few feet away from me now, and I could see his good hand edging upward as the hypodermic needle clattered to the floor beside Stephen.

“Please, Donovan,” I said.

“No,” he replied, and as his hand came up, I fired. The gun jerked in my hands, the sound of it so loud that my hearing dulled into a single point of screeching sound. That’s when everything went all slow motion. Donovan’s body pitched backward in a spray of blood and thicker things as his legs went out from under him.

His body hit the ground in a heap of flesh, blood gushing from the back of his head and spilling out across the floor. Most of his face was gone. I don’t know how it happened exactly, but when the gun bucked in my hand, the bullet must have taken him in the head instead of the chest.

I felt the weapon slip from my hands. It hit the ground with an angry sounding clank, and as I stared at it, the room felt like it was spinning. The only thing I could see as white scrub-clad storm troopers rushed into the room was the gun laying on the ground. It was covered in specks of blood, and as I stared at my hands, I realized they were covered in blood too.

I hit the ground a second later, my stomach emptying itself onto the white tile floor as I tried to simultaneously throw up and wipe Donovan’s blood from my hands… but that was impossible.

Chapter 18

I was standing in front of my mother. It hadn’t been very long, or maybe it had been. I wasn’t really sure because time seemed really slow. Stephen was lying unconscious on the floor next to me while Gabriella’s chair hovered back and forth.

Donovan’s body had been cleared away, but there was still a red smear where his corpse had been. He had been shoved into the same hole in the floor I’d climbed out of before I had killed a man. It seemed so long ago.

“I didn’t think you had it in you, Abby,” Gabriella said for perhaps the millionth time. “But it’s good. I was worried you wouldn’t have it in you. Worried you were too timid, too innocent to make the hard choices.” Her chair spun, and she stared at me through her visor, lights bright like angry robot eyes. “It’s why I wanted you to kill Stephen before.”

“Okay,” I replied, and the word came out hollow and empty. My eyes left her face and surveyed the room. There were only three people in the room: me, my mom, and Stephen. Still, it didn’t seem like the best odds for escape since Stephen was unconscious and there were a ton of the storm troopers just outside the door.

Besides, they had taken my gun so it wasn’t like I could shoot them. Apparently, that was something I did now. I was Abby Banks, the girl who shoots people.

“Are you okay?” Gabriella asked, and for the first time ever, I heard concern tinge her voice. Her chair slid up next to me, and she reached out with one gnarled, paper-thin hand. Her fingers touched my face. The feeling reminded me of sand paper and old plastic.

“Yes,” I replied, but I wasn’t sure I was okay. I wasn’t sure I knew what okay was anymore. All I knew was there was blood all over me, and it wasn’t mine. It was from the man I’d killed. It was all over my hands and my arms and my clothes. It was sticky, red, and ominous.

“I do not believe you,” Gabriella said, taking one of my hands in hers and pulling me closer. What was with everyone touching me? Did I seem like someone who liked to be touched? I wasn’t.

“Stop touching me,” I said. My voice was so cold, so low, I scarcely believed it was my own.

She pulled like I was a snake, and for some reason, that made me feel better. Was she scared of me? Because I’d shot someone? That didn’t seem right. She had killed more people than me. Oh my god, I was measuring myself based on how many people I’d killed. What the hell was wrong with me?

I swallowed, turning away from her and moving toward the wall. I leaned my forehead against the white plaster, and its coolness spread out through me. It was strangely comforting.

“I never thought I would count myself among a group of people who had killed another person,” I murmured. Tears started to stream down my cheeks as I whirled around, fists clenched. “This is all your fault!” I snapped, pointing one trembling finger at Gabriella de la Mancha.

“My fault?” Gabriella asked. She seemed taken aback at my attitude as I stomped toward her until we were almost eye to visor.

“I would be back home not knowing I was the daughter of someone who nukes cities. What am I going to tell people now? Hi, I’m Abby Banks, and I shot a man in the face and watched him die? When you go to a parent teacher conference are you just going to lead with ‘Hey remember when Rome got nuked? That was me.’ Because we’re working on a pretty screwed up relationship right now!” I snarled. My hands white-knuckled into fists.

“Teenagers,” Gabriella said. Pink colored her cheeks, and for a moment, I wondered if I was embarrassing her. Gabriella shook her head a moment later, her chair squeaking as it lurched backward.

The chair spun and moved toward the door. When it was a couple paces outside, it turned and she raised one stick-thin hand toward me and waved. “Goodbye, Abby,” she said and looked up at a camera in the ceiling. “Prepare her.”

“What does that even mean,” I yelled as the door hissed shut, and I was left alone in the room with an unconscious secret agent and a blood-smeared floor. I dropped down to the ground and didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t sure what Gabriella meant exactly, but it didn’t sound good, not at all. Was this it? Was this where she finally strapped me down and pulled out my organs?

“Abby…” Stephen hissed, and his voice sounded like it was being dragged over a bed of coals. “Are you okay?”

“Stephen!” I yelped and rushed over to him. He was lying on his side, chest heaving. His eyes had a half-glazed look to them that reminded me of those interviews with the losing boxer who had been punched one too many times.

“You’re okay?” he asked, the words a little less slurred and broken. “Where’s Donovan?”

“Dead,” I said, petting his head like he was some kind of dog. “He’s dead, Stephen. I shot him.”

He shut his eyes for so long that I was worried he’d slipped back into unconsciousness. When he opened them, his eyes had lost that glassy texture, and something else too.

“I’m sorry,” he said, trying to get to his feet, but instead, he just sort of fell over.

“It’s okay,” I said, trying to help him, and as I did so, he threw my hands off.

“No, it’s not.” He climbed to his feet and stumbled forward, crashing into the wall and leaning haphazardly against it. “I should have protected you from that,” he said between huge gulps of air. “I was supposed to keep you safe.”

“I am safe, Stephen,” I said, taking another step toward him.

