by Meli Raine
Wyatt.
The man just said Wyatt.
They know the compound’s location. They know Callum’s real name. What else do they know?
The next few sentences are a blur, until the woman says one word.
Duff.
She says others, of course, but the phone call I'm hearing must be between Lily Thornton and McDuff.
McDuff is looking for Wyatt.
“My grandmother had the official crime scene photos from the attack. They’re in Alice's files, and my own, from when Gran died. The port-wine stain is the only real clue that the Wyatt I remember is the Wyatt you saw at the club,” McDuff says in a hoarse whisper.
I drop my phone. My throat closes. Every part of me goes numb.
Except my heart.
It feels like it’s dying inside my chest, writhing in agony.
It’s trying to get me to move, to blink, to think, to act.
Wyatt.
Callum is Wyatt.
And if Callum is Wyatt, then that makes McDuff —
My phone lands on my bare thigh, the earbud cord like a worm along the curve of my knee. Scrambling, I grab it and listen, stomach turning with nausea, my legs turned to jelly, knees sending painful nerve twitches up my body.
“–we've pieced together calls Romeo had with someone named Mikhail Svetnu. Dr. Svetnu is the son of a Nazi scientist who fled Germany for Argentina in the mid-1940s. Born in Argentina, but then went back to Europe for college and medical school. He's a medical mercenary–a doctor who works on the project with the highest bid. He also has no problem teaching foreign governments torture techniques that optimize the victim's response.”
“What?”
“He's tied to all sorts of double and triple agents. Dangerous as hell.”
“And you think he kidnapped Wyatt?”
“His project did. The DNA from that scene with Romeo–Wyatt’s DNA–matched against the lock of hair my gran kept. Wyatt's connected to Svetnu somehow.”
My stomach twists. Not only is this hard to listen to, McDuff's voice sounds just enough like Callum to make me feel too many conflicting emotions.
Mostly yearning.
“I'm heading to the East Coast tomorrow.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We think we've located Svetnu's base. I'll penetrate it.”
“Drew's sending a team?”
He goes silent.
He really is like Callum.
“Duff! You can't go alone.”
“It's a mission, Lily. I have to go.”
Maybe we're not so different from them after all.
“Those bastards killed our parents before my eyes,” he continues. “Beat me when I was just a kid and left me for dead. They stole Wyatt. He was only four, Lily. Four. My dad was some kind of government operative, but that doesn’t give anyone the right to do what they did to us. I have to find my little brother. And I'm so close now. I know it.”
“If he really was kidnapped by Stateless, he's your enemy.”
“We've had this conversation a million times.”
“Then consider this a million and one. Don't assume he's going to be excited when you find him.”
An image of Callum–Wyatt–with his sight trained on McDuff makes me shiver.
I pause the conversation, quickly looking at the other files. Documents about Wyatt. The same pictures Callum has. More documents about Duff, about his work, about all the ways he's connected to Wyatt.
Wyatt is Callum. Duff is McDuff.
Which means McDuff is Callum's brother.
Every part of me freezes, mind racing as I connect it all.
Impossible.
Layer by layer, my skin feels raw, heart racing until it’s ahead of me, as if it’s doing everything to escape, to deny. A line of sweat pops up on my hairline, my lip, under my breasts, blood speeding up and heating with the implications — the horror — of what this all means.
I finally act. I have to.
It may already be too late.
I unload the chip, clear my phone, and shut it all off. I retape the chip to my groin. My water bottle is no longer usable, but before I leave, I pour a glass of water and eat a protein bar, shoving two extras in my front pockets. My time is likely not my own from this second forward. I was watched at the fence.
They know.
If I was worried about being watched before, now I'm terrified.
But I have to find Callum. Now.
Before he kills his brother.
18
Callum
“Sir, I'd like to ask that Kina join us for this meeting,” I say as I walk into the conference room, the last word sticking in my throat as I see Janice at the table. Not Kina.
Janice?
“I agree,” Svetnu says quietly.
Too quietly.
“She saw him, too,” Janice says, eyes cast down, voice rushed.
Him?
“He was too friendly. No one who mows a lawn that big is that friendly.”
Ah. McDuff. She's doing the right thing, reporting the strange man at the perimeter.
“Have other workmen ever been on the other side of the fence when you mow?” he asks her, though it's clear this is a performance.
For me.
He's asked the question already.
“Yes, sir. But they never wave or smile. And it's always someone different.”
“Thank you.” He makes a gesture that she reacts to by standing. Being dismissed is par for the course here, especially by someone as high up the food chain as Svetnu.
Janice leaves. We're alone.
I pick up my phone and start to text.
“Stop.”
“Sir? I'm summoning Kina.”
“Does she know it's McDuff at the fence?”
“No.” The lie slips out easily. “Did Janice name him?”
“Of course not. She just reported an aberration, as you are taught. How would she know his name?”
“She wouldn't,” I answer quickly.
