Code Name Echo

by Autumn Clarke

  Before this, I used to be so confident that I was helping to save the nation, that the worst possible thing that could happen to me was being placed in solitary confinement. But now?

  The future is now, and I no longer know what it holds.

  At our destination, August and I check into a luxurious hotel under fake names. When they give us a honeymoon suite with a king-sized bed, I don’t say anything and he doesn’t either. I don’t know if it’s because of our cover story or something else. August has barely been talking to me at all, even though we’re supposed to be posing as a newlywed couple, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. Well, whatever. It’s not like I risked my life and killed a bunch of people to save him or anything.

  I follow August upstairs to find lacy curtains and thick carpet and vivid oil paintings in our honeymoon suite. At the very center is the king-sized bed, complete with a shimmering canopy and a gilded frame. Off to the side, there’s a sitting area with a red velvet couch and stately armchairs. A glass table holds a clear pitcher of water with lemon slices in it, as well as two sparkling crystal goblets. A wide balcony juts out directly above a massive lake, which is dotted with kayaks and wakeboards and swimmers.

  August glances at me. “You can have the bed.”

  It’s not exactly what I wanted him to say. Everything I’ve been feeling finally hits me hard, crashing over me with swelling intensity. I find myself turning away, blinking rapidly, willing myself not to reveal any sign of emotion whatsoever. What did I think, that just because I killed Jamie and left Reese behind, that August would want to be with me? I can barely keep myself together as it is, and I’ve been through too much to deal with this as well.

  “Okay.” I have to force the words out of my throat. “I’m just going to take a shower first.”

  I make my way into the extravagant bathroom, which is larger than the dorm I used to share with Juliet. There’s an expansive mirror and a marble counter and vases of flowers lined along decorative shelves. A large bathtub filled with rose petals stands on its own in the middle of the room, and the glass shower stall is oversized and lined with granite tile. A wicker basket containing scented soaps and bath salts rests on the porcelain floor.

  I peel off the security guard’s jacket and let it fall to the ground, then kick off my heels and step into the shower stall, not bothering to undress myself. When I turn on the water, it’s freezing cold at first, even colder than the ocean was when we were swimming to the boat, when the night was so dark that all I could think was, Don’t lose sight of August.

  But now here I am, completely alone, and I’ve lost sight of everything.

  As the water rains down onto me, I close my eyes and try not to think about anything else, letting myself gradually turn numb, as if I’m drowning in the ocean itself. But everything that happened at Ophidian last night, every moment I shoved aside when I was focused only on saving August, along with all the targets and missions I’ve buried in my mind over the years...

  They’re all coming back to me now, and I can’t bear it anymore.

  How many targets have I killed for no reason at all? How many children have lost their lives because I was indirectly serving Ophidian by working for the Executive? If I hadn’t been turned into an aberrant, I could have had lips that weren’t poisoned. I could have been a normal person, one who didn’t have to kill as a way of life.

  I could have been loved.

  I don’t know how long I stand there, motionless, in a futile attempt to wash away the memories from inside me. It’s long enough for the water to become ice cold again, for the last of the pink dye in my blond hair to rinse out completely. But I could use up all the water in the world and I’d still feel the same way.

  Nothing about my life is what I’ve wanted.

  Finally, August enters the bathroom to check on me. He’s been able to see me with his X-ray vision, of course, so he must have known I was standing in the shower and not just drowning myself in the bathtub or anything like that. But because we’ve always been partners, he also knows how much this has affected me. For me to learn the truth about the shipments, to watch all those people die in front of me, the life draining from them as I stepped over their bodies...

  It would have been absolutely devastating.

  Everything feels bleak enough that I don’t even care if August is seeing me like this. I don’t turn to look at him, and he doesn’t speak a word to me. But after a moment, he walks across the bathroom and steps into the shower stall, looking down at me. His dark eyes are cautious but questioning, and I know he’s remembering the page in Code Name Alpha where January was crying in the shower after a mission. September joined her, comforting her with a hug.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  She shook her head and turned away. “Nothing.” But she was remembering the way her target had looked when he died.

  “Are you sure?” September said. “What do you want?”

  And instead of answering, she reached up and drew him into a kiss, their lips meeting for what could be the last time.

  Looking up at August now, I can see the question in his eyes. What do I want? It’s never been clearer to me that I want him. From the moment he entered the bathroom, I’ve felt his presence steadying me, making me feel more like myself again, even as my heart has started to beat faster inside my chest. The mere sight of him is enough to make the memories retreat into the back of my mind. The feeling of his body so close to mine, the corners of his eyes crinkled in an expression so familiar, the shower raining down on both of us...

  But if I kiss him, it will be for the last time. Because my lips are poisoned, and he will die.

  Finally, I say, “You saved me.”

  August knows I’m talking about when he sniped Mellie Hart and all those hired assassins. “And you saved me,” he says, referring to what happened on the island. It must have been a shock to him, when I started killing like that without even hesitating. But it made sense regardless, because he knew how I’d react to finding out about the shipments. I ended up doing for him what he does for me, every day, on every mission. We would kill for each other and only for each other, and we would accept all the consequences of it. He’s in the shower not because he’s my partner or because he’s my savior, but because of this one simple fact.

