Sin

by M. Malone

  They picked her up and tossed her over the edge.

  Matt screamed and fought against Alan’s hold as he watched in stricken horror as her little tiny body hit the water. He screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until his voice went hoarse and the licks of fire lit his esophagus. All he saw on the bridge was her doll. The tiny stuffed Tigger she always carried with her.

  Finally, Alan let him go and he ran to the bridge. He grabbed the doll and stuffed it under his shirt as he frantically searched the water for her. Maybe, maybe she made it. But he knew the truth. Gigi had confessed to him that she didn’t know how to swim. She was always fascinated with it. She wanted to learn when she got older.

  She was gone because of him. He’d failed her.

  I stumbled into my room, crashing on my bed. I clutched at my hair as if I could dislodge the memory. My gaze landed on the expensive scotch Jonas had given me as an early birthday gift. I rarely drank but fuck, I needed to scrub those memories from my psyche.

  When they no longer controlled me, I’d be able to think about what to do with that imposter in the medical bay.

  12

  Gemma

  I rattled the handle of the infirmary door one more time, as if to remind myself of my predicament. I was locked in, like a kid in time-out.

  If anyone I knew ever found out about this, I’d never hear the end of it.

  “Ugh! I have to get out of here.” I eyed the ceiling, looking for loose ceiling tiles or a vent large enough that I could climb through. But there was nothing. Just racks of medical supplies, a few gurneys, and the lingering smell of antiseptic.

  Maybe they’d designed it this way on purpose, but the medical bay at Blake Security was the perfect impromptu prison.

  Distantly, I could hear voices and then laughter. Heat rushed up from my gut. Was he laughing at her? An image of Matthias telling the others about me made me see red. Or Matt. Whoever the fuck he really was.

  Could it be him?

  I breathed out a long, slow breath at the thought. Against my will, I shuddered with emotion. What if he really was Matt? Memories of warm hugs, shared meals and the certainty of knowing that my pseudo-big brother would take care of me swarmed through my mind. Growing up with the Family had been varying degrees of horrific, but from the moment I’d arrived, Matt had shielded me. His mother had been one of the working girls and he’d grown up in the Family.

  Back then, I’d seen him as a welcoming friend, the one safe place in a scary and unfamiliar new one. Now with the benefit of hindsight and maturity, I had a whole new perspective on just how fucked up it was for a kid to grow up there. Matt had taken me under his wing and kept me away from the worst side of that life until the day when he couldn’t protect me anymore.

  Tears threatened, and I sprang to my feet, horrified at the rare rush of emotion. I was no longer that scared, vulnerable little girl, taken as collateral for my father’s bad judgment.

  Now I was strong. ORUS-trained and bred through the flames of a life few could have survived. Andromeda had saved me, but she’d been very clear from the start that my survival depended on my ability to adapt and excel. ORUS wasn’t a charity, and if I wanted to stay with them, I would have to prove that I deserved to be there.

  By being one of their best.

  And you did it, I thought bitterly. Congratulations. You’re a star assassin.

  “Motherfucker!” I banged the door with my fist once in frustration.

  Distantly, I could hear more laughter, and then one of the voices got closer. I pressed my face against the small window in the door and then jumped back in shock at the sight of two big, green eyes staring back at me.

  “Are you okay?” The man peering in was vaguely familiar, so I figured he must have been around earlier.

  Hope sparked. Maybe he hadn’t gotten word from Matthias that I was supposed to stay in here. If I could convince him that I’d accidentally locked myself in…

  I bit my lip, hoping I looked appropriately bashful. “Sorry, I wanted to get a drink of water, but I think I locked myself in.”

  The man chuckled, and I couldn’t help noticing that he was cute in a clean-cut, boy next door sort of way. Like the kind of guy who’d be most comfortable in a sports jersey and a baseball cap. Nice.

  “No problem. Just a second.”

  His face disappeared, and then there were a series of beeps. A moment later, the door popped open.

  “Thank you!” I doubled back and grabbed my phone from the nightstand and tucked it into my bra.