“Have you told anyone here about your mission?”
“Of course. Smith, Sally–”
“Kina?”
“She knows I'm gone to surveil an enemy.”
“Did you ever tell her his name?”
“It came up in conversation when her sister was here.”
“Then it's possible Kina spoke about him to Janice, and that's why Janice reported him.”
“Janice didn't mention him by name, sir. I doubt Kina said anything.”
“You defend her to the point of concern, Callum.”
“And you thwart her every move to contribute to the cause, sir.”
“She contributes. She helped to save one of the children, with your assistance.”
“The boy was seizing. He needed more medical care than we could provide here at the time.”
“You're making high-level decisions, Callum.”
“And they are proving to be right.”
Cowering or deferring to Svetnu would be a mistake. What I'm doing is hard, so hard that my gut burns and my thighs have turned to steel, my jaw ready to snap and my fingernails digging into my palms, the pain welcome.
But none of this is as hard as imagining what the leaders will do to Kina if they ever find out how far we've really gone.
If they ever find out about the files she downloaded.
It’s bluster, designed to take them off the scent of what we’ve done. Only time will tell if it works.
“They are,” he says, surprising me. “All of your choices have borne out. No one from the hospital ever reported Kina, Sally, or the boy to local authorities. But your desire to have Kina at this meeting is inappropriate at best.” He slides a folder across the table to me, watching my face as I open it.
Photos of Kina at the fence, handing her water bottle to McDuff.
“And a sign that you’re a fool at worst.”
The stills are taken from a high-level drone, yet the resolution is such tha
t I can see the color of the hair tie she was using for her ponytail.
Fool.
Has Kina fooled me somehow? Is she playing a sick game I don’t understand? Why in the hell is she in a picture, handed to me by my boss, where McDuff’s fingers are touching her?
“Where is she? They’re looking for her,” Svetnu demands, voice changing, his tolerance for my bravado clearly gone.
“I just saw her at the fence. I monitored the situation the entire time. I'm sure she's bringing her water bottle back for testing.” Scrambling to come up with some explanation, I have to think above the throbbing in my temples.
“She went straight to the nursery building. Then she left. Went back into Woods.”
“Have you sent a team?”
He shakes his head. “Not yet. She cannot go far. But her failure to immediately report the contact is troubling.”
“Is it?”
“How could it not be?”
“Perhaps she's manipulating him. Gaining his trust. Working as an operative from within.”
“She has no orders to do so.”
“Doesn't she? Aren't we all bound by the mission to protect the project at all costs? Kina may not have expected to run into McDuff like that, but once it happened, she worked it. Is working it.”
“You need to kill him. Now.”
“Sir?”
I’ll gladly kill the bastard.
With my bare hands.
“It's time. Once he spoke with Kina, he crossed the line.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Be careful with her, Callum. Kina's not what anyone thinks.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know that Angelica and Glen worked to keep her here.”
I nod. The less I say, the more I'll learn.
“Someone in the leadership is feeding Kina information. Worse–access.”
“Access?” I tailor my expression to look like I'm confused and concerned.
“Her biometrics have been configured to give her top-secret access to files even you cannot see.” One eyebrow drops. “Possibly that even I cannot see.”
Damn it. He knows? How does he know? And what else does he know that we don’t?
“Must come from very high up for that to be the case.”
“You have no idea.”
“How much further up can it go from you?”
A cold glare is my response.
“He's still in that damn shack. Take him out. Go directly from here. Bury him in the swamp on that side. We'll find Kina.”
Fear explodes in my chest, like one of the chambers of my heart has been detonated.
If I offer to find her, I know that dooms her even more.
I stand and nod, backing out of the room, hoping I'll see her on my way to kill McDuff.
It's her only chance now.
Likely mine, too.
Running up the stairs, out the back door, and straight into Woods reminds me of training exercises, only this one involves a certain kill. When you know you're about to kill someone, your body chemistry changes. I've killed in The Field before, and I don't like it. Some operatives, like Glen, have a taste for it. They thrive on it. In The Field, that kind of person holds a special place in victory.
It's the aftermath that can make them a liability. You don't pump yourself up to take another person out without having residual energy that needs to be fed.
For those who weren’t brought up here, killing in any situation other than immediate self-defense requires a suspension of morality, of humanity. But even for me, Stateless since age 4, there’s a moment of reckoning.
I’m about to make another person's heart stop. Just... stop.
As I race through the woods, eyes out for Kina, I try to make sense of what Svetnu said. Someone's feeding her information? Loyalty tests happen all the time. They don't involve being given more information, though. They generally involve testing your resolve in some other area.
How much higher than Svetnu is this person? Is it the president? A senator or intelligence agency head?
As I reach the fence, I skirt to the left, staying out of view of the camera. I disabled it a while ago, but with the new scrutiny, they’ll pick up on that, and it could lead them back to me. All I care about right now is removing two threats: McDuff, and whoever wants Kina.
