Renegade (12 page)

“A fire broke out in Knoxville earlier, burning down a gated estate and taking the two homes on either side with it before firefighters could contain it. A local resident who was out for a late-night jog claims to have spotted a military helicopter in the vicinity, and several nearby residents report hearing a loud, unexplained boom just before the fire broke out. No confirmation yet as to whether this might be related to suspected terrorist activity or not.”

I forgot the GPS device in my hand and stared at the screen in mounting horror. There, in the background, were the charred remains of a house, still emitting a noxious cloud of black smoke.

From the cameraman’s perspective, an iron gate was clearly visible.

The same gate I’d climbed earlier today.

My free hand flew to my mouth, which had gone suddenly dry. Grady’s house, destroyed. And it had to be because of me.

I tuned out the TV, tuned out the station, just focused on staying upright, despite the guilt trying to eviscerate me with deadly claws. I’d never thought, never believed Grady might be in danger. But that was only because I hadn’t considered them much at all. And I should have. Mom should have taught me that much.

Hunter emerged from the store and I came to, realizing I still hadn’t filled the tank. Hunter flashed me a thumbs-up from the sidewalk outside the door. With unsteady hands, I carefully placed the GPS in my pocket.

“Go ahead and pump,” he hollered. “I’ll be right back.”

I watched as he turned the corner, toward the sign marked
MEN’S ROOM
.

As I was putting the gas nozzle in place, mind spinning, a minivan pulled into the open spot ahead of me, and moments later, a young boy bounded out of the back door. His mom yanked open the passenger door. “Tommy, you need to wait! It’s not safe to just jump out of the car like that.”

“Okay—sorry!” But Tommy didn’t sound sorry at all as he scooted around the car to grab his mom’s hand. “Can we get M&M’s, please? I’ll be super quiet in the car this time!”

“Wouldn’t that be a change?” the mom muttered, as she and her husband exchanged a wry look over the top of the van. But from the way she smiled down at the boy and ruffled his hair, she obviously wasn’t too bothered by Tommy’s abundant energy.

A normal family, taking a normal family vacation. Something I would never have, no matter how much I wanted it.

Hunter emerged from the bathroom, flicking his hands like maybe the paper towel dispenser had been empty. He caught my eye and smiled, walking with that loose-limbed, lithe movement that I’d first noticed back in the halls of Clearwater High.

At the sight of him, my breath caught a little in my chest. Just like it had back then.

The image was ruined when, still watching me, he misjudged the curb and stumbled a little, before regaining his balance.

But that stumble conjured another image. A boy with a permanently lopsided walk. A boy who’d worked for Holland. A boy who’d risked everything to save me.

A boy I desperately hoped wasn’t in danger, because of me.

Lucas.

So far, everyone who’d ever helped me had had terrible things happen to them. What if Lucas was next?

An engine rumbled to life, and the family pulled out in their van, leaving us as the only customers. But as Hunter approached the car, the market door opened. A worker emerged, his head ducked as he inspected something on his cell phone. But he kept walking as he looked . . . and he was headed right at us.

I yanked the baseball hat lower on my head and, my neck tingling, stepped around the back of our car to meet Hunter halfway.

He shook the plastic bag on his arm. “Hey, got us a couple of iced coffees and some chocolate—figured we could use the caffeine and sugar.”

I nodded. “Perfect.” The worker was closer now—only a few strides away. He snapped the phone shut, still frowning.

My entire body tensed. His approach made no sense. Unless . . . the phone. What if he’d seen something on the internet that made him want to detain us? Like my photo?

Or worse . . . could he be V.O. in disguise? One of Hunter’s accomplices, posing as a worker? Coming to make their move now? Along with Holland, who could be anywhere? Had he found whatever he was searching for at Grady’s? Had he found a copy of Mom’s encrypted files?

On the heels of that, another contradictory prompt:

The worker’s head jerked up, and his lips parted. “Hey, you,” he said. At the same time, his free hand dove into his pocket.

I lunged before he could extract it.

My hand shot out, grabbing his wrist and twisting it as he attempted to retrieve his weapon. The gun I’d taken from Grady was under the front seat, and I would only use it as a last resort. His weapon flew free of his grasp while I continued with my forward momentum, retaining my hold on his forearm and slipping behind him. I exerted steadily increasing force on his arm, bending it back, while my other hand curled around his throat, squeezing until his voice cut off right along with his oxygen.

“What do you want?” He didn’t answer and both my hands tightened in response. As I forced his arm farther behind his back, I felt him jerk against me, as something in his shoulder started to give. I didn’t let go. I couldn’t. I wanted this man to hurt. It was past time someone had to pay.

“Mila, stop! Let him go!”

Hunter’s frantic voice snapped me out of the haze, and I immediately slacked my grip. The man slid free and collapsed to the ground, while my eyes sought whatever he’d dropped. I spotted the object at the exact same moment I saw the police car cruise by.

