Slow Burn(111)

    “The password would open the door, right?”

    “Yeah,” he said, coming over to me. “Do you think you know it?”

    I really had no idea. “Well, I used to know the password for his bank account. You think it’s the same?”

    He shrugged. “Let’s try it.”

    I went over to the keypad. There was a screen over it. It read, Input password, followed by the enter key.

    I typed in the password I knew.

    Incorrect, flashed the screen. Nozzles engaged. You have two more tries to enter the correct password or gas will be dispensed.

    I stepped back. “Oops.”

    “Whoever programmed this thing is sick.”

    “Well,” I said. “If we don’t put in another password, everything will be fine, right?”

    The screen blinked. Enter password in thirty seconds or gas will be dispensed.

    “Crap,” I said. I looked at Griffin.

    “You don’t know any of his other passwords?

    “I...” I bit my lip. “No, I do know another one. He used this for all kinds of stuff. He tried to password-protect the internet with it.” I keyed it in.

    Incorrect, blinked the screen.

    “We’ll be okay, though,” I said. “We’ll wake up after we get gassed. Right?”

    “I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll go dark, that’s for sure.”

    The screen started to count down from ten.

    “Let me try something,” said Griffin.

    Eight. Seven. Six.

    He stepped in front of the console and began to key in something.

    Five. Four. Three. Two.

    The doors opened.

    I gaped at him. “You guessed it. You guessed the password.”

    “It was your name,” said Griffin. “I guess your dad thought about you more than we knew.”

* * *

    Griffin and I crept through the hallways of Op Wraith, ducking into empty rooms when we heard anyone coming.

    At the end of the hallway, we saw that French and my father were sitting inside one of the rooms. Along the wall were several rows of needles and syringes. One row was labeled, “stage one,” the others labeled, “stage two.”

    “I won’t let you hurt her,” said my father. “Honestly, now that Caldwell is out of the picture, I don’t see why we can’t give her the memory wipe and send her back to her life.”

    “That would never work,” said French. “Everyone would wonder where she’d been. She’d wonder where she’d been for a year.”

    “A full memory wipe then,” said my father. “True amnesia. It can be accomplished with the stage two injection.” He gestured to the needles on the wall.

    “You’d do that to your own daughter?” French sounded amused.

    “I want her alive,” said my father.

    “If alive is all that matters, then why is it a problem for her to be one of our assassins?” asked French.

    Griffin touched my arm. “We’ve got to get in there. But we can’t underestimate French. She’s—”

    There was a crashing noise from inside the room.

    We turned back to look.

    Knox was leaping out of the duct work, gun in hand. “Hands on your head,” he snarled.

    French and my father both complied, their eyes wide.

    Griffin pulled me into the room.

    Knox tensed, training his gun on us as we entered.

    “It’s us,” said Griffin.

    “Great,” said Knox. “I’ve been having trouble killing French.”

    “We noticed,” said Griffin.

    French turned to Griffin, her voice urgent. “You’re nothing but a cocksucking faggot. Now get the gun from Knox.”

    Griffin sneered. “Yeah, that’s not going to work, anymore.”

    She glared at me. “What did you do to him?”

    I smirked.

    French sucked in an audible breath and turned to Knox. “You. You didn’t lift a finger to save the woman you loved.”