And if he's the one who wants Kina, well, he's about to be neutralized.
The hole under the fence is still there, open and ready for me, swallowing my body and spitting it out whole on the other side. No sign of McDuff.
Duff.
Sean.
Whatever his name really is.
All I can think about right now is Kina. She's a target. A person of interest. A scapegoat. For years, the leadership downplayed her. Turned her into a mule, a nothing.
Worse–a training body. Meaningless flesh. Something to practice on.
It shouldn't enrage me but it does, my anger coalescing, telescoping, turning to the man on this side of the fence who has been my life's work for the last nine months. I've had no time for Kina, no time to find my brother, no time for anything but this singular mission. My ability to gain power at the compound has been stripped away by this mission, and now this guy touches Kina through a fence and she's in the hot seat.
He won't get away with it.
Emotions are our downfall, we're told, but it feels so damn good to give into them, hot fury burning in my muscles, pure adrenaline making my blood shoot through me like an automatic weapon on the front lines.
I'm doing what I need to do.
Feeling good about it makes it seem close to holy.
His stupid green ballcap appears. A hum, some tune I don't recognize, comes out of him as he taps away on a phone. Head down, he's using the visor to block the sun, completely distracted. A craving for my bow and arrow hits me out of nowhere, the gun in my hand somehow lesser, inadequate.
Too easy.
But it'll do.
Some animal in the distance rustles through the bushes, the sound making my target look up, eyes narrowing, completely distracted by the long view.
Perfect.
I raise my gun. The rustling stops. My phone buzzes.
I ignore it.
Every image of Kina fills my mind now, the curve of her calf into the crook of her knee, the sweat at her temple, the way her eyes widen with pleasure when we touch. She's everything. My mind can't stop, whirling images and sensations, scents and sounds, a tornado of Kina.
Of Sawyer. Her birth name.
Of emotion.
“Damn you,” I murmur, so low, so quiet, only my bullets can hear me.
Bzzz.
There is no phone. No Callum. No Kina, no Svetnu, no babies, no memory stick. No encrypted files, no questions, no mysteries.
There is my palm. My finger. The sight. The metal.
And there is a forehead a few hundred feet away, with a perfect line of fire.
This is my job. I've done it before, and I'll do it again.
But never with quite this much relish. He's holding me back from protecting Kina, and now I get to take him out.
“CALLUM!” Kina screams, bursting through the foliage, McDuff's firearm up and pointed at her before I can stop him. Now he's moving and I’ve lost my line, my feet in midair sprint as she runs toward him, toward his gun, toward certain death.
I have to kill him before he kills her.
“CALLUM! WYATT!!!!” she shrieks.
McDuff freezes, turning to me with pure luck, gun pointed right at me. If he's a decent shot, he'll hit.
“BOTH OF YOU! STOP! HE IS YOUR BROTHER!” she screams. “DON'T KILL HIM!”
19
Callum
“DROP IT!” he shouts.
“YOU DROP IT!”
“BOTH OF YOU DROP IT!” Kina shrieks, slamming into the metal fence, then bouncing back with a cry of pain. She must have touched an electrified portion of it, the section meant to dissuade.
But not kill.
Wait.
Brother.
Did she say brother?
“WYATT!” McDuff shouts just before a gunshot goes off, making him duck.
“STOP SHOOTING!” Kina runs at me, lunging for my arm.
“I'M NOT!”
Pancaking myself on top of her, we go flat, the shot coming from the compound. So much for thinking any of this wasn't being tracked.
The sound of machinery starting up, a flood of activity in the distance near the buildings in the compound, makes me roll off Kina and grab her shirt, pulling her behind a tree. I see McDuff–my brother? Are you kidding me?–motion toward his shed.
A quick look shows a four wheeler big enough to get us all out of here.
My phone is going nuts in my pocket. Kina's cheek has a long, deep scratch. Blood drips down her face in a maddening arc that makes it look like someone slashed her throat.
She breaks for it first, moving fast, like a chipmunk on the run. I follow, because no way in hell am I letting her be alone with that guy.
My brother?
There has to be a mistake. Kina must be wrong.
We press our backs against the wall, breathing hard, McDuff's arm against my arm, knee brushing Kina's leg. He hands Kina a gun.
A gun.
My head explodes as he calmly says, “You two cover me. I'll drive.”
“We’re not leaving with you!” I hiss, getting in his face, ready to snap his throat.
“Why not?”
“You're insane. I don't even know who you are.”
“I'm Sean. Your brother. Kina listened to the calls, she’s read the encrypted files.”
“You what?”
“I was trying to tell you!” Kina interrupts. Gunfire has stopped, but I hear vehicle engines in the distance.
The buzzing from my phone stops abruptly.
“Save the arguing for later,” McDuff snaps. “Let's get out of here.”
And with that, he jumps on the four wheeler.
Kina points her gun toward the fence, toward our side, breaking my heart.
