The Lethal Agent (The Extraction Files Book 2) (25 page)

CPI-RQ-02

SEPTEMBER 12, 2232

When Jane refused to open the door, Dasia had no choice but to push it open herself. It was rude, she knew, but what other option did she have?

Jane had only been her partner for a single minute, but already she was proving difficult.

Dasia found her sitting on the edge of her bed, rubbing the toes of her shoes together like she didn’t know Dasia was there. Her room was immaculate. The bed was made and the floor was clear of clutter. It looked like no one lived there.

“You ready to get started?” Dasia wasn’t going to let Jane get in the way of their progress. If she couldn’t work with Osip, then she wasn’t going to sit around here and sulk with Jane.

Jane continued to play with her shoes.

Dasia felt the temptation to leave, to slam the door and get back to work in her own room without Jane. Yet when she reached out for the door handle, she hesitated.

That’s not how Cole would have handled this. Cole would have been kind and strong and caring.

How many times had he saved her with his big heart?

Jane might be a spoiled brat without cause for complaint, but Dasia could still be kind to her.

So Dasia swallowed back her frustrations and joined Jane on the bed. “Who would you like to work with? If it could be anyone, who would it be?”

Jane shrugged.

Dasia could guess. “Theo?”

She shook her head.

“Osip?”

Again, Jane shook her head.

“Come on. You’re really smart. You could really help us. You were so nice when I first got here. You were the first person I knew.” Dasia realized she’d never told Jane how much she appreciated her in those first few days, how a good, friendly hug on the steps of CPI had been exactly what she needed to start this new life.

Dasia reached out and wrapped an arm around Jane’s shoulders. “What can I do? What happened?”

When at last Jane spoke, her words spilled out in rapid fire. “I knew I shouldn’t have come here. I was supposed to get away and I’m right back where I started. Nick said I could start over, but it’s like it always was.”

“Get away from what?” Dasia had no idea what she was talking about.

Jane shook her head and looked away.

Dasia stroked her hair and tried to calm her down. “You don’t have to tell me if you want, but we’re here to work together. If there’s anyone you should be able to trust, it’s me.”

Jane didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.

“Do you want me to go?”

At last, Jane shook her head. “No.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Dasia asked, hoping to keep her talking.

“No,” she said again. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does. It matters a lot.”

Jane shook her head. “They didn’t care.”

“Who?”

“Nick.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“What happened.”

Dasia could sense the conversation going in circles. She asked, “You mean what happened with Theo?” She’d heard the story.

Jane surprised her with the answer. “No, Georgie.”

“What do you mean? What happened with Georgie?”

Jane rubbed her hand up and down her arm but didn’t say anything. Dasia put it together in a single, sickening moment.

“Did he touch you?”

Jane nodded.

“When?”

She shrugged. “A few weeks ago. He barged in. He was really drunk.”

Dasia knew the day. The day Osip had walked her up to her room and taken care of her as she slept off the vodka. Had things gone differently, it might have been Jane taken care of while Dasia was brutalized. She owed Osip a great deal for that kindness.

“Has he done it again?”

“A few times.”

“You told him you didn’t want him to?”

When Jane nodded, Dasia bolted from the bed and out the still-open door. In a haze of fury, she crossed the hall and threw open the door to Georgie’s room. She found Osip sitting at the desk and Georgie standing behind him.

Then, she lunged at him. Dasia tackled Georgie to the floor in a single blow. He didn’t strike her back but that only made it easier for her to get her legs over his shoulders and pin him to the ground.

Like a hammer, Dasia’s fist flew into his cheek. Blood escaped in a wide splatter she could feel on her arms.

She didn’t care. She repeated the motion with the other hand, this time producing a crunch of bone. Dasia got in a half-dozen more before someone pulled her off.

“God, Dasia. What the
hell
are you doing?” Osip shouted.

Out of breath, Dasia watched Georgie reach up to touch his face, push himself to sitting, and use the corner of his sheet to soak up some of the blood that ran into his eye.

So much for being kind.

“What the fuck?” Georgie asked as he got back on his feet, more wobbly than before. Already, his face started to swell.

Osip turned to her, and, with a more measured tone, asked, “What’s going on?”

