After several seconds of silence, I clear my throat and push my voice to speak. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m really sorry. For everything.”
Dad takes in a deep breath on the other end of the phone and I picture him shaking his head, his thumb and middle fingers rubbing at opposite, pulsing temples.
“I’m just really disappointed in you, Reagan,” my father says. “I never thought I’d say that. You used to make me so proud.”
Disappointed. One of the worst words a parent could say. Angry, yes. Annoyed, irritated, pissed off. Those emotions come and go. But disappointment cuts. It lingers.
“So, what are we going to do about Harper?” I ask, anxious to change the subject. There’s nothing more I can say. Nothing I can do to make him forgive me.
My body finally gives in and slides down the slick cinder-block wall until it settles on the cold tile beneath my feet. “Have you been able to reach her parents?”
“We got a message to them,” my dad replies, his voice deepening, changing from father to Black Angel senior leader. “They think she’s going to be working on a movie as a production assistant in NYC over the holiday break. They asked if they could come and visit her on set, but we told them she was going to be too busy. Once we’re off the phone, you need to give her a sat phone and have her call them. Make sure she tells them how excited she is but reiterate again how busy she’ll be. Also make sure she tells them she lost her phone in a taxi and won’t be able to call or text much until her new phone arrives. That should hold them off from getting too worried for a few days. We’ll instruct you when she can call them. But do not allow her to call on her own, got it?”
“Got it,” I answer. “We made her throw her cell phone out the window back in Manhattan.”
“Well, at least that’s one smart move, Reagan,” Dad answers, making little effort to hide his exasperation with me even as the conversation moves into mission mode. “We’re still searching for Fernando and his people. We know they are obviously in the country, and we’re doing our best to locate them, but between several terror threats in Europe and a high-profile kidnapping, some of our guys have been taken off the hunt. But we’re looking.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I say, my throat tightening, making it hard to swallow. “So … what are we supposed to do now?”
“You’ve got an army of assassins looking for the three of you,” Dad says, his voice teetering between annoyance and worry. “So there’s really only one thing you can do.”
“And what’s that?”
“Run.”
NINE
Run. Run. Run.
Dad’s words have been playing on a loop in my head for hours, rattling against my skull like a drumbeat.
Run. Run. Run.
My knees bounce to the steady, imaginary sound as I sit in the rust-colored chair, my Glock 22 on my lap, and stare out the window. It’s after three a.m. and I said I’d take the first watch even though I haven’t slept in nearly forty-eight hours. But my brain has yet to reach that delirious state of exhaustion. I’m wired and edgy, my muscles twitching below my sweatshirt, just waiting for Fernando’s people to hunt us down.
Luke and Harper are asleep in opposite beds. They didn’t want to go to sleep but I said they had to. That they wouldn’t be able to function the next day without rest. They both were reluctantly lulled to sleep by a late-night episode of Forensic Files.’ I don’t know what it is about that narrator’s voice. Even though he’s talking about blood splatter and bullet wounds, Forensic Files is strangely (and maybe sadistically) calming and can put anyone out for the night.
A pair of headlights invades our dark space. The curtains are strategically half closed so I can stay hidden yet see out without having to move the fabric, alerting anyone to our whereabouts. Harper is sleeping in the bed closest to me. The light hits her peaceful face, stirring her out of a dream. Once the car is parked and the light is gone, I pull back the curtain an inch with my fingertip and peer outside, clutching my gun, my finger poised near the trigger.
“What is it?” Harper whispers nervously next to me. “Is it them?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper back and squint my eyes at the tan pickup truck parked two spots over from our car. A young couple finally steps out from the truck, a sleeping toddler wrapped in the woman’s arms. The family makes their way to a room a few doors down and slams the door shut behind them.
“Well?” Harper whispers harshly.
“It was nothing,” I reply, closing the curtain and returning the gun to my lap. “Just a family probably wanting to get some rest and get out of the snowstorm. Go back to sleep.”
