Codename: Nightshade (Deadly Seven Strike Force)

by Anderson, S

  I search the immediate woods near the car. I don’t know why. I just have a feeling he’s not gone. It’s that time of day when everything is hushed. I can hear animals scurrying in the trees and around the ground, but most other noises are silenced. A light, misty fog clings to everything, dampening my hair.

  If he walked into the woods, he didn’t leave a discernible trail for me to follow.

  Damn.

  The further I walk, the more I sense I’m not alone. I can’t hear him. I can’t see him. But I feel him close by.

  I hold tight to the gun as I survey every inch around me.

  A twig snaps behind me, and I react.

  I spin, holding the gun up, ready to fire. Before I can register who’s there, he hits my wrists, twisting the gun from my grasp and aiming it at me. Disarmed in two-point-five seconds.

  Shit.

  I hold my hands up in surrender as Nikolai points my own gun at my face. His eyes are narrowed, his muscles taut. His reaction was every bit as instinctual as mine had been. It’s an automatic pilot neither of us can entirely switch off.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “It’s me. Penelope.”

  That doesn’t seem to mean anything to him right now. He releases the safety.

  “It’s me, Nick,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “It’s Poppy.”

  Poppy. That does it. He blinks, and the hardness is gone from his face. He snaps out of it like he just woke up from a long nap.

  Poppy is a trigger for him.

  His eyes widen as he sees me with my hands in the air. He locks the safety on the gun and turns it over in his hand, giving it back to me. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize,” I say, tucking the gun back in my pocket. “It’s not something you can control. I know.”

  He looks agitated, on edge as he tries to agree with me. His eyes nervously roam the forest.

  “Why were out of the car?” It sounds like more of an accusation than I mean it to be. I didn’t command him to stay in the car, didn’t handcuff him to the dashboard. He was free to do whatever he wanted. Still, I didn’t like waking up to him gone.

  “I had to…” He waves to the trees.

  “You had to go hiking at six in the morning?” I guess.

  He shifts his weight, rubbing the side of his neck as he shakes his head. “No, I had to… relieve myself.”

  He cringes as he says it, like he’s embarrassed to talk about stuff like that with me.

  If only he knew everything I’ve ever done with that part of his body…

  “Right, peeing,” I say, and my bladder decides it would like to join this part of the conversation. I could go myself, but I’d rather get back on the road and find some civilization before I do. Toilets really are a girl’s best friend.

  He watches me intently with his hands hanging at his sides. I can’t get over how weird that is. Nikolai was always the one in control, always the leader. I can’t reconcile that with the meek creature waiting for my next command.

  I motion in the direction of the campground. “Let’s get back on the road.”

  He follows me without question. I keep the gun in my pocket but take the coat off, tossing it in the backseat before I climb behind the wheel. He doesn’t ask me where we’re going or what we’re doing. He stares at the window like the world around him doesn’t matter.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask.

  His response is, “Should I eat?”

  I try not to feel like he’s punched me in the heart with those words. He’s been programmed to be a drone. He doesn’t have any free will. I know this. I’ve realized it from the minute I got him talking in the motel.

  That doesn’t make it easy for me to accept.

  I find a place to stay, ushering him into yet another motel room. He doesn’t have comments about the scenery, doesn’t give a shit that our lives are reduced to driving and crashing at places you can rent by the hour. He has no real concept of a life.

  “Why don’t you take a shower while I fix us some sandwiches,” I tell him.

  I toss him a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo. He stares at them as if they're bombs he can’t deactivate.

  “This one you scrub your body down with,” I say, pointing to the bar. “And this you put just a small amount in your hair and rinse it out.”

  He doesn’t look overly confident when he heads to the bathroom, but as long as he gets naked and stands under the water for a few minutes, that’ll be better than him not taking a shower.

  I lay out the ingredients for ham sandwiches. I’ll never be on the cover of Martha Stewart Living but I can slap some ham and cheese between two slices of bread. I make one and eat it as I make a few others.

  I consider waiting for him before I eat another, but my stomach isn’t down with that plan. I shove the second sandwich in my mouth, chewing just enough to choke it down. I realize I haven’t heard the water turn on yet even though he’s been in the bathroom for a while.

  “Nick?” I say, knocking on the door. “You okay in there?”

  That’s when I hear a groan. Thankfully, he hasn’t locked himself in. I push the door open, shocked to find him sitting on the edge of the tub, stark naked and shaking.

  “Hey,” I say, kneeling in front of him. “What’s wrong?”

  He wrings his hands so hard I’m afraid he's going to dislocate the joints. His cheek is jumping hard. I can see restraint in every muscle in his body. He’s fighting something inside of him.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask again. “What do you need to do?”

  He stares at the ground as his body jerks uncontrollably.

  “Look at me soldier,” I say with force. His eyes blink and turn toward mine. “What do you need to do?”

  “Report to my handler for reeducation,” he says between spasms.

  Damn. His programming is resurfacing. The longer he doesn’t do what he’s supposed to, the less control he has over himself.

  I really want to find the bastards who did this to him and skin them alive.

  “Dismiss that order, soldier,” I say. “You have a new mission.”

