“You think I’m going to just lower my weapon and follow you?”
“You don’t have to lower the gun if you don’t want. Keep it pointed at me the whole time. But I would suggest you follow me to the safe house.”
He slowly started moving again, keeping a wide berth but moving past her and over toward the valley where Lucy had gone.
Zoe watched in disbelief and followed him with her weapon. “Aren’t you at all afraid I’ll shoot you?”
He looked back at her over his shoulder, a mischievous spark in his eye. “I might be. If you didn’t have the safety on.” He pointed to the gun.
He continued to descend the hill, and she surveyed the weapon, realizing she wasn’t even sure what a safety looked like. Embarrassed and frustrated, she grabbed the backpack from the boulder, tossed the gun back inside, and followed him at a good distance.
The safe house was a small wooden cabin in the middle of the valley. Grassy and rocky mountains surrounded it, as if the flat plot of land at their base had been scooped out specifically for the building at its center. Zoe forced herself past the pain in her limbs as she moved carefully through the natural terrain, Agent Seeley a couple feet ahead.
When they were still yards off, Lucy came rushing from the cabin and stared, looking confused and surprised. Her face assumed its warrior expression, and Zoe could tell she was ready to fight.
“Stop where you are,” Lucy said to Agent Seeley as he stepped onto the valley floor. He did as he was told.
“He has a gun,” Zoe yelled, remembering.
Without having to be told, Agent Seeley removed the pistol from his holster and placed it on the ground, then kicked it away. “I’m here to help.”
Lucy moved swiftly to the gun, her eyes on Agent Seeley, and scooped it up. She raised it at him as Zoe was nearly to her side.
“Check him for other weapons,” Lucy said to Zoe.
Zoe looked at her, and Lucy gave her a confident nod. Zoe crossed the space between them and dropped to check his ankles, both sides, under his jacket, and his waist. She avoided eye contact and was light with her hands, touching him as little as possible. She found nothing, so she gave Lucy a nod and crossed back to her.
“The cabin?” Zoe asked.
“Clear, as far as I can tell,” Lucy said.
“It is. Olivia and I made sure to sweep it before we set anything in motion so we’d always have a place to go,” Agent Seeley said. “We’re safe here.”
“How do I know you?” Lucy asked.
“I was your training officer at Xerox, the black site for Grantham.”
“And we spent a lot of time together?”
“Yes.”
“How come I remember you but nothing else?”
Genuine shock filled his face. “You remember me?”
She nodded. “Am I not supposed to?”
He stared, his mind running behind his eyes. “What do you remember about me?”
“Rain,” Lucy said. Zoe looked at her. She hadn’t mentioned anything specific about the agent, just that she knew his face. “The smell of mud, and trees. I was running, you were behind, trying to stay close. We were chasing something.”
He took a slight step forward, his eyes bright. “Deer. We were hunting deer. You were tracking them, and I was following. You’d become so good at it.”
Lucy lowered the weapon. “I killed one.”
Agent Seeley took another step forward. “Do you remember how?”
Lucy wasn’t looking at them anymore. She seemed lost in the scene that was filling her head. She thought for a long moment, and then she refocused on Agent Seeley, light spreading through her face. “Throwing knives.”
He smiled and nodded. “Yes, your favorite.”
“My favorite,” she repeated.
Lightning struck across the sky, and soon a crack of thunder followed. Zoe hadn’t even noticed the dark clouds that had rolled in, but suddenly everything felt a shade darker. The air was colder, and the wind whipped through the treetops overhead.
“We should get inside,” Agent Seeley said, “and I can answer all your questions.”
Lucy nodded. They shared another long gaze, and Zoe felt like she was on the outside of a glass box, peering in on a scene. She didn’t like the way it made her stomach turn.
“Come on,” Agent Seeley said as he started toward the cabin.
Lucy was on his heels, leaving Zoe to fall in at the back. The same troubling sensation she’d had from the moment they’d met this Agent Seeley filled her chest. She wanted to be wrong. For Lucy’s sake she really wanted to be wrong.
FIFTEEN
THE LOG CABIN had a vaulted ceiling and a large fireplace on the main wall in the living room, two bedrooms off to the right side, and a small bathroom in between. There was a staircase in the far left corner that led up to a loft only big enough for a single mattress and a table lamp that had been placed on the floor.
The main room held a leather couch and two matching leather chairs. A large cowhide rug occupied the center of the room, and several taxidermy animals were propped around: a raccoon, a duck, a fox. Zoe didn’t like the way their beady black eyes stared at her. The attached kitchen had a rectangular table that seated six.
Agent Seeley flicked on the overhead chandelier, then moved to do the same to the lamps placed throughout. “This cabin was donated to the FBI a couple of years ago after the owner, a retired FBI director, passed away. It isn’t currently in rotation, fortunately for us. There isn’t much here, but it’ll do for now.”
Lucy placed the gun she’d taken from Agent Seeley on the table and walked around the cabin. “Olivia has been here?”
“A few times,” he said. “It was a safe place to talk. There aren’t many of those.”
“Is she alive?”
The agent swallowed and avoided Lucy’s direct stare. He shook his head, and Lucy sank to the leather couch.
“What happened?”
“She opened fire on the men pursuing you two the last time you were with her. They fired back.”
“So I could get away.”
Thunder echoed outside, and wind slapped the rain that had started falling against the sides of the cabin.
“I should get a fire started,” Agent Seeley said. He gathered what he needed from the supplies on the hearth and built a stack of logs in the fireplace.
Lucy appeared lost in thought. A few minutes passed in an uncomfortable silence as Agent Seeley began stoking the fire to life. It crackled and sparked, the smell of burning wood filling the cabin.
“How many have died for me?” Lucy asked, breaking the silence.
“Lucy,” Zoe tried.
“How many?” she insisted.
Agent Seeley stood, facing the growing fire, his hands on his hips. “They aren’t dying for you,” he said, then turned around and moved to sit across from Lucy in one of the leather chairs. “They are dying to save their own humanity.”
“What does that mean?”
“Are you sure you want to know? It’ll change everything.”
Lucy glanced from Agent Seeley to Zoe, her eyes pleading for direction. Zoe walked to the couch and sat beside her, grasping her hand and giving her a confident nod.