Deadfall

  “We can sleep here,” he says. “No one’s going to check some dusty storage room. Tomorrow we’ll head out first thing.”

  You sit down beside him, pulling your pack in front of you. It’s impossible to know if he’s lying. But if it’s between Ben and a hunter outside, he’s the lesser risk.

  “How’d you know I was at the library?”

  “I was on the steps when you went past. The hat might’ve tricked someone else, but I knew it was you.” He reaches out, touches the end of your braid. You’ve pulled it around the side of your neck to hide the scar.

  “That obvious?”

  “Just to me.” He smiles. His hand rests on your knee for a moment before he pulls it away.

  “Ben . . . don’t.”

  “Don’t what? I was serious before. I didn’t have to get on that plane. I could’ve run. But I needed to see you again.”

  “You can’t run from AAE. If they find out you’re involved with me they’ll kill you. I don’t need you to become a target, too.”

  “They won’t find out. I’ve been checking in with them. I’ve been careful.”

  You sigh, hugging your knees to your chest. The room is dark. “Just tell them you tried to find me but couldn’t. That’s the best way you can help me—I don’t want to be responsible for you.”

  “It’s my risk, not yours. I made the decision. This doesn’t have to end with one of us dying,” he says. “This can just end—we can end it.”

  “Oh yeah?” you ask. “How is that going to happen?”

  A shadow passes on the wall above his head. You hold up your hand, gesturing for him to be quiet.

  He shifts over a few inches, peering out from behind the boxes, to see through the window in the door. The footsteps echo down the hall.

  You slide down the row, pushing closer to the door. There’s no lock. There’s no way of securing it. You stand, peering through the window.

  “Who is it?” Ben asks, studying your face.

  You draw in a breath. The hunter peers into a room across the hall, then moves on to the next one. She holds her right hand in front of her, the gun facing out.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “YOU TOLD HER,” you say, spinning toward Ben and pushing him back against the wall. Your hand is high up on his throat, cutting off his windpipe. “You lied.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ben shifts, trying to catch his breath. He sees the woman over your shoulder. She has short, stiff blond hair. She turns left down the hallway and is momentarily out of sight. “I didn’t, I swear.”

  “We have to go—now.” You release him, pull your pack on, and remove your knife. “Do you have something?”

  “You mean a weapon?” He shakes his head, confused. “Wha—No. Why can’t we just stay here?”

  “There’s no lock on the door, and nothing heavy enough to barricade it with. If she comes in, we’re dead. Stay right behind me,” you say, watching Ben’s expression change. He’s a foot taller than you and broad, but he seems tentative.

  You turn the handle, easing the door open as quietly as you can. Ben slips out behind you and you make your way up the hall, back toward the main entrance. When you get to the top of the staircase you see one of the security guards across the lobby. He’s already chained the doors shut and is heading up the opposite stairs, disappearing from view.

  “There’s no easy way out,” you say. “We’ll have to find an emergency exit—somewhere that’s unlocked.”

  Together you climb the stone staircase, taking each flight in silence. You’re nearly at the third floor when the hunter appears at the bottom of the steps, raising her gun to aim. You move around the corner and out of her range, pulling Ben after you.

  “There—that room,” you say, pointing to a doorway up ahead. You sprint, your sneakers squeaking against the slick tile. It’s a wide room with a giant information desk in the center. There are six massive bookshelves to one side, spanning the length of it. You turn down one and hide, watching the entrance through the gaps in the shelf. You take a long, slow breath, trying to calm yourself.

  Don’t move, you mouth to Ben. The hunter enters, her gun out in front of her. She circles the information desk, checking behind it, then under. The exit is clear for a moment. You could try to sprint for it, but it’s unlikely you’d both make it out before she fired.

  She moves toward the bookcases. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she calls. Her tone is playful, singsong. It gives you chills. You push Ben toward the exit and raise your knife, knowing your only chance is to surprise her as she takes the corner. You have to at least try to get her gun.

  The carpeting hides the sound of her footsteps. You keep the knife blade down. Suddenly she flies around the corner of the bookcase, landing one solid punch into the side of your face. Pain explodes in your jaw and you lose your balance, falling over.

  From the ground you swing the knife, just missing her hand. She takes a step back, out of reach, the barrel of the gun aimed at your forehead. If you come at her, she’ll shoot.

  You meet her gaze, her steely eyes savoring the sight of you on the floor, helpless.

  “So you’re Blackbird,” she says. She’s older than you thought—nearly fifty, with deep lines around her mouth and eyes. “And I get to do the honors. . . .”

  Her fingers move for the trigger and you wince, expecting to hear the shot. But before she can shoot, Ben charges her. He pushes her to the floor and you lose sight of the gun. As they struggle, a shot goes off.

  Ben’s still on top of her, landing one punch into the side of her face, knocking her out. He falls back onto the carpet and lets out a low, staggered breath. You gasp. There’s blood covering his side. He’s been shot.

  “There’ll be others,” he says. “Go—you have to run.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “I’M NOT LEAVING you,” you say as the bloodstain spreads out on his shirt. He pushes on his side, just below his ribs, trying to stop the blood.