“I wasn’t really sleeping,” Harper says, propping herself up on her elbow. “My brain won’t stop. I don’t know how you ever sleep.”
“I don’t really,” I answer and settle my body back in my lumpy, uncomfortable chair. “Occupational hazard. Even before everything with my mom and living at CORE and stuff … I didn’t really sleep. My brain was always going.”
I was a hard sleeper as a kid. At least until I found out what my parents really did for a living. Before I even realized just how dangerous their jobs really were, every sound, every movement would wake me. My parents’ footsteps in the hallway. Tree branches hitting my window during a storm. Pipes knocking while someone brushed their teeth. The sounds of ordinary life would rouse me from my half dream, my eyes wide, my muscles tight, ready to fight or flee. I realize now that I’ve never felt safe. I’ve always been poised for death and disaster. I’ve spent my life waiting for something bad to happen.
Something like this.
Even in the dark, I can see Harper’s eyes studying me, her eyebrows cinching closer together.
“What?” I finally ask.
“Nothing, it’s just…” Harper says, looking down as her hands smooth out the comforter. She then lifts her head up, her eyes focused on me. “How did you keep all the lies straight?”
“I don’t know,” I say and tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear. “It’s what I was trained to do my entire life. I’ve had a lot of cover stories. So I’ve told a lot of lies.”
Harper glances down again as her fingers pick at the blanket’s tiny balls of fading yellow fabric. She rubs the pilling pieces between her thumb and index finger, easing them free. After a few moments, she looks back up at me, pain and betrayal written in her eyes, and before she even opens her mouth, I know what she’s going to say.
“So, how often did you lie to me?” she asks, her voice scratchy with tempered emotions. “Even after you ghosted me, when I talked about you, I still referred to you as my best friend. But … I didn’t really know you at all. Did I?”
I lick my lips as I think about the question. A stinging, nagging guilt always lingered beneath the surface of my skin when it came to Harper and Malika. Because they thought they knew me so well. They thought they knew all my secrets. My biggest fears and hopes and dreams. Some of it was manufactured, lies from the pretender to fit in, go unnoticed. But part of it was me. At least, I think it was. Sometimes I didn’t know where the pretender ended and the real Reagan began. I think maybe I still don’t.
“Some things I said because they were part of my cover,” I finally answer. “Some things were really me.”
“So, were Malika and I just part of your cover?” Harper asks, her chest rising and voice giving way to the wounds she’s been trying to hide. “Was our friendship just all bullshit? A lie? Did you become friends with us just to fit into whatever new identity you were trying to spin?”
The aching knot in my stomach tightens because the truth will hurt her. Yes, I did target Malika and Harper as friends when I first got to New Albany High School. They were the “fringers.” Invited to the big parties but never the exclusive birthday dinners or sleepovers with all the popular girls. They were known around school but never the center of attention. They were the small and uncomplicated group of friends I immediately knew I needed to infiltrate so I could blend into high school
life quickly. It pains me to admit that my motivation to become friends with Harper and Malika was part of my training because I grew to love everything about them.
“The truth?” I ask, nervous that telling Harper she was part of my never-stand-out strategy might wreck her. But I’m just so tired of the lies. “At first, I thought you guys were the perfect friends to make so I could blend in quickly. But honestly, you really did become my best friends. And I loved you. I never had friends like you and Malika before. Becoming your best friend made me envision a totally different life for myself. One where I walked away from the Black Angels and just lived as … well … me.”
“Really?” Harper asks, her eyes widening.
“Absolutely. Girls like me don’t often find friends like you. I missed you every single day after I left. I had this alternate universe in my head that I’d escape to where we were still best friends. I used to imagine that we’d write each other emails about college. That you’d tell me about all your film classes and how much you loved New York and how you were never coming back to Ohio. And I’d imagine Malika would write about Georgia and all the hot guys down there and how she wanted to rush a sorority, and we’d make fun of her.”