The threat had been coming from the police, not the worker. Which made sense, given that the item he’d dropped was a wallet.

Hunter’s wallet.

I staggered back, my mind a growing mass of horror. The man hadn’t been V.O., or even trying to report me. He’d been a Good Samaritan. And now he was crumpled in a heap on the oil-sticky ground of a gas station as a reward.

“Dude, are you okay?” Hunter was ignoring me now, dropping to his knees beside the worker. No. That didn’t make sense. He should know that we had to get out of here, before the cops made another pass. Before one of the truckers emerged and noticed.

What was he doing?

I swooped down and grabbed his wallet, catching Hunter’s arm at the same time. “Come on, we’ve got to go.”

Hunter actively resisted me, so I pulled harder, forcing him to his feet. He stared at me, the stun of shock changing the planes of his face. “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you crazy? We need to call nine-one-one, make sure this guy’s all right—”

As if on cue, the worker moaned. I took advantage of the distraction to pull Hunter toward the Jeep. All the while, a terrible suspicion formed in my gut.

I steered Hunter toward the car, opened the passenger door, and none-too-gently urged him inside. He climbed in, as if on autopilot, his eyes still glued to the worker. I raced for the driver’s seat as the worker tried to push to his knees, his one arm cradled against his chest. He bowed his head in obvious agony.

Hunter shook his head, and like that had woken him from a long sleep, reached for his door handle. I hit the gas, and we shot out of the station before he could finish the action.

We had to get out of here, before the guy recovered enough to get a license plate number.

“Let me out,” Hunter said, and when I didn’t answer, he repeated himself. Louder. “Did you hear me? I want out.”

“No.”

His face contorted, and then he fumbled on the floorboard.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling an ambulance. You’re insane, and that guy needs help.”

Keeping a lookout for the cop car, I found the highway on-ramp and accelerated the Jeep. Nothing was making sense. Either Hunter was putting on an amazing act, or . . .

My fingers traced the outline of the GPS. No. No
or
s. It was an act. It had to be.

His curse filled the car a moment later. “I can’t believe this. My phone is dead.”

He chucked the phone at the backseat, where it bounced off and hit the floor. His frustration was evident in every tight, jerky motion. He reached to open the glove box, and even though I’d checked the car out earlier, instinct kicked in.

“Keep your hands where I can see them,” I said.

He froze for five seconds, his fingers still on the latch. Then, he turned to me. Slowly, with the precise, careful motion of someone fighting to contain their rage. An incredulous expression distorted his face, rendering his mouth almost unrecognizable.

“Have you lost your goddamn mind?”

S
ilence ticked off for several moments while I pondered his question, as the Jeep sped down the highway. Was insanity even possible in an android? Didn’t that require a human brain? At this point, I couldn’t answer definitively. Not with everything that had happened over the last few hours.

Hunter’s expression was taut: cheeks sucked in, mouth a grim line, eyes stony. I couldn’t ever remember him looking even a quarter of this pissed before.

Uncertainty flickered. If he was the V.O., what possible reason would he have to draw attention to my abilities? Wouldn’t it be easier to just brush them off, to avoid questions?

Or . . . maybe he was toying with me. Trying to provoke different emotions, and see what happened.

“What are you, some kind of jujitsu expert? And even then—I’ve never seen anyone move so fast,” he said incredulously, like he still couldn’t believe it.

The uncertainty flared again, strengthened into doubt. But no. This had to be a ploy.

His cheeks had taken on a hint of red, and the muscles in his jaw contracted. “Look, I think I deserve some answers here!”

As though his aggression unleashed my own, anger seared its way up my throat, burned into my mouth. “You want the truth? Fine, here it is.” I twisted around, ignoring his stony, unrelenting expression, and the rekindled flicker of doubt it inspired. “That story I told you about my dad was a total lie, and my mom? We’re not fighting . . . She’s
dead
.”

Dead.
The word ripped through the car, louder than I’d expected. The images flared to life in my head.

Mom’s body, bleeding out in Lucas’s car. Me, carrying her to the Potomac, and tossing her in, her hair waving around her like a mass of seaweed as she sank.

A sob cut off the rest of what I’d been about to tell him. I swallowed hard, even though in my case that knot in my throat was purely an emotional memory, and batted at the tears.

“What? How could that—my god, why didn’t you say something?”

“My mom wasn’t a vet,” I continued. “She was a government agent, just like me.”

Hunter’s hand had been reaching toward me, but it fell back to his side. “Agent?”

It was the most I could make myself say. I chanced a look at his face. His usually intense eyes looked sightless, and his face had paled.

Because he’s innocent
, that tiny, mutinous part of my heart whispered.

No, no, no. An act, it was just a really good act.