  He is someone like me.

  I want to reach up and kiss him so badly. August is so close to me, our bodies aligning without even touching, and I’m ridiculously aware of every movement he makes. The blink of his eyelashes whenever a drop of water lands on his face. The tensing of his muscles as he angles his body slightly toward mine. The dilation of his pupils, the obvious attraction he feels toward me that I never let myself notice or acknowledge until now. Before this moment, I didn’t want to encourage anything that would have led to one of us getting hurt. But now?

  It’s inevitable.

  “I had to save you,” I say, my lower lip trembling. Shit. If he doesn’t reciprocate my feelings, I’m totally going to cry.

  “Not anyone else?” he says.

  That’s when I suddenly realize what’s been happening. August has seen me making out with Reese at least once, and he must have suspected how I felt about Jamie, at least at first. He hasn’t been sure if I wanted him to get closer or if I was waiting for someone else. His distance wasn’t a sign that he didn’t care.

  It was a sign that he wasn’t sure if I did.

  “No,” I say roughly. “I did it for you.”

  “Why?” he asks.

  “For the same reason you had to save me,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. Please say it, I think desperately. Say how you feel about me.

  August gazes down at me for a moment, his eyes searching mine. At last, finding the answer he wants, he nods. But instead of saying anything, he lifts a hand to my tangled hair and brushes it aside, smoothing back the wet strands, his fingers eventually settling on the nape of my neck. All those missions we’ve been on together, all those times I t
hought we couldn’t touch without him flinching, but we can.

  We can after all.

  “I will share your burden,” he says. “I will bear it for you when it becomes too much. I accept all the consequences of it.”

  And then, incredibly, August leans down, his lips almost touching mine, his eyes engulfing me with heat. I seriously can’t stand it, how close we are right now, how intensely he’s looking at me, how I want so achingly to kiss him. I want to be touching every inch of his skin, and I want him to be touching every inch of mine. But I don’t know how we could ever make it happen.

  I can’t kiss him. And he can’t kiss me.

  But as my eyes flutter shut, I feel him kiss my forehead gently. Even the mere brush of his lips is enough to send a streak of desire throughout my entire body. And then he kisses my eyelids, each one slowly, as if painting my skin. He kisses the tip of my nose and the lobe of my ear, almost playfully, but then his fingers catch in my hair and he tilts my head back with resolve. His mouth lowers to my throat and he kisses me there, hard, his lips firm against my skin. His tongue caresses me as his palm cradles the base of my skull, his body meeting mine like no other has before. I understand, finally, that this is my partner sharing my burden. August is easing my pain, giving me the comfort and reassurance I’ve always wanted, once and for all.

  A fire begins to light within me, burning deep to my core, overwhelming me with pure desire. I need more of this, more of him. I need him to fulfill this ache within me.

  “August...” I gasp.

  He doesn’t move at first, but then he steps forward with determination, guiding me across the shower stall until my back is against solid granite. I inhale the scent of him, and it floods me with even more emotions I can’t immediately identify. His mouth drifts down to my collarbone and back up again, long languid kisses filled with meaning, giving me elsewhere what he wants but cannot give to my lips.

  I almost can’t believe this is happening. It feels so reckless for us to even be touching like this, but I want it to happen. I want to feel him. I want to feel what he feels like.

  Lifting my own hands, I slide my fingers underneath his shirt and trace his abdomen, his muscled chest, the small of his back, every movement building the pressure inside of me that needs to be released. And all the while he keeps kissing every inch of my bare skin without flinching, in no way anyone ever has before, making me understand exactly how he feels about me without him even having to say a word of it.

  Eventually, when I almost can’t bear it anymore, August pulls back from me with another question in his eyes. An arrow with a circle drawn around it. Do you want me to keep going?

  I nod frantically, and then he reaches down and tears the strapless dress off me in one smooth motion. He sucks in a deep breath at the sight of me in the corset, at the bullet still lodged in it, at the bruises all over my body, and then he’s fumbling at the laces until all I have on are my panties. He’s on me again in an instant, kissing slowly and tortuously all around my breasts, making me arch my back toward him. I’m already trying to pull his shirt over his head, and he pauses to let me do so with quiet amusement, waiting as I unbuckle and remove his pants as well.

  Finally, August lifts me in his arms and carries me out to the bed. As he sets me down, the soft sheets gliding underneath my bare skin, I’m suddenly aware of a void deep within me that I never realized was there until recently. And then my panties are gone, and he’s touching me everywhere, and he’s hard against me, and my fingers are wrapped in his tousled hair. I ache for every piece of him. I hunger to feel more of him. And the sight of his body, bared before me, is everything.

  “August,” I whisper, almost begging. “Please...”

  He pauses then, his mouth leaving my breast as his dark eyes pinpoint mine. I can see it in his gaze. He’s teasing me, taking his time, knowing this is driving me wild. He’s making every second count. He’s making this moment, with me, last forever.

  And then he says, “What is it, Eliza?”