  If I got an opportunity to leave, I needed to be ready to run. I’d seen all the screens in Matthias’s room, so I wouldn’t have long before he noticed I wasn’t where he’d left me. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too hard to get rid of Mr. Nice Guy.

  “No problem. I got a message earlier that we had a new client staying on site. My name is Dylan. If you need anything, feel free to ask any of us.” His eyes dropped to the bruises visible on my arms, and his lips tightened slightly.

  I fought the urge to squirm. Even though my whole plan was for them to think I was a victim, it was still strange to have people looking at me like one. Especially since I knew a hundred ways to kill a man.

  I followed him down the hall and around the bend to a bright, open kitchen. Dylan reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water, handing it to me before grabbing one for himself. I cracked it open and took a long drink. Damn, I’d actually needed that. Now I just had to figure out how to get rid of the oh-so-helpful Dylan so I could sneak out of here.

  “Do you mind if I make a sandwich?” I asked.

  He motioned toward the refrigerator. “Feel free. Help yourself.”

  I opened the fridge and started digging around, hoping that if he saw me busy and occupied he’d go back to whatever he’d been doing before. After a few minutes, Dylan pulled out his phone.

  Then he looked up. “Excuse me. I need to check on something.”

  I grinned to myself and waved absentmindedly over my shoulder. As soon as I heard his footsteps recede, I closed the fridge and ran for the elevator. I hit the button and silently prayed it would come before anyone else came out here. The loud ding as the elevator car reached our floor made me wince, but luckily no one came to investigate. But I didn’t let out the breath I was holding until I got in the elevator and the doors closed.

  The elevator opened on the ground level, and I walked quickly to the east-side exit. Once I reached the street, I could find a cab. The sooner I got away from this area, the better.

  I pulled out my phone and called Ian. He answered after one ring, but I didn’t even wait for him to speak.

  “Our plan is fucked, and I’m pretty sure I’ve been made.”

  His silence was more potent than a loud, angry response would have been. “By who?”

  “The target himself!” I hissed.

  “The target? How?” Ian sounded incredulous. Then again, why wouldn’t he be? ORUS agents were rarely made. Most of them didn’t have identities outside of their work, so how could they be?

  But most of them didn’t have a past like mine, either.

  “I know him. The target. He’s not just some run-of-the-mill guy. His name is Matthias.”

  Ian cursed. “What do you mean you know him?”

  “In the Family, we were kids there together.” I paused. I needed to be careful to stick to the truth as much as possible. ORUS knew I’d grown up in the Family. They knew that I’d run away and that Andromeda recruited me. We’d just fudged the timeline for my running away a little.

  “You fucking know him? Why didn’t you mention this before I sent you back?”

  I sighed. “I didn’t realize it was him until tonight. He wasn’t pleased. He thinks it’s some kind of trick.”

  “Mother fucker. Abort for now. Come back to the nest. We need to regroup.”

  He’s not your Matt. Despite seeing that toy, there had to be another explanation. But even if there wasn’t, his last words to me came
back.

  Whoever you think I am, I’m not him. Whoever you’re looking for, I’m sure he’s long dead.

  It was a good reminder. Because no matter who Matthias used to be, the only thing that really mattered was who he was now.

  The enemy.

  Matthias

  It turned out that scotch had a voice.

  I lifted my head again as the bottle called out to me with its siren song. The room swam, and I grunted, closing my eyes to ward off the sick swirls. It wasn’t so wobbly when I closed my eyes.

  “I’ve never seen him like this.” Oskar’s voice rumbled over the others’, and for once he didn’t sound amused. He sounded worried.

  “Maybe we should leave the kid alone. Let him lick his wounds in private,” Rafe added. He definitely didn’t sound worried. Was that disgust?

