He set the bag on the kitchen counter and flipped on the overhead light. The kitchen was bare, the fridge empty, which was the purpose of the paper bag. He’d stopped by the local supermarket on his way up the street to grab a few essentials. He’d unpack the bag, then call Cami. See if she wanted to come over. Or he’d go to her.
She’d been living with his mother, Dorothy, for the last couple years. Steph had tried to add Cami to her new family, but when the girl wouldn’t behave, she abandoned their child like she abandoned him. Cami wanted to live with him, but with his current job the court found him unfit to parent her full-time. You had to be present to do something like that, and he never was.
He had visitation rights, but it had been months since he’d seen his daughter. He couldn’t help but think she was better for it. And after everything that had happened lately, how was he supposed to look his little girl in the eye and hide the darkness that owned his soul? Maybe he would call her tomorrow, after he’d taken the time to get his mind right.
That was what he’d told himself yesterday. He just needed some time before he was ready. For Cami’s sake.
He yanked the items from the bag and started placing them on shelves in the refrigerator. Something creaked behind him, and without hesitation, Seeley yanked his gun from its place along the side of his belt and spun around, firearm lifted.
McCoy was standing there, just inside the front door, hands up.
Seeley cursed.
“Sorry,” McCoy said. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
“What are you doing here? How did you get in?”
“Your landlord let me in. Amazing where an FBI badge can get you. How about you lower your weapon?”
“How about you tell me why you’re in my apartment?” Seeley fired back.
“We need to talk to you,” McCoy answered.
“We?”
Someone moved out from the shadows of the unlit living room, and Seeley nearly gasped. Zoe. Impossible.
She moved to stand just feet in front of Seeley’s lifted pistol, her eyes dark and set. Her short hair was tucked back, showing the fresh wounds on her face and collarbone. Her skin was pale, her eyes bloodshot, bottom lip cut across the center. And that was only what he could see, with her covered in jeans and a long-sleeve sweater. He didn’t want to imagine what other injuries hid elsewhere. Because then he’d have to take responsibility for putting all those marks and bruises on her skin.
“Well,” Zoe said, her voice tight and angry, “shoot me if you’re going to. Or would you rather I turn around so you can stab me in the back?”
Seeley slowly lowered his weapon but kept his finger on the trigger and his muscles ready for action. “What are you doing here?”
“Like I said,” McCoy said, stepping up to guard Zoe’s back, “we need to talk to you.”
“How are you—”
“Alive?” Zoe finished.
He could feel the heat coming off her skin. She was restraining herself from ripping him apart. And he didn’t blame her. What he had done to her couldn’t be forgiven. No one had the capacity for that.
“McCoy saved me. He’s been working with Olivia all along.”
McCoy gave him a nervous grin. “Guess we’re just going to jump right in then.”
“What?” Seeley questioned.
“Apparently, not everyone that works for Grantham is the enemy,” Zoe cut in. “Just most.” She turned back to McCoy. “This is a waste of time. He is never going to help us.”
“Help with what?” Seeley asked.
“Rescuing Lucy,” McCoy said.
Seeley opened his mouth to respond and couldn’t think of anything to say.
McCoy jumped in and started filling in the gaps in Seeley’s mind. He explained how he’d been working with Olivia, then proceeded to tell Seeley everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Seeley listened intently, never taking his finger off the trigger. Zoe had moved to the side, never taking her eyes off him. The weight of her stare was suffocating.
“I couldn’t go back in for her alone,” McCoy continued.
“Have you lost your mind, McCoy? They’ll string you up for this,” Seeley said.
“Only if I fail.”
“You can’t beat the system.”
“Not alone.”
Seeley shook his head. “Give me one good reason not to turn you in for treason.”
“Because they’re wrong, and you know it,” McCoy said. “You aren’t like the rest of them. Because you care.”
“I’m the worst among them,” Seeley hissed. “I don’t have the capacity to care.”
“Which is why they blacklisted you,” McCoy said.
“Wait, what?” Zoe said.
“They blacklisted me because I fired at soldiers.”
“You didn’t tell me he was blacklisted,” Zoe snapped at McCoy. “How is he even supposed to help us?”
“Seeley knows that place and those people better than anyone I know,” McCoy said. “And if anyone can get past a blacklist, it’s him.” Then to Seeley: “And you fired at soldiers because you wanted to protect Lucy and Zoe.”
“Protect us!” Zoe barked. “He did nothing when they found us.”
“It’s worse than that,” McCoy said. “He called them and told them where you were.”
Zoe didn’t even look at Seeley, and he was thankful for that. He wasn’t sure he could stand the anger and hurt that would be in her expression.
“I was doing—” Seeley started.
“Your job, but you broke protocol. You risked your career,” McCoy said. “And you can make up a thousand reasons why you did, but I know deep down it was because you care.”
“You have no idea of the darkness in me,” Seeley warned.
“Yes, I do,” McCoy said. “The same kind that’s in us all. You hide behind it because it allows you to build a wall that separates you from reality, but I spent time with you. I saw the way you treated Lucy, the way you looked at Zoe.”
