Vortex

by Julie Cross

  “You went to prison,” I finished. “How many identities are we talking about?”

  “Ten.” She laughed at the expression on my face. “I did everything right. Went to all their classes, joined a few campus groups. I just had one minor screwup and the FBI was able to trace the false tuition payments. Everything happened really quick after that. My parents wouldn’t respond to any of my calls and I was basically raked over the coals and thrown in a women’s prison in Virginia. After two months, I met your dad.”

  I sat up straighter. “You met my dad in prison?”

  “He came to see me. Said he heard I pulled off quite a stunt. Then he offered to get me out … give me a spot as an agent, but there was a catch.”

  “What?”

  She polished off her drink and sank farther into the couch. “I had to change my name, everything about me. No family contact … ever. I didn’t even think twice about it. I think that’s why Marshall left me in prison for two months. He was probably watching even before I got caught.”

  “Yeah, I bet.”

  I had no idea if she was telling the truth, but the story made sense, in its own unbelievable way. It explained a lot about how she joined so young, but finding out she was a freak who liked to pretend she was different people most of her life was a little disturbing. Mostly that she was undercover before she had to be … before it became her job. “What was your name, before they changed it?”

  “Kathleen Goldman. My mom is very Irish and my dad is half Jewish, half African-American.” She laughed under her breath. “I have no idea what that makes me.”

  “Like every other American, pretty much,” I said with a shrug. “Also, diverse enough to pull off a lot of different ethnicities as covers … also useful to the CIA.”

  She poured herself another glass and refilled mine, which I hadn’t even noticed was empty. “You just got way more than five minutes, so I’m done for now.”

  “Fair enough,” I said before standing up and watching the room spin. I had expected to feel something more from hearing these personal details, but none of it proved she was a decent person … except for maybe one thing. “Did you hate my dad for sentencing you to this life?”

  She stood up and adjusted the cushion on the back of the couch. “No, not at all. Since I know for a fact you’ve never been to prison, you’ll have to take my word for it, two months in the slammer felt like a decade. I never would have survived without—”

  She turned around abruptly, but didn’t finish her sentence.

  “Without what?”

  “Without being allowed to shoot someone or do something illegal.” She took another large swig of vodka, straight from the bottle, even though her glass had just been filled.

  I didn’t know what to say. She’d changed her answer. It was obvious. And come to think of it, Jenni Stewart had never said anything bad about my dad. Never. And I could see the fear in her eyes. She didn’t want me to figure it out. That there was at least one person she didn’t hate. And I got it … of course I got it. The way Dad had spoken to Kendrick after the memory gas test … the kindness in his voice … he let himself care about Stewart the same way he let himself care about me and Courtney. He couldn’t really help it. Human compassion … that was what he had told Thomas in that conversation from 2005.

  The awkward silence was way too much for either of us to handle. She stepped closer, stumbling a little, revealing her already drunken state, and kissed me again. This time it was slow, giving me a chance to back out, but I didn’t. Hashing out her past was almost as difficult for me as it was for her. Her hands rested on my face, lightly. Nothing about her was forceful this time. My heart immediately sped up, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or … a warning.

  It took me a second to realize she was dragging me toward her room. Or at least I assumed it was her room. The cool air that filled the space between us forced me to focus despite the spinning in my head, the lack of worry. Right after we stepped into the bedroom, I stopped moving. “This is a bad idea.”

  “Why?”

  “It just is. Trust me.”

  “I don’t trust you,” she said with a grin. “Tell me why it’s bad.”

  Because I don’t love you. I don’t even like you. “Work … you know? Everything will be really weird and…”

  Her hands slid under the back of my shirt and she started lifting it over my head. I watched the shirt fall to the floor … a symbolic message. Distractions. I needed distractions … and if I needed them, maybe she did, too?

  Lips were moving up and down my neck and didn’t feel bad. Quite the opposite. “Wait. Just … stop for a second.”

  She dropped her arms and stepped backward, but kept a tight grip on my hand. “What’s the problem, Jackson?”

  “First of all, you’re drunk and I think I might be, too.” I sat down on the side of the bed and took a deep breath. “This is just another method of manipulation, isn’t it?”

  She shrugged. “What’s the difference? What could I possibly be trying to achieve beyond tonight? Breaking your heart? Fooling you into a one-night stand?”

  Good point. “Good point.”

  She pressed her hands against my chest until I was lying all the way back. A million doubts were flying through my head, but then she said something that hit me right in the gut.

  “You could always go back to your smelly, empty place … alone.”

  Just the thought of lying in my bed with Holly memories stuck in my head, worrying about where my dad was right now. Holly with Brian … his hands all over her … I didn’t want to deal with it. Not tonight.

  It’s just sex … meaningless sex. It wasn’t like I hadn’t done this whole casual thing before. I grabbed Stewart’s hand and pulled her down next to me before old memories could invade my thoughts. We both stared at each other for a long moment and then, eventually, I leaned in, closing the space between us. I didn’t think about anything but this simple formula:

  Hot chick + Guy trying to forget someone else + No future plans = The perfect hookup

  It was just science. Science and sex …

  Her dress fell to the floor beside my shirt and then she crawled on top of me, kissing my neck, my hands feeling their way around her with much less hesitation.

