by AJ Wyatt
“Reckless.”
I grimaced.
“Some would say I’m a woman of action, but fine. The point is that we’re due for a break and also… I’m nervous as hell.”
Trib put a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s not like a normal mission,” she said.
"No… it feels personal. It all feels so raw whenever I think about it. I mean, I used to have those dreams about my father once a month. Now, it's almost every night."
"Six of the last eight," Trib said. "And you woke up gasping for breath three nights. There were a few other anomalies in your sleep if you—"
“Trib, I appreciate it, but please stop monitoring my sleep.”
“I’m not doing it actively. The trackers you’re wearing do it. They were already tracking movement, so it wasn't that hard to—"
“Trib…”
She looked away and said something like, "Mmmm."
“That sounded like a yes. Was that a yes?”
“What you need is a tight pair of jeans,” she said. “Swedish guys love jeans. I googled it.”
I couldn’t help but smile. She was frustrating at times, and she kept hiding location trackers on me somehow, but damn Trib knew how to cheer me up.
Three stores later, armed with two pairs of the perfect jeans for me, and one pair of jean shorts for Trib and a six-pack of all cotton boy shorts because neither of us had time to do laundry, we were sitting in the food court sharing Chinese and ogling a pair of guys at the video game outlet across the way.
"The one with glasses," Trib said. "I mean, wow."
“Is it weird when they’re 30 and play video games?”
Trib looked mildly hurt. “I play video games, and I'm 28."
“Sweetheart, you’re a California dime. You can play whatever you want.”
"Aww, thanks, you ugly slut."
I snorted Diet Coke out my nose laughing, and Trib joined in. She had this little giggle that always made me laugh even harder. We could barely breathe a minute later when we got it together again. I wiped the tears from my cheeks. Trib brushed hers on her sleeve and jabbed her chopsticks deep into the chow mien for another bite.
The guys across the way had left, and my appetite just wasn't there. My stomach was doing loops inside me. I'd already met two of the men on the list my father held in his hand when he died. One of them was the one who did it. One of them took my father from me and stole my life.
Where would I even be now if it hadn’t happened?
“You’ve got that look again,” Trib said.
"I was thinking about my father. It's like I can't get it out of my head now that we're here, and it's real."
“You never talk about him. Your dad, I mean. What was he like?”
I smiled as the memories flooded me. "Most of the seventeen years that I shared with him were beautiful. We had our hard times, especially after mom ran out, sure. But even those times I miss. That last year we seemed to be fighting like cats and dogs. I was seventeen. I wanted to go out, have adventures, date boys, make mistakes. And boy, he didn't like that. I see now that he was only afraid for me, and he didn't know any other way.
"But we'd always make up, and he'd saddle up the horses, and we'd go for these long rides. The trails around the farm went for miles and miles, all around Sundown Lake. Did I ever tell you I milked cows?"
“Stop it.”
"I'm serious. Milly and Jilly. Giant black Angus cows, beautiful animals, so sweet and gentle. You can pet them just like dogs, you know? That's why I don't eat steak, because of Milly and Jilly. I'd be up at the crack of dawn milking them before school. God, I miss those crisp mornings. When the grass crunches under your feet, and you get that shiver? The air tastes clean and brand new."
Trib was staring.
“What?” I said.
“Wow…I mean, I just didn’t realize.”
“Realize what?”
“You miss it. Real bad, it sounds like.”
I shrugged. “That girl died a long time ago, Trib. There’s no going back. Not after what I’ve done. And what I’ve still got to do.”
“Well, we couldn’t afford a farm now anyways. And until we square things with the Agency one way or another, we wouldn’t be able to stay in one place long enough to have cows.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re wonderful,” I told her. “You always make me laugh. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you properly for all this. Giving up your career at Langley and going on the run with me. Staying in a stupid dorm and blowing all your savings…”
"And you never will. Keep trying, though."
Her eyes went wide.
I didn’t have to turn to know there was trouble.
“It’s the guys from the parking garage,” she whispered. “Fuck Rayne, they tagged us somehow.”
“Tagged me, you mean.”
“They’re definitely CIA then,” she said. “Wolfpack. They won’t be here to take us in.”
“Have they seen us?”
“Not yet.”
We made for the utility doors across from the food court. Teenagers from the various food places went in and out of there all the time, so no one paid attention to us. It led to a series of halls that ran behind the restaurants and then the stores. The back doors that lead into each.
Trib ducked into a discount outlet, and I followed. We grabbed new clothes, kicked off our shoes and replaced them with cheap sandals, changed in the dressing rooms, and wore the outfits out. Trib removed the SIM cards from our phones and snapped them each in two before discarding them. By the time we left, we had nothing on us that we brought in.
However they’d tracked us, they wouldn’t be doing it again.
Near the entrance to the mall, we split up and took separate rideshares, and each of us made sure we weren't followed. We had a rendezvous point planned out near the coffee shop by the dorms and met up there.
Trib looked a little shaken.
“That was too close,” she said.
“You alright?”