“But you aren’t innocent anymore. That’s my fau—”

I cut him off with a slap. The sound of it echoed in the room. It stung my hand, and I wrung it out as tears filled my eyes. “How dare you?” I snapped, barely resisting the urge to hit him again.

Oh the hell with it. I hit him again, my fist connecting with his stomach. His eyes bugged out a little bit. “I stopped being innocent the moment you pulled me out of my mom’s restaurant. Now grow a pair and use your secret spy stuff to get us out of here.”

Stephen stared at me wide-eyed, before patting himself down like he was looking for something. “They took the detonator?” he asked a moment later.

“Yes, and pretty much all your equipment.”

“Well… yeah,” he said, and as he did so, I wasn’t sure he was joking. I mean, he didn’t sound like he was joking, but surely… surely he didn’t have a bomb surgically implanted inside himself to escape from underwater super-villain bases. Right?

Or wrong… apparently, because half a breath later, he was yanking off his shirt. The tight black fabric slid off him like he was pulling off a second skin. That was when I noticed the faint faint scar tracing up along the right side of his abdomen. It was so faint that I probably wouldn’t have noticed it if Stephen hadn’t run his fingers over it, trailing them down his flesh.

“Are you enjoying the show?” he asked, voice still partially strained. I glanced up at him, tearing my eyes away from his stomach as heat exploded across my cheeks, down my neck, and over my shoulders.

“Erm…” was all I managed to say as I looked away toward the corner of the room, which was suddenly very interesting. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I added a moment later… and then I started whistling. Seriously. It was the most embarrassing thing ever in spite of everything happening.

Stephen laughed. The sound of it rolled over my skin like warm chocolate, and I almost turned to look at him. But I wasn’t about to give him that kind of satisfaction. Instead, I focused on the fact that there were still armed guards standing just outside the door.

I wasn’t sure what sort of scheme Stephen had in mind as he wrapped the shirt around his nose and mouth, but I wasn’t sure it was going to bypass guards and who knows what kinds of safeguards this place had. I wasn’t dumb enough to think Gabriella de la Mancha, super-criminal extraordinaire, was leaving us trapped in a room that wasn’t all kinds of booby-trapped.

“So do you have a plan to get us out of here?” I asked. I was about to say more, but gas exploded from the vents over our head. It burned along my skin, scalding my throat and eyes as I collapsed to my knees, struggling to breathe. My nose began to run as I fell to the ground and tried to crawl forward out of the cloud.

It was everywhere, just everywhere. Every single breath I took seared my lungs, and it was all I could do to keep moving, keep trying to escape. I looked around for Stephen, but my eyes were so blurry with tears that I couldn’t see anything but giant smears of color.

Chapter 19

I woke up strapped to a table, which aside from becoming a disturbing pattern, was an altogether unsettling place to awaken. Thick metal bands encircled my wrists and ankles. They were cinched down so tightly that it was making my fingers and toes go all kinds of tingly. Aside from the metal bands, there were also some well-placed brown straps holding me down.

I swallowed, and stared up at the ceiling. My wrists and ankles were rubbed raw, and my muscles were throbbing from pitting Abby Banks flesh against cold steel. It was not very effective… but I couldn’t give up, right?

It wasn’t like Stephen was going to bust in here any second and rescue me… I mean, I didn’t even know what happened to him when they gassed the room. For all I knew, he was dead in that same hole as Chloe and Donovan. The thought sobered me. Not only was Stephen probably dead, but I was on my own. That thought made me feel so empty that I was very nearly hollow. It wasn’t just that, well, I didn’t want Stephen dead, it was that despite his, and everyone else’s, sacrifices Gabriella was going to win.

No, that couldn’t happen. I couldn’t let her win. Not after everything she did. So what if I was the only one left? I was going to get myself out of this. I just didn’t know how… yet. I shut my eyes and concentrated on slowing my breathing. The opportunity would present itself if I was patient. Wasn’t that like a thing?

It felt like I’d been waiting hours when the side of the wall slid open with a squeal of pneumatics to reveal a huge window. A man in a lab coat with a stethoscope draped over his shoulder grinned at me. He was completely bald and was so old and wrinkly that I thought he might be part prune.

He licked his lips as he stared at me, one hand pressed against the glass, and I felt a shudder course down my bound body. He pulled his hand away a moment later, leaving a greasy smear on the glass as he rubbed his head. “Glad to see you’ve finally awoken,” he said, and the words seemed to slither out of his mouth in a flood of saliva. “I’ve been waiting for this moment since the day you were born.”

I was about to reply when the lights overhead exploded into view, flashing with reds and greens and indigos. I found myself mesmerized by them, my head wrenching itself away from the creepy doctor to focus on the lights as though they were the most interesting thing I had ever seen.

“You see, we always knew your mother was going to die. It was why we created you, free from meddling inconveniences like debilitating body degeneration,” he said as the lights began to flash faster and faster. “Unfortunately, the problem is that now we have you, the person in the meat suit, and you’re not exactly suited for what we have in mind. I’m not trying to say that you’re unwanted or anything… Actually, that is what I’m trying to say. So what these lights are going to do is prepare your mind to be erased. Then we can port your mother’s consciousness directly into your brain.”

I shut my eyes, but I could still feel them pulsing just on the other side of my lids. Had what he said been true? Was the reason everything was set up for my biometrics because my mother was going to take over my body? Could she even do that? It seemed a little like science fiction to me, but then again, everything was so unreal. First I had been told my mom wanted my organs, and then I’d been ‘prepared’ to inherit her kingdom, and now this? Was everything just one lie after another? If so, what was the truth?

Only… only I knew the truth. Gabriella was evil, and I needed to stop her. I wasn’t sure how, but there had to be a way, right?

“Please, don’t do this…” I whispered, and my voice was hoarse and dry.

“It will be okay,” he said. He tried to say more, and well, probably succeeded at it, but I couldn’t make out any other words. It felt like my eyelids were melting. Every part of my body was so hot it felt like my skin was cooking off from the inside, like my blood was boiling in my veins.

