Also by Meghan Rogers
Crossing the Line
PHILOMEL BOOKS
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
Copyright © 2017 by Meghan Rogers.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
Ebook ISBN: 9780698407619
Edited by Jill Santopolo.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Lori Thorn
Background image © Trevillion
Additional photographs courtesy of Shutterstock.com
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To Andrea, for your friendship, inspiration, and belief.
And for always sitting on my couch and helping me fix my writing problems.
This book needed you badly.
Contents
Also by Meghan Rogers
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
PARENTAL DEVELOPMENTS
I pounded the punching bag hard—harder than I should have for my first real post-gunshot workout. It was lunchtime at the Wilmington, Delaware, headquarters of the International Defense Agency, so I had the training facility to myself. I promised Dr. March I would ease myself into a regular workout, and I had meant it at the time. But now that I was punching, I couldn’t slow myself down. My anxiety had been building the past few weeks and it seemed to be erupting now that I finally had an outlet. Each punch held a memory.
Me, back inside KATO, seconds away from a Gerex injection.
My former handler, Chin Ho, standing over me with a gun, realizing I’d betrayed the agency.
Me and Travis barely hidden in a train car with North Korean military feet from us, on the verge of being recaptured.
I hit the bag with even more force. There was some aching and tightness in my shoulder, but overall I felt strong. Which was good. I needed to feel strong. KATO knew I wasn’t their agent any longer. I had been able to keep them in the back of my mind while I was recovering, but I knew they’d be after me. For the time being, though, I was inside the IDA. I was safe. That was enough to get me through the worst of my injury pain and Gerex cravings that came with it.
The illusion of safety dissipated the day I left the medical wing.
I should have known better than to check KATO’s message boards—in fact, I did know better. Yet, I couldn’t make it twenty-four hours before my curiosity got the better of me. KATO had used these boards to contact me when they’d sent me into the IDA as a double agent. If they had anything more to say to me, I would find it there. My chest constricted when I saw that there was a message waiting. I let the cursor hover over the post, bracing myself, before I finally found it in me to click.
I clenched my fist until my nails dug into my palms.
You have shamed and humiliated this agency. We will find you, and you will be punished for your actions.
The message was written in plain English. Not only were they coming for me, but they didn’t care who knew. There were no descriptions or details about what kind of punishment would be waiting for me. They’d left it all up to my imagination, which was so much worse than anything they could have described.
I hadn’t told anyone at the IDA about this message. It wasn’t unexpected, and it didn’t reveal anything new about KATO’s plan going forward. But it had reminded me just how vulnerable I had become. My dreams had also come back with a vengeance. I could barely sleep without waking up sweating, and trying to shake the feeling that I was tied down in some kind of KATO torture chamber.
I focused on beating the punching bag.
The training room door opened behind me, but I never slowed my punches. It felt too good to move like this. Dr. March had kept me in the medical wing for a week after I got back from KATO before clearing me for a cardio workout routine. Then finally this morning, nearly four weeks after I’d been shot, she said I could throw a punch if I promised to take it easy. I had gone right from her office to the training facility.
“Hey.” Travis’s broad form moved just inside my range of vision. “Do you want to cool it for a second?”
I stepped back from the bag, shaking my arms and forcing myself to rein it in. Travis shifted in front of me. He had his arms crossed and eyebrows arched, and I knew he was ready to tell me I was going too hard. I didn’t give him the chance. “Please don’t,” I said. “I’ve needed this for a while.”
He tilted his head to the side in mild exasperation. “You’re going to re-injure yourself.”
“I’ve had more time to heal here than I ever had at KATO. I know my limits.” I rolled my shoulder. I wanted to hit until I felt ready to face them. “They’re coming for me, and I’m going to be prepared.”
“I realize that,” he said. “But this isn’t the way to go about it.”
I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. I bit my tongue to keep myself from snapping at him. “Travis, I get that your heart is in the right place here, but I need to do this my way. So you can either help or step aside.”
Travis eyed me intently, and I was sure he was going to keep arguing, which was why I was thrown off when he nodded. “Okay.” He took his sweatshirt off and tossed it aside. “But we’re sparring. At least that way, you can swap out a few punches for kicks.”
I shot him a grateful smile. The punching bag was a good workout, but I was aching for something more. It had been a while since Travis and I had fought, but we fell back into step easily on the mats. Keeping pace with him took all of my energy and focus. It was the best release I could have asked for.