"I feel better next to the pulsing glow of an LED screen if that's what you mean. Shit, Rayne, those were our people. Those were us. Also, I shouldn’t have gotten the big iced coffee. That’s like always a mistake. I can hear my heartbeat. That’s not normal right?”
“Not for me,” I said, “Let’s get you back to your algorithms where you belong. If the Wolfpack crosses my path again, I’ll let them know to keep their distance.”
Trib looked at me nervously, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Going up against our own was something I hadn’t really counted on. I knew it was a possibility, but I really thought the Agency would give me more rope. But then I remembered I was dealing with people like the Osbornes. That family was serious money, the kind of money that leaves a dent in a world.
The kind the US government doesn’t like to see shaken up.
Back at the dorms, I got changed again. A nice pair of jeans, a comfortable, if slightly tight, t-shirt with a decent v-neck. I thought about going braless, but that didn't feel like the right move. Instead, I decided on a comfortable lacy bra that a guy might like to catch a glimpse of. Something to tease.
I just hoped it went better than my last seduction attempt.
“Check this out,” Trib said, hauling me over to the small bank of computers that filled her side of our dorm. “It’s a snippet I caught on the bugs.”
“We got a bite already?”
“Maybe.”
The recording was of Blair, and there was no audio of the other side of the conversation, which meant she was on the phone.
“Section 7 is due to be cleared out tomorrow,” she said. “No. No, I don’t think so. Just some bitch. Yeah, I’m sure.” A long pause while she listened, and then, “Just make sure I get my end of it. You know what I want, and I don’t care how you do it. Yeah, that’s right, I am telling you.”
She hung up.
“And we don’t have the
other end?” I asked.
“No, she’s on her cell, not on the IP phone in her office. We can’t get into an iPhone without our Agency connections. That takes a federal judge and a gag order.”
“Can you dig into the servers and see what you can find on Section 7? It could be something, or it could just be a rough business deal.”
“Hello?” Trib said, poking a finger into my forehead. “It’s me. I already checked the servers, that’s why I’m telling you about it. Osborne Energy has zero mentions of a Section 7. Nothing. Like it doesn’t exist. So what’s she talking about?”
I smiled and gave her a big hug. “Damn, you’re good.”
It was time. I got ready to go and stopped at her desk for one last thing.
“I need the rest of your coffee,” I said before heading out with a stack of books under my arm.
“But…”
"Mission critical, Trib."
“We’re out of energy drinks.”
“I can see that vein pulsing in your forehead. Hand it over.”
She looked mutinous but grudgingly complied.
The campus was gorgeous. Faulkner College was full of magnolias, old and steady looking, as tall as the buildings. The ivy on the walls made it feel cool even when the sun was bearing down, and the grass was soft as a new carpet. I almost wished I'd worn my sandals so I could kick them off and walk on the lawn instead of the sidewalk.
By 4PM, my target, Magnus Nilsson, was always on the hill overlooking campus, doing work on a painting. He wasn’t a schedule kind of guy, usually, but he did his own painting between classes. He stood like a giant over the easel, with powerful, muscled arms and hands that seemed too strong to hold such a delicate brush. At his feet was Sadie, a golden retriever about six months old who was very excitable.
I wasn’t the only girl watching. They were dotted all over the quad, in groups of twos and threes, reading books, studying, listening to music. But their eyes flowed up that hill and rested on his broad shoulders.
One more suspect. I got moving.
About forty feet out, the golden retriever made her move, charging at me with a joyous expression of pure fun on her face. She was beautiful. She also had a jumping problem I'd observed before when I was spying on the target. Which, I told myself, was very different from stalking.
This was a mission, after all.
Sadie jumped and put her paws on my books, and I squealed and acted clumsy, tumbling sideways and tossing my coffee. I ended up in a not unpleasant pile of retriever and books. I couldn’t help but smile.
"I'm so sorry!" Magnus called as he ran down the hill.
When he reached us, he held up one finger at Sadie.
"You know that was bad," he said. There was a gravelly sternness in his voice that both Sadie and I heard. I think I'm the only one that liked it, though. His voice was deep but soft and reassuring. "I'm sorry about your coffee. I'd buy you another, but I have class very soon."
He offered me a hand and pulled me up like I weighed nothing. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I noted his height (Around 6'6"), approximate weight, and lean muscle mass. As easy as it was to pick me up, he could snap bones if he wanted to badly enough.
But it was hard to look in his eyes and see the kindness there and think anything could be dangerous about him. The blue in his eyes was bright and crisp like the summer sky. He seemed…like a friendly bear. The thought brought another big smile to my face, and he actually looked a little nervous.
Finally, someone who gets it.
I looked up at him as we both collected my books. I was careful to keep eye contact so I could see if his gaze dipped low to where my v-neck was hanging loose. Most guys wouldn't even look in my eyes, but he kept his eyes on mine when he wasn't looking down at the books.
He stole a glance or two as he handed me the rest.
“I wish I had more time,” he said.
“I’ll walk with you.”
