You Won't Know I'm Gone Read online

  “I miss everything about them,” I reply and lie down on the mat, pulling my right leg toward my chest and stretching my throbbing hamstring. Cam and Anusha both look over at me, a shared sadness looming behind their half smiles. It’s the first real thing I’ve said to either one of them. They’ve gotten one-word answers and half-truths. The pretender mask still firmly in place. Taking it off is terrifying. Even with my parents, when I should have been myself, I wasn’t. I spent years pretending to be someone else. And with Mom gone, I’m still not sure who is under there. Or if I’ll even like what’s hiding beneath.

  EIGHT

  “Come on, Reagan,” Cam’s voice yells from across the mat as I screw up a take-down for the third time in a row. “If you were on a real mission, you’d be dead right now.”

  I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand, my chest rebelling against new breaths, my muscles slack and weary. We’ve been training for hours and the exhaustion has more than settled in.

  “I know. I’m sorry. This is freaking hard, man,” I say, my normally steady voice edging toward exasperation. “I’m just tired.”

  “No one gives a shit if you’re tired on a mission,” Cam barks, playing bad cop trainer, as we train alone in a smaller martial arts studio, away from the prying eyes of the other Black Angels.

  “Come on. Let’s try it again,” good cop Anusha says gently before putting me in a headlock. Air pushes from my body and I catch a glimpse of my brown eyes in the mirror, flashing with irritation—with myself and with Anusha for not letting me at least catch my breath. Finally, I peel her tight fingertips from my screaming flesh, lower my center of gravity, and flip Anusha onto her back.

  “Yes, Reagan!” Cam springs up on his toes, giving me a slow and steady clap. “That’s my girl.” My lips can’t help but spread into a small, thankful smile.

  “Finally,” I reply, my hand reaching down for Anusha’s. “Let’s end on a high note.”

  Anusha stands up and pats me on the back before walking across the studio to grab us both bottled water.

  “I still don’t know if they’ll think I’m strong enough to be out in the field,” I say, my hands settling on my narrow hips. I look up at myself in the mirror. I’m still too thin, but after a few weeks of hard training with Cam and Anusha, I’m starting to see the outline of the girl I used to be.

  “You will be,” Anusha declares, handing me a cold bottled water, which I open and greedily chug. “You’re getting better every single day.”

  “Thanks to you guys,” I say, wiping away the excess water that’s dribbled down my chin. “Seriously. Thank you for training with me.”

  “Of course,” Cam says, putting an arm around my shoulder and giving me a tight squeeze.

  I look up into his kind eyes and wonder why. Why they’re putting in all these extra hours with me. They don’t have to. They could be resting or concentrating on their own weaknesses. But instead, they’re spending their time trying to better mine. After the year I’ve had, it’s hard to believe in kindness. It’s hard to believe in good. Even when it’s pure and real and holding out its hand, right in front of you. Torres made me like this. He made me search for the cruelty in others. And for that, I’ll never forgive him.

  “All right, I’m exhausted,” Cam says, glancing at the digital clock that hangs over the floor-to-ceiling mirror. I follow his eyes. It’s nearly midnight. “Showers?”

  “In a few,” I say and settle back down on the mat, my muscles seizing and in need of a stretch. “I’ve got to work out some of these cramps or I’ll be up all night with charley horses.”

  “The worst,” Anusha replies and takes a seat on the mat next to me. “I could use a stretch myself.”

  “Well, I’m beat,” Cam says and walks toward the door. “Charley horses be damned. Catch you two at breakfast.”

  “Good night,” Anusha calls after him, pulling her torso over her legs and reaching out for her toes. The door clanks behind him and Anusha turns back toward me, a smile inching up her face. “Do you think Cam has a crush on you?”

  “What?” I ask, my voice rising. “No way. He’s just a friendly guy.”

  “He always finds a way to touch you though,” she says, her eyebrows arching. “He doesn’t really do that with me.”

  “I’m not giving off more-than-friendship vibes, am I?” I ask, pulling my elbow behind my back. “Because he’s great and all but I don’t really have the headspace for anything more than that.”

