Exposure (The Fringe Book 2)

by Tarah Benner

  The kid looks away, going a little redder around the ears. “I don’t mean to be insensitive, but that’s their job. Look at you guys. You go out there. Everybody has a job to do, and I just think . . .”

  “You just think everyone needs to stop bitching and get on with it.”

  He swallows a few times and looks at me to gauge how much he thinks I want to hit him. “I mean . . . yeah. Every role is crucial. We need power, and we need the damage to the compound repaired. What if Health and Rehab just went on strike? People could die.”

  I chuckle and sit back in the chair. This kid may be naïve, but his honesty is refreshing. Most tier-one workers like to pretend that they feel sorry for Recon and ExCon — or that they don’t exist. At least this guy is confident about where he belongs.

  The doors open, and the chair automatically rolls out into the Recon wing. The nurses on duty stiffen when they recognize me, but their wariness is downgraded to boredom when they realize I’m not bleeding or in handcuffs. I must be earning quite a reputation in the medical ward.

  “Phase two decontamination, exam, debrief, and observation,” the nurse rattles off to my intern.

  He gives her a stiff nod, and we continue down the long tunnel.

  After they put me through another icy shower and give me a clean pair of pants and a T-shirt to wear, the doctor examines me and declares I’m in no danger of immediate death.

  It’s been nearly an hour since we were brought in, and I’m starting to get a little antsy. Jayden and Remy will have heard about our return by now, and I’m worried they went to interrogate Harper first.

  Normally I’d be confident that she could hold her own, but the last time we returned from the Fringe, Harper wasn’t in her right mind. Plus, with everything that’s going on in the compound, I wouldn’t put it past Jayden to threaten Celdon’s or Sawyer’s life to speed up the debriefing.

  As soon as the doctor leaves, I’m off the bed and flying down the tunnel to find her room. Most of the doors in this wing are closed, but there’s a decontamination cart parked outside one. I can see the blurry outline of two people through the frosted glass and detect the low murmur of voices, but they don’t sound like Remy’s or Jayden’s. I’d recognize her grating, condescending tone anywhere.

  I try the door, but it’s locked.

  “There you are!” says a voice behind me.

  Shit.

  I turn around and come face to face with the ballsy intern who brought me up. He looks both relieved and annoyed.

  “You can’t just sneak out of your room! You haven’t been debriefed yet.”

  I sigh and take a minute to size this kid up. He’s an inch or two shorter than me, but a little broader. Even with my bum leg, I’m confident I could take him down easily, but there’s something about the determined set of his jaw and the earnest look in his eyes that makes me want to trust him.

  “Sorry,” I say, throwing caution to the wind. “Listen, I need to get in there to see my partner.”

  He tilts his head to the side, looking exasperated. “You know I can’t let you do that.”

  “Please,” I glance at the name stitched on his scrubs, “MacAvoy.”

  “Caleb,” he says.

  “Look, I know it’s against the rules, but she really didn’t do well when they brought her in last time. I just need to make sure she’s okay. I think she freaked out because they wouldn’t let her have any visitors.”

  His jaw is still set, but I can see a hint of sympathy in his eyes. That’s the thing about good kids like him: Compassion is their Achilles’ heel.

  Finally he lets out a long sigh. “Fine. Just a few minutes, though.”

  I nod quickly, delighted that Harper and I have corrupted not one but two med interns, and he pulls out his access card.

  When he swipes us in and pushes the door open, Sawyer and Harper freeze on the other side. They were clearly having a private conversation, and Sawyer’s accusing gaze snaps onto Caleb.

  “What are you doing?” he asks. He sounds a little judgmental for someone who was just caught breaking protocol.

  “I could ask you the same thing, MacAvoy,” Sawyer snaps.

  He narrows his eyes, and I get the feeling I just stumbled into the war of the interns. I find Harper’s eyes, and she looks just as puzzled. I step inside and close the door behind me, ignoring the others.