Seeley glanced at the woman standing close and felt his cheeks redden.
“You’re good, using your darkness as an excuse not to face the fact that you want to do the right thing, because doing that is harder. But it doesn’t mean you don’t know what the right thing is.”
“You hardly know me, McCoy,” Seeley said.
“Maybe, but Olivia knew you well.”
The mention of her name sent a shiver across Seeley’s skin.
“She told me you would help. She believed in you, even after working with your darkness for years. Deep down she knew you were a good man and told me to appeal to that goodness you have forgotten.”
McCoy’s words brought Seeley back to the night Olivia was shot right in front of him. You’re a good man. Those had been some of her last words.
“You may be blacklisted, but you’re connected and have deep loyalties. People owe you favors,” McCoy said. “And Olivia said you would help. So I’m trusting a dead woman, because honestly we don’t have a lot of options.”
Seeley took it all in. “You’re wrong about me. She was wrong about me.”
“That’s what I told him,” Zoe said.
“No, I don’t believe that!” McCoy said. “You can do the right thing.”
“I don’t do the right thing, I do the job,” Seeley said.
“Even when you know it’s wrong?” McCoy asked.
The war that had been building reached its tipping point. The two sides of his mind rushed each other, shooting bullets across the divide.
He did care about Zoe. He wanted to deny it but couldn’t with her standing right there. She threatened the darkness he’d become so familiar with. That he’d befriended and fed for years. That side of him warned against the threat of believing he could be more than what the past had made him.
“I told you he’s the villain in this story,” Zoe said. “The woman he loved broke his heart, stole his goodness, and now he’s the bad guy. Right, Seeley? The guy who can�
��t help but choose his pain over being bigger than his past, even if it means an innocent girl dies.”
Anger flashed through Seeley’s chest. “That’s a lot of talk from the poor, abandoned little girl who can’t trust the world or anyone in it because Mommy hurt her pretty bad.”
Zoe took a step closer so she was nearly in his face. “Don’t you dare talk about me like you know me.”
“I do know you,” Seeley snarled.
The two stood nose to nose for a long moment, then Zoe turned and crossed to the living room. She returned a moment later with something in her hand and slammed it on the counter beside them. It was a photo of a little girl. His Cami.
“I know a thing or two about being the daughter of a villain,” she said. “I know about the pain it brings, the kind that won’t let you sleep. That haunts you even when you’re awake. That you can’t outrun or change.”
Seeley felt his heart tighten as her words drilled into his brain. What would doing the job get him? The question drifted through his mind. More pain and darkness? Didn’t he have enough?
His inner demons roared as the thought started to gain momentum.
“Don’t be the good guy for you,” Zoe said. “Be good for her. Because if you don’t help us, Lucy will die. And this little girl will have a villain for a father all her life. She deserves better than that, doesn’t she?”
Seeley kept his eyes focused on the sweet face smiling up at him from the photo. It was one of the few pictures he had, and the only one that mattered.
“I don’t know if I can be the good guy,” he said.
“There’s only one way to find out,” McCoy said.
Seeley took a deep breath and considered what they were asking. If they failed, they would all die. Lucy would die, and Cami wouldn’t have a father at all. Not that she had much of one now.
Maybe if he could do this, help them, he could redeem some of his darkness and be the father Cami deserved. Maybe Zoe was right. Could he be better for his daughter?
He looked up at Zoe and then at McCoy.
Only one way to find out.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I LOST TRACK of how long I’d been in solitary confinement. No one came to see me. No food was provided. There was a jug of dirty water in the corner, a wastebasket for emptying my bladder, a thin, dusty mattress, and a single light hanging from the center of the ceiling.
I’d exhausted all possible escape options, which was quick and easy because after an hour I knew there weren’t any. My captors knew better than to leave anything I could use against them. So I didn’t waste my energy on things I knew wouldn’t manifest. Instead I spent the time reorganizing my memories.
The suddenness of them all had been overwhelming at first. Thousands of childhood moments to reconcile, everything from moments of pleasure and pain to great victories and terrible failures. I relived each one I logged, sitting there cross-legged on the stone floor, meditating on them all. I escaped into myself and let them come at me hard and fast. That was the only way to digest them.
They stirred complex emotions about who I was. Who was I meant to be? On one hand, the voice of reason said I was designed, trained, manipulated to be a product for progress. An instrument wrapped up in flesh. On the other hand, the mothering voice of Olivia said I was more human than tool, that I had the capacity to choose what to do with the abilities I’d been given. The two ideas warred with one another.
Was I Lucy, or was I Number Nine? The question started off simple and became weighted as the time passed. In the moments when my mind wasn’t wrapped up in the war of identity, I thought of Zoe. The part of me that was Lucy cared for her deeply, was afraid that she was hurt or dead. The part of me that was a number saw her only as a distraction from purpose. So more conflict gathered in my psyche.
At some point the door to my prison opened, and Director Hammon entered with his flock of armed agents. I could smell their fear, read it on their faces. All except Hammon. He was confident and steady. I looked up from my seated place in the middle of the room.