  “Yeah, me neither,” Anusha replies softly, her smile suddenly falling. She digs her teeth into her bottom lip and turns away from me. But I catch her face before it leaves mine. I know that look. I know that sorrow behind her eyes.

  “You had to leave somebody,” I say, the words slowly escaping my lips. “Didn’t you?”

  Anusha’s light brown eyes glisten; flecks of gold and green inflame like fading fireworks. “Yeah,” she finally says, her voice breaking slightly in her throat. “My boyfriend back at the Air Force Academy. I had to break up with him to come here. They made me cut off all ties with him to accept this position, but I wasn’t allowed to tell him why. They told me I couldn’t keep in touch with him so … I had to really hurt him. I broke the guy’s heart.”

  Pain etches deeper around Anusha’s eyes as she pulls her knees to her chest, and I’m back in that New Albany living room, letting the Australian soccer player kiss me in front of Luke while I swallow the scream in my throat.

  Silence encircles us, the ghosts of our twin betrayals playing back like a bad movie in our minds. I wait for Anusha to expand. She’s been the talker, I’ve been the listener. But her mouth stays pressed together in a thin line.

  “I know it’s hard to believe people when they say they know how you feel,” I reply, pressing the backs of my feet together into a stretch. “But I do. I know what it’s like to destroy someone while your heart just … cries out for them.”

  I’ll never get over the broken look on Luke’s face. The way his pale blue eyes turned glassy before his gaze left mine. The throbbing of every cell within me to explain.

  “Did you leave someone behind too?” Anusha asks.

  “I guess you could say that,” I reply, my voice catching in my throat. Sometimes, I wish it was just my betrayal that made my heart constrict at the thought of Luke. If I had simply disappeared from New Albany at least I’d know where he was. I could lie awake at night and imagine him on our couch in the bonus room, running along our path early in the morning, dissecting something that makes Harper squirm in AP biology lab. At least I’d know he was safe. It’s the not knowing, not being able to imagine pieces of his life, that causes my throat to itch with worry.

  “Comes with the territory, I guess,” Anusha replies with a sigh, her chin resting on her kneecaps.

  “Yes, it does,” I say. “This life isn’t for everyone. It’s freaking hard. Hurting people you love is only the beginning.”

  “It’s a lot to get used to,” Anusha says, her voice thin, like it’s coming from somewhere else. This whole time, I’ve been so focused on my own struggles, I didn’t even notice that the people who were trying to help me were struggling as well.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” I reply quietly, reaching out to touch her arm. My fingertips rest against her dewy skin and I realize it’s the first time I’ve reached out to touch anyone in months. “There are a lot of pros to being here. Take down the bad. Rescue the good. But when you’re a Black Angel, your life belongs to the agency. Believe me, I’ve lived it. You could still go to the air force. Make a difference in the world. But your life will belong to you.”

  Anusha stares into the mirror across from us, carefully considering my words. She turns her face toward mine, resting her cheek against her knees.

  “Why are you doing this? I mean, after everything you’ve been through, everything you’ve seen. Why are you still here?”

  I stare down at the fading blue mat and the ember in my stomach flares. His face
comes back to me; dark, penetrating eyes, salt-and-pepper goatee. I daydream about Torres every few hours, his mouth bloodied, his limbs tied in metal chains. I think about where I’ll put each bullet. I muse on the color of his blood. I like to imagine it’s brighter than the rest of ours. That God color-coded Torres’s wickedness so he could spot that blazing red color after the light faded from his eyes and know exactly where Santino Torres belongs.

  But I can’t say any of this to Anusha. I can’t say it to anyone.

  “You know I struggled last year with my decision to come here,” I reply, my words measured. “Before my mom died. Before everything in Colombia. I wanted to be normal. I almost chose college over the academy. My parents had been saying for years that I was not normal and I guess … I finally believe them.”