I tried to scream, but no sound came out of my lips. The lights grew in intensity, reminding me of the time I’d had to stand up in front of my class at Folsom High and give a presentation on robotics with my friend Lisa Ann. She had done nearly the entire project, worked out all the geeky math… but she was way too shy to actually give the demonstration.

“All you have to do is press the button,” Lisa Ann said, handing me a remote the size of a binder. It was covered in knobs and wires. A small pinprick of green plastic was illuminated off to the left of the notebook.

“That?” I asked, pointing at it. “That’s barely a speck of light,” I responded, my finger hovering above it. The urge to push it just to see what the tiny mechanized tyrannosaurus rex would do was so great that I wasn’t sure I could wait.

“Yes,” Lisa said, biting her lip. “I preprogramed the dinosaur already so it should be good to go.”

I tore my eyes from the button and stared up at her. “Are you sure? I don’t want to be up on stage when the thing doesn’t work. I really don’t want to look like an idiot like last time.”

“Abby, it will be fine. This time I worked out all the bugs.” Lisa Ann looked away as she said the words so I knew she was lying like a dog. “If something goes wrong, just turn some of the knobs…” she added hastily.

A few minutes later, I had stumbled onto the stage with Lisa Ann so close behind me that she was very nearly attached to me. The lights had been so bright that I almost couldn’t see past them into the endless sea of faces in the audience. My mother, Esmeralda Banks, was there in the back, waving a huge foam finger like you use at sporting events. It had my name written on it in pink puffy paint, and seeing her there had given me the confidence to push the button.

My eyes snapped open, and the lights were so bright that they nearly blinded me. Dots began to spark across my vision, dancing like little rainbow-hued ballerinas as I forced myself to stare at the man behind the glass.

“No,” I croaked, my voice coming out in a wet wheeze. “You can’t have my body.”

The doctor stared at me like I’d just grown a spare head, which I was pretty sure hadn’t happened. His eyes were wide, and he raised one liver-spotted finger toward me and pointed. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice low and confused.

“What’s going on?” Gabriella de la Mancha boomed from beyond the glass. I hadn’t seen her before, but now that she had spoken I could just barely make her out beneath a mass of machinery. She was wearing a thing that looked like a basket strainer on her head. Wires every color of the rainbow protruded from the device as she pushed herself out of her chair and stumbled toward the doctor.

“Gabby,” he said, grabbing her. “You mustn’t strain yourself. It’s a minor problem.”

“What’s the problem?” she growled, looking at me through the glass. Her eyes were red-rimmed and feverish. There was something else there behind the anger though, fear. Gabriella was afraid.

“I tried to press the link through, to fuse your minds for the download, but there was too much interference from her memories.”

“Of what, a prison camp?” Gabriella said a second before she collapsed back into her chair. Her chest heaved from the effort from standing for those few moments.

“I had a life, you bitch!” I cried, throwing myself against the bonds. “I had friends and a mother who loved me!”

“You had a spy who pretended to love you,” Gabriella snarled.

“No. She has a spy who does love her!” Stephen’s voice boomed a moment before a grenade clinked off the glass inside their room and landed on the control panel in front of the glass. The doctor screamed as Gabriella threw herself sideways.

The glass shattered into a zillion pieces as Stephen’s grenade detonated. Black smoke curled up from the control panels, filling the room so that I couldn’t see what happened to Gabriella and the doctor as the lights winked out in a crackle of electricity. Bulbs exploded, sending shards of razor-sharp glass raining down on top of me.

A moment later, Stephen was through the window and coming toward me like a freight train. He was covered in blood. It looked like a balloon full of red paint had exploded on his chest, arms, and legs. He reached me a second later, a black disk in his hand. It whirred to life as he swung it at the restraints. The device cut through them like tissue paper, parting the metal in half a breath.

He pulled me free, and I wobbled along unsteadily because for some reason my body wasn’t working as well as it should. Even still, I wrapped my arms around him, hugging him as hard as I could.

“You’re alive!” I squealed, tears running down my face. “I was sure you were dead!”

“I’m like a cockroach,” he said. “I’d tell you all about how I escaped, but right now we don’t have time!”

“Okay,” I said, releasing him. “Let’s get out of here!” Before the words had even left my mouth Stephen was across the room. He slapped some black goop on the wall, and pressed a device with two electrodes attached to the wall. The room shuddered as the wall jerked upward into the ceiling. The metal corridor behind the fake wall was peppered with fluorescent lights, giving it a distinctly antiseptic feel.

“Let’s go,” he said, looking back at me before heading inside.

“Where are we going?” I asked, glancing back over my shoulder as the wall slid shut behind us, leaving us trapped in the hallway.

“To the escape pod I saw on the way here. Hopefully we can make it before anything else happens.”

“What about Gabriella? Is she still alive?” I asked, trying to look past him down the tunnel, but couldn’t see anything because he was blocking my view. “Did you see her body?”

“No, but she’s probably dead,” he replied, glancing at me and the look on his face made me shiver. “I did throw a grenade at her,” he added, stopping suddenly in front of a huge door.

“We need to make sure she’s dead, Stephen,” I said as he grabbed hold of the door and shouldered it open. It screeched on its hinges, barely budging more than a few inches. “We need to go back and check.”

“Abby, even if she did live through the grenade, she needs your body to survive. If you leave, she’ll die anyway.” Stephen reared back and took a flying leap against the door. A wet crunching sound filled my ears, and he cried out as the door shuddered open. He slid downward clutching his shoulder, face twisted in pain. I reached down to help him, and he pushed me away, getting to his feet on his own.

“But…” I bit my lip. I’d seen too many movies where the bad guy survived, and I really, didn’t want to relive this whole thing again in a month or a year because we didn’t spend five seconds putting a bullet in her head. “Stephen, I’m going back to check,” I’d barely gotten the words out of my mouth when a bullet pinged off the metal beside Stephen’s head.

