Chapter 29
627 Words
29
Jacka’s been shot through the shoulder, yes.
But I feel far more wounded. My heart has exploded out through my ribs.
Even though I can still hear my pulse, jackhammering in my ears, cool conditioned air burning my sinuses, the glass desk suddenly clammy and sticking to my sweaty hands.
Deke is alive.
And he’s cooperating with the man who killed him.
No, not him. Didn’t kill Deke. But killed everyone else in our crew.
Tried to murder me.
I’d seen Deke shot.
I’d seen Noah’s gunmen fill him full of bullets.
Deke couldn’t have survived.
Not without a plan, not without a trick.
Cooperation. Enthusiastic cooperation.
This has to be bogus—doesn’t it? A lie?
Noah’s overpriced office feels painfully bright, the ceiling lights driving nails into my eye sockets. The plush carpet underfoot feels as steady as a trampoline, ready to bounce me over if I take even one step.
Horrified, I read the next sentence. And the next.
Contact information for Pillock and Daft—not the information we give to cutouts, but the actual phone numbers that we freelancers use to contact one another. Email addresses. Favorite restaurants. Everything you’d need to set them up for a sniper attack.
More names. Professionals, every one.
Addresses.
Habits.
Likes and dislikes.
I want to vomit.
Deke’s given them everything.
I’m on fire.
A fire of ice.
Deke.
The one who had set me on this life. The one I’d fought to protect, the one who’d protected me so many times we’d stopped counting.
Deke had set me up.
The one person I truly trusted.
My love.
Enthusiastic cooperation.
On another planet, the planet where Noah has his mahogany office and badly used computers, Rob is talking.
His voice can’t reach me.
Whole chunks of my life feel uprooted. Things I thought I understood, like friendship and trust and hope and joy, are breaking into huge uncomfortable slabs and dragging themselves into vile form.
Rob says something.
He might as well be on the moon.
If I grip the edge of the desk any harder, the glass will shatter. Shred my hands.
I don’t care.
Rob’s beside me. I didn’t notice him coming over. “What is it?” He sounds annoyed. Had he already asked once? Twice?
I can’t look away from the screen. I can flick the mouse to bring the top of the email back.
Rob’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t protest.
At that second, I detest Rob. He’s one of Deke’s oldest friends. Rob should stand up for Deke. I want Rob to shout No, it can’t be! Instead, he says “How much longer?”
My hand has stopped shaking. I don’t know how. My heart is a bomb exploding in slow motion. I’m going to blast into a billion sharp unstoppable fragments. Kill everyone for miles. But I flip back to the copying files dialog. “Almost done.”
“Unplug the second it’s done,” Rob says.
I give this jerky nod.
“Beaks,” Rob says.
I stare at the computer monitor without seeing anything.
“Beaks!” Rob snaps.
I jerk to look at his face.
I’ve seen Rob like this before. In desperate situations. His eyes are hard and white beneath his shallow brow. His bushy black eyebrows have this spatter of white in them. Gold crowns flash in the back of his mouth as he snaps “Did you hear me?”
I nod. “Unplug the second it’s done.”
“Follow the plan.” Rob glances at Jacka. “We will talk. This is not the time.”
Jacka. Right. Teammate. Shot. Blood.
“Follow the plan,” I say.
“Good.” Rob glances at the windows. “Bradley’s covering us. But we have to move. Soon.”
Now that Rob mentions Bradley, I vaguely remember hearing her voice in my earpiece.
Rob touches his throat mike. “Bradley?”
“Three out,” she reports. “Driver’s pinned down. But I see more headlights. How long?”
I look back at the computer, focusing only on the copying message, ignoring the devastating email in the background. “Says less than a minute.”
“Good.” Rob looks back at Jacka. “Almost there.”
Focus, Beaks, I think. Focus or everybody dies.
Everybody dead but Deke.
And I was not going to let that happen.
- Writer