  I swallow hard at the sound of my real name in his voice. I can’t even speak for a moment. Finally, I manage to say, “I love you.”

  He lowers his gaze to my poisoned lips, then back up again. What I wouldn’t trade for the ability to kiss him right now. “Are you sure?” he asks, his fingers trailing down my stomach, all the way to that sweet spot between my legs.

  Oh, he knows what he’s doing.

  “Yes,” I say, helpless beneath his touch. “Absolutely, yes...”

  August shifts against me then, hovering at my entrance, his eyes reassuring me that I’ll only have to wait a few seconds longer. I gaze up at him, at this man who’s been there for me every day since we were children, this partner of mine who’s covered me and killed for me and never let me know even once what he’s gone through to keep me safe. He is absolutely the one person in the world who sees me for who I am, who cares about me neither because of my aberration nor despite it.

  When August looks at me, all he sees is me.

  “I’ve loved you since the moment I met you,” he says, then. “I will always love you, Eliza.”

  And then he’s inside me, moving against me, filling me so completely that I gasp his name, his real name, again and again. And as he finds my ear and says my name, my real name, back to me, he somehow manages to give me what I want and what I need, all at the same time.

  Reese felt like electricity and Jamie felt like adrenaline, but this?

  This feels like home.

  thirty

  In the morning, I wake to find myself in an empty bed. I’m not wearing anything, and I have no idea where August is at first. Did everything I remember from last night seriously happen? It makes me flush even just thinking about it. Never in a million years would I have expected Alpha to actually want to be with me. I’ve always thought of him as off-limits, incapable of physical touch. Even after what happened in the safe house, I wasn’t sure.

  And now he’s gone.

  But when I sit up, I can see that August is just sitting at the glass table, the cigar case open next to him. He’s scrolling through the manifest on a burner phone. The expression on his face is calm and steady as usual, and he’s simply focused on the files before him. There’s a backpack on the couch, as well as weapons and a change of clothes for both of us. I don’t want to interrupt him while he’s working.

  But I have to know if everything between us is real.

  “August—”

  He turns to look at me, finally realizing that I’m awake. Without hesitating, he comes over to the bed and lowers himself onto the mattress beside me, the sheets rustling around us. August is warm and shirtless, and my heart is pounding so loudly that he has to hear it.

  “Eliza,” he says, the word filled with meaning, as if also checking to see whether I’m solid and real and not just a dream.

  “Say it again,” I breathe, trailing my fingers down his arm.

  “Eliza.”

  I can feel him becoming hard again. The look in his eyes is so yearning and intense that I can’t believe I doubted for even a second whether everything that happened last night was real. It was real, and this is real, and none of it is a dream or a fantasy. When he moves against me, I know this is real. When he kisses my face, my shoulder, my ribcage covered with bruises, I know this is real.

  And when he’s inside me again, making my pupils dilate and my body shiver with pleasure, I know this is real.

  Afterward, as I lie against August’s chest and he holds me close, I ask, “What are we going to do now?”

  “Whatever we want,” he says. “The Executive will retire us if we go back.”

  “I know,” I say. “But all those children...”

  He kisses my head, his lips brushing against my hair. “Now that we have the manifest, Mongoose can start finding these kids before they’re sent to Ophidian or any of the Executives. We’ll save all of them together. And we’ll stay like this, as partners in every sense of the word, for as lo
ng as we want.”

  But I’m thinking of the characters in the comic book. January can control the poison on her lips, enough that she can safely kiss September, but I’ll never be able to do that. I can stay with August without ever kissing him, but can he do the same?

  “But are you sure?” I ask him.

  He glances down at me. “About what?”

  “Being my partner.” I have to make myself say it. “I might accidentally kill you—”

  “I accept the risk, Eliza,” he says. “I’ve always accepted it.”

  “But I can never kiss you, and you can never kiss me.”

  August is silent for a long moment. Finally, he says, “I started seeing certain things with my X-ray vision a long time ago. Things that made me question the Executive, that allowed me to eventually discover what was going on with Ophidian. I decided to run away, and I almost went through with it. But I stayed because it was going to be your birthday, and then I stayed because you were sad, and then I stayed because you wanted to read another comic book, and that was when I realized I couldn’t live without you. I started seeing a counselor to deal with what happened to me as a kid. I formed Mongoose to turn the Executive into the idealistic protector you believed it was. Everything I have done is for you, and I will always be your partner.” Then he raises an eyebrow. “And who says I can’t kiss you?”

  August plants a kiss on my nose and I let out a surprised laugh, the lump of emotion in my throat melting away into giddy happiness. Before I even realize what’s happening, he’s kissing the curve of my throat with such gentleness that I can feel every inch of my body responding to him. And then he’s kissing my breasts, and my inner thighs, and my belly, tracing circle after circle down my body until his lips are meeting the center of me, sending a wave of desire shuddering underneath my skin. His tongue is so steady, his fingers coaxing me toward him with such deliberation, that I find myself wrapping my fingers in his hair without ever wanting to let go. He makes me tremble with want. He makes me gasp with delight.

  He makes me absolutely scream.