I hit the ground, glancing back down the hallway to see a contingent of soldiers barely visible at the other end of the hallway. They hadn’t rushed in yet, evidently preferring the cover of the door we’d used. Great, now there was no going back.

“Get down, Abby. I don’t want you to accidentally get shot,” he snapped as he dropped to his hands and knees and fired back down the hallway. Then he poked his head through the door he’d just opened, surveying the outer room in quick bursts of movements.

Evidently, he was satisfied with whatever he saw because a moment later he hobbled through the opening, still clutching his shoulder as another bullet zinged off the wall.

“It’s clear,” he said, glancing at me with eyes like an ocean storm as I followed him.

A giant metallic pod hung suspended in the air by a giant metallic claw. The ground beneath it looked like one of those portholes that might open or close. Stephen hobbled up to a control panel and began turning knobs and pulling levers in a way that didn’t make any sense to me.

It must have made sense to the room though because the pod began lowering as the floor opened up to reveal dark sea-green water. I took a few steps forward into the room when something zinged by my ear, pinging against a pipe. I dropped to the ground as soldiers flooded out of another door, pouring in so quickly that it reminded me of swarming ants.

“Abby, watch the pipes, they’re full of plasma. If you get too close, you could get hurt,” Stephen cried as bullets pinged all around him.

“Why are there pipes filled with plasma?” I asked as I crawled toward him, bullets pinging off the steel in a way that suggested they weren’t trying to actually hit me. It was either that or they were terrible shots. Somehow, I didn’t think that was the case.

“They feed energy through the reactor. I don’t know the specifics, but they help power this place.” He had a gun out now and was firing at the mass of soldiers, though almost all of them had found cover. There was no way we were going to make it to the pod without becoming very similar to Swiss cheese.

“So what happens if we blow up the pipes?” I asked, finally coming up beside him.

“Um… plasma leaks into the room killing us all?” he said, glancing at me. “But I’m out of grenades so that doesn’t matter because bullets won’t do the trick.”

I bit my lip and pulled off my mom’s black ring. My hand was trembling as I held it out to him. “What if you used this?” I asked, closing his fingers over it.

His eyes widened, and then a grin broke out across his face. “Is this Esmeralda’s ring?”

I nodded as he smiled wider. “Abby, I could kiss you,” he said, and a second later, a blush spread across his cheeks. “When you get to the pod, hit the big lever on the left of the porthole.” He turned away from me, fired over his head, and hit something on the panel with his other hand.

The claw holding the pod released. It crashed into the water, sending a wave out in every direction. It splashed over us, making me shiver as it ripped away my body heat. Stephen was on his feet already, firing up at the soldiers. “Abby! Get to the sub!” he cried, slapping the ring against the pipe to our left.

The ring began to throb as I sprinted for the pod. Bullets pinged off the metal around me as I reached the door and grabbed onto the lever. I yanked as hard as I could, my hands gripping the metal so hard it hurt. My muscles corded with the effort as the lever slid open with a start. I lost my grip and tumbled backward, smacking against the ground so hard, I saw miniature stars flash past my eyes.

Stephen was next to me, dragging me into the pod. The door was shutting behind me when I noticed blood coursing down Stephen’s body. It was everywhere, and though he was trying to hide it, I could see the huge hole in his bicep even through his shirt. I moved to touch him, to grab hold of him, when something exploded behind me, and the room around us shuddered.

Heat washed out of the room, and even within the pod, it felt like it had to be a billion degrees on the other side of the wall. Flame licked across the walls and floor, engulfing the piping and soldiers in blue-white fire. Then we were beneath the water. I glanced over to see Stephen in the pilot’s seat. Blood was gushing from his wound as he smirked at me.

“Can you grab one of those bandages while I get us out of here?” he asked, nodding toward a med-kit stashed in some netting above his head.

“Yeah,” I replied when a shockwave flung us to the side. The pod tumbled, bouncing along the ocean floor like a basketball. I gripped the back of the chair so hard that my fingers hurt as Stephen struggled to bring the submarine back under control with one arm.

The med-kit flew from my hand and smashed against the wall, spilling its contents across the floor as Stephen struggled to bring us under control. His bleeding arm fell uselessly to his side, leaving a bloody handprint on the control panel.

I took a deep breath, my heart hammering in my chest, and let go of the chair. I leapt across the submarine and hit the ground hard. Pain flashed through my arm as I crawled forward, grabbing onto the spilled med-kit and tucking it against my chest. I turned back toward Stephen as we lurched sideways. I flew through the air and smacked against the wall with a sickening thud.

My brain sloshed around in my head as I fell forward onto my hands and knees. The room spun as I tried to crawl forward, still clinging to the med-kit like my life depended on it. I made it to Stephen what felt like hours later. He was slumped against the control panel, breath shallow and skin cool and clammy. Blood pooled around him, so much that I could scarcely believe it all came from his bullet wound.

Without thinking, I pulled his shirt off, and my eyes widened in shock. He was riddled with bullets, and I couldn’t help but think there was no way he was going to survive. I glanced from him to the med-kit in my hands as doubt washed over me.

“I-I don’t know what to do,” I murmured, but even as I said the words, my body was already leaping into action, tearing gizmos I’d never seen before from the med-kit and using them on Stephen’s body like I’d done it a million times.

Slowly, steadily, Stephen’s breathing stabilized, and for whatever reason, I knew that while he wasn’t out of the woods, he wasn’t in immediate danger. Now, I just needed to get him to a hospital. How the hell was I going to do that? He was the pilot after all, and despite being a super-spy, I doubted he was going to be able to pilot the submarine lying unconscious on its floor.

I glanced out the view screen and stared at the base. It was all sheared off bits of blackened metal, and from the look of it, I doubted anyone had survived. Well that wasn’t an option.