“Spies. We were on assignment, and Mom was killed trying to save me. Now those same people are after me, and Richard Grady is the guy she told me to look up to get help.”

“I can’t—” Hunter broke off, leaving the silence between us to thicken. His hands covered his face, and I heard the in-out rhythm of his forceful breathing batting against his palms.

Lies. His act, his posturing—all lies.

But slowly and surely, my certainty ripped away, leaving long, gaping holes of doubts. Meanwhile, my traitorous heart thudded with new hope.

He finally lifted his head. “If that’s true—and it sounds too unbelievably crazy to be a lie—then how could you do this to me? How could you put me in this situation without filling me in on the details? Jesus, Mila. Don’t I have a right to know if my goddamn life is in jeopardy?”

Truth? Or lie? “I was going to tell you—”

“When?” he shouted, banging one fist on the dashboard. “When were you going to tell me? Tonight? Tomorrow?
Never?
”

My heart pounded, harder and harder. This wasn’t a lie, it couldn’t be. Because Hunter’s anger was unmistakable.

And then, if possible, he blanched even more. “Oh my god—the picture, that Ashleigh thought she saw? That was really you, wasn’t it?”

I swallowed. No sense in denying it now. “Yes. But I didn’t kill my mom. The investigation—it’s under wraps. The police really think they’re looking for me.”

He bowed his head and stared into his lap. I saw when his hands began to tremble. “Why weren’t you just honest with me?”

In desperation, I mounted a counterattack. “Me, honest? What about you?” I gunned the gas, shifting lanes to swerve around a slow-moving semi. “Were you being honest when you told me an old buddy was leaving those messages earlier?”

He gave a startled laugh. “Messages? You mean, the ones from my ex-girlfriend, who’s trying to get back together with me? Excuse me for thinking that might be a little awkward, given the present circumstances.”

In desperation, I pulled the GPS bug out of my pocket. “If you’re not a member of the V.O. then why do you have this?” I asked, waving it near his face.

His hand snaked out to grab my wrist, and while my first reaction was to break his hold, I remained still. He bent his head to get a closer look. His eyes didn’t hold a single trace of recognition.

“I have absolutely no idea—should I? And what the hell is a V.O.?”

He was looking at me like I’d lost my mind.

And maybe I had. Because I was starting to believe him.

Driving with one hand, I placed my finger over the top of the GPS, maneuvering it around until my fingertip tingled, and the prompt flashed in my head.

“Are you going to answer me?” Hunter said, but I tuned him out. Because just then, the tingling in my finger turned into a slight stinging sensation. In front of me, a pattern appeared, a set of whorls and grooves.

A fingerprint. Well, part of one.

I watched the print shift, until an almost-full one emerged.

At the same time my finger surged with heat, the picture flashed red.

“I can’t believe this,” Hunter muttered. And then the results burst to life.

The photo appeared, and I recognized the man instantly.

Not Hunter. Not even close. No, this was one of the two men from the motel—one of the men Mom and I had tied up and run from.

Out of nowhere, a wave of relief slammed me, banishing doubt’s viselike grip on my chest and allowing a giggle to burst free. Hunter hadn’t planted the device.

Reality sank in a moment later, bursting the elated bubbles inside me all at once. The GPS slipped from my hand while the implications sank in. While the realization that, maybe, just maybe, I’d made a gargantuan, life-altering mistake started to wrap around my neck and squeeze.

Oh, no. “Hunter, I’m so sorry. I thought . . . I was . . . the V.O. is an espionage group. They were tracking us with GPS.”

He looked at the device for a moment, before his eyelids sank shut. “And you thought I was part of them.” He bowed his head, shoving both hands into his hair. His breathing turned ragged. “Stop the car and pull over.
Now
,” he emphasized when I made no move to follow his command, the word laced with a quiet fury, and something else. Something that sounded an awful lot like pain.

I steered the car to the shoulder. The moment we stopped, his door flew open. He was wrenching open my door a moment later, breathing hard. “Get out. I’m driving.”

I wanted to argue, but one look at his tense face, his stiff posture, warned me to give him some space. He waited on the road until I climbed over the center console, as if the thought of touching me inadvertently was repugnant. And, despite everything, my heart bottomed out at the thought.

I sat quietly while he pulled back onto the highway, his hands white-knuckled on the wheel. When I thought enough time had passed for him to gather some control, I said, “Hunter—”

His head jerked sharply to the side. “No. No talking. I can’t . . . I can barely look at you.”

I clasped my hands together in my lap, replaying the last few minutes over in my head. Not an ounce of suspicion left, but so much shame. Had I really just blurted out that my mom was dead? Suggested he was an accomplished techno-terrorist? Nearly choked a man to death in front of him, when all he’d been trying to do was return Hunter’s wallet?