Travis started with a hit to my side, which I blocked easily. I fired back with a shot to his shoulder, forcing him to duck. Each of my hits were still harder than they should have been, but it felt too good to stop.
“You’re more woun
d up than I realized,” Travis said once we really got into it.
I gritted my teeth together, feeling exposed. “There’s a lot going on.”
“You know they can’t touch you, right?” He attempted to sweep my feet out from under me, but I jumped over him, jabbing a quick hit to his stomach.
“If KATO wants me, they will find a way to get to me.” He had to know that. I spent my entire time at the IDA trying to keep my traitor status a secret from KATO and now they knew the truth. It was everything I had been afraid of.
I launched a kick at Travis. He dodged it and threw another punch. I caught his fist with my right hand. He reacted quickly, grabbing my wrist and twisting me down onto to the mat. He took care to make sure I landed on my uninjured right side. I put my foot on his stomach, bracing my hands on his biceps to keep him at bay. He leaned into it, hovering over me and refusing to back away until I looked him in the eye. “I won’t let them take you. No one here will.”
I bit my lip to keep my frustration from showing. The fact that he thought this was something he or anyone could protect me from showed that—despite his best intentions—he didn’t completely understand what I was up against. “It’s not that simple.”
He opened his mouth to disagree, but I’d didn’t want to debate this anymore. I rocked up slightly, gaining momentum, then rolled backward, flipping him over me. He landed behind my head. I popped up quickly and pressed my foot to his chest, pinning him in place. “Do me a favor and stay focused next time,” I said, giving him a pointed look. “It’s not much of a workout if your head’s not in the game.”
His expression hardened the way it did when he knew I was being evasive, but a throat was cleared by the door before he could challenge me. It was only then that I realized we weren’t alone. Simmonds was watching us, and so was someone else. He was tall, and he had his hands crammed into his jean pockets. I recognized that jaw. The shape of his mouth. My heart sped up.
It was my father.
His hair was longer and the creases in his forehead were deeper, but it wasn’t until I got a good look at his eyes that I saw the true difference. They used to be bright—full of life and energy. Now there was a darkness to them. He stared at me with disbelief.
“Jocelyn.” There was a smile in Simmonds’s voice as he approached us. “There’s someone here to see you.”
My father followed behind him, his movements rigid.
My stomach twisted with a mess of conflicting emotions. We’d missed ten important years together. Ten years where I had worked for the people he had spent his life fighting against. I was glad to see him—at least, a part of me was—but I didn’t exactly know what to do with him either.
I felt unprepared. It had been nearly a month since Agent Lee burst into my room in the medical wing telling me he had been found. At the time, all she had was a confirmed location. He was on some remote island in the South China Sea, which meant the whole time I was in KATO, he was closer to me than I ever could have imagined.
“It’ll be a little bit until we get to him,” she had said. “But we’re positive he’s there.” She beamed at me the whole time she spoke and I forced a small smile, if only to hide the fact that I was relieved to have more time before I had to face him. I had done terrible things for KATO, and while I believed I did what was necessary to survive, I didn’t want him to know the details.
My childhood came back in a flash. We used to play games—a lot of them. My favorite was a seek-and-find game. About a year before I was taken I had found a rock shaped like an elephant in our yard. My dad used to hide it and leave a trail of clues for me to follow. At first, it had been enough of a challenge just to find the rock, but as I got better, the hiding spots got more complex. He’d stick it in tree trunks that were just a little too tall for me to reach and divots a little too small for my hands to fit into—places that required some skill to be successful. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was almost like a retrieval game. The part that stuck with me the most was how proud he was of me every time I was victorious.
Studying him now, I wondered if I’d ever see that look from him again.
I was vaguely aware of Travis next to me, throwing eager looks my way. But I couldn’t face him. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from my father, who seemed to be just as uncomfortable as I was. He gave me a once-over and I found I couldn’t read him. I fluffed the curls in my side ponytail, making sure the burn scar below my left ear was covered.
“Chris,” Simmonds said after a moment. They were standing at the edge of the mat now, feet from Travis and me. “This is Jocelyn.” I swallowed hard. It felt so strange to be introduced to my own dad, but it also felt necessary. It had been ten years and I had changed a lot more than he had. I wondered if he would have recognized me if he wasn’t expecting to see me.
I stood up straighter, searching my brain for what to say or do, but my thoughts moved too quickly to latch on to one.
My dad glanced back at Simmonds, his expression growing momentarily piercing. “I’ve got it from here.”