“Okay, Abby. You can do this,” I said, sitting down in the pilot’s chair, the feel of his still warm blood seeping into my clothes. For some reason, it didn’t bother me as much as it should have. I glanced back at Stephen and smiled at him. “Stephen, I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I’m not going to let you die too. This time, I’ll be the one doing the saving.” An intense calm settled over me as I placed my hands on the controls, and my fingers flew across the panel, turning knobs and pressing buttons.

The submarine lurched forward as I looked up from the controls to see my eyes reflecting back at me in the bright green light of the view screen.

Chapter 20

I was standing at the window, looking out the window of the Miami hospital, when Stephen groaned. I rushed toward him, my heart hammering as I reached his side, glad that he was alive.

We’d barely made it in time after I’d crashed the submarine onto a remote Miami beach and dragged Stephen onto the street because something told me being found in a stolen submarine might not be the best thing for the both of us.

“How are you feeling, Stephen?” I asked, smoothing his hair out of his face with one hand. He was still so pale and gaunt from the surgery that I almost had a hard time remembering how perfect he had looked only a few days before.

“I’m fine, Abby,” he croaked, trying to smile at me. “Thanks to you.”

I blushed and looked away. “It was nothing,” I replied, smiling at him.

“It wasn’t,” he paused, licking his lips. “It wasn’t nothing, Abby. You stopped the bleeding long enough to get me to a hospital by submarine. I…” he took a deep breath, “I didn’t know you could do all that.”

“I didn’t know I could either,” I said, still not quite looking at him. The truth was that while he’d been in and out of surgery over the last couple days, I had stumbled upon an interesting fact. I could do things I never could before.

Stephen’s phone rang on the table next to him. He glanced at it, eyes wide. “Does someone know I’m here?” he asked, pain flashing across his face.

“No,” I said, grabbing the phone and putting it to my ear. “Yes?” I asked it.

“Abigail Banks?” the voice on the other end asked. It was one of those fake synthesized voices that reminded me of Gabriella de la Mancha.

“Speaking,” I replied.

“Is Stephen still alive?”

I glanced at Stephen and covered the receiver with my hand. “They want to know if you’re alive.”

Stephen’s eyes went wide, and he tried to sit up. He fell back against the bed, chest heaving.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Hang up,” he squeaked, voice barely audible.

I hung up and took a step toward him. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Abby,” he said, voice strained as he tried to sit up again. “You need to get out of here right now.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked as the distant sound of sirens filled the air.

“Abby, they are coming for you.” He swallowed. “You need to run before they get here.”

“What do you mean?” I narrowed my eyes at him as I took a step toward him. “Is there something you’re not telling me? Is Gabriella still alive?”

“Yes and no,” he wheezed, “but we don’t have time for me to go into it now. Just get out of here.”

“You better make time,” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest and fixing him with my best glare.

He stared at me for a long time before nodding his head at me. “Help me up,” he said.

“You can barely move, how am I going to help you?” I asked.

“Grab the wheel chair, put me in it, and get us out of here,” he said, pointing at the wheelchair in the corner of the room.

I stared at him for a long time as helicopter blades thrummed in the distance. “Fine,” I replied, glancing at the window, looking for the helicopter because it sounded like it was right on top of us. “I wonder if something happened…” I murmured to myself as I pulled him from the bed, one of his arms braced over my shoulders. He cried out in pain and bit his lip to keep from screaming.

“That’s why I’m trying to tell you, Abby,” he said, words stilted with pain as I dropped him into the wheel chair. “They’re coming here for you.”

“For me?” I asked, and for whatever reason, that same sense of calm I’d felt descend over me in the submarine fell over me now. “Who is coming for me? Please don’t tell me I should have gone back to make sure Gabriella was dead.”

“Enough about Gabriella,” he swallowed as I pushed him out the doors and toward the elevator. “We have to worry about my people now.”

“Your people are coming for me? I thought they were the good guys.”

He laughed for a moment before falling into a fit of coughs. “No,” he replied, shaking his head. “We’re the bad guys.”

“You’re the bad guys?” I asked, glancing around to make sure no one had noticed us as I hit the button on the elevator. “How can you be the bad guys? Your people saved me.”

“No, Abby,” he replied. “See…” he swallowed, and looked away. “I went rogue. Our people, they cut a deal… it’s why Donovan turned you over.”

I don’t know why exactly, but that news made me feel nothing. Like absolutely nothing. Like I was empty inside. It should have made the room spin, should have made me want to scream at him… but for some reason, right now, all I could do was file it away. That should have scared me because realistically he had just said, “my people were trading you to a homicidal maniac for…” For what?

“Why did they want to trade me to Gabriella?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

“For a weapon, Abby. For an incredibly powerful weapon.” Great, now I needed to escape from people who had traded me for something I had no idea what it was. That seemed promising. I looked down at Stephen, unable to move in his wheelchair, and sighed.

“Should I just leave you here?” I asked, and the frankness of the question surprised me. “It will be easier to escape on my own.”

“I wouldn’t like that.” He smiled at me as he reached up and touched my hand. “But you might have to leave me to escape. I’ll understand if you do so.”

“If I do that, they will kill you, won’t they?” I looked down at his hand, staring at it.

“Probably,” he said.

“Something’s been bugging me for a while now,” I whispered, my voice so quiet that I wasn’t sure he could hear me.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Why didn’t you just blow up Gabriella’s base at the start of this mess? You guys were clearly capable of that…” I was about to say more when the elevator dinged and the doors opened to reveal two men dressed entirely in black holding machine guns.

“Abigail Banks,” the first one said, but that was all he got out as my fist slammed into his face. He crashed backward into the wall of the elevator. I pivoted, my knee lashing out as the other man started to bring his weapon around. I caught him in the stomach as my hands grabbed his weapon and smashed it into his face.

He crumpled to the ground as I spun, slamming the butt of the gun into the first man’s temple as he was getting to his feet.

I stood there between the two unconscious soldiers, my body humming with adrenaline as Stephen stared at me. Then he grinned and shook his head. “I guess it worked.”

“What?” I asked, stepping out of the elevator and wheeling him into the elevator. “What just happened?” I added as the door slammed closed a second later. The whole thing had happened in the space it took for the doors to close automatically.

