You Won't Know I'm Gone Page 12

  It’s no use. I push my body quietly out of its nest of blankets, pull on my robe, and find my slippers at the end of the bed. I tiptoe across the room, careful not to disturb anyone, and slip out the door.

  The lights are switched off throughout most of the compound. Only every other overhead light lining the residential hallway is switched on, their relentless fluorescent hum reduced to a level that’s only semi-annoying. Late night wandering has its perks.

  My legs carry me down the dimly lit hallway and past the closed doors of the boys-only dorm, the tiny single bedrooms of high-ranking CORE officers, and bathrooms. I loop around the intel center, I’m sure still buzzing with Black Angel operatives despite the late hour. As I turn down the West Hall, a streak of manufactured light and muffled conversation spill out of the rec room. I hope someone left the TV on. I don’t feel like chatting. As I get closer, an upbeat melody of wind instruments echoes into the hall, a cheerful theme song I recognize but cannot place. I creep along the hallway’s edge, thankful for my silent slippers. I poke half of my face around the door’s concrete casing and see Luke, dressed in his ragged New Albany soccer hoodie, staring intently up at a couple proudly showing off a painting. I immediately cringe. A clown with a painted white face, disturbing eyes, and red, malicious grin.

  “What are you watching?” I ask, my shoulder leaning against the doorway.

  Luke turns around and smiles when he sees me, revealing a pair of dimples I’d like to carry around in my pockets and take out anytime I feel sad.

  “Antiques Roadshow on PBS,” he responds.

  “You a big fan?” I reply and flop down on the cocoa-brown leather couch next to him.

  “Becoming one,” he says and nods toward the TV. “These people don’t even know what they have. This stupid clown painting has been in their basement forever. Piled with junk. This art dealer guy just told them it was worth one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Can you believe that?”

  “Not really.”

  “I’m terrified by that clown’s face … yet I cannot look away.”

  My lips separate and I feel a smile spread across my face for the first time in days. My fingers reach up and touch my raised cheek. I pinch at the fleshy apple, just to make sure it’s real.

  “Can’t sleep?” Luke asks, still not taking his eyes off the clown who looks like he cuts people’s throats for fun.

  “No. Way too much stuff in here,” I answer, pointing to my skull. “I just needed something to numb my brain.”

  “Well, you’ve come to the right place.” Luke grabs the controller and begins flipping through. He flips past CNN, ESPN, and HGTV. He stops on Bravo, where they’re playing a repeat of one of The Real Housewives of Wherever. “Bravo? They’re the masters of cotton-candy-for-your-brain TV.”

  “Mmmm, nah,” I reply and shake my head. “I hate to admit that I like a good martini-and-champagne-fueled cat fight as much as the next person. But not in the mood for their petty crap tonight.”

  That’s the thing I’m discovering about pain. You scoff at other people’s problems. Who cares if someone said you were a bitch behind your back. Who cares if somebody didn’t come to your stupid party. The last few days, I’ve found myself wondering how the people around me are still walking fast. Talking loud. After my mother died, it felt like the world deafened and spun at an agonizing speed. Carrying this dangerous secret about Torres has brought on the same excruciating sensation. Especially down here. Without the sun or moon to help keep time, hours tick by at half speed. Like one long, sleepless night.

  Luke flips past a channel playing a horror movie, an old episode of Cheers, and QVC.

  “Stop,” I reply and touch his arm, my fingertips immediately pulsing when I feel his warm skin. I quickly pull away. “Go back to QVC.”

  He flips back one and the late-night QVC crew tells me all the reasons I cannot live without an aqua-blue skillet. They speak in eager tones as they slide a perfect pair of sunny-side up eggs onto a waiting plate and wipe away the nonexistent mess with a paper towel. On air, these people live in a constant state of total amazement.

  “I love QVC,” I reply and hold my arms across my chest, wishing my robe was a little bit thicker. “Even though I don’t own a house or know how to cook or whatever, I’ll flip it on and find myself saying, ‘You know what, I really do need a knife that can cut through a sponge and a tin can.’”