  “Have you been debriefed yet?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” I glance at Sawyer and Caleb, wishing they would leave and continue their showdown elsewhere.

  “Eli, she needs to rest,” says Sawyer, looking at Harper with concern. “You both do.”

  “This will only take a minute.”

  Sawyer looks conflicted, but she takes the hint and jerks her head for Caleb to follow her outside.

  “I’ll knock if I see your commander coming.”

  “Thanks.”

  I turn to Harper. “We need to get our story straight.”

  “Okay. How about we say we heard about their old base when we were listening to the interrogation?”

  “Yeah. And then guns started going off, and we got the hell out of there. She can’t know anything about Owen . . . or that the drifters are planning something.”

  Harper bites her lip but doesn’t say anything.

  “What?”

  “It’s just . . . don’t you think we have a responsibility to warn someone? I know he’s your brother, but we can’t just let them get closer to pulling off whatever they’re planning.”

  “No,” I say. It comes out like a growl, but Harper doesn’t even flinch. “We wait. If Jayden finds out, she’s going to send out a fucking army. Just give me some time to figure this out. If it comes down to it, I’ll tell Owen to get the hell out of here and then warn Remy.”

  Just then, there’s a frantic knock on the door.

  Harper glances over my shoulder nervously. “You have to get out of here!”

  But it’s too late for me to leave without being seen. Instead of going for the door, I slide into the closet. It’s a tight fit, but there’s just enough room for me to wedge my body under the shelves and pull the door shut.

  It clicks into place just as Jayden breezes into the room. I try to slow my breathing, but I’m convinced she may still be able to hear it.

  “Well, you’re back,” she says in a clipped voice. She doesn’t even bother to hide her disappointment.

  “Yep.”

  “Since you’ve returned, I take it you have something useful for me.”

  Harper pauses for a moment, and I cringe at her hesitation. “We learned some . . . interesting information.”

  “And what is that?”

  Harper takes a deep breath and carefully relays the story of us listening to the gangsters interrogate Owen in the basement.

  She makes it sound as though he was just a random informant, and I’m impressed by the layer of detail she adds. In Harper’s version, Owen pulled a gun on his captors and managed to kill one of the men before getting shot himself.

  “And what happened after that?” Jayden prompts.

  “They were talking about meeting up with their leader Jackson at a safe house in Fort Sol. I don’t know exactly where that is, but it didn’t sound too far.”

  “And why would they be meeting up with him?”

  There’s another brief pause, and I can tell Harper is scrambling to come up with an answer that will satisfy Jayden’s curiosity without revealing too much.

  “I think they’re planning something,” she says slowly.

  My stomach drops. Harper’s treading in dangerous territory. One slipup, and Jayden’s going to know we did more than listen in on a conversation.

  “They’re the ones who screwed up the checkpoint last month. They’re fighting back, but it sounded like they were planning a much bigger undertaking.”

  Don’t do it, I beg silently. Harper has stumbled into a trap, and if she keeps talking, there’s a good chance she’s going to g
et tripped up and arouse Jayden’s suspicion.

  I hear Jayden move closer to her, and I have to strain to hear her next words. “Riley, I need you to tell me exactly what you overheard — word for word.”

  Harper makes a nervous little noise in her throat. “I-I can’t remember exactly. It’s the adrenalin, you know? But I do remember them saying that one of their men on the inside had been compromised. They didn’t know where he was.”

  “On the inside?”

  “Y-Yeah. But I don’t know if he was at this compound or another one.”

  I want to bang my head against the door. Of all the things for Harper to tell Jayden, that was probably the worst detail. Jayden is already paranoid, and if she thinks there’s a double agent in Recon, she’s going to tear the ranks apart until she finds him.

  I half expect her to drag out the interrogation, but she just sighs. “Thank you, Riley. That was very . . . illuminating.”