  It’s a stretch, but I figure it can’t hurt to try.

  His body twitches again, but he’s not fighting what I’m telling him.

  Trust me, baby.

  “I am your new handler.”

  It’s not a magic wand, but his body stops shaking as much.

  “Do you understand me, soldier? You will follow my commands now.”

  That slows him down more until the tension in his body eases. “Yes,” he says with a slow breath. I know his programming goes deeper than I can with just commands right now, but I hope I’m giving him the ability to assert his own control.

  “Good,” I say. “Now take a shower.”

  I don’t hang around to see if he breaks down again. I need a minute. I lean against the wall, staring at the closed bathroom door. I don’t know how he did it. I don’t know how he had the strength to break us down and rebuild us as recruits. I know he cared about us. Even pain in the ass Ace meant something to Nikolai, but he never let that show during training.

  I’m not strong enough for it. Not yet.

  I tell myself he needs me. He won’t respond to anything but me.

  I have to find the strength.

  He takes ten minutes in the shower. He emerges with a towel wrapped around his waist, wet hair dripping down his forehead.

  “Get dressed while I shower, soldier,” I tell him.

  I strip at lightning speed and wash quickly. I consider forgoing washing my hair, but I feel disgusting. I’m mid-shampooing when I hear the bathroom door open. I don’t need to look to know he’s watching me. I don’t know if it should feel creepy.

  He’s seen it all before.

  “Do you need something?” I ask, turning to him as I rinse my hair. I feel his eyes trail the water as it runs down my body. It’s not sexual. He’s watching me like he’s trying to find some piece of me that’s wrong.

  Some pa
rt of me that proves I’m not me.

  I turn the water off, stepping out without trying to hide any part of my body. “They’re real,” I say, reaching next to him for a towel. “Wanna touch them?”

  I thrust my boobs towards him, trying not to laugh when his hand twitches.

  “You’re good,” he says, crossing his arms in front of him. He’s dressed, but his shirt clings to his chest, and his hair is still dripping into his eyes.

  “You have no idea,” I say, drying my body.

  “You sound like her. You fight like her. And you look so much like her. It's almost believable.”

  He takes a step into the room, pinching a lock of my hair between his fingers. “She had hair just like this.”

  My hair falls just below my shoulder blades. Reasonably, I should cut it. Either keep it short or always keep it tucked in a neat bun. It’s a weakness that can be used against me in a fight. But Nikolai always loved my hair this length. He loved to wrap it around his fist and tug.

  He releases my hair and leaves the room.

  His moments of lucidity, if that’s what I should call what just happened, are hard to anticipate. He was fine in the woods but flipped getting into the shower. He seems to have swung back to fine for the moment, but I can’t let my guard down and expect it to last.

  I redress in the same clothes, searching through the grocery bags for the brush I bought. Nikolai sits on one of the beds, munching on a sandwich.

  Didn’t have to tell him to eat this time.

  I run the brush through my hair, working out the knots as best as I can. He’s watching me again, committing every move to memory. I walk to the bed and run the brush through his hair. It’s a few inches longer than I remember from that night in Norway. He always kept his hair short, just long enough for me to run my fingers through.

  His eyes close as I comb his hair back. “That feels nice.”

  I’m giddy to the point of having to slap my internal schoolgirl and tell her to get a grip. “I am her, you know,” I say, dropping the brush onto the bed and running my fingers through his hair. “I am Penelope.”

  He looks up at me, and I know he doesn’t believe me. “I’ll believe the lie… just don’t hurt her.”

  From giddy to broken-hearted in a matter of seconds. The moment’s over as I move back to the table and clean up the mess.

  “What do we do now?”

  He asked me that after the EMP episode. I wonder if it’s a sign that he’s more in control or if it’s his obedient side taking over.

  “We get some rest and then keep moving.”

  “Keep moving,” he repeats. “You even think like her.”

  “That’s because I am her,” I say, tossing the unused food in a bag. I don’t want to be pissed at him, but I’m frustrated. I’ve reached the end of my rope with being called a liar about who I am.

  “You can’t be,” he argues.

  “Why not?”

  “You’re old.”

  You’re old. I’m twenty-nine. In six months, I’ll be thirty. With the exception of a few wisecracks from Marko over the years, I’ve never had anyone call me old. I’m not in line for Social Security, and last I checked, he was born five years before me.

  “You’re older,” I say, proud that I refrain from sticking out my tongue.

  He laughs. Laughs. It’s not the same as the cocky bastard who recruited me when I was seventeen, but it’s damn close. “Hardly, what are you? Twenty-eight?”

  I don’t know if I should be offended that he thinks a year younger than my actual age is old. “Something like that,” I say, making sure not a speck of our presence will be left behind.

  “Then you’re three years older than me.”

  I dropped the bag I’m holding, turning to look at him. “What did you say?”

  “I said I’m twenty-five.”

  He’s wringing his hands again, not as aggressively as before, but I can tell it’s a nervous tick.

  “You think you’re twenty-five years old?”

  He gives me a look then that I remember from my past. It’s the look that Nikolai used to use when I said something so stupid he didn’t feel the need to comment.

