A tall and broad man dressed in black stepped out from behind a detached garage. Lucy turned, gun pointed directly at his chest.
“Wait, please, Lucy,” he cried. “Let me help you.”
Zoe waited for Lucy, finger on the trigger, to put the agent down like all the others. But she was hesitating.
“I know you don’t remember,” the man said. “But I’m a good guy. I’m trying to help you.”
Lucy didn’t move. Shoot him, Zoe thought. She glanced behind them. They didn’t have time for this.
“Ollie sent you to find the robin,” the man said, and Zoe felt Lucy’s entire body change. He braved a step toward them. “She sent me to find you in case things went south. I’m your backup.”
“You’re lying,” Lucy said.
“I’m not. You have to remember. I can help you remember.”
Lucy didn’t move or speak, but Zoe could tell that something was different about this man.
“I can help get you somewhere safe, somewhere they won’t find you,” he said.
“We’re already going somewhere safe,” Lucy said.
“They know that Summer worked for Port Authority. There’s another team waiting at the coast. You’ll never make it in without being detected. I’m going to reach into my back pocket for a piece of paper, okay?”
They watched him closely as he slowly moved his hand to the back and pulled out a folded white item. He then inched toward the ground and laid the paper on the pavement. “These are coordinates to a safe house in Arkansas. Two days’ travel from here. Meet me there and I’ll explain everything. Or go to the coast. Your choice.”
Lucy craned her ear to the side. “More are coming. Should I shoot him?”
Zoe looked at Lucy, surprised. She was asking for guidance? She’d taken down all the others without help, but now she wanted to know what she should do?
Zoe looked back at the agent. If she said yes, would Lucy pull the trigger? The weight of it hit Zoe like a train, and she placed her hand on Lucy’s arm. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because of the way Lucy had reacted to him. Maybe it was because the idea of his death on her hands was more than she was ready to swallow. But she did it, and Lucy’s hardened stance eased slightly.
“We need to get out of here,” Zoe said.
“I’ll pull them west, radio that I’m in pursuit of you,” the man said. “You head east. Go to the safe house. Without you, we lose everything.”
He started west without another word and disappeared into the dark tangle of streets. Lucy kept the weapon trained on him until he was out of sight, then listened.
“Did he radio?” Zoe asked.
Lucy nodded and stepped forward to retrieve the paper he left. “They are all moving that way. Come on.” She tucked the paper in her back pocket and started in the opposite direction.
They ran for several minutes, maybe more. It was hard to know anymore.
Finally, Lucy slowed down, and Zoe forced herself not to collapse into a puddle of exhaustion. She thought she might barf, and she took deep breaths to steady the racing of her heart and the trembling of her limbs.
“Why did you ask me?”
Lucy looked at her.
“If you should shoot him. You took down every other agent without blinking, but with him you hesitated.”
Lucy remained quiet for a breath, the hard warrior melting from her expression and the terrified innocence returning. “I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I’m used to having orders.”
“You remember that?”
As if suddenly the gate she had been trained to close was opened, emotions gripped her body and tears filled her eyes.
“Yes, and I remembered him.”
FOURTEEN
SEELEY LOOKED AROUND the carnage Lucy had left across Summer’s junkyard. Eight men dead. Summer Wallace with them. In less than five minutes. Dr. Loveless had been correct. Lucy’s memory loss clearly had no effect on her training.
“Did she take the bait?” McCoy asked, stepping into Seeley’s line of sight.
“We’ll find out soon,” Seeley said. “Finding the robin gave her pause. Your hunch about it was spot-on. Good instincts.”
“I remember Olivia saying it was a silly code she used to use. It was a wild stab, really.”
“I didn’t realize you and Olivia were so close,” Seeley said.
“Yeah,” McCoy said, dropping his eyes. “I guess we were.”
Seeley could see the hint of pain in the agent’s face. “Any evidence to suggest Summer was the source Olivia had set up to release the information if Lucy doesn’t recover it?”
“Not that we found,” McCoy said, drawing his eyes back up. “And I’m not sure who she would tell now if she were, you know, because . . .”
“Because she’s dead,” Seeley said matter-of-factly.
McCoy cleared his throat and nodded uncomfortably. Great, Seeley thought, the kid was uncomfortable with death. That wouldn’t serve him here.
“And there’s no new leads on our time frame?” Seeley asked.
“No, sir,” McCoy answered.
So they were still flying blind. Seeley stepped past the kid toward the team cleaning up the bodies, hunting for clues, documenting everything a dozen yards in each direction.
His interactions with Lucy and Zoe replayed in his head. It had gone as he had imagined, until Lucy looked to Zoe for direction. That had caught him off guard. Lucy, as powerful as she was, had been trained to follow, and without Olivia or the Grantham Project she’d found another leader.
That made Zoe Johnson—Evelyn Pierce—much more valuable than they’d first believed. But her story was laced with unspeakable tragedy. Tragedy he could use and manipulate.
Time to head for Arkansas.
ZOE AND LUCY stepped off another bus, the third one they’d been on in the last two days. At first they’d headed for the coast to see if the agent had been correct about a team waiting. Zoe had thought it was the most logical move, and Lucy followed her without question. It wasn’t lost on Zoe, the way Lucy kept looking to her. The responsibility was heavy but also gave her a sense of purpose. Something she hadn’t experienced in a long time.
The last time she’d felt this sensation, she’d failed. She was all Stephen had, and instead of fighting for him like she should have, she listened to the advice of a twisted psychologist. Dr. Holbert led her to abandon her little brother, maybe when he needed her most. Because of that, she ruined his life.
The guilt had been chasing her ever since. Now she had a chance to do things differently. Though the fear of failing again was hard to overcome. She swallowed it, and it spread across her skin in the form of a rash, itchy and painful red spots that ran along her arms. Something she’d dealt with since she was a little girl.
There had been a time when Zoe thought she’d been rid of it completely. That she’d beaten fear. But fear wasn’t something a girl got rid of. She just created rules to keep herself safe from it.
But she was breaking all the rules now. For Lucy.
The agent had been right about the tactical team waiting at the coast. Lucy had spotted at least a dozen, and the girls knew there was no way through. Without another plan, they’d considered the agent’s coordinates.