  The words I’m saying are true. They’re not all lies. Not a part of my Torres vengeance plan. My parents were right all along. I’ll never be normal. Even if this never happened. Even if Mom was still alive and I had gone to college, something would have pulled me back. Mom worried I couldn’t hear the calling, but I did. I always heard it, but I ignored it, afraid of what would happen if I actually answered. Now the very worst has happened. And I hear it louder than ever.

  “I asked my mom once why she did this,” I continue. “Why she risked her life for total strangers. She told me the people she saved, they were someone’s daughter or mother or son. They meant something to someone. Now I know how all those people would have felt if my mom wasn’t there to save them. And I don’t want anyone else to feel like I feel right now. Not if I can help it.”

  A melancholy smile twitches on Anusha’s face. Her bright eyes turn foggy as she opens her mouth to speak, closes it, then tries again. “I’m really sorry, Reagan,” she says, her voice fragile and soft.

  That hollow space inside of me shrieks, angry and unforgivingly cruel. Sometimes, my love for my mother betrays me. It makes me think I’m stronger than I am. But then that agony returns, punishing me for my foolish hope.

  Hope. People have been saying that word to me a lot since Mom died. That I need to hold on to it. Let it drag me out of bed to face another day. But to me, hope is evil. Far crueler than fear or anger or hate. At least those emotions are honest. Not hope. It wraps us in the warmth of false promises until it’s stripped and ripped and cut away, leaving mocking scars on our skin.

  A jagged rock of grief, permanently lodged behind my sternum, breaks free, and tears scrape at my throat.

  Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

  I don’t want to show weakness. Not here. Not even to Anusha. I try to get up before Anusha sees them, but her face changes, falls.

  “Reagan,” she says gently as I make my way toward the door. But I don’t turn around. I open the door and throw myself into the dark hallway. My legs hurry down the North Hall, picking up speed with every step until I’m running. I hear the echo of Anusha stirring, getting ready to come after me. I slip into another dark studio and silently shut the door. My body pushes against the wall, sinking inch by inch until I’m on the ground. And only once I feel the cold concrete beneath my hands do I let the tears, the loss, fall all around me.

  “I miss you,” I whisper into the darkness. “I just miss you.”

  NINE

  “This must be what the first day of college feels like,” I say quietly in Anusha’s ear as we sit on my bed and watch Black Angel trainee after Black Angel trainee drag her two CORE-approved duffels into our once-empty dorm room. We knew this day was coming. When the other ten legacies would join our quiet space. I feel like after months on my own, I just got used to having Anusha around 24/7. Adding ten more girls to the mix is going to be interesting.

  Each girl is exactly what you’d expect a Black Angel child to be: strong, confident, and guarded. They’ve been pleasant enough, each greeting us with a tentative handshake and their Black Angel stats: name, legacy status, specialty, last “hometown.” We’re tied together by the double lives we’ve led and countless lies we’ve weaved, but even with that silent bond, we refuse to drop our pretender masks. We force our best smiles and feign genuine interest in one another’s stories. But I know what we’re all doing: mentally filing away our silent judgments. But instead of categorizing one another as “sorority girl,” “pothead,” or “study nerd” like we would if we were in a college dorm, we’re labeling our competition, deciding who we’re better than and who we could lose out to.

  “Do you know whose stuff this is?” a girl asks, pointing to Anusha’s already claimed bottom bunk. Tall and thin, dressed in an ivory lace jumpsuit, black booties, and a black leather jacket, she looks more like a high-fashion model than a highly trained child spy.

  “Yeah, it’s mine,” Anusha replies and holds out her hand. “Hi, I’m Anusha. You’re welcome to grab the top bunk. It hasn’t been taken yet.”

  “Lex Morgan. How do you feel about switching?” she quickly replies, placing a hand on her slender hip and casting a glance down at Anusha’s now awkward greeting. “I really, really hate the top bunk and all the bottoms are already taken.”

  “Well, I’m … I’m pretty comfortable on the bottom bunk,” Anusha answers, slowly withdrawing her hand and tucking it into her sweatshirt sleeve, embarrassed and confused by this girl’s dismissal. “I kind of claimed it over a month ago. Sorry about that.”