“You asked why I didn’t just blow up Gabriella? Well… we wanted to see what would happen if she tried to transfer herself into your body. Our people theorized that maybe, just maybe, if we interrupted it at the right time, you’d gain all her knowledge without actually becoming her. Those were Donovan’s orders, actually. To let her ‘take you’ then interrupt the process.”

I swallowed as the room swayed a little bit. I gripped the wheelchair for stability as I took a deep breath. “Are you being serious?” I asked, and as I stared at the unconscious form of two soldiers, the idea didn’t seem as ridiculous as it should.

“Yes,” he said, looking away from me. “I’ll understand if you want to leave me and escape on your own. You could do it if you put your mind to it.”

“Stephen,” I said, my throat closing up as I stared down at him, so helpless and injured. “Back there when you saved me… did you mean what you said? You know… when you said…” I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry, and I felt my cheeks burst into flames.

He looked up at me, a curious smile on his face. My heart started beating so hard that I was sure he could hear it, but that didn’t matter because I was drowning in oceans of sapphire. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but look into his eyes and know that I was about to be a very bad girl.

“When I said what?” he asked, his voice low and… I’m not really sure because I hadn’t ever heard someone sound like that before. Hungry, maybe?

“When you said…” I licked my lips. “When you said…”

“When I said what, Abby?” he asked again.

“When you said you loved me, Stephen.”

He looked at me for a long time before smiling at me. “Yes, Abby, I did.”

I put one hand on his arm, and the feel of him was like nothing I’d felt before. My knees started to shake as I leaned close to him.

“Abby? Say something,” he said, and instead of responding, I pressed my lips against his. Fireworks went off inside my brain and time seemed to stop as the doors opened on the roof of the building to reveal six men and a helicopter I desperately needed to escape.

Thank you for reading May Contain Spies. If you wouldn't mind, please leave a review. If you enjoyed it, you may want to check out the sequel The Spy Within. As a special bonus, the first chapter is included on the next page.

You might also want to check out my other series, the Lillim Callina Chronicles. The first book, Kill It With Magic, is currently free.

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Chapter 1

Stephen kissed me like it was the last time he’d ever get to do it. He mashed his lips against mine, pressing my body against the passenger door of our beat up Ford as his hand slid around my waist, unbuckling my seatbelt and pulling me against him. His touch was like fire on my skin as his fingers trailed upward along my spine.

“Come on, Abby,” he whispered against my lips, his voice sending little tingles rippling across my flesh. “Let’s just go…”

“We need supplies,” I whispered back. Pushing him away was very nearly the hardest thing I’d ever done. My other hand slid to the door handle. “I’ll be quick…” I opened the door and shuffled out into the convenience store parking lot, my knees still shaking.

I threw one last glance at him. He was staring at me, and I had to tear my eyes away before his sapphire gaze pulled me back into the vehicle like a tractor beam. That wouldn’t do either of us any good because we were out of food. I steeled myself and turned back toward the store’s glass doors.

The lights flickered as I entered, and a chill scampered down my back. One quick look around the Ye Olde Kwik E Mart was enough to tell me there was no one else in here but the clerk. Still, the lights had given me the creeps. Stephen and I had been running for the better part of a week, and this was the first time I’d ventured into a place inhabited by, you know, people. Not that the clerk really counted as a person since he was way more interested in his cellphone than me. Which was good, I didn’t need him taking any special interest in me.

The lights flickered again, and I pulled my baseball cap down so it covered more of my face. I scanned the aisles one last time and had to force myself to calm down. Man, my nerves were really on edge.

“Get a grip, Abby,” I whispered, turning toward the glass refrigerators in the back and nearly cried out. The reflection of Donovan’s leering face stared back at me through the glass. He was wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans, and like usual, he was covered in blood that leaked perpetually from the hole in his head.

“Hello, Abby,” he said. His words were like white fog on the glass, cold and unforgiving. “Miss me?”

I swallowed, shut my eyes, and counted to five in my head. Yeah, ever since I’d shot him, no… murdered him in cold blood, he’d been haunting me. At first, it made me hate him more, but since I had killed him, I was pretty sure this was my penance. Besides, did I really want to be the kind of girl who could kill without it bothering her?

When I opened my eyes, Donovan was gone. His ghostly specter had vanished like it’d never been there at all. Which, of course, it hadn’t been because I was a crazy person…

The glass door loomed in front of me like a frosty gate. I grabbed it by the black plastic handle and pulled it open. A blast of chilly air licked my skin as I reached in and seized a jug of orange juice that said ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ on it. For some reason, it sounded a lot better than the one proudly displaying it was “made from real juice.”

Why was I getting juice? Stephen still wasn’t feeling well after getting shot, which I guess was understandable. Orange juice was supposed to help with infections, right? Or was that just colds? Either way, he was drinking the damn juice. Besides, who knew when we’d be able to get some again?

I let out a slow breath and nearly leapt out of my skin when the clerk’s cellphone rang to the tune of Mandy by Barry Manilow. My heart hammered in my chest as I stared at the freckled, red-haired teenager as he tapped frantically at the device. Well, that was certainly an odd tune for someone my age…

I took another breath and made my way down the aisle, piling all sorts of junk food into my cloth bag. I didn’t want to risk using one of their baskets. It could have nano-machines embedded in the plastic that could track my location. Yeah, that was a thing. It was lame.

See, I was on the run from a powerful government agency. Apparently, when you steal helicopters from the government, they track you down. No. Matter. What.

So because I was paranoid about being found, I was using a lime green knapsack I’d purchased from a pot-smoking hippy a few days ago in a different state. He had been prattling on about aliens and government conspiracies so I figured his bag would be government tech free. Then again, I’d been wrong a lot since I found out my entire life was one big lie.

I turned back to the clerk as he put his phone down, green eyes strangely glassy. He wasn’t very tall, maybe five-foot-eight and built like a beanpole. I reached out to grab a candy bar still not taking my eyes off of him.

