FRAMED
1485 Words
Maya's POV
The motel was a shithole.
"Forty-two dollars a night, cash only, no questions asked," I said, dropping two duffel bags on the stained carpet. "Welcome to five-star accommodations, Stone."
Carter surveyed the room with the kind of expression usually reserved for biological warfare sites. One saggy double bed. Wallpaper peeling like sunburned skin. A bathroom that had probably seen things that would make a crime scene investigator quit. The neon sign outside flickered: SLEEP WELL MOTEL.
Yeah, not likely.
"It's perfect," he said flatly. "Really captures the 'please murder me here' aesthetic."
"You want the Ritz, rob a bank. Until then, this is home sweet home." I started unpacking weapons first, always weapons first. Two Glocks, a Sig Sauer, Ka-Bar knife, spare magazines, and enough ammunition to start a small war. "At least it's off the grid. Manager didn't even look at the fake IDs."
"That's because he's probably running from something too." Carter eased himself onto the bed, wincing. His ribs were still a mess despite Eliza's patching job. "How long do we have before they track us again?"
"Depends. We ditched the trackers, switched cars twice, used cash only." I pulled out Marcus's USB drive, turning it over in my hands. "But they found your warehouse fast. Too fast. Either they've got tech we don't know about or…"
"Or someone on the inside is feeding them intel." Carter's jaw tightened. "Marcus said there are twelve of us. What if one of them is compromised?"
"Then we're f****d six ways from Sunday." I sat on the other side of the bed, keeping distance between us felt important, though I couldn't articulate why. "We need to go through everything Marcus gave us. Find out who the other ten operatives are, where they are, and whether we can trust them."
"Trust." He laughed bitterly. "That's rich. We can't even trust ourselves. You were sent to kill me, remember?"
"And you're CIA. You'd sell your own grandmother for the mission." I met his eyes. "But here we are. So either we're both idiots or—"
"Or we're all we've got."
The truth of that settled between us like a third person in the room. We were enemies. Strangers. Siblings we never knew we had. And the only two people in the world who understood exactly how deep this s**t went.
I grabbed my laptop, a custom rig I'd built with enough encryption to make the NSA weep and plugged in Marcus's drive. Files populated the screen. Dozens of them. Personnel records, genetic profiles, surveillance footage, classified memos.
"Jesus," I breathed. "Marcus wasn't kidding. This is everything."
Carter moved to look over my shoulder. Close enough that I could feel his body heat, smell the antiseptic from his bandages mixed with something else. Something distinctly... him. I pushed the thought away. Not helpful, Maya.
"Pull up the operative list," he said.
I did. Twelve names appeared, each tagged with a zodiac sign and photo:
ZODIAC PROTOCOL - ACTIVE SUBJECTS
1. ARIES - Marcus Reid | Age 32 | Ex-Marine | Status: Active/Allied
2. TAURUS - Samantha Thorn | Age 35 | Arms Dealer | Status: Active/Unknown
3. GEMINI - Alex Crane | Age 28 | Identity Unknown | Status: Active/Unknown
4. CANCER - Dr. Eliza Moon | Age 29 | Surgeon | Status: Active/Allied
5. LEO - Dominic Steele | Age 30 | Congressional Aide | Status: Active/Hostile
6. VIRGO - Grace Park | Age 28 | CIA Analyst | Status: Active/Unknown
7. LIBRA - Julian Cross | Age 35 | FBI Agent | Status: Active/Unknown
8. SCORPIO - Mira "Maya" Reyes | Age 26 | NSA Operative | Status: Active/Fugitive
9. SAGITTARIUS - Jake Freedom | Age 27 | Nomadic Contractor | Status: Active/Unknown
10. CAPRICORN - Carter Reyes | Age 29 | CIA Black Ops | Status: Active/Fugitive
11. AQUARIUS - River Song | Age 24 | Tech Specialist | Status: Active/Allied
12. PISCES - Mira Webb | Age 31 | Profiler | Status: Active/Unknown
"Wait." Carter pointed at number seven. "Julian Cross. That's your last name."
"Coincidence."
"We just found out we're siblings engineered by a government conspiracy. I'm done believing in coincidences."