Simmonds tensed in a way I wasn’t used to seeing, but nodded curtly. “Of course.” His voice was stiff. “I’ll leave you two to get reacquainted.”
I caught a bead of tension between them, but I was quickly distracted by Travis next to me. He took a step away and I knew he was about to follow Simmonds out. “Don’t forget to ice your shoulder,” he said to me. I fought the urge to grab his arm and keep him in place. I wasn’t ready to be alone with my father—not yet. But I didn’t know how to say that. So instead I watched as Travis grabbed his sweatshirt and headed for the door.
And then it was just the two of us.
My heart started to beat faster. I knew I had to say something, or do something. But what? I drew a tight breath and settled for a simple hi. It came out hoarse, which irritated me. This was far beyond the scope of any mission I had ever been prepared for. My arm started to shake slightly and I clenched my fist to stabilize it. I’d felt more anxious and on edge since I’d gotten back from KATO. Dr. March said it was probably a combination of being further removed from the drug and recovering from a gunshot wound without any medication. The pain had, for the most part, faded. The edgy anxiety stuck around.
My father’s eyes slid to my shoulder. I wasn’t sure if it was because of what Travis had said or if he’d been briefed.
I tugged at my hair. Part of me wanted to move to the side and sit down on one of the benches, but that felt too relaxed.
We held our positions, staring at each other, until my dad finally broke the silence. “That was impressive,” he said. I knew he was referring to the fight, but I didn’t know how much of it he had seen. “Roy says you’re a pretty good agent.”
I wasn’t used to hearing Simmonds’s first name, so it took me a minute to realize who he meant. I pressed my lips together, trying to push my nerves aside enough to think. The last thing I wanted to talk about was what kind of agent I was. That would lead to talking about what I’ve done for the IDA, which was almost entirely KATO-related. And then we’d be talking about KATO, which wasn’t something I wanted to discuss today. “I can hold my own.”
He nodded, watching me carefully, considering. The silence around us felt hollow.
“What happened to your shoulder?” he asked after another stretch of silence.
I studied him. Did he really not know, or did he just want to hear it from me? I kept my answer short and safe. “I got shot.”
My father’s jaw tensed in response.
I looked around the room, just so I didn’t have to focus on him. This was one of the biggest spaces on the IDA’s campus, but right then it felt entirely too small. He stood on the edge of the mat, at least ten feet from me, and I wished there were more space between us. I took a beat to think. If I wanted to control the situation, I’d have to be the one to speak next. The only thing we had in common was the I
DA.
“So,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound as shaky as it felt. His face lifted a fraction, as if he was surprised I said anything at all. I pushed on. “What did you do when you were an agent here?” It seemed like the safest topic. We were talking about spying, but we weren’t talking about me.
His eyes hardened briefly. “I did a lot.” He shifted slightly. “Mostly fieldwork.” He didn’t elaborate beyond that and I didn’t ask him to.
After a few minutes of silence he came a little closer, so he was standing on the mat, his head bowed slightly. His step forward made me want to back away, but I held my ground. “Roy also said you’ve been here for a few months now.” He glanced up, looking at me through his eyelashes. There was a touch of irritation in his voice, but it disappeared when he continued. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.”
I shook my head hard. He shouldn’t be apologizing to me. Not when I spent a decent portion of the past few months praying he wouldn’t be found. “It’s fine,” I said. “I wasn’t really expecting you.”
I caught his eyes in time to see the flash of pain they held before he buried it. Guilt settled in my chest, but only for a moment. He opened his mouth to say something I was sure I didn’t want to hear, and then the door to the training room opened behind him.
“Hey,” Nikki said, crossing the threshold. “When you weren’t at lunch I figured you were cleared to—” Then she caught sight of my father. She looked from him to me as she put the pieces together. “You’re Chris.” Her eyes were wide with excitement, which I knew was on my behalf. “I mean, Agent Steely. You’re her dad.” She looked to me and beamed. Next to her, my dad had a fraction of a smile peeking through his rigid expression. “I’m Nikki Edwards. It’s so nice to meet you.” She extended a hand, which my dad seemed relieved to accept.
“You too,” he said.
Nikki gave him a nod before turning back to me. “I’ll find you later.”
“Now’s fine.” I couldn’t get the words out any faster. I wasn’t sure what else to say to my father, and the longer we were left alone, the more uncomfortable it would become. “We were finishing up, and I have classes anyway.” I had never been so eager to get to Agent Lee’s.
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