“Number Nine,” Hammon said. He used a long black cane, and I wondered if the bullet I’d placed deep in his leg had gone clean through or if they’d had to dig it out. “Leave us,” he said to the galley of men.
They looked at one another. “Sir?” one of them questioned.
“Leave us,” he repeated more firmly. They did as they were told, and the door shut behind them.
Very confident, I thought.
“You aren’t afraid to be alone with me?” I asked.
“No,” he answered.
“Why? The others are.”
“Because I know you, Number Nine. The others just know of you.”
“And knowing me keeps you safe?”
“I’m your commander. You wouldn’t harm me.”
“I shot you.”
He smiled. “That was unintentional. If it had been purposeful, you wouldn’t have missed my femoral artery by millimeters.”
I said nothing. He was right.
“We need to talk about Olivia, Number Nine,” Hammon said.
“You want to know where the hidden files are,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I don’t think I should tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s my only leverage for staying alive. There’s no reason you wouldn’t kill me once you have what you want.”
“What if I promise that won’t be the outcome?”
“Then you would be lying.”
Hammon huffed in amusement. “I will resort to much crueler measures if my hand is forced.”
“You can try,” I said.
He knew how fortified I was against torture. That approach would take some time, if it could succeed at all. Anger flashed across his face.
“That makes you upset?” I asked.
“Well, Number Nine, I have pressure coming down from up top to get this job done. And you are currently the only thing standing in my way, so yes, it makes me frustrated.”
“Pressure from the leader of the free world.” I remembered him now. The different versions of him that had come through over the years.
“He is very powerful and impatient,” Hammon said.
“I am very powerful, and patient,” I replied.
He forced an uncomfortable smile. He was losing his temper. I remembered that about him. He didn’t hold his rage well.
“This is not a game.”
“Is it not? It feels like a game to me.”
“If you had any idea what was actually at stake here, you wouldn’t be toying with this information like a child. But you don’t understand. You were created with a flaw. You are broken, so all that power you believe you possess does you no good, because you don’t understand the way the world functions.”
Anger twitched inside my chest.
“That was the part we never could master. Making you human enough to exist outside these walls. Humanity can’t be taught. It either is or isn’t. Something we now know for the future.”
I looked at him with curiosity. Some part of me understood the baiting, but Lucy was ignoring Number Nine’s warning about chomping down.
“You look surprised,” Hammon teased. “Surely with the level of intelligence you possess, you had to assume we would try again. Next time we’ll develop a newer, better version, one that will actually succeed. Without the . . .” He tilted his head, seeming to ponder how to put it, then smiled. “Mistakes.”
That hurt my feelings. The ones I struggled to control. The ones that belonged to the part of me that felt like Lucy. I was still a girl, after all. Wasn’t I?
“That’s why recovering the files is so important. This is greater than you or me. We are talking about creating a safer America, maybe even a better world. And you are standing in the way of a greater version, for what? Your life? Seems selfish.”
I pondered what he was saying. “Don’t I deserve to live?”
“Over progress?” Hammon asked, hi
s eyes drilling into mine. His face turned cold. “No.”
The tick of rage pulsed and spread. He believed his progress was more valuable than my existence. Maybe he’s right, Number Nine thought. Of course he isn’t right, Lucy argued. I was teetering on the edge, sure to fall one way or the other, but unsure which way it would be.
“Tell me where the files are hidden, Number Nine,” Hammon said.
Sweat beads trickled down the left side of his forehead. I could hear his heart rate increasing.
“I will get what I want from you one way or another,” he said.
Still I said nothing, and his breathing increased.
“Olivia told me not to tell you,” I finally replied. “No matter the cost.”
A moment of silence engulfed the room, and again Hammon’s pulse spiked. Then he took a deep breath and regained control of his temper. “I don’t want to have to do this the hard way, but you seem stubbornly resolved.”
Again I said nothing. I knew I could withstand whatever they did to my body.
“Fine, we resort to drastic measures,” Hammon said. “We go after what has always been your Achilles’ heel. The same problem all of your kind had. It’s humanness, or lack thereof. There’s a fine line between not enough and too much. Too much and you put your own value above the value of your orders, not enough and you murder your entire family. It’s tricky, tricky science. But we put it in you, so we can rip it out. Once you lose your irrational attachment to loyalty and remember nothing is greater than progress, you’ll give me what I want without hesitation. So many messy steps can be avoided if you would just tell me where the files are. Haven’t you suffered enough already?”
I listened to his threats with cold resistance. I would never betray Olivia. I would never give in to his mental games.
“The hard way then,” Hammon said, turning to hobble toward the exit. He glanced back once he reached the door. “Remember I offered a different path and you refused. You chose this, Lucy.”
He spoke to my human side, making her shudder. Whatever was coming next would be more than cruel.
THEY CAME FOR me an hour after Director Hammon left. I didn’t resist when an armed agent handed me a glass of something I knew was more than water. I asked what it was without receiving an answer, then drank it down, knowing there was no alternative.
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