  My thoughts were slowed by the alcohol but I still had enough of my wits to be embarrassed. No doubt the almighty Rafe, ORUS legend, had never humiliated himself by coming on a girl before his dick was even out of his pants only to have the girl sneak away on him. Last night, I’d gone back to the medical bay to talk to Gemma and discovered that she’d given us the slip. It didn’t take long to uncover how she’d done it. Dylan hadn’t had any reason to assume she was on lockdown. And I definitely wasn’t going to tell him what had happened between us.

  Shame swept through me like wildfire. These were my guys. The men I counted on to have my back in any situation and men I respected. It had taken years to earn their trust and prove that I was more than just some stupid kid that Noah had saved. Now they were all standing around debating my usefulness and looking at me with pity.

  Laughing at me.

  “The lot of you can cheerfully fuck off,” I mumbled.

  All talk ceased, and I felt more than saw them come closer. I tensed. Men coming up behind me wasn’t a safe situation. For anyone. All at once I wasn’t a fully grown man with years of combat training under my belt. I was thrown back to the years when I was a scrawny preteen with a pretty face and a slim chance at a future.

  “People can’t be trusted, Matthias. Especially men. It’s in their nature to be cruel, to take rather than give. Don’t trust ‘em.”

  His mother’s voice was soft so that none of the other working girls sitting nearby would hear them. Matthias hated coming to see her here, but Father insisted all the working girls live together. It made them easier to control. At least that’s what he’d heard one of the guards say once.

  “I won’t, Ma. I promise.”

  She caressed his face, holding his chin between her long, thin fingers. “I wish you didn’t look like me. Too pretty for your own good. There are men here who like that. Innocent young boys.”

  Her face fell, and Matthias threw himself into her arms, pressing his nose against her neck the way he’d always done. He’d never tell her about the things he overheard in the main house now that he’d been handpicked by Father to train as one of his guards. Matthias had always been good with numbers and could remember most anything he learned in school, even if he only heard it once. Father himself had come to see him after school at the warehouse one day and told him that his grades would take him places. That he was proud.

  He’d gone to live in the main house that day, even though he’d hated to leave Mama behind. But she’d told him it was for the best. Now that Matthias was a little older, he understood why.

  There were things that children should never see. For example, he’d never forget the sight of Father leaving his Mama’s room that afternoon.

  I groaned and tried to open my eyes again. It was like unrolling a wet carpet.

  “Well, what do you know? It’s alive!” Oskar kneeled down to peer in my face.

  If I could have lifted my arm I would have popped the wanker right in the face. As it was, I could barely get out a mumbled “fuck off” without slurring.

  I’d probably overdone it a bit with the scotch. If I hadn’t been recruited by ORUS, no doubt I would have used alcohol to numb the pain, to anaesthetize myself against the memories that tormented me. But my training had been too intense, and I couldn’t afford to have my senses dulled in any way. We’d all been drilled to believe that the body was our finest weapon and to abuse it was to waste a valuable resource. So I’d never touched alcohol.

  Until tonight. Until I’d fucked things up with Gemma. Or was she Gigi? Fuck, I didn’t know. But I’d never forget the look on her face when she saw that stuffed toy.

  “I’m so sorry, Tigger. I fucked this up.” I moaned again as my head burst with pain. I’d always thought you weren’t supposed to have a hangover until the next morning. But I felt like fresh roadkill already.

  Just how long had I been in here drinking anyway? I had to find Gemma, find out who she was.

  “I’m coming, Tigger,” I mumbled.

  A large hand settled on my shoulder, startling me so badly it felt like my heart stopped beating. When I opened my eyes, Oskar was peering at me, his blue eyes so bright they were almost blinding.

  “Jesus, it’s even worse than I thought,” Oskar declared. “He’s talking about stuffed animals.”

  13

  Matthias

  “What the fuck is wrong with him?”

  Next to me on the couch Oskar shrugged. It required herculean effort for me to crane my head in Oskar’s direction. It required even more effort to keep my head straight. All the damn thing wanted to do was fall back. It was as if my skeleton was too tired to hold it up.

  Or you just consumed a baby elephant’s-worth of scotch.

  I hadn’t had that much to drink, had I?