  “They are marketing geniuses,” Luke replies, putting down the controller. “And I don’t usually throw that word around. But anyone who can speak about a cake pan or a blender with unflinching enthusiasm for fifteen straight minutes is a special kind of human.”

  “Agreed. They should become politicians after they’re done at QVC. Like, if that guy from In the Kitchen with David ran for president…”

  “You mean … David?”

  “Yes, David. I bet he’d find a way to win. He’d talk about foreign policy with the same gusto he talks about cookies and stockpots and we’d all be hypnotized. Like, ‘Yes, yes, you’re so right, In-the-Kitchen-with-David guy. That is a great idea to bring Palestinians and Jews together in Israel.’ He’d win by a landslide.”

  A laugh bubbles up Luke’s throat as he stacks his hands on the top of his head, and for a minute, the leather couch beneath us feels exactly like the one in the Weixels’ bonus room where we’ve shared a million and one stupid conversations. And though it’s just for a second, I’m happy to forget where I am.

  “Do you miss home?” I ask, picturing the Weixels’ brick Georgian house, Luke’s empty bedroom, the record player that’s been silent since we left for Colombia.

  “New Albany isn’t home anymore,” Luke answers, the surprising statement punctuated by a deep sigh.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, turning toward him.

  “CORE moved my parents to North Carolina a month ago,” Luke says, his eyes still on the television.

  “What?” I ask, my voice breathy. “Why? Because of Torres?”

  “Yeah,” Luke says, chewing at the inside of his cheek. His subconscious, nervous tic. “They had a watcher on them in New Albany but decided to take them to a more secure location on a military base. Dad’s the only one who knows the reason. Claire and Mom just think Dad took a new military job there.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I say, grabbing at his wrist.

  Luke finally tears his eyes away from the blond host with too much blush and looks in my direction. “I didn’t want to upset you. Give you a reason to worry.”

  “Have there been threats made against them? Is that why they got moved?”

  Luke stares at me, pressing his lips together. Not wanting to answer.

  “Tell me,” I push.

  After a few seconds, he reluctantly nods his head.

  God damn it. Not them too.

  The panic returns to my body quickly, too quickly. It doesn’t trickle in, it floods. Like I’m drowning, sparking a sense memory I’ve long forgotten.

  I’m five years old, in a crowded pool and walking too far from the shallow end. Suddenly, the water is too high. My feet have lifted up. I can’t find the floor. I’m splashing and swallowing water. My mind is screaming but I can’t breathe. I can’t cry out for help. I try to find something to hang on to. But there is nothing. Suddenly, there’s an arm around my stomach, pulling me back, telling me I’m going to be okay. It was my mom.

  I try to breathe next to Luke, but the air gets caught in my throat. And I realize this time, there’s no one here to save me. No one to pull me from the flood.

  “I’m sorry,” Luke says, reading the change in my face. He slides his hand on top of mine. “I shouldn’t have said anything. You came here to escape.”

  “You should have told me when it happened,” I reply and close my eyes for a moment, trying to release the noose wrapped around my rib cage. “God, I’m so sorry. This is my fault.”

  “You need to stop saying that,” Luke replies gently, his thumb and forefinger strokin
g the top of my hand. “You are not responsible for any of this. You’re not responsible for my parents having to move. You’re not responsible for your mother’s death. And you’re certainly not responsible for the fact Torres is coming after Black Angels. He is the monster. Not you.”

  “I get that,” I say and stare past Luke, that dark field coming back to me. I can almost smell the sea, feel the firm ground beneath my feet as I run toward the house. “I just can’t help but go back and wonder what I could have done differently. My mother dying is one thing. The fact that he’s threatening your family. That he’s tracking down and just, like … picking off Black Angel agents … it just makes me think, my God, what have I started? How much worse can this get?”

  Tears burn at the corner of my eyes, the panic and sadness clash to form a suffocating balloon in my throat. Luke slides from his side of the couch and pulls me into his arms. I’ve done my best to swallow my tears in front of him since our days in the safe house. But as he holds me, cradling the back of my head with his hand, my face contorts, my lower lip trembles, and a few tears escape.