  “How have you already been here a month?” Lex asks, narrowing her deep-set eyes, an almost too-bright-to-be-real shade of green. “This is the first day legacies were allowed to arrive.”

  “I’m not a legacy,” Anusha answers, clearing her throat, growing increasingly uncomfortable with Lex’s presence. “I finished my freshman year at the Air Force Academy and was invited to come here early.”

  “So you’re just an EOP?” Lex scoffs, tossing her blond ponytail over her shoulder. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I think legacies should have seniority when it comes to bunks. I mean, I’m a fourth generation Black Angel. So how about you move your stuff?”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me, right?” I say, unable to contain my smart mouth any longer. “Lovely first impression you leave.”

  “Well, how should I be acting?” she asks, shrugging her shoulders. “What do you want me to do, offer to bake cookies while we braid each other’s hair? This is Qualifiers. I didn’t come here to make friends. I came here to compete.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t be kind to each other during the process,” I say.

  “Are you going to be one of those people who is nice to everyone on the outside but is planning on how to stab us all in the backs on the inside? Or did you learn all this ‘Kumbaya’ crap in the air force too?”

  “I didn’t attend the air force,” I reply. “I’m a legacy. But only a second generation. I bet that’s probably not good enough for you either, is it?”

  “You’re a legacy?” Lex asks, her bee-stung lips forming a curious pout. “I thought I knew all the legacies coming to Qualifiers. What’s your name?”

  “Reagan,” I reply, suddenly not wanting to say my last name out loud.

  “Reagan what?”

  “Hillis.”

  “You’re Reagan Hillis? Are you serious?” she says with a laugh, her aristocratic face registering both shock and delight. “What the hell are you doing here? You were one of the elites. You had an automatic bid into the academy. What’d you do to screw that up? Kill someone?”

  My lower spine throbs, each vertebra seizing, one by one, until the agony rattles my neck. Anusha’s hand reaches out and touches the icy exposed skin on my wrist, immediately protective. Or maybe worried I’ll get kicked out of Qualifiers before they start for punching this girl in the face.

  One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.

  I count my breaths, trying to stop the storm that is raging inside my tightening chest, and attempt to formulate a coherent thought.

  “I broke a rule,” I finally answer, my lips slowly and deliberately wrapping around
each word, as Lex’s mouth curls into a smirk. “Now I’m here. So go ahead and add me to your list of competition.”

  “From the looks of you, you won’t be much,” Lex replies with a snort, throwing her duffel bags back on her shoulders. “I’ve been hearing about you from my parents and the trainers for years. I guess it’s like meeting a celebrity you really love. They never quite live up to the hype.”

  Lex looks my still-too-thin body up and down one more time before sauntering over to the other side of the room, where I’m sure she’ll bully her way into one of the lower bunks.

  “Is this chick for real?” Anusha asks, her face tight and mouth angry. “I mean, I’ve seen Mean Girls. I just didn’t know I’d meet Regina George in the flesh one day.”

  I take in a breath, wishing for the days of New Albany High School and Madison Scarborough, where I could easily combat her bullying ways by hacking into social media accounts or the school’s mainframe to change grades. But here, everyone knows my tricks. My techniques won’t work on a girl like Lex.

  “Forget about her,” I reply, waving my hand through the air and trying to take my own advice. “Typical Black Angel move. She’s just trying to get inside our minds. Her parents must have hammered her with psychology but skipped the whole part about acting like something that resembles a human being.”

  Every person in this room is a product of their training, of their parents. My parents trained me to be confident and defiant and strong in the face of adversity. To think of others, the targets that need saving, before thinking about myself. Clearly, Lex Morgan’s parents taught her to be ruthless. That winning was the most important thing. That her life and successes mattered most of all.

  “She strikes me as someone who is proud to tell you about how her family came over on the Mayflower or something,” Anusha says, still glaring at Lex. “She clearly comes from a long line of people who just take whatever the hell they want.”