by Kim Briggs
Since Thomas refuses to provide one hint to my location, my only clues are ones I can observe. The room color and the antique furniture tell me it’s not hospital sterile—so it’s not like one of those psycho wards from Conspiracy Theory. It’s definitely not a bunkhouse. It’s unique enough with the hand-stitched quilt and furnishings not to be copied on a mass scale. I’m guessing hotel or B & B but far less tacky than the ones I stayed in with Christian. I wince at the memory of those nights. Nights I thought were the beginning of something. Something that would last forever. Something that had nothing to do with time, or distance, or other living human beings. Frank was right—I was just convenient.
I yank my hands apart and let the zip-ties bite my wrists. The pain erases the pity. The pain I can latch onto and use to escape.
I stare at the double-hung windows with removable screens. The windows are closed, and the clasps are locked, but they won’t be tonight when I escape out of them. That I promise you.
In the distance, the Smoky Mountains call to me to climb their peaks and discover their mysteries. It takes me point two five seconds to realize I’m in the foothills of the mountains and then I know exactly where I am, and I can’t believe I didn’t realize it in the first place.
Some assassin I’d make.
“Excuse me, could I use the bathroom please?”
No answer.
“Tom, Thomas, may I use the bathroom?”
“No,” he grunts.
“I really need to go,” I whine.
“No.”
I blink and scrunch my shoulders like it’s no big deal, like I’m just a sweet, innocent girl. “Why not? I’m just going to the bathroom.”
“I’ve been given strict instructions not to untie you and not to listen to anything you say.”
“Why?”
“We were instructed that you have a talent for escape, and that you are extremely persuasive. You are not to be trusted.”
I let out a shocked gasp. “Me? Seriously? I just have to go to the bathroom. I’m not trying to escape.”
His face rearranges into granite.
“Please, I’m sure General Treadwell would let me pee. There’s no crime against that.”
No response.
“Could you go get him?”
Still nothing.
“I demand to see Treadwell now.”
Chapter Twelve
Di
Ben left soon after he got the sample. The drive to Cherokee Hospital seems like an extravagant use of time given the present circumstances. Asheville General is much closer but anonymity is our strongest defense at this point. His technician friend told him he could have results in three hours if he got to the lab by ten. That was three and a half hours ago, and still no word, and still no Starr.
Frank gets up and paces. He stops every few steps. His face pales but it’s the only indication of the painkillers wearing off. “Should we go out and look for her? Canvas the neighborhood? Go door-to-door?”
I rest my hand on his arm. “Frank, this isn’t a political rally, and you’re in no condition to go anywhere. If we go knocking on our neighbors’ doors, we’re just asking the cops to lock us up.” He winces. All the color drains from his face. “Need some pain killer?”
“I’m fine.”
I roll my eyes. “Right. I’ll be right back. I left the bag in the car.”
“Don’t go by yourself. Here,” he says pushing up, “I’ll come with you.”
“Don’t be a hero. I can go by myself.”
“Sit. I’ll go,” Coda says. “I need to stretch my legs a little.”
When we get to the garage, Coda slides up next to me and whispers, “I’ll go check all the doors and windows in the shop. We need to get out of this place.”
“Do you think we’ll be safe tonight?”
“I’m not sure if we’re ‘safe’ now. If Starr got picked up by the Organization, it’s only a matter of time before they come and get the rest of us. Didn’t she say ‘Zero Exposure’?”
I nod in agreement.
“The tension’s rising. I don’t like it,” he says before taking off to the front.
We meet at the bottom of the stairs. Me with Frank’s pain meds. Coda with a heavy wrench.
“Just in case,” he murmurs.
“I’ll pack everyone’s stuff together.”
“Mine too?” he teases on our way up the stairs. Even in times of crisis, I need this banter.
“Your ass is on its own,” I say. “Nothing wrong with you.” Yet, I add in my head. So far, Ben, Coda, and I had gone unscathed, but how much longer? Ben’s safe, at least for the moment. If anything goes down tonight, Coda and I are the first line of defense. I finger the Taser.
I hand Frank the bag along with a bottle of water. “Coda and I’ll pack all our things and load up the van. As soon as we hear from Ben, we’re leaving.”
“But Starr...,” Frank says.
“Starr will know where to find us.”
Before he can argue, I slip into Christian and Starr’s room. I take the black canvas backpack I gave her all those weeks ago and stuff it with random pieces of clothing—both Starr’s and Christian’s. Christian’s eyes flutter open.
“Di,” he says sleepily. Then he sits up and looks around. “Where’s Starr?”
“Starr’s not here,” I say quietly.
He jumps off the bed. The sudden movement throws him off balance. He clutches his head. No doubt, the half a bottle of Jack is still with him. “What do you mean she’s not here? Where is she?”
“Christian, Starr’s gone.”
Chapter Thirteen
Di
He jumps up. He sways back and forth, clutching his head. I reach out to prevent him from toppling over.
“No,” he says, swatting my hand away. “I’m fine.” He shakes his head. “Starr. Where’s Starr? Starr!” he yells. “Starr!” he says again as he races out into the living room.