  “I actually thought you would be easier than this,” she said, speaking with her mouth against my neck. “I know what you have, and more importantly what you haven’t, been doing these past three months … Seriously, how long has it been—”

  I didn’t even hear the rest of her sentence. With those few words, she had just unlocked a compartment of my mind I had worked so hard to keep hidden from everyone, including myself. Unleashing those memories was far more dangerous than the memory gas … and I could feel it coming like a tidal wave—unstoppable and relentless.

  * * *

  “Just so you know … I haven’t done this in a while.” I dropped Holly onto the bed and lay down beside her.

  “What crazy world are you living in … it’s only been—”

  I touched my fingers to her lips. “Let’s pretend it’s been a while … like weeks.”

  “Like you were lost at sea?”

  “Exactly.”

  She stared down at me as she removed her swimsuit top. She was giving me a nice show of skin, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her face, her smile. That perfect combination of sweet and bold. I reached out and touched her, traced my fingers over her soft curves, raising goose bumps on her skin.

  “Why are you looking so serious?” she asked.

  “Just enjoying looking at you.” I wanted to say so much, tell her what I was feeling, but I couldn’t form the right words. What else was there to say besides, I love you?

  I slid my hands onto her hips and rolled her to the right, until I was now the one looking down at her. If I couldn’t say it, I could at least show it. I kicked off my shorts and leaned down to kiss Holly, letting my weight drop onto her. Her arms were tight around me, fin
gers pressed into my skin. Time seemed to slow and it was just Holly and me with nothing between us. Exactly how it should be. Always.

  * * *

  A while later, we were stretched out sideways on the bed, both of us still a little breathless and too hot and tired to turn around and get under the covers. She rolled on her side to face me, a few inches now separating our bodies.

  I stared at her for a long moment, unable to move. Her unyielding trust, the openness in her expression, it was almost too much. Surely no one was allowed to feel this happy and complete. It had to be a crime. Finally, she reached over and touched my hair, breaking the trance I’d been in. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I was just thinking how perfect this is. Let’s just stay here forever … move into the hotel … forget school and everything else. We shouldn’t ever get dressed, either.”

  Holly laughed, then placed her hand on the back of my neck, tugging me closer to her. “Ask me that right now and I’d probably say yes.”

  I propped myself up on one elbow, suddenly finding the words I had been searching for earlier. My fingers slowly trailed up and down her back. “I have a great secret for you.”

  “And I didn’t even ask for one … This is new.”

  “A lot of things are new.” I moved my hand to her hair and twirled a long strand around my finger. “You know the first time we did this … when we were in the shower, after…?”

  “I remember.”

  I tried to look right in her eyes, so she’d know it was the truth. “I almost said it then … I love you … but I wasn’t sure because I’ve never said that to anyone. I’ve never felt like this with anyone else.” The words nearly caught in my throat as they tumbled out. “That sounds really cheesy and cliché, doesn’t it?”

  She shook her head but didn’t say anything. For some reason, her lack of words made me nervous and unsure.

  “What about you?” I asked.

  She kissed me quickly, then pulled away, just enough so I could see her face. “I couldn’t have slept with you if I didn’t love you. Not that I expected it to be the same for you … I didn’t … I don’t. It isn’t like some rule of mine or anything. It’s just that I know I won’t go through with it … unless I love someone. But that’s just me.”

  My arms circled around her, pulling her closer, not caring about the sticky sweat sliding between us. “It’s me, too … I mean, it is now. There’s no going back.”

  She laughed. “Are you always going to be this sappy?”

  I wanted to think of a clever comeback … to redeem my manhood, but all I could think about was the fact that she knew … before our first time, she knew she loved me, and that’s why it was so great.

  * * *

  I was jolted back to reality as quickly as I had left it. My sudden, acute awareness of the nearly naked girl on top of me caused a slight overreaction on my part. I shoved Stewart to the side, sliding farther away from her.

  “What—?”

  The confusion on her face was so rare for Stewart that it threw me off even more. “Um … I … just give me a minute.”

  I spun around and spotted the bathroom, then dove inside, locking the door behind me. I leaned over the sink, splashing cold water on my face, a poor attempt to wash the memory from my thoughts. My heart pounded and my mind was tackled in this bizarre combination of lust, warmth, and the horrible, painful ache of losing Holly all over again. I lifted my eyes, staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, and I knew this no-strings-attached thing with Stewart wasn’t going to happen.

  I had said those words to Holly that night … There’s no going back. And unlike then, now it felt like a curse. I’d been damaged beyond repair and was no longer capable of one-night stands or even looking at someone as beautiful as Stewart and feeling a significant amount of attraction.

  God, this sucked.

  When I finally talked myself into leaving the bathroom and facing Stewart, she was sound asleep, curled up on her side in the middle of the bed. I pulled the comforter up to her shoulders, covering all the exposed skin. A bottle of pills on the nightstand caught my eye and I quietly picked them up to read the label.

