“I’ll lock it,” I said, and chuckled as the girl pulled me through the intersection, the streetlights casting glowing halos around her head.
Sam made a choked sound. “I knew this was a mistake. I’m coming down there.”
“No, you’re not. I’mmm fine. Stop being so damn overbearing.”
He growled again. “Sober up, Nick, and stop being so goddamn sloppy or I’ll come down there and drag you back here myself.” The line went dead. I shoved the phone back in my pocket.
“Who was it?” the girl asked.
“My older brother. He’s a dick.”
We made it back to the room after getting turned around twice. Doubt started to settle in. Sam was definitely right. But no way was I going to tell him that. If I couldn’t find my way back to my own hotel room, there was no way I’d be able to fight off a Branch agent.
Inside the room, I busted out the whiskey, and the girl and I drank straight from the bottle.
“So I just realized I don’t even know your name,” I said to her.
She took a swig of booze. “I don’t know yours, either.”
“Is that irresponsible of us?” I challenged with a grin.
She waggled her eyebrows. “Definitely.”
“So you first,” I said.
“Belinda.”
“You’re lying.”
“I am.”
I liked this girl.
“What’s yours?” she asked.
No way was I giving her my real name. Not even an alias I’d used before. I said the first thing that came to mind. “Elijah.”
“You don’t look like an Elijah.”
“You don’t look like a Belinda.”
“It’s Sarah.”
“Mm-hmm.”
She smiled and came closer, the bottle of whiskey still in her hand. She offered it to me, and I took a long pull on it. After, she reached up on her toes to kiss me. I set the bottle down and wrapped my arms around her, guiding her to the bed. But when she brought her hand up to my face, fingers trailing along my jawline, a pulse started in the base of my skull, and I tensed.
“What is it?” she asked.
I staggered away, giving her my back.
I heard the voices first, the low tenor of whispered orders followed by the click of guns.
“Elijah?” she said.
I collapsed in the chair near the window and propped my head in my hands as the flashback flickered to life. I was in a gray room. No, a gray hallway, but every sound echoed through the space, as if the ceiling was three dozen feet away.
“Kill her on sight,” a voice ordered through an earpiece in my ear.
I was wearing black tactical gear, a gun in my hand, a gun strapped to my leg.
“She was last sighted near the holding cells,” the voice said.
I moved through the maze like a black ghost. When I came to the wall of cells in the back, I saw a girl crouched on the floor inside the last cell on the right. A mass of dark hair covered her face.
I brought my gun up.
Kill her on sight.
My finger pressed at the trigger.
“Elijah!”
I lurched upright, grabbed the wrist of the hand on my shoulder, and swept the person’s legs out from beneath them.
The girl—Sarah—gasped, and I snapped out of it, catching her before she thudded to the floor.
She hung there, one foot from the dingy carpet, bright eyes staring up at me.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “I didn’t—”
“I should go,” she said.
“You should,” I echoed.
I righted her, and she straightened her T-shirt.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to explain the flashbacks, so I didn’t even try.
“It’s okay.” She headed for the door. I walked her down the hall and outside to the sidewalk.
“You want me to walk you back to the club? Or call you a cab or something?”
She waved me off. “I’ll be fine. It was nice meeting you, Elijah.” She said Elijah like she knew it was a fake.
“You, too.”
She came over and kissed my cheek, a smirk on her lips. And as she walked off, disappearing in the darkness, I realized something I should have realized back in the hotel room. Something I would have noticed immediately if I wasn’t drunk off my ass.
It was the look on her face after I’d nearly dropped her to the floor. Not fear. Not panic. Not shock. Not any of the things she should have been feeling.
Her expression had been blank.
She hadn’t been scared at all.
12
ELIZABETH
WHEN I WALKED INTO MERV’S THE NEXT day, two days after my meltdown, I had the prickly sensation that everyone was staring at me but also trying not to make eye contact.
Heat spread across my cheeks and down my neck, and I considered quitting on the spot. Merv had a stack of applications in his office. He could find someone to replace me.