Frank blocks his path, arms crossed, scowl the size of Texas. “She’s not here asshole.”
Christian grabs him. “Where is she?”
Frank jerks away. His hands ball into tight fists. I step between them before Frank decides to smash Christian’s jaw. They both glare down at me.
“Christian, it’s 1:30 in the afternoon.”
He steps away. “What? No. I never sleep that late.”
“You never came home last night. You got in about three and a half hours ago.”
He collapses on the sofa. “What? I don’t understand. Di, seriously. Where is Starr?”
Coda and I share a long look. He nods his head, his eyes filling with tears. I swallow. His reaction is enough to undo me. Me, a girl who created a titanium suit of armor to guard against touchy emotional experiences, brought to tears by the weight of feelings born by a person she’s recently met but has adopted as her family.
“I left Starr this morning.”
He sits up. “You left her? How could you leave her?”
Frank steps in front of him. “You better shut the fuck up and listen to Di, and if there’s anyone to blame here, it’s you—fucking you!”
Christian’s eyebrows pucker. “I don’t understand. What did I do?”
Coda places the manila folder in Christian’s lap. The pictures fall across the sofa. “What the.... What is this? I don’t remember any of this. When did this happen?”
“You tell us,” Frank says.
Christian clutches his head. I sit next to him, placing my hand on his back. “Do you remember anything from last night?”
He looks up at me. His desperation, his loss—I’ve seen them before. I’ve felt it. Those mornings after basement clubbing with Zoey wrecked me until I constructed my armor. “I remember getting into the car with Jude, then nothing, absolutely nothing.”
“That’s convenient,” spits Frank.
Christian grinds his jaw. He pushes Frank out of the way and storms to the door. “I need to find Starr.”
Coda rush
es to him. “Hold up, buddy.”
Christian tries to shrug him off. “What are we waiting for?”
Coda clears his throat. “Things are a little more complicated than yesterday afternoon.” Christian stops fighting and looks at him. “Your face is splattered all over the news. Well, yours and Di’s.”
“Why?”
“You’re accused of causing the accident that killed Starr, Sami, and Jody, and Di is your accomplice.”
He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.” He charges to the door. Coda and I each grab an arm.
“It does matter Christian,” Coda says. “You can’t find Starr if you’re sitting in a jail cell.”
The fight slips out of him leaving nothing but a half-formed shell. “I need to know everything that happened from last night to this morning.”
Jude appears around the corner. “I can help with that.”
***
Starr
My stomach grumbles. I can’t remember the last time I ate. Lunch yesterday, maybe? We never did get that New York style pizza Jude promised. No, Christian was too busy hooking up with Sami and Jody to worry about such trivial things as pizza and a girl he said he loved, but obviously, the girl knows better now.
I turn away from the window. Even the sun reminds me of Christian and my broken heart. Thomas hasn’t moved from his position at the foot of my bed. Evidently, blinking isn’t a necessary biological function of a recruit.
The door opens and General Treadwell walks in. “How’s the prisoner?”
“Is that what I am?”
“Starr, I once wanted you as an assassin, but you’re much more valuable to me as Jessica Chamberlain—the long-lost granddaughter of Horace and Evelyn Chamberlain.”
“I should have known it would all come down to money and connections. Before we discuss the finer details of your plans for me, may I use the bathroom? Your clone won’t even let me pee.”
A proud smile crosses Treadwell’s face. “Thomas, you may release her.”
Thomas takes something out of his pocket. He pushes a button, and a long, shiny knife flashes up. The blade could gut a deer without even slowing down.
With detached emotion, he positions the tip of it along my wrists and lifts. The ties move with him bringing my wrists a kiss away from the sharp blade. I show no fear, as he slices through. Once my hands are free, he makes quick work of the tie between my ankles.
I hurry to the bathroom without invitation or consent. Treadwell’s mistaken if he thinks I will yield to him.
“Oh Jessica,” he says, his voice cruel, taunting. I don’t pause. I don’t react. I just keep walking. I am Starr Bishop. Jessica Chamberlain disappeared into the night twelve years ago, never to return. “You won’t find any windows to escape from this time.”
Indeed, he’s right. In place of where a window might be, there’s a large picture of the foothills of the Smoky Mountains with a small lake beside it. Another cruel reminder of my time with Christian, so perfect in fact I’m sure that Treadwell chose it to mock me and cause me pain, to remind me who’s in charge. I want to smash it over my knee, but I won’t give him the satisfaction. I don’t have to look at it though. That I can change. I take it down and flip it over, setting it on the bathroom floor. In its place are the skeletal remains of a window. Someone, probably a recruit, probably Thomas himself, plastered and painted the area.
Pressing against the new construction, I search for a weak spot, some penetrable place the wall will give way to the outside, to freedom, but there’s nothing. Nothing but hard wall between me and another life.
On my return to my prison, Treadwell lifts his lips in amusement. “I told you.”
I cross my arms and sit in the rocking chair. “So, what sinister plan do you have in mind for me?”
“Back on the bed. Thomas needs to tie you up.”
Gripping the arms of the chair, I glare at him. “You don’t have enough confidence in your abilities to keep me here? Where are we anyway?”