  I hold my breath as Jayden crosses to the door. I wait for her to leave, but she stops short.

  “You know, you’re lucky, Riley. You and Parker seem to be the only operatives who can survive a trip into the lion’s den. It’s really quite remarkable.”

  There’s a long strained silence.

  “What now?” Harper asks finally, clearly trying to discover if Jayden bought her story.

  “I don’t know. We’ll see if your information proves accurate. I hope for your sake it’s the truth.”

  Harper’s careful tone vanishes instantly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I can almost feel Jayden’s deadly smirk burning through the closet door. “Never overestimate your usefulness, Riley. There are plenty more cadets. I suggest you keep your head down and your mouth shut.”

  Harper’s shock radiates throughout the room, chilling me to the core. When I hear the sound of the door snapping shut, I wait several seconds to make sure Jayden’s really gone.

  When I burst out of the closet, Harper is sitting on the bed looking stricken. Her face is pale, and her eyes are wide.

  When she finally looks up at me, I can tell we’re both thinking the same thing: We just sent Jayden on a wild-goose chase, and when she realizes what we’ve done, she’s going to kill us both.

  twenty-one

  Harper

  “Remember what we talked about,” says Miles. “Stay out of her way. Let her do all the work.”

  I snap my fist against the mitt he’s holding and let out a burst of air. “Got it.”

  “You can’t stand toe to toe with Marta. Keep your distance. Focus on wearing her out.”

  “I know.”

  He’s repeated the same words to me every day since I returned from the Fringe: Avoid getting hit. Run Marta around the ring. Then come at her with a series of fast strikes, and make them count.

  Miles grabs my wrists and slaps my gloved hands against my cheeks. “Keep your hands up — no matter what she does. Protect yourself.”

  Protect myself. If only it were that simple.

  The last few weeks have been a blur of panic and fatigue. The morning after my debriefing, Miles was banging on my door to help me prepare for my fight. I’d been so absorbed in my thoughts of Owen, Eli, and Jayden’s threat that I’d almost forgotten I’d agreed to fight Marta. Miles hasn’t let me forget it once since.

  Part of me hoped the fight would be cancelled after Eli was arrested, but no one seems to have heard about his night in the cages. The fact that it hasn’t leaked out of Control makes it clear that Jayden was just exercising her power to show Eli who was in charge.

  I doubt she’ll bother having me arrested. She already proved her point — and she has enough on her plate with the drifters — but I’m still worried I may have taken on more than I can handle.

  Unfortunately, there’s nowhere to run. Since Eli lost his fight, we don’t have enough money to leave the compound, and I can’t back out now without incurring the wrath of Shane.

  I don’t have the luxury of being too scared to fight. That’s the only thing that keeps me going as Miles pushes me around the ring. The good news is that if I survive this, I’ll be one step closer to getting us away from Constance.

  It’s almost time for my fight, so he doesn’t work me hard. He just puts me through a few drills to drive home the finer points of our strategy and help me focus.

  According to Miles, my only advantage is my endurance. Because I’m the underdog, Marta and everyone else will expect me to lose. He thinks she’s going to come out swinging and try to end the fight quickly, but if I can outlast her and keep her from landing big punches, I might have a shot.

  Feeling a little off kilter, I return to my compartment to change. Miles was spectacularly unhelpful in the wardrobe department, but I follow Lenny’s advice and don a black sports bra and shorts. Normally I would wear a little more to train in, but my abs are coming in nicely, and — according to her — it’s how all the female fighters dress.

  I’m just about to head to the training center to finish warming up when I hear a knock at my door.

  I peek through the peephole, and my stomach turns over when I see Eli. He’s been conspicuously absent from my training over the past few days, but I don’t know if that’s because he’s boycotting my fight or because he feels too awkward to be around me after everything that’s happened.