  “Reagan, would you really not make the same choices?” Luke says quietly into my ear. “If you had to do it all over again, would you not still sneak down to Colombia? Still leap out of that van when everyone else was ready to abandon the mission? Not run after your mother and try to save her?”

  “I don’t know,” my voice squeaks out. As I open my mouth, tears slide in, filling my tongue with salt.

  “Well, I know you,” Luke replies, pulling a wet strand of hair away from my face and tucking it behind my ear. “And I know if given the chance to redo everything, you could never just sit and do nothing. You are a fighter. You fought to save your family. You fought your way in here. And you’ll fight to see Torres brought to justice. There is not a doubt in my mind that you will help bring an end to all this.”

  I don’t know how he does it. After days of feeling powerless and incapacitated, that ember at my core suddenly flickers, pulsing from dark to light. Luke is right. I can’t sit in this black and hopeless hole. I didn’t fight my way here to be paralyzed by Torres. My mission has been singular since the moment he pulled that trigger.

  Sam has tried to warn me about revenge. She told me that its flame doesn’t just destroy your target. It blisters you from the inside, then trickles out, and before you know it, everything you touch is damaged. All that is good burns and blackens. I pretended to agree. But the intense heat cradles me, soothes me somehow. I know it could destroy me in the end. But if it means ending this terror, if it means protecting the Black Angels, then I’ll gladly wake up blackened and broken. I long for the taste of ash in my mouth.

  EIGHTEEN

  “Thank you for rescuing me today,” Luke says, pulling his elbow behind his head to stretch his sore muscles. “I had no idea what I was doing on that simulated mission.”

  “You’re learning fast,” I answer, pulling my feet together on the ground, my long limbs creating a butterfly. “I’ve been doing this forever. You’ve only been here a few months. Don’t beat yourself up.”

  “I know, I guess I just get nervous about being behind everyone else,” Luke replies, his right knee bent in front of him, his left leg stretching behind. “Especially with Qualifier cuts this week and everything.”

  I glance at the clock over the double doors. It’s eleven p.m. Lights-out in an hour. The training center is empty. The rest of the trainees have already hit the showers and are getting ready for the next day. But Luke and I still need work.

  “You’ll make it. You have so much raw talent,” I say to ease his mind. But in reality, I have no idea who the senior leaders will choose to let go. I’m not even sure if I’ll make it. But I do worry about Luke. I’ve been training every day since I was five—but for someone like Luke who has just baseline military training, it’s tough. While I’m slowly improving, the cracks in Luke’s training are beginning to show. I see the frustration etched around his mouth and burning in his eyes. He gave up so much to be here: West Point, a military career, a normal life. I refuse to let him fail or see him stuck at a desk at CORE for the rest of his life when he could have been a colonel like his dad. So every night this week, when the rest of the team heads out, I stay with Luke. I teach him new skills, help him refine old ones. And it’s my job to cement his place here.

  “How are you feeling about things?” Luke asks, taking a seat next to me to stretch his hamstrings.

  “With the training?” I ask and give a quick shrug of my shoulders. “Okay, I think.”

  “No, you’re doing great,” he says, his fingertips pulling at his toes. “You’re getting so much stronger. Anyone can see that. I mean the stuff we can’t see. You seem … I don’t know … different. Like your body is here but you aren’t.”

  “I do?” My eyes widen with surprise although they shouldn’t. This is Luke I’m talking to.

  “Yeah,” he answers with a nod; his eyes look past me. “Ever since our late night in the rec room last week you’ve just seemed sort of … robotic. Everything you do is precise and perfect. But even outside of training, it’s like you’re acting out a role. Playing the Reagan everyone wants you to be or something.”

  Ever since that ember reignited, I’ve forced my body back into old, mechanical Reagan. While part of me is suffocated by the robotic rigidity of who I used to be, the other half is comforted by the numbness. Like slipping back into an old, worn sweatshirt. I know just where the pulls are, the pills in the fabric. I’m mindful of the exposed threads, one pull away from unraveling. The numbness anchors every part of me. But it’s a trade I have to make.