  The woman is barely conscious, her face twisted in pain. She holds her head where Ben landed a blow. You find the gun and dislodge the cartridge, throwing it across the room.

  Searching her pockets yields nothing, but you snap a picture of her with your phone, hoping that Celia can ID her later. You put your hands on her neck, applying enough pressure to get her attention. You know that you have to get out of here, but this might be your one chance to get answers. “Who’s responsible for the hunts? How long have they been going on?”

  Her hands come up to grab at your wrists, but she’s not strong enough to fight. She groans but doesn’t speak.

  “C’mon, we have to leave,” Ben says, pushing himself up. “There’s no time. She probably sent out an alert as soon as she came in here.”

  You let go, looking down at her in disgust. Slinging your backpack over your shoulder, you help Ben stand. You wrap your scarf around the wound to try to staunch the bleeding.

  He is slow but his steps are steady, and it doesn’t take long to reach the door. The corridor is empty, but you hear someone on the phone. Security must have heard the gun go off. There’s no exit up here, so you wind back down the staircase, toward the restrooms on the bottom floor. At the end of the hall there’s an emergency exit. You push out, the alarm wailing as you step onto Forty-Second Street.

  “A taxi.” Ben nods to the oncoming traffic. “It’s our only way out.”

  He turns to the side, hiding the stain on his shirt. You wave over the first one you see. It passes, the backseat full. Another passes, then two more, and it’s not until the fifth one comes that you get in. The sirens are getting closer as you pull away.

  “Where to?” the driver asks.

  Ben leans over, hiding the wound. “Just downtown,” he says. “As fast as you can. We’ll know it when we see it.”

  Ultimately downtown means a Holiday Inn in Soho. Ben wore your sweatshirt when he went inside. He used his fake ID to get the room, a picture of him with the name Kurt C
lement underneath it. Bethesda, Maryland.

  “I’m a Libra.” He points to the birth date.

  “You’re an idiot.” You peel the sweatshirt off his shoulders, easing his arm through the sleeve. His shirt is torn just below the ribs, the blood spreading out on the gray fabric.

  “She was going to kill you.”

  “So she shot you instead. Genius move right there.” You grab a towel from the bathroom and soak it under the faucet, letting the cold water numb your hands. When you come out Ben is sitting with his hands on his knees. He takes long, slow breaths.

  You’re afraid to see the wound. You know the bullet isn’t still inside him; you saw the place where it entered the bookshelf, the wood splintering apart. But he’s still bleeding.

  You lift the hem of his shirt and he scowls, biting his lip. The fabric is dried to his skin in places. As it comes off you see the gash in his side. “Thank god.”

  “Thank god?”

  “I thought it was worse. It’s skin—that’s all. It just grazed you.”

  Ben looks down at the piece of skin that’s missing. The gash is three inches long but thin. The bright pink tissue is exposed. “That’s more than just skin, Sunny.”

  “Lena,” you remind him.

  You lean down, steeling yourself against the smell of blood. You press the cool, clean cloth to the wound. “Just hold it there.”

  You sit down beside him on the bed and a memory comes without warning.

  You are with Rafe, pushing deeper into the forest. He slides along a steep hillside, the leaves slick after a night of rainfall.

  “It’s the only way,” he says. “We can’t go back.”

  You can’t stop looking at her as you pass. The body is at the bottom of the ravine. It’s been two days at least. She is facedown, half covered by fallen leaves. You see the skin on her legs, swollen and dark, every vein visible. The rain has washed away some of the blood, but the scent is still there. You cover your nose with your shirt.

  As you pass her, you struggle to keep your footing, reaching out for a tree trunk, then a thick tangle of vines. The back of her head is a mess of bloody hair. The stench is overpowering. Keep going, you tell yourself. You focus on the underbrush beneath you, the mud that sucks at the bottom of your shoes.

  “Don’t look,” Rafe calls back.

  The memory is so strong you have to lie down. You think of Rafe and the last glimpse you had of him as he ran into the park. If he’s alive, where is he? And even if he did manage to see your post online, how do you get to him from here? You can’t leave Ben . . . not now.

  Ben pulls the towel away, studying the wound. “It just burns,” he says. “It feels like I’m on fire.”

  “You can’t stay here, Ben. You have to leave the city. I’ll help you get back to the airport, but you have to go as soon as you can.”

  “Go where? Back to LA, to my house? It’s too late.”

  “Into hiding,” you say. “Or try to explain it to them. Lie, whatever.”

  You take the towel from him, using the end to clean the blood from his skin. You trace it over his ribs, moving around to his back. “After you left that day I didn’t know what to do. I thought about calling the police, about reporting everything I knew about AAE. I went through every file in my dad’s office. I drove around for hours hoping to find you, hoping you were still somewhere close by. Then they showed up and said they knew where you were. I was just relieved that you were alive. And I knew that if I found you, I could help you stop this.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Ben.” You push the towel back into his hands. He’s looking at you, but you can’t meet his gaze.