“Run!” Donovan’s voice mouse-whispered in my ear. “Run away! Now, Abby!”

The clerk reached down below the counter, his movements jerky and forced. I’m not sure what he was going to grab because I dropped my bag and sprinted back down the aisle. Which was dumb because the exit was in the opposite direction.

Should I have run for the exit doors? I guess so, but my first instinct was to create as much distance as possible between us. The lights flickered again. Only this time when they came back on, every fluorescent bulb in the ceiling shattered. Glass rained down around me as I dropped to the floor, covering my head and neck with my hands so that, hopefully, I wouldn’t be cut to ribbons.

The refrigerators behind me exploded in a blue fireball of flame and arcing electricity that pelted me with beer and soda. I threw myself down the nearest aisle, landing hard on my shoulders and rolling to my feet facing the busted freezers. Acrid black smoke filled the air and pooled against the ceiling. The smell, like burning ozone, filled my nostrils as Donovan’s ghostly form pointed behind me.

“Watch out.”

I spun just in time for the clerk’s shotgun fill my vision. I dropped as the gun went off, the sound exploded in my brain, blasting my hearing into a tiny pinprick of sound. Buckshot pinged off the back wall as my left elbow shot out, smashing into the twerp’s crotch. Only he didn’t budge, didn’t even act like it hurt. Instead, he cocked the gun and moved to point it at me. I popped to my feet, using the force to drive my shoulder into his wrists.

The gun fired again, tearing a hole in the ceiling above our heads as I slammed my forehead down into the clerk’s nose. His head whipped back in a spray of blood, but he didn’t lose his hold on the weapon. Hell, he didn’t even wobble, at least not like everything inside me told me he should have. He swung the gun at my head. It came so fast, I barely had time to dodge it. The super-heated metal skimmed by me so closely I could feel the warmth of it on my skin.

“Abigail de la Mancha,” the clerk said in a voice that seemed too robotic to be human. “You must turn yourself over to me.”

“Not happening, Beanpole,” I said, taking the opportunity to drive my foot into his chest. The blow caught him off guard. It was sort of like he didn’t expect me to fight back. That was crazy, right?

He fell backward, smashing a Chester the Cheetah display and spilling cheesy goodness all over the cheap tile. I leapt over him, hitting the floor hard just a few inches past his head, scooped up my treat-filled bag and high-tailed it toward the exit. Okay, yeah it was stealing, but he had just tried to kill me. Some stolen candy was the least of his problems.

I spun at the end of the aisle, my feet skidding on the linoleum as I crashed into the glass doors. They didn’t open. Why didn’t they open? I barely had the time to contemplate it when the ominous sound of a shotgun cocking another shell into place filled my ears.

Brake lights filled my vision. Everything seemed to slow down, distilling down to a single moment. I threw myself to the side as the backend of a 1980s Ford pickup that was mostly made from primer and rust burst through the double doors. I scrunched myself into a ball as glass rained down inside the tiny space for the second time in as many minutes. The truck fishtailed, cleaving through the register and throwing cigarettes and alcohol bottles to the floor.

I glanced over my shoulder to see the clerk lying sprawled and broken on the floor. But somehow, he was still trying to shoot me. Even though his leg was bent the wrong way and a shard of glass the size of a tennis racket was lodged in his chest. Blood gushed out of him, spreading out around his purposefully moving body as he tried to bring the shotgun up to bear. Shouldn’t he have been screaming or futzing with the wound? What kind of person could still try to kill me as his life spilled away onto the floor?

Stephen threw the Ford’s door open just as the shotgun went off, and the sound of buckshot pinging off the metal filled my ears and made my heart leap into my throat. That had been close.

“Abby! Get in!” he cried, gesturing for me to move it. He threw the truck into reverse and stomped on the gas pedal as I scrambled to my feet. The wheels spun, spitting potato chips and magazine covers into the air as the tailgate destroyed a cardboard model who, despite the bag in her hand, had never eaten a potato chip in her life. The Ford lurched forward with a jerk that practically shook the frame from the vehicle.

I sprinted toward it, throwing myself into the bed as another shotgun blast obliterated the truck’s back window. Bits of safety glass rained down on me as we hit the broken glass doors and skidded across the pavement in a turn that threw me against the inner wall of the truck.

My breath whooshed out. My shoulder screamed in pain. The tires squealed so loud it was hard to hear over them. The smell of burning rubber filled my nose. I ignored it and tried to claw my way forward. I grabbed hold of the side wall, clinging to it as the truck burst forward in a cloud of black smoke, weaving into traffic amidst a chorus of horn blasts.

I brushed away the glass clinging to the back window frame with the arm of my sweat shirt and threw myself through the broken window. I landed on the glass covered seat and scurried into a sitting position, ignoring the safety glass beneath my jeans.

“Did you get the juice?” Stephen asked, throwing me a smile that would have been cute if his face wasn’t sunken and pale. He was bleeding from a wound on his side, fluid seeping through his blue Hawaiian shirt, staining it.

“Yes, but it’s in the back,” I replied, buckling my seat belt so I wouldn’t get thrown through the windshield if something else happened. I wasn’t sure how long we were going to be in the truck because it was too hot to keep now.

“You had one job, Abby.” He shook his head, and the motion made him wince. “Get juice.”

“It’s in the back,” I muttered, glancing over my shoulder toward the Kwik E Mart, but it was too far in the distance for me to see much of anything. “What the hell was that, Stephen? I find it hard to believe your agency has pimple-faced agents in far flung rest stops just to track me.”

“You’d be surprised,” he replied, his face settling into a grim line as he stared out the windshield. “We’ll need a new car.”

“I know that. Stop avoiding the question,” I snapped. “I was almost shot full of holes by a clerk who didn’t even care he was dying.” I took a deep breath. “And you’re bleeding. You probably tore out all your stitches… again. Just tell me what it was.” I resisted the urge to add “unlike last time” because the truth was Stephen had so many secrets, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to tell me everything. At least not right now, not all at once. “Besides, is a bit of 411 on our attacker too much to ask for?”