The art department wasn't far from the big hill the rose up in Faulkner's center. We made a little small talk on the way. I told him my major was economics. They'd had the cheapest books at the bookstore, and even those were as expensive as some of the guns I'd bought on the black market before coming to town.
"You would love it in Stockholm," he said. "Nordea Bank's headquarters is there. They're huge. No one in the US knows them, but they're enormous. So if you ever do a semester abroad, you can think about it. I'll make some calls."
“Oh? Think you could get me in on the ground floor?”
"They do internships, paid, of course. It's the EU, after all."
He laughed, a warm sound that reminded me of cold nights curled under the blankets by the fire. It was hard not to look at him. He had a rugged, simple handsomeness that was hard to deny.
We got his classroom, which was really more like a warehouse with cobwebs on the windows and many muslin-covered canvasses collecting dust. The big windows in the back were clean to let in as much sun as possible. A quick glance told me that nine students were already there. The class size varied from 8 to 12. The clock said we were a couple minutes late.
Sadie jogged quickly to the back of the room and flumped on a cozy dog bed.
Magnus approached one of the students, a young man in a cardigan and horn-rimmed glasses.
“She’s not here yet?” Magnus asked.
The young man shook his head.
I waited near the wall as Magnus checked his phone and found several texts and frantic voicemails. I felt a twinge of guilt for the 62-year-old mother of three, who was probably trying desperately to get her car started. It wasn't anything major. We'd just disconnected the battery. But it would take time for her to figure out, and the class didn't have time.
“Is everything all right?” I asked, feigning polite ignorance.
"The model for today, she cannot make it. It's figure drawing, so we have to book them weeks ahead because it's nude work. It can take time to find people willing to do it."
I bit my lip. Now or never.
“I’m not shy,” I said.
He looked at me with a mix of surprise and something else. A barely concealed desire.
“Are you sure?” He asked. “I mean, your classes…”
“Oh, I’m done for the day. Do I just…?” I set my books down.
"Yeah," he said. "You want to choose a comfortable position because you won't be able to move for an hour or more. You have to stay as still as possible. If you have to use the ladies' room, you should do that first."
“I’m good.”
The stage wasn't much. A few chairs, some canvas cloth draped over them, and plywood flooring painted white that was now worn with age. I stripped and tossed my clothes over the chairs, draped my jeans across the floor, and laid down. I rolled to face the class and found a comfortable position, and held it.
I gave him a nod.
4
It was Texas summer outside, and inside, the air conditioning was on full blast. I didn't notice with my clothes on, but after laying there a few minutes… well, hopefully nobody sketched my nipples first because they had definitely moved.
Something else shifted as well. My gaze traveled slowly around the room, just a slight flicker of my eyes. Most of the students were pretty blah. A handsome boy here and there, and four girls who looked a bit envious, and a couple more with a look that said, I’m glad that’s not me. They all got very clinical when my clothes came off. They were looking at me the way they would look at a basket of apples.
Magnus was different. His eyes shone with an intensity that I could feel across my skin. A fire was burning in him, a need to see, as if he didn't want to miss even the tiniest detail of my body. I felt his gaze tickle across my skin like fingers. I could tell when he looked at my breasts or when his blue eyes trailed down to my thighs and then between them.
The hunger I saw there made heat rise in me in response. A warmth spread from between my legs and up my spine, tingling as it went. I could feel myself getting we
t and almost ruined the class by pinching my legs closed. It felt like I blushed all over my body. Could he see my arousal? Was he noting every detail and capturing it in his sketch?
Then something happened that I wasn’t expecting.
Some of them got up and walked around me. They knelt close to the stage and did small, quick sketches or held a brush at arm's length to take some small measurements on my body. Magnus walked among them, never measuring or sketching, but kneeling, crouching. Looking at me from every angle.
It felt oddly exposed. I was used to watching my back, never having a window or door behind me. That was how assassins died. But now I was exposed and the feeling of people behind me, close enough to touch me, made me feel more vulnerable than I had in a long time.
I kept my eyes to the front — glancing his way would be impossible without turning my head — but I felt him there, looking at me from the side, from the back, looking straight between my legs where I was sure I was swollen and red with arousal.
I've been naked and even scrutinized before, but I’d never been this open under someone's gaze.
He returned to his canvas, and I looked him in the eye. He gave me a smile that held warmth and kindness in it. I wondered if that were a lie. Was anyone that good a liar? I was sure if I'd asked Trib, she'd have told me that yes, I was probably that good.
It’s hard to trust people when you’ve lied and betrayed so many into early graves. But that was my job.
I spent the rest of the class watching his delicate movements and found myself daydreaming about his touch. Imagining what it would be like for those huge hands to by running across my skin, between my legs, over my breasts. Something told me it would be very nice. When it was done, Magnus brought me a robe. Several of the students thanked me and quickly scuttled out without making eye contact.
“How was it?” He asked.
“Seems unfair that I was the only one who got naked.”
He laughed, and…you’re shitting me…a blush rose to his face. He turned away quickly, embarrassed, and began cleaning his brushes.
"Was that too far?" I said. "You'll have to excuse me. I'm not from around here. I can be...forward, I guess."