“She does want to rush in the spring and you bet your ass I make so much fun of her,” Harper says, rubbing her button nose with the back of her hand and stifling a laugh. “I can’t believe she wants to be a sorority girl.”
“Oh, I totally can,” I answer, picturing Malika at that last Mark Ricardi party. Colorful dress, drink in hand, holding court with the entire Australian travel soccer team. “Think about it. She was always the first girl up on the coffee table at parties. She was ridiculously good at beer pong. She wanted every party to have some sort of theme. Even her sleepovers had themes. Totally prepping herself for sorority life.”
“Oh my God, you’re right,” Harper says, laying her body back down in the bed. “She was a sorority girl in training. I missed that about her and we’ve been friends forever.”
“Again. Occupational hazard. I analyze.”
“Even your friends?”
“I guess so.”
“So analyze me, Dr. MacMillan,” Harper says, her smile growing wider before hitting her hand to her forehead. “Crap. I mean Hillis or whatever the hell your name really is.”
“It’s Hillis,” I answer and cock my head to one side. “So … you really want my analysis of you?”
“Absolutely,” Harper says, pushing her body into a sitting position.
“Well, you’re one of the most self-assured people I’ve ever met,” I begin, shifting my body so I can look at Harper while still watching out the window. “You don’t really care what everyone else is doing or what everyone else thinks. You do your own thing and have a lot of confidence in the decisions you make. And all of this makes you effortlessly cool. You are funny and sarcastic and quick-witted, yes, but you are mush on the inside. Your heart is both the softest and strongest thing about you. You’d do pretty much anything for the people you love.”
Harper’s eyes shine, even in the pale light, and I can tell she’s biting at the inside of her cheek to stop herself from crying.
“My world was lonely without you in it,” I say quietly, causing that shine in her eyes to turn into tears. One breaks free and falls down her cheek. She sniffs and quickly wipes it away. Harper was my color, my joy. I didn’t realize how drab and gray everything was without her there. But I hate the reason that we’re now back together.
“Mine too,” she finally says, pushing her wavy hair over her shoulder. “I’m sorry I’ve been so mean to you today. This is just all … it’s just a lot. You don’t deserve for me to get so angry with you. Thank you for saving me and…”
“Do not apologize to me,” I cut her off, waving my hand at her. “There’s nothing for you to apologize for. I’m the one who is sorry you’re in danger.”
“You didn’t do it,” Harper says, shaking her head, a wavy curl brushing against her cheek.
“I know I’m not the bad guy here,” I answer, pushing out my chest and stretching my sore back. “But you know how some people have the golden touch? I have the poison touch. Everything I do turns bad.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is.”
Harper looks around our rundown motel room. It’s hard for anyone to argue with me on that one. Dead mother? Check. Lunatic looking for me for over a year? Check. Army of assassins now after all of us? Check.
She opens her mouth but clamps her jaw shut.
“What?” I push.
Harper lays her body back down on the bed and laces her fingers together, settling them on top of her stomach. She stares at the ceiling and sucks in a slow and steady breath through her pursed lips. “What’s going to happen, Reagan? I mean, am I ever going to be allowed to go back to school? Will I see my family again?”
My shoulders seize up, the tendons collecting into tight lumps. I’ve been asking myself those very same questions all day. I don’t have the answers, and I’m just as terrified to know the truth as she is.
“I don’t know,” I finally answer and shake my head. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Logic tells me there’s no way Harper will be back at NYU for second semester. That the chances of her living a normal life again are slim. That her dreams of becoming a film director are over. Because if someone wants you dead, the last thing you need is your name in the pages of Variety or your face on E! News.
Harper sighs and closes her eyes, rolling her body onto her side toward me. She settles her face into the thin pillow. After sixty seconds of silence, her breath deepens and I think she’s fallen asleep until she whispers, “Reagan?”
“Yes?”
“I’m scared.”