Eyes on Georgie, she told him. “He got drunk and attacked Jane. Nick didn’t believe her.”

It was Osip’s turn to lunge. He had none of the combat training Dasia had, but his years on the streets served him well. Osip slammed him against the closet and punched him in the guts over and over again. “You put your hands on a woman? On our friend? You dare to mistreat a woman?” His furious spew turned to Russian and then something else entirely.

By the time his temper quieted, Dasia wondered if Georgie might be dead. His body lay slumped against the closet, blood-soaked and lifeless.

“Get Nick down here,” Osip said to no one in particular.

“No. He had his chance.” Dasia turned to get her tablet and saw Jane in the doorway, hands over her mouth as she stared in shock. The pools of blood continued to spread across the floor.

“Come on.” With some effort, Dasia pulled Jane away and brought her back to her room. Then, she commed the only person who could help them.

LRF-PQ-387

SEPTEMBER 12, 2232

After a few hours of chatting and eating, telling stories and laughing, Theo and Mable made their way back to their apartment. The vast corridor was empty, though it looked large enough to fly a shuttle through. Mable felt like an ant inside it.

“You’re getting along with everyone all right?” Theo asked as they walked.

“Yeah, rough start with your sister, but we smoothed things over. She’s totally brilliant, by the way.” Mable adjusted the wadded-up body suit under her arm.

“Yeah, she is. She’s a lot different than I remember, but I think it’s good.”

Mable smiled. “I think he really loves her.”

“Who? Calvin?” Theo asked.

For a smart guy, he was awfully dumb sometimes. “No, her husband. Of course, Calvin. He can’t keep his eyes off her. Then again, look at that fantastic outfit she had. Who knew a Scholar could dress so well? Who is her husband, by the way?” No one seemed to mention the guy.

“Oh, uh, I’ve never met him. He’s in the Planetary Colonies department, I think. Comes from a good family and all. I think his name’s Sal.”

“It’s kind of weird, don’t you think? That Scholars get married and have kids and all that, but never really have families. Like, she got married, and you’ve never met the guy.”

Theo shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

Neither of them mentioned how they were married now—how no one in their families knew. Well, except his sister, of course.

A moment later, he wrapped his hand around Mable’s and added, “You’re right, he really loves her. She loves him, too.”

The warmth of his hand entwined with hers was more pleasant than she would let herself believe. She reminded herself that they were married, that holding hands would blow their cover more than help it. But here on the LRF, she knew no one would notice.

And Ramona said she should get to know him. She should give him a fighting chance.

Mable looked up at him, wondering what he was up to. Instead, she saw a familiar look. Theo knew exactly what he was talking about. He didn’t wonder if Aida and Calvin loved each other, he knew it. That begged the question, “Did you ever love anyone? From before?”

Theo smiled. “No.”

It wasn’t the answer she expected. “Then, what?”

“I had some friends.”

“What happened to them?” Clearly there was a story here, and Mable was determined to get it out of him. After dinner at Calvin’s, she knew there was far more to Theo than she’d ever bothered to learn.

Theo put his free hand in the pocket of his body suit as if it was safer there. “Casey was a painter. Nate was a mathematician. They were going to break up the day of Selection, but Nate changed his mind last minute and went Artisan. I never saw either of them again.”

Mable recognized his expression, the tight set of his jaw, his eyes straight ahead and unflinching. Theo had just told her something precious to him, something he didn’t share with others.

Theo had let her in to a little piece of himself.

She had to see more.

“You think it was the right choice?”

“Yeah, I do. I was upset at first. But Nate did what I was too scared to do. I think he did the right thing.”

Mable stared up at him in shock. “You would have gone Artisan?”

Theo looked down at her as a sly grin crept across his cheeks. “I thought you didn’t care about class and rank and all that bullshit.”

Mable bristled under his accusation. She wanted to pull her hand from his, to show him that she didn’t care, but she was afraid. He’d never reached out to her that way. What if he never did again? Instead, she said, “I don’t care. I’m just surprised.”

“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” he asked, his grey eyes swimming as they took her in.

No, it didn’t matter. Then again, it mattered entirely.

“Do you love Dasia?”

Mable set her mouth to a frown. “I don’t know.”

“That’s fair.”

“How so?”