  I can’t fathom what he’s saying. “It’s been ten years…”

  His cheek twitches. “What’s been ten years?”

  It occurs to me that he doesn’t know. What little bit of Nikolai that might still be in there hasn’t moved along with the world outside his cell. He has no idea how long he’s been gone.

  “What year do you think it is?” I ask.

  His hands work together harder. “2004.”

  I shake my head slowly, and he mirrors the movement.

  “What year is it?”

  “2014.”

  His body rocks forward and back, over and over. I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it. He looks like he wants to laugh at me again, but his eyes are devastated. “No,” he says. “No. No. You’re wrong.”

  I wish I were. I wish he’d only been gone a few months. I wish I had thought to look for him. I wish had rescued him.

  But we lost ten years.

  “No,” he says again. “No. Don’t do that. Don’t make me think I lost that much of her.”

  Don’t make me think I lost that much of her.

  My heart squeezes so hard I’m afraid I’m having an attack.

  The rocking grows more frantic, the wringing as painful looking as it had been in the bathroom. He looks on the verge of hysterics. “No. Please, take that back. Don’t lie to me like that.”

  His breath hitches in the middle of his plea, and I feel like I’ve been stabbed in throat.

  I’m on the verge of tears again. I don’t know what to say. “They told me you were dead.”

  His face pales. “No… No… God… Don’t take that away from me.”

  I know I’m only making matters worse, but I can’t help it. I feel like I’ve abandoned him, and I want him to know I would have saved him if I had known. “Kulzkoff told us you were killed. Your star was hung in the Pentagon—”

  “Stop,” he shouts, jumping to his feet. He looks ready to beat me into silence, but he just stands there with his fists at his side, glaring at me. “Don’t do this.”

  I don’t know what’s crueler: to tell him the truth until he believes it or to take it back and let him believe nineteen-year-old me is still out there, waiting for him. Either choice guts me, and I hold my hands up in surrender as I climb on to the bed next to him. I grab the remote control, turning the TV on.

  Ten seconds pass.

  Twenty.

  Thirty.

  I don’t push him, and he doesn’t fight with me. I flip through the channels, finding an old black and white movie.

  “Do you know which one this is?” I ask, pointing to the screen with the remote.

  Another ten seconds.

  Twenty.

  Thirty.

  The bed dips next to me, and he scoots his back against the headboard, pulling his knees against his chest. “Streetcar Named Desire.”

  I sit with my legs spread out in front of me. My hands rest in my lap. “That’s the chick from the movie with the guy who doesn’t give a damn, right?”

  I’m only partially playing dumb. I’m not big on the oldies. Nikolai loves the oldies. I used to tolerate them because they had a lot of potential for making out.

  “Yes,” he says, a reserved humor in his voice. “That’s Scarlet O’Hara.”

  “Is that her real name?” I ask, turning to him.

  His hands grip his knees tightly, his chin resting on top of them. He keeps his focus on the screen. “No.”

  No. He doesn’t bother with the full explanation. Nikolai wouldn’t have bothered before, either. He knows I won’t commit it to memory.

  “What’s this one about?” I ask, tossing the remote onto the nightstand and snuggling into the pillows behind me.

  “Scarlet,” he says, his lips twitching when I glance at him. “She’s visiting her
sister.”

  “The one talking to her right now?”

  “Yes.”

  He’s patient with me. I expect my interruptions to bug him, but I think the only thing that bugs him is that I’m so much like me when I do it.

  “The hot dude in the sweaty shirt,” I say. "I know him."

  “As in you’ve met him in real life?” he asks. “I said you were old, but I didn’t know you were ancient.”

  I side-eye him and notice he’s smiling. He’s teasing me.

  I ignore the way my skin tingles.

  “No, like I’ve seen him in something else.”

  “He’s a famous actor,” he says. “He’s been in a lot of movies.”

  I stare at the man’s face, noting the way his mouth moves when he talks, the mannerisms of his hands. I realize this is a much younger version of him than the one in my mind. By the next time he’s on the screen, I have it narrowed down.

  “The Godfather,” I say. “He was the Godfather dude.”

  “Gold star for you.”

  Gold star for you. That’s not something Nikolai used to say. It’s something I say.

  He’s quoting me now?

  “So why he is so sweaty?” I ask, leaning my head back against the pillow and looking up to Nikolai.

  His hands relax as he rests his head back. “It’s hot there. Don’t you sweat when you’re hot?”

  I scrunch my nose. “Girls don’t sweat.”

  That gets me a laugh. “Girls might not, but women do.”

  Women do. Something about that distinction riles me up. I wonder if Nikolai considered me a girl or a woman back when we were together. I was a virgin, clueless and inept.

  I wonder what it would be like for us to be together now.

  He relaxes more, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “It’s a visual cue,” he explains. I knew the movie nerd couldn’t stay bottled up forever. I roll onto my side, not paying the movie any attention anymore. He’s far more fascinating to watch than it, anyway. “These people are all frustrated and tortured. They want more than they can have, and they all carry secrets that are leaking out against their will. Like sweat.”