  Oskar shook his head. “I don’t know. I think he might be a furry.”

  I tried to make my mouth move, to form words even, but to no avail. I just ended up sitting there with my mouth open and my damn tongue not functional. It was functional yesterday, wasn’t it? God damn it. I did not need to get a boner around these guys. There would be laughs and comments. So. Many. Comments.

  It was bad enough I’d humiliated myself with Gemma. It was worse that I hadn’t seen she was an obvious plant, and then… God, I fucked up the whole sex thing which was just… I knew the spy thing was bad. But somehow the sex thing—that felt worse.

  I dragged my head up again to glare at them all. But I couldn’t get my damn eyeballs to move properly.

  “What the fuck is a furry?” Rafe demanded.

  The German made this chuffing noise. It was as close as the guy ever got to a laugh. “Look man, don’t ask me that. You don’t want to know.”

  Rafe laughed. “Now I gotta know. What is it, and why do you think the kid here is one of them?”

  Oskar pulled out his phone, typed something quickly and handed it over to Rafe. “Well, the kid has been going on and on about Tigger, so I assumed he was talking about Winnie the Pooh. You know, Tigger. Bounce, bounce, and all that good shit?”

  I tried to make sense of the conversation that was happening around me, but I couldn’t. My brain was too foggy. My muscles were a mess and unable to function.

  You know better than this. This is deadly.

  Yes, but I was home. Oskar could handle himself, and Rafe was ready, so if someone did break in here, likely they’d be dead before they even made it past the foyer. Not to mention I’d put in kick-ass security protocols.

  Did you forget they were bypassed just a few days ago? Next to me on the other side of the couch, Rafe groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Oskar chuckled again before taking his phone back. “I shit you not. That’s a furry.”

  Rafe sat forward and rubbed the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I can’t fucking unsee that. I mean, I have questions though. How does that work exactly? It’s not like their parts work.”

  Oskar shrugged. Matthias could feel the simple action as his friend’s shoulders slipped up and down on the fabric of the couch. “I don’t fucking know. I’m not an expert or anything. It’s not like I was saying I’m into that; I’m say
ing the kid is.”

  Wait, what? What the hell were they talking about?

  Rafe shook his head. “I’ve never seen him dressed up. And no judgment here but that goes beyond the kid’s realm of weird.”

  Noah appeared in the doorway. “What’s up? What are we talking about?”

  Oskar was ever so helpful. “Rafe wanted to know what a furry was, so I enlightened him. And Matthias is one. Also, he’s toasted.”

  Noah frowned. “Kid, you been drinking?”

  I found it funny that was the statement Noah found alarming. “Yep.”

  My friend and mentor frowned. “Want to tell us why?”

  “Fucking felt like it, mate.” I frowned. I shouldn’t have said that. Noah had a right to worry. I rarely ever drank. Being drunk meant I had lower inhibitions… and far less control over the more violent nature of my character.

  Noah’s brows lifted, but he said nothing.

  If Oskar noticed his shitty attitude, he said nothing. He was still on the furry thing. “We were just trying to figure out a viable reason for Matthias to walk in here mumbling on and on about Tigger or something. Rafe says no way, but my money says the lad is a furry.”

  Rafe shuddered. “Look man, I can’t unsee that shit. The imagery is burned into my skull now.”

  Oskar flashed Rafe a grin. For a moment I blinked. Oskar never smiled. Why the hell was he flashing a grin at Rafe? “I figured if I had to have this knowledge, then so should you. Besides, it’s not me that brought it up. It was the kid talking about Tigger. I don’t even know what that means. Maybe it’s some kind of, like, furry sub-species. I don’t know. But he’s been on about it for the last twenty minutes.”

  I finally realized what the hell they were talking about; sex, and the people who got off on wearing the cosplay of furry animals and then rubbing themselves all over each other. I wasn’t one to judge. After all, look at the fucked up pile of steaming goop that was my life. Whatever people wanted to do to get off, I didn’t care. Except they were suggesting that I was one of them.