  “I guess I am,” I reply and run my hands along my defined quad muscles. “I need to be perfect. I need to make this next round. You’re the one who said it. That I could help stop Torres. I don’t want to miss that chance because of lost points during the assessment phase. I have to be like this or I’m afraid I’ll get cut.”

  “I know. But you don’t have to be like this around your friends. Around me.”

  He’s right. My personality has shifted. Even when we’re alone. I smile less. I stand up straighter. Weigh my words. Cut them into precise syllables when I finally do speak. But I just don’t know how to jump between the two.

  “It’s hard, Luke,” I finally answer and point toward my head. “I’ve got two versions of myself in there. I can’t just switch them on and off. When I commit to one, I’m all in. So if I want to make it, Zombie Reagan is who I have to be.”

  What I really want to do is hack back into those files. Find out where Torres might be. Load up my weapons, hop a flight to South America, and stick my Glock down his throat. But I can’t do that. Not yet. My mind is playing constant defense on the real me. She’s just too dangerous for this place.

  Just thinking about Torres causes that flame at my core to pulse. The heat rises, licking my organs, blistering my skin from the inside out. I see her face. Hear her scream. Gunpowder fills my nose, then iron-rich blood, like clumps of wet pennies.

  Stop. Stop. Stop, my mind pleads. My eyes snap shut, snuffing out the threatening anger. My body presses into a deep stretch, my muscles aching. I take in a breath and slip back into the cold.

  “I get it,” Luke replies after several moments of silence. When I look back at him, he’s retying his shoe, creating perfect bunny ears. “You do what you need to do. There’s no one who wants to see you succeed more than me.”

  “Same,” I answer and try to swallow, but my throat is dry and scratchy.

  “I need to get better with my ground defense if I’m going to make it all the way to the academy,” Luke says, shaking his head. “With military training, you don’t really practice a lot of those moves. I totally embarrassed myself yesterday.”

  “You did great for your first time,” I answer and grab the bottle of water next to me. I take a long swig before standing up. “Come on. Let’s practice. That’s the only way you’ll get better.”

  I hold
out my hands for Luke to take. I pull him up and as we make our way to the center training mat, his fingers glide down my hand and lace with mine. The hollows of our palms kiss, just for a moment, and my heart pounds in my ears. He squeezes my hand once, then pulls away, knowing we can’t. The creases in my fingers throb without his pressed against mine, but I shake my wrist, force the buzzing to fade, and grab one of the fake knives from the side of the mat.

  “Okay, I’m going to show you how to do this first,” I say, handing the plastic blade to Luke and laying my body down on the ground. “Then it’s your turn.”

  “Got it,” Luke says, straddling my torso and holding the knife at his side.

  “Okay, come at me,” I say, motioning with my hands.

  Luke hesitates for a moment and then plunges the plastic blade toward me. I instinctively push one hand up to his eyes, careful not to actually poke him, and with my other hand, I brace for his arm before he can make impact. I jam my hand up his chin, snapping his neck back and rolling him on his side. Once he’s on his back, I push his knife-wielding hand down and fake punch him in the face until his legs release their grip on my body and I can get away. Three seconds and I’m out.

  “Damn, you make that look so easy,” Luke replies and rolls onto his knees, his hands resting on his thick, muscular thighs. “You’re almost graceful when you’re kicking someone’s ass.”

  My hands grasp at my hips and I smile, thinking about Mom. That’s how she was too. There was an Audrey Hepburn quality to her. Long neck, fluid limbs, perfect form. She made martial arts almost look like a ballet. The memory of her burns my throat. I cough and force her face away.

  “Okay, your turn,” I answer and point Luke to the floor. He lies on his back and waits for me to assume my place above him. “Ready and go.”

  I plunge the knife toward him and he fumbles, reaching for my face with one hand but forgetting to block me with the other. I touch the plastic blade to the side of his neck and make an obnoxious noise, like a game show buzzer.

  “You’re dead,” I say, tapping the knife to his flesh, and he shakes his head. “Concentrate. You’ve got this, Luke. You’ve memorized the moves. I know you have. Stop overthinking. Just let your mind go. Your body knows what to do.”