  And just like that, I had a way to get through the night without doing something stupid. Sleeping pills. Without making a sound, I took two from the bottle and swallowed them dry, then I went into the living room and collapsed on Stewart’s couch. Within twenty minutes I was out cold, in a heavy dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  JUNE 12, 2009, 8:20 A.M.

  After orienting myself in the morning, remembering that I had crashed on Stewart’s couch, I lay there staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what I felt in this moment. I thought it would be guilt I’d wake up to in the morning. Guilt for cheating on Holly. But the logical part of my brain dominated and I knew there was no reason to feel guilty. Not because we hadn’t had sex … We had done other stuff that would be classified as cheating under normal circumstances. What I felt was worse than guilt. Complete emptiness.

  Maybe this was how the EOTs felt? Or maybe the logical part of their brain dominated even more and they didn’t have to worry about irrational things like love or revenge. Wasn’t that what Dr. Melvin had told me?

  I heard the shower turn off down the hall, in Stewart’s bedroom, and I got up to retrieve my shirt from her floor. The bathroom door was slightly open. I could see in through the crack. Stewart stood facing the door, just a towel covering her. I nearly turned around and left her alone to get dressed, but she wasn’t moving, just staring into space. And I could tell something wasn’t right.

  I kept watching her as I moved closer, and eventually opened the door all the way and walked in. “Stewart?” I said, snapping my fingers in front of her face.

  She shook her head and finally focused on my eyes. “Huh?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Um … yeah, it’s nothing, I just … remembered something,” she mumbled, still half in a trance.

  I only knew she was out of it because the tone of her voice was completely calm, free of the usual attitude. “What did you remember?”

  She stepped around me and walked back into the bedroom and she flung open a drawer.

  “I think you found out a long time ago … about your dad … the CIA,” she said.

  My heart threatened to beat out of my chest, but I forced it to slow down. “It was a few months ago. You know that.”

  She shook her head right away. I turned my back to her while she got dressed, which provided me an opportunity to compose myself before she caught on to my near-panicked reaction. “I can’t put my finger on it … not yet. I just have this feeling that you knew and I knew that you knew … but then it’s blank after that.”

  I prepared myself for the human lie detector test she would probably give me. And what the hell was she talking about anyway? Maybe Kendrick was right to question her mental stability, especially now that I had heard what she’d done before the CIA.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, trying to stall until I could calm myself down.

  Her head emerged from the shirt she had just pulled on. “Don’t you get it? We were drugged … memory-modification drugs!”

  Okay, maybe she isn’t accusing me of lying.

  But was she having some kind of episode of paranoia or something? Well … I knew one thing for sure. There was no way in hell I’d be the one to tell her she might be crazy. Like, actually crazy. Leave it to Chief Marshall to recruit a complete nutcase right out of prison.

  And leave it to me to almost share a bed with the nutcase.

  “I never thought your dad would do something like that, to either of us,” she said.

  I totally wanted out of there, fast, but I couldn’t just leave her in this moment of distress. “Maybe you can ask him about it … when he gets back?”

  She looked at me and took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably the best plan. I have to go … meet Mason somewhere.”

  I
sighed with relief. “Me, too. I mean, I have somewhere to go.”

  She slipped on a pair of shoes and headed down the hallway, but just before reaching the front door she glanced over her shoulder at me. “And quit acting so fucking weird, Junior. I told you this was no big deal. In fact, I’ve already forgotten every detail about last night.”

  I let out a breath. “Okay, so we’re cool?”

  Before Holly, I had asked that question of a few girls and they always said they were okay, and then I’d get bitched out by their friends for hooking up and then never calling. But this was Stewart … She didn’t have any friends.

  “We’re no different from yesterday, if that’s what you mean.”

  I snatched my shirt from the floor and tossed it over my head. “That’s good … I guess.”

  During the elevator ride, I racked my brain for a plan. If Marshall and Dad were unreachable, who could I tell about Stewart’s lack of mental stability or whatever just happened? I could tell Kendrick, of course, but she had no authority to do anything. The thing with Senator Healy was too weird for me to feel comfortable giving him any inside information. Freeman would just say he had to wait and see what Dad or Marshall thought.

  The only person left was Dr. Melvin.

  * * *

  I paused in front of the door to Dr. Melvin’s office. The last time I’d been here, Adam and I had stolen information from his computer. Adam … he’d know what to do. If Dr. Melvin couldn’t help me, I might have to break my rule and pay him a little visit.

  No! Ever since I ran into Holly yesterday, the hard agent shell I’d worked so hard to build around me had slowly been chipping away. Pretty soon I’ll be following her around and trying to ask her out.

  I knocked lightly and heard the chair roll across the floor. Dr. Melvin opened the door while still seated in his chair, laughing. “Jackson, how are you?”

  “I’m okay.” I closed the door behind me.

  Dr. Melvin turned off his computer monitor and pointed to the exam table.