I reach out and touch her hand. She keeps her eyes closed but threads her fingers through mine. I trace the lines of her high cheekbones, the arch of her thick eyebrows, her collection of long eyelashes. I want so desperately to tell her, Don’t worry. It will be okay. There’s nothing to be scared about. But I’m all out of lies.
“Me too,” I whisper back. She squeezes my hand hard one time and then lets go.
I return my empty hand to the loaded pistol on my lap. As I watch her fall asleep, a visceral fear floods my bloodstream, pushing against my veins and tightening my chest. I dig my fingers into my center, rubbing at my flesh and trying to relax this vital muscle, but it constricts even more. I look back out the window and into the dark night as my heart pounds its anxious commands.
Run. Run. Run.
TEN
“If you have a Rudolph nose and antlers on your car, I kind of know everything I need to know about you,” Harper says as we pass a car brimming with Christmas cheer. I watch Harper in my rearview mirror as she takes a gulp of her coffee. Her face cringes before she coughs into her gloved hand. “And in other news, this coffee is horrible.”
“Bad coffee is better than no coffee,” I reply, taking a sip of my own gas station coffee. It’s bitter and maybe even a little gritty, but it’s the only cure for my fuzzy head. Two hours of sleep in two days, and I’m the one driving this leg of our little road trip (trying to forget about the assassins who want to slit our throats and thinking of this as a road trip subdues my desire to slam the Jeep into a concrete barrier or break down into hysterical tears).
“I’m sure it tastes at least half decent to you with all of the sugar and cream you put in it,” Luke says in the seat next to me. I take another sip.
“Yeah, yours is like sugar water with a little coffee flavoring,” Harper adds.
“Well, who would ever think that taking your coffee black at a gas station would be a good idea,” I reply as I put my coffee back into the cup holder and steer the Jeep up the ramp onto Interstate 76. I know the Black Angels said to stay on as many back roads as possible, but the country roads are still covered in snow, and we need to move. We can’t stay in the same place for longer than a day. We’ve always got
to be one step ahead of Fernando and his assassins.
“When did you start taking your coffee black anyways, Harper?” Luke asks, turning around to look at her. “You’ve always taken cream and sugar. And don’t get me started on the sugary Frappuccinos you drank every single day sophomore and junior year. What did you do, go to NYU and suddenly decide that milk and sweetener were only for people in flyover states?”
“Oh, stop it,” Harper says. I look in my rearview mirror and see her smiling. “I’m not an NYU elitist.”
“Not yet,” Luke answers, which makes Harper laugh and punch him in the shoulder. Hard. Luke immediately grabs at the bruising flesh beneath his coat. “Ow! Okay, okay, I’m just kidding. Stop hitting me. Seriously though, how are you liking NYU?”
“Love everything about it,” Harper answers, her voice growing quieter with each word. I glance back in the mirror as the smile on her face vanishes. She catches my eyes for a moment before turning her head and staring out the window, her face dulling at the sight of our cold, gray morning. Luke takes a gulp of his coffee, probably wishing he had never asked. No good can come from reminding Harper of the life she had twenty-four hours ago. The one she’ll now likely lose. Because of us. Because of me.
The car falls quiet as we travel down the plowed highway, snow piled high on each of the interstate’s shoulders, the white graying and splattered with mud. The snow has stopped, the swish, swish, swish of the windshield wipers is gone. Silence expands in the car, making the air heavier and harder to breathe, and I long for noise.
I turn on the radio, scanning until we find a station. The crystal-clear voice of Karen Carpenter singing “Ave Maria” fills the car and that hollow spot inside me begins to moan.
The Carpenters’ Christmas album was Mom’s favorite. Mine too. “Ave Maria” was even a favorite of my father’s, who never did get into the spirit of the season. We weren’t a particularly religious family. We didn’t go to church or read the Bible or pray before family dinner. But one night, just a few days before Christmas, Mom and I sat in our dark family room, tree lit and fireplace on, listening to Karen Carpenter sing in Latin about the Blessed Mother.
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