  Pulling a zip-up sweatshirt over the top that now seems too skimpy, I open the door and brace myself for a lecture. Eli glides in without an invitation, his blue eyes raking up my legs and my bare midriff and finally settling on my face.

  Today he’s wearing low-slung black sweats and a tight gray T-shirt that strains across his chest, and I have the sudden urge to kiss that scowl right off his face.

  “Don’t do this, Harper,” he says.

  “What?”

  He rakes a hand through his hair and paces in front of me like a caged animal. “Don’t do this fight. I have a bad feeling.”

  “I’m not going to get arrested. Jayden just did that to scare you.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about.”

  “I’ll be okay,” I say defiantly, trying to sound more confident than I feel.

  He stops pacing and looks at me dead-on. “You haven’t seen Marta fight. I have.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I mutter, not bothering to hide my eye roll.

  “I’m not trying to shake your confidence. I’m telling you not to do this.”

  He takes two steps toward me, forcing me against the wall as I try to keep an appropriate distance between us.

  “We’ll get the money another way. I’ll do another fight — an easy one this time.”

  “I’m not going to back out now.”

  Eli is way too close. His scent is all around me, making it very difficult to think clearly enough to form a coherent argument.

  “Harper, listen!”

  Before I can duck around him, his hands shoot out to grab my waist. He pins me gently against the wall and captures my eyes with his, his thumbs tracing small circles on my bare stomach. “I don’t want you to do this. Please. I have a really bad feeling.”

  It’s so hard to make my thoughts behave with him touching me, but I swallow down my doubts and focus on his muscular chest. It’s a little easier than making direct eye contact.

  “Eli, I have to. Do you know what will happen if I back out of the fight?”

  “Yes. You’ll be alive, for one thing.”

  “For how long? Do you really think Shane is going to be happy if I bail?”

  “I’ll deal with Shane,” he says dismissively. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t back down now. I . . . I think I might have a shot at winning.”

  He lets out a frustrated growl and releases me roughly. My skin stings where his hands were, and now the distance between us feels like an insult.

  He turns away from me and squeezes his temples. “Dammit, Miles.”

  “This wasn’t his decisio
n.”

  “He shouldn’t have encouraged you! Now you’ve got this false sense of confidence.”

  “No, I don’t!”

  He rounds on me again. “What? You think you’re all tough now because you’ve had a few months of training?”

  “Miles says I’m doing really well.”

  “You are doing really well, but you’re out of your league right now. Shane knows it. Marta knows it. Everybody knows it but you.”

  That stings a little, but I’m more pissed off than hurt. “Why do you have to do this?” I snap. “You’re my commanding officer. You taught me. You’re supposed to be on my side.”

  “I am on your side, but I’m not going to cheer you on when you’re making a stupid-ass decision!”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “You can’t win, Harper!” he yells.

  Ouch.

  His eyes crinkle in regret, and for a brief moment, I think he might actually apologize.

  But then he whips around and throws open the door. He glances back over his shoulder, and I get the eerie feeling that he thinks he’s looking at me for the last time.

  “If you aren’t going to listen to me . . . just be careful.”

  And then he’s gone.

  Trembling with nervous energy, I head to the training center to warm up. I jump rope and throw a few punches on the heavy bag, trying to subdue the anxiety burning in my core. I don’t usually doubt myself, but now I’m feeling uneasy about my decision to fight Marta.

  “Well, look at you!” says a voice from the doorway.

  I wheel around to see Celdon standing in the entrance, looking comically out of place in his white slacks and blazer.

  He nods at my getup. “You look pretty scary.”

  Something inside me breaks, and I launch myself across the room and throw my arms around his neck. I don’t know if it’s my imminent ass-kicking, the looming threat of Constance and the Desperados, or Eli’s plea that has me feeling off balance, but I’m so freaking glad to see him.

  “Now this is exactly the sort of thing we want to avoid in the ring,” he jokes into my hair. “Hugging your opponents to death is not how you win the belt.”