“I really hope that wasn’t what I think it was.” Stephen looked at me even though he should have been watching the road. His lips trembled as he tried, and failed, to smile at me. Great. My super-secret agent was scared. That… that wasn’t good. Stephen wasn’t supposed to get scared. Even half-dead, he’d been more than a match for most of the guys the Agency had sent after us. What had changed?

“What do you think it was?” I asked, already dreading the answer. Whatever had him this scared was probably bad.

“I think that was the flit, Abby, and if it’s after us, I’m not sure how to escape it.” He swallowed, and his jaw tightened. Then he slammed his palm against the steering wheel so hard that the truck veered to the left. “Dammit!”

“What’s the flit?” I asked, reaching out and resting my hand on his knee. He was shaking.

“The flit is a computer designed to take over a person’s brain and make him or her do its bidding. Think of it like a program that turns your average Joe into the Terminator, and you’ve got the idea.” He shook his head. “It was still in development when I left…”

“You mean to tell me that guy had no idea what was going on? Some machine just downloaded itself into his brain and made him try to kill me?” I asked. “That sounds ridiculous.”

“More ridiculous than a sleeper cell guy hiding out in the middle of nowhere?” Stephen shrugged. “How many times has that happened in the last week?”

The gravity of it hit me like a wrecking ball. I had beat up an innocent guy. Hell, he was definitely, most assuredly dead, and why? Because he’d been around me when the flit decided to take him over. That made me responsible…

I was about to say something to that effect when a grey soccer van slammed into the driver’s side of our truck. Our vehicle pitched sideways, skidding across the asphalt and into the path of a tiny green Nissan. Brakes squealed, but it didn’t matter. The bed of our truck crumpled as the Nissan’s front end pretty much disintegrated. I was thrown into my seatbelt with so much force, the rebound smashed my head into the side window.

Everything went hazy as the red SUV in front of us slammed on its brakes. I watched it through the side window, everything going in slow motion. Its tires spun, spitting up gravel and smoke. It came rocketing back toward us.

I don’t know how I managed to get my seatbelt off, but the next thing I knew, I had thrown myself out of the truck. I hit the street hard on my shoulder as I rolled to my feet. My skin burned, and I knew I’d been scraped raw. I tried to force that out of my mind as the SUV drove through the pickup. Had Stephen managed to get out in time?

“Stephen!” I yelled, taking a step toward the obliterated Ford as the SUVs door swung open. An eight-year-old girl with blonde pigtails and a red-riding hood cape stepped out of the vehicle. She stared at me with glassy, dead eyes that reminded me of the clerk. Blood trailed down her face from a cut above her left eyebrow, but she ignored it.

“Abigail, do not resist!” she squeaked in a little mouseketeer voice. “You cannot escape.”

“Please…” I said, backing up, my hands out in front of me. “Don’t make me…”

She sprinted at me, tiny hands clutched into fists. I side-stepped her charge, but she lashed out with machine-like precision, catching me in the side of the ribs. Pain flashed through me as she followed it up with a kick to the back of my knee. I fell forward, pitching to the ground. I flung my hands out to stop myself, but she leapt on my back, using her weight to drive me face-first into the pavement.

I hit hard on my forearms and tucked my body into a roll. There was a horrible crunching noise as the girl smacked into the pavement, but amazingly, she didn’t let go. I came to my feet, and without thinking, used our momentum to send her flying.

Her nails tore at my sweatshirt as she careened through the air before slamming to the ground a moment later. The girl’s head smacked into the concrete, and for a moment, she tried to sit up, but fell brokenly backward to the street. My heart sank as I watched. I’d just beaten up a little kid. Oh. My. God.

I took an absent step toward her, my hands reaching out to pull the broken girl into a hug, even though I’d been the one to maim her.

“What are you doing?” called a deep voice behind me. I spun to see a huge guy on a purple Harley staring at me in shock. He reminded me of one of those old Hell’s Angels guys, only with way more tattoos.

Behind me, a girl’s screams filled my ears, and I hesitated, shooting a glance over my shoulder. The girl was laying there crying and looking around in disbelief, one arm twisted at an obscene angle as she tried to get up and her face twisted in agony.

I ducked just as a crowbar cleaved through the space where my head had been. My leg shot out, catching the big biker in the side of the knee. A horrible crack filled the air. He fell, still swinging the crowbar at me. His face set in cold, inhuman determination. I leapt backward, and the crowbar smashed into the asphalt a second before he crashed to the ground. His face changed in an instant. The dazed expression was gone in a moment, replaced by pain and confusion.

“My knee!” he howled, dropping the weapon and gripping his leg. I grabbed the crowbar and whirled around, looking for the next attacker when a gunshot went off. I spun toward it, my heart racing in my chest like an out of control train. Stephen stood there, bloody and broken with a smoking revolver in his hand.

I glanced in the direction of his weapon to see a police car spinning off the side of the road, one tire completely obliterated. A police officer was leaning out of the driver’s window, still trying to take aim and blast me.

My adrenaline shifted into overdrive as I sprinted toward Stephen. His lips were set in a hard line as he jumped on the biker’s Harley. I slid onto the seat behind him as he surged forward, barely giving me a chance to wrap my arm around him. Blood seeped into my sweatshirt as I pressed my body against his back. He was cold. Way too cold for it to be good.

We left the road in a cloud of dust. Behind us, people were either screaming, or looking around trying to figure out what the hell happened.

Either way, it didn’t seem like it mattered. How the hell were we supposed to outrun a soulless robot that could take over whoever it wanted? As the adrenaline left me, a horrible thought reared its ugly head.

Donovan leaned close to me, frigid breath kissing my flesh. “You just beat up an eight-year-old girl with pigtails. I’m pretty sure that makes you a monster.”

Get The Spy Within here!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20