“You were honest. That’s all I can ask.”

“What else do you want to ask?”

“Does she have your loyalty?”

Mable laughed quietly. “Yes, but not in the way you’re thinking.”

Theo wrinkled his forehead, his Scholar brain failing to recognize other lifestyles. Ramona had taken it in stride, but she was hardly the norm.

It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t seen much of the world.

“I don’t think it has to be so hard. If I like being with Dasia, and she likes being with me, then that’s really all that matters, right? If she likes being with Osip, that doesn’t mean she’s unfaithful to me. It means she’s worthy of affection from two people. It means she’s worth it.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you worth the affection of two people?” Theo grinned and cocked an eyebrow at her, taunting her to answer.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.” She hated to say it. It felt like bragging, though she didn’t mean it that way.

“Hadley?” he asked.

Mable twisted her mouth. “No, she was too young. She was only fourteen when I found her. She wasn’t ready.”

“What about Rowen?”

Mable pushed back the pain that rose up at the sound of his name. “We had a thing for a while. He got in too deep, so we went back to being friends.”

“What do you mean, he was in too deep?”

She looked up at him, her blue eyes on his grey ones so he would know she was serious. “Love is hard. Love is crooked and cruel and greedy. It’s not the fantasy you think it is. Some people are really happy in love…”

“But not you?”

Mable only shook her head. She shouldn’t have said so much. She didn’t want to talk about what love had cost her. She didn’t want to talk about how she wouldn’t change it for the world.

The rest of the walk passed in silence. They reached the door of their new home, one that seemed open and spacious after an evening in Calvin’s apartment.

Theo rushed in and pulled clothes from his closet before darting into the bathroom. Mable couldn’t help but laugh at him, so desperate to strip from the horrid body suit. She tossed hers in the corner and sat on the bed waiting for her chance at the bathroom. A moment later, he flung open the door to reveal a dark-blue shirt with grey pants, breathing in a dramatic sigh of relief.

Mable fell back on the bed laughing at him.

“Can we just agree that we don’t wear those at home?” He threw his body suit in a pile on top of hers in the corner of the room.

“Agreed. You look ridiculous in it. T-shirt is a much better look for you,” she said before she could stop herself, a verbal landslide that tumbled its way out.

She didn’t expect to feel the bed move under his weight, to see the room grow dark as his shadow consumed her. She could smell him, not pungent cologne or salty sweat, but the scent of him through his shirt. Theo crawled over her, a leg on each side of her, not touching her but impossibly close. Mable froze, heart pounding. What the hell was he doing?

Then she heard him whisper, “You looked amazing tonight.” His lips skimmed her cheek ever so slightly before he left a kiss so small and gentle she barely felt it. “And you are worth it.”

He kissed her then, good and hard, so that she tasted the sweetness of strawberries. Theo wasn’t nervous like Dasia or rough like Rowen. He moved with a slow, steady confidence that sent her heartbeat into her throat. She wrapped her legs around him to spur him on.

It had been a good, long while since Mable had been with a man. It made her miss Dasia in many ways, but mostly Theo was exciting. He looked at her with an intensity she couldn’t begin to withstand. He put her in a trance with those smoke-grey eyes of his.

His hands held her with strength, but also with great care, like he was afraid he would hurt her. Then again, he had hurt her once.

As if he remembered, he ran his fingers through her hair where once the scar had been.

“Still feel bad about that?” She pulled his hand down and kissed the center of his palm.

“Always will.”

“Is that what this is about?” she asked.

Theo’s breath heaved with a small laugh. “No, but I could see how you would think that. I thought you were with Dasia. I didn’t want to interfere.” He pushed up the thin fabric of her shirt and kissed her exposed skin. His lips skimmed the area below her belly button, where she had once had tattoos to hide the stretch marks. Now, it was smooth.

“I can have two lovers,” she reminded him.

Then, his hands were on the waist of her pants. They were loose fitting and slid off with considerable ease. Theo ran his hands across the tops of her thighs. “I know you can. I shouldn’t have doubted you.”

“You’re okay with that? That you won’t get my whole heart?”

He tipped forward again and consumed her with his kiss. Her heart raced at his touch, his words, his strength. “I’m perfectly okay with it. But you’ll get all of mine.”