I ordered an iced latte. Gabriel ordered a black coffee. He picked a table near the windows, near the exit, and I was thankful for that.
We sat.
My stomach turned.
“My name,” he started, looking down at the steam rising from his cup, “my name is Nick. Not Gabriel.”
I might have been surprised by the revelation had I not already decided long ago that he didn’t seem anything like a Gabriel.
“Nick,” I repeated. “Why Gabriel?”
“It was an alias.” He turned the coffee cup a quarter of an inch and looked at me.
During the years that’d stretched between when I’d met him and now, I realized I’d forgotten a very important detail about him—his eyes. They were the iciest blue. Ringed with a faint trace of black. The kind of eyes that knew things.
His black hair was longer than I remembered, and curled around his ears. His face was clean shaven. His teeth white as sugar.
“Why are you here?” I asked. “Why now?”
I didn’t see any reason to dance around the question. I wanted to know. I needed to know.
He shifted and looked out the window, the stark light of day making the blue of his eyes almost white.
“That’s a complicated answer. A long one.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He gazed back at me. “A lot has happened since…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but I knew what he meant. Since that night.
“Are they…” I wetted my lips, my mouth bone dry, my heart ramming against the back of my throat. “Are they here?”
He shook his head quickly. “I don’t work for them anymore, and from what I can tell, they aren’t around.”
Work for them. Like he was a stock boy at a grocery store. Or a plumber’s assistant. There was nothing normal about what he did. Or used to do.
“Who are they?” I asked.
Ever since I’d been kidnapped, I’d asked myself that over and over again. Why had I been taken? What did they do to my mother? Why did they do the things they’d done to me?
I hadn’t told anyone what had happened while I’d been missing. No one would have believed me if I had. But the silence, keeping the secret, meant that the longer it stayed with me, bottled up, the more it seemed like a nightmare, and the more I felt crazy for believing what had happened.
Maybe it hadn’t.
“They’re called the Branch.”
“What are they?”
“A private organization known for creating bio-weaponry, usually for the government.”
The café’s door opened, and a girl walked in, a cell phone glued to her ear. She was talking loudly about a dress she’d just bought. When she got in line at the register, she twisted, catching sight of Nick. Her whole body changed, elongating, back arched, eyes heavy and appreciative.
He’s a killer. I’m sitting across the table from a killer.
My throat constricted.
“What is bio-weaponry, exactly?” I asked.
“Turning the human body into a weapon. Genetic alterations. That kind of thing.”
I straightened. Several things clicked into place. Nick caught my morphing expression, and he frowned my way. “What?” he asked. “What is it?”
I arranged my face into an expression that I hoped was innocent. “Nothing.”
His frown deepened. “If you know something, tell me.”
I’d never breathed the confession to a single soul. I wasn’t going to start now.
“It’s just…” I shrugged. “It’s hard to believe, that’s all. I feel like I’m in an action movie or something.”
“No.” He laughed, but there was no hint of humor in his voice. “That’s just my life.”
“You say you remember me, but how much do you remember?”
“Well…” He scanned the coffee shop. “Do you have somewhere we can talk without…” He trailed off.
Without people hearing.
My old wounds pulsed with warning. Gabriel—Nick—hadn’t harmed me that night, but he was still tangled in those memories, and even though he’d saved me, I was still wary.
“The park?” I replied. “We could probably find a bench or something where we’d have some privacy.”
He nodded, and a lock of hair fell across his forehead. He swiped it back. “You lead,” he said, “and I will follow.”
15
NICK
I KNEW WHERE THE PARK WAS, BUT I wanted Elizabeth to feel in control, so I pretended I didn’t know the way. She was extremely wary of me, and for good reason. I was part of a memory she probably wanted to bury.
It took us only five minutes to reach the park. She picked the bench. We sat in the shade of a maple tree, the fountain rushing behind us. The playground was packed, and the sound of screaming kids put me on edge.