“Thomas,” is all he says, but it’s enough. General Clone marches over, grabs my arms with his giant paws, lifts my body without even a grunt, and deposits me on the bed. In five seconds, my wrists and ankles are restrained. Thomas is efficient. I’ll give him that.
Treadwell nods his head in approval at the perfect execution of his orders. “Now, where were we? Oh yes, my sinister plan for you. Originally, I planned for you to lead a team of recruits and become a major contributor to the Organization. This young man took the test with you all those weeks ago. He’s very promising in his dedication to our work and his uncompromising ability to follow orders.” Thomas straightens his already straight back. “But you,” he swings back to me, “your escape, and your wherewithal to remain hidden for all those weeks, leaves something of a challenge for me. You’re stronger-minded than even the exams and studies suggested. You’d take two to three times longer than most recruits to train to my satisfaction, but the potential to create the most efficient assassin the Organization’s ever trained far outweighed the time factor.” He cracks his knuckles. Distaste fills my mouth. “Of course, trust would always be a concern, but I was confident in my training techniques. You witnessed yourself what my men did to Mr. Evergood.”
His words, a blast to my gut. I bite my cheek to keep from crying out.
He marches around the front of the room, with his hands clasped behind his back. “Then a number of events fell into place. First, I discovered it was you who rescued Mr. Evergood.” He stops and turns to me. “Frankly Starr, I’m surprised at you. His family history is not the most respectable. He should have died along with his parents.”
The bastard. He just confirmed what we suspected—well, what Christian suspected, and we agreed with. The Organization was behind his parents’ deaths and my dad’s. He, they, all of them must be stopped.
“Second, during a visit to the creator of the Organization, I find out their long-lost granddaughter showed up at their estate and then disappeared. The similarities between the Chamberlain’s granddaughter and the recruit we were searching for were uncanny.” He stops in front of the bed and faces me. “Isn’t it ironic, that the girl they’ve been searching for all those years turns out to be the very same girl we identified at such a young age?”
I lift my chin to him. I will not be beaten. I will not.
“You know what’s even more ironic? You thought you could persuade one of my men, one of my top recruits to join you.” He shakes his head. His incredulity fills the room. “Did you honestly believe he would follow you just because you’re a beautiful young woman?”
Di, Frank, Coda, Ben, even Christian were right, and I was over-confident. Jude was never on our side.
“I let him stay with you, build your trust, find out what you knew about us, but all games must come to an end, and there can only be one winner. We both know who that winner is, don’t we?” Treadwell and his rhetorical questions makes my head hurt. “Like a bad Shakespearean play reenactment, your overconfidence is your tragic flaw.”
He won’t break me. He will not.
He curls his lip. “Do you know what time it is?”
I ground my jaw. I hate this man.
“No? Well, right about now, my men are picking up the remainder of your team.”
Fury builds within me. He pushes too far.
“Leave them alone. They have nothing to do with this.”
He smiles that cruel, knowing smile that makes my stomach roil. I curse myself. My reaction is just what he wanted. “Wrong, Jessica. Thanks to you, they have everything to do with this. This...,” he sweeps his hands wide, “is all your doing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make a phone call to your grandparents to let them know their granddaughter is in my possession and for the right fee, she’ll be returned.”
So that’s his play.
I am the prize purse.
Chapter Fourteen
Di
Never accuse Jude of being too sensitive. He spared no details
in his retelling of Christian’s escapades the night before. Every damning, spit-swapping detail.
Christian raises his chin. “We need to find Starr.”
“How do you know she even wants to be found after what you did last night, lover boy?” Frank spits at him.
“I am not discussing last night with you. My only concern is finding Starr. Starr loves me and I love her. We can work through anything. I hope,” he chokes. His resolve faltering before our very eyes. “The only thing that matters is finding her. Where’s Ben?”
Jude raises his head.
“Ben got called to work,” Coda says. “He wanted to pick up some extra hours, but Christian we need to leave headquarters. There’s no sign of a struggle but someone obviously left the pictures for her.” He winces. “Even though we don’t know what happened to her, we need to leave immediately.”
His body slumps. “What if she comes back looking for us?”
Frank says, “She knows what to do.”
“Is that why you were packing her clothes?” he says to me.
“Yeah, I have a few things left, but I’m almost ready. Coda, you have everything you need from our bedroom?”
“Yep, all packed up,” he says, patting his duffle bag.
“Christian, check your room for anything I missed. I’ll finish packing.” Frank and Coda follow me into our room. I quietly close the door and tilt my head. They follow me over to the far corner of the room. “So how do we get rid of Jude?”
“Tie and gag him,” Coda says. His suggestion certainly sounds appealing, but we need a better plan. Something less hands on and more get the eff out.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Frank says. I roll my eyes. Jude’s bound to come bursting in here any minute. We need to hurry. Frank holds up his hands. “Hear me out, what if we involve him in the search for Starr? We ask him what he knows, stay at a hotel tonight, drive by the backup meeting location, see what happens, and if anything gets suspicious, Di tasers him.” He squeezes my hand. My stomach flip-flops.
“I like it,” Coda says.