Fair point.
I clicked on Julian's file. FBI agent, behavioral analyst, worked out of the New York field office. Born Julian Reyes, adopted at age six by the Cross family after his mother—
"Elena Reyes," I read aloud, my blood going cold. "Carter. He's our brother. Our older brother."
The room tilted. I gripped the laptop to steady myself.
"She had three kids," Carter said quietly. "Three children they tore apart and scattered."
I pulled up Julian's photo. Dark hair, sharp features, and eyes that were hauntingly familiar. Our mother's eyes. My eyes.
"Does he know?" I asked. "About us? About any of this?"
"Only one way to find out." Carter reached for his phone.
"What are you doing?"
"Calling him."
"That's insane. What if he's compromised? What if—"
"Maya." Carter's hand covered mine. The touch sent electricity up my arm—that inexplicable pull I'd been trying to ignore. "If he's our brother, he deserves to know. And if he's part of this conspiracy, we need to know that too."
He had a point. Didn't mean I liked it.
Carter dialed. Put it on speaker. It rang twice.
"Cross." A male voice, professional, clipped.
"Julian Cross?" Carter asked.
"Who's calling?"
"Someone who needs to tell you about Elena Reyes."
The silence on the other end stretched so long I thought he'd hung up. Then: "How do you know that name?"
"Because she's our mother too. Mine and Maya's." Carter's voice was steady. "And if I'm right, she's yours as well. We need to meet."
"This is a trap."
"No trap. Just three siblings who didn't know each other existed until twelve hours ago." Carter's eyes met mine. "We're part of something called Zodiac Protocol. And someone's trying to kill us all."
Another pause. Then: "Where?"
We gave him an address
A public place, neutral ground. A diner in midtown, breakfast crowd for cover. Julian agreed to meet in four hours.
After he hung up, I realized my hands were shaking. "We're trusting a fed we've never met."
"He's family."
"Family." The word tasted foreign. "You realize twenty-four hours ago, I didn't have any family. Now I've got two brothers, a dead mother, and a government conspiracy trying to turn me into a bioweapon. It's been a weird day."
Carter's laugh surprised me—genuine, if a little ragged. "Welcome to my life."
"Your life is a disaster."
"Our life now."
The weight of that settled over us. For better or worse, we were bound together. By blood. By circumstance. By the inexplicable feeling that being near him felt right in a way nothing else in my life ever had.
Dangerous thinking, Maya.
"We should rest," I said, standing abruptly. "Four hours until we meet Julian. You need to heal, I need to think."
"There's only one bed."
I looked at the saggy mattress, then at Carter, then back. "I've slept in worse places."
"So have I." He shifted, making room. "But I'm injured, so I'm taking the good side."
"The good side? It's all terrible."
"Exactly. Which means I'm taking the less terrible side. Rank has its privileges."
I rolled my eyes but didn't argue. We were both exhausted, running on fumes and adrenaline. I grabbed a pillow, creating a barrier down the middle of the bed like some kind of teenage sleepover.
"Really?" Carter asked.
"Yes, really. You stay on your side, I stay on mine."
"Afraid you can't control yourself around me, Cross?"
"Afraid I'll smother you in your sleep if you snore, Stone."
He grinned
the first real smile I'd seen from him. It transformed his face, made him look younger. Less haunted. Dangerously attractive.
Stop it, Maya.
I settled on my side, gun under my pillow (old habits), and closed my eyes. Carter's breathing evened out beside me. Not snoring. Yet.
"Maya?" His voice in the darkness.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For saving me."
"Don't mention it."
"No, I mean it. You didn't have to. You threw away your life to pull me out of that cell. Why?"
I thought about lying. About saying something flippant. But in the dark, with the truth of what we were settling around us, honesty felt like the only option.
"Because when I looked at you," I said quietly, "I saw myself. Broken. Trapped. Waiting for someone to care enough to set me free. No one ever came for me, Carter. But I could come for you."
Silence. Then his hand found mine across the pillow barrier. Squeezed once.
"We're going to figure this out," he said. "Together."
I held on to his hand, telling myself it was just comfort. Just two people trying to survive.
Not the beginning of something that could end the world.
- Writer