  “Dr. Reynolds.”

  “Who?”

  “Dr. Richard Reynolds. He’s a neurologist at Bellevue Hospital.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Ben reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a folded sheet of paper. “AAE came looking for my father’s papers after he died, and they took almost everything. But a copy of a check made out to Reynolds had fallen behind one of the drawers—they must’ve missed it. So I looked him up. He ran drug trials for some memory suppressant. AAE funded them; my dad wrote the checks. It was used to treat soldiers with PTSD, to help them forget certain traumatic events. Sound familiar?”

  “That’s what they gave us.”

  “Exactly. This guy—he has to know who the players are. And he’s here, based in New York.”

  “You think he’ll lead us to AAE?”

  “If he’s the one who invented the drug, tested it, he has to be pretty high up. He must know some names.”

  “If we find him, we need him alive.”

  “Which is why we should go to the hospital where he works,” Ben says. “Surprise him there and get what we need.”

  It’s not that simple, you know that from what Celia said. Reynolds is just one part of this.

  But you missed this about Ben: his endless optimism. Even now with his side covered in blood, he’s trying to find a way. You remember what it feels like to be so close to him. The faint smell of soap on his skin. How natural it is when he leans toward you, resting his chin on your forehead. You listen to his breaths.

  You aren’t sure what you want to say, but then the next words escape your lips before you can take them back. “Ben . . . I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I’m glad I am, too,” he says. “I’m going to make this right. I promise.”

  You tilt your chin up to study his face. The curve of his top lip. The dusting of freckles from the LA sun. His eyes are wet. He looks up and away, laughing awkwardly. You can tell he doesn’t want to cry.

  “It’s okay,” you say. “I believe you.”

  He lets out a long, slow breath, his forehead meeting yours. Then he leans in, his lips touching down, his hand reaching for the end of your braid. He slips the tie from it and undoes your wavy black hair. He twists his fingers through it, one hand resting on the base of your neck.

  “I love you,” he whispers into your cheek. “You know that; you do.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS is a lot of money. More money than you’ve ever seen in one place, more money than you could ever imagine spending. You don’t have a bank account. To you, cash is the thirty dollars you get for babysitting the Martinez kids two houses down. It’s the wrinkled ten that comes every year on your birthday, in some princess card meant for five-year-olds, from a great-aunt in Tempe, Arizona.

  You spread the money out on the dingy comforter. One thousand now, four thousand more after you leave. That’s what they promised. It’s all in fifties, which makes it even harder to spend. You’ve never used a fifty before. It would feel weird now to break it at the 7-Eleven to buy a soda. You count them again—all twenty of them—when there’s a knock on the bedroom door.

  You fold them into your pocket. “What?”

  A woman with short black hair peeks in. She’s wearing a blue collared shirt with a Kmart logo on the front. “What are you up to?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Want to help me with dinner?”

  She is smiling. She is trying so hard.

  “I have homework. . . .”

  “I hope you’ll stay this time.”

  You won’t. You’ve already decided that this is temporary. There’s only two days left until you meet your contact and leave. You’ll be eighteen soon, and five thousand will get an apartment for you and Chris. No more relying on your aunt and her shitty boyfriend. You’re tired of listening to them fighting behind their bedroom door, him complaining about money. “My money,” he always calls it. “My house.” He hates having both of you here.

  You smile, mirroring her. You rest your hand on the cash in your pocket. One round-trip flight on a private plane. The first run of many. They haven’t told you what’s in the packages, but you don’t need to know. You don’t ask questions.

  “Thanks, Aunt Jess,” you say. “For having me.”

  You’ve left the
lights on. You rub your eyes, taking in the hotel room. Ben is asleep beside you on the bed. A fresh towel is pressed to his side, and his jeans are still on. The clock on the nightstand reads 1:38 A.M.

  You think about the dream, trying to remember the woman, your aunt. The money. The deal you made with someone. There are more targets out there. How many others took the money like you did? How many died on the island, lured by the promise of more jobs, more cash? How many are left?

  You ease off the bed, careful not to wake Ben. You riffle through the back pockets of your pants, finding the notepad you got from the train. You flip to a new page, to write down everything you’ve remembered from your dream, when you notice the page before it. The graffiti . . .

  WBD + WY. The letters in red spray paint by Morningside Park. It had been a code, just like the one by the basketball courts. One person wrote them both—it was the same style and color. FK’LIN was the graffiti by the first meeting place.

  You hear Ben shift awake. He pushes up to his elbows, wincing at the pain in his side. “What are you doing?”

  “W-B-D-W-Y? What does that mean to you?”

  “I don’t know. . . .” Ben rubs his eyes, still half in sleep.

  The table by the window has a binder on it. It’s stuffed with sightseeing brochures, Hop-On, Hop-Off bus tours, a guide to visiting the Statue of Liberty. The map is folded up on the bottom. You trace your finger from the bottom of Central Park all the way down to the tip of the island, checking and rechecking each cross street. Finally you recognize it.

  The two spots were meant to be read together.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  “Nothing. Everything’s great. Everything’s amazing.”