The shame poured through my gut, sickening in its heaviness. Hunter wasn’t an Oscar-worthy actor. He’d never been hiding anything.

That role fell to me, and me alone.

I didn’t pay attention when he tapped a few buttons on the Jeep’s GPS. Maybe I should have—at least then I would have had some kind of warning, when he pulled off at an exit about ten minutes later. I tensed in the seat, inspected our surroundings with critical eyes, assessing every person, every car, for potential threat.

Even now, a tiny trace of suspicion lingered. Where was he taking me?

It wasn’t until he pulled up to a bus terminal that I realized my mistake.

He pulled the car to the curb and shifted into park. When he turned to look at me, the anger hadn’t completely faded from his face, but his shoulders were slumped, and more than anything, with his disheveled hair and wrinkled shirt, he looked exhausted.

“I don’t know you. I don’t know you at all. I thought something was developing between us, but you don’t trust me, and you . . . suspect me of being the enemy? I’m going home.”

As our gazes connected, I felt the burn of tears once again. Everything had failed me—my emotions, my logic. And now the one person I could count on was leaving for good. Walking out of my life.

The thought of him despising me was more than I could bear. So I attempted, miserably, to explain. He needed to know that I hadn’t intended to hurt him.

“I tried to tell you, so many times. But when I couldn’t, I asked you to let me go my own way back in Virginia, remember?”

“Yeah, I wish I had listened to you,” he snapped.

“I don’t,” I said. “Without you, I . . . I don’t know if I could have made it this far.”

Hunter rolled his eyes, like he thought I was talking down to him. That wasn’t my intention, but I didn’t dare say anything more.

“I’m sure you would have been just fine. So just . . . go, okay?” he muttered.

As I fumbled for the door handle, tears burned my eyes, and I looked away before the first one could fall. When it came down to it, Hunter was right. I shouldn’t have dragged him into this, any of this, without telling him the truth. And even now, I hadn’t told him everything. It wasn’t safe, and if I cared for him at all, I’d let him go. Let him drive out of my life for good.

So many things—feelings, thoughts, words—tumbled through my head, my chest, begging me to share them. To tell him, in this final moment, exactly how much he meant to me. Pour everything out, and be happy in knowing that, at least once, I told the truth. The whole, unvarnished version. And surely there was some peace in that?

But I didn’t have the right. I’d squandered it, the moment I’d first stopped believing in him. Instead, I whispered, “It might not be safe for you, on your own. If the people after me come after you—”

“I’ll just tell them I don’t know anything. Which, fortunately for me, would be the truth.”

Would that be enough to keep him safe? I hoped so. Especially if I offloaded the GPS and put the V.O. on another trail that would take them far away from him.

“Now would you please go?” Hunter asked again, sounding more sad than angry.

“Can you unlock the back door?” I said, proud of the way my voice didn’t waver. I walked around so I could retrieve my meager belongings. Yet as my hand closed around my bag, I realized I couldn’t leave it like that. The things I’d said, the way I’d treated him? And worse, so much worse—the things I’d thought and never uttered? Was this the kind of life I had to look forward to? Searching for the truth, yet not knowing when it slapped me in the face?

I had to apologize. Not that an “I’m sorry” would change anything, but he deserved to hear it. I shut the door, pulled a pen and paper out of my bag. After I scrawled my brief note, I waited a moment while my pseudo heart cracked and shattered, and then threw back my shoulders and walked over to knock on his window. He pressed the button, then closed his eyes, tightly, like he was fighting his own inner battle while the window whirred down.

I forced myself to watch every bit of pain that flitted across his face. I’d been the one who’d inflicted this on him. Me, no one else. All the proof I needed that he was better off without me. I leaned inside and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek.

“I’m so sorry . . . for everything. The truth is in here . . .” My fist tensed around the note, and I started to crumple it. So stupid. Too little, too late. Then, before I could chicken out, I dropped the square into his lap. “A part of it, at least. And . . . there’s a gun underneath your seat, in case you’re followed or anything.”

“Are you kidding me?” he asked, completely dumbfounded.

I shook my head no. I couldn’t be any more serious.

“You’re in that much danger?”

“Yes.”

Suddenly, his eyes began to glisten, and a part of me prayed that I wasn’t imagining it. He took the note in his hand, gripping it so tightly it could tear. I pulled away and hoisted my bag over my shoulder, turning before either one of us could speak. I couldn’t bear to hear the anger and disappointment I knew waited in his voice. Not again. Without a backward glance, I headed for the bus terminal, counting my footfalls on the cracked concrete as I went.

One, five, ten steps away from the one person who truly made me feel alive.

And finally, finally, I heard the rumble of a familiar engine. Then the grind of tires on asphalt as Hunter drove out of the lot. And then I stopped in my tracks, sinking to my knees on the sidewalk, while the car sounds faded away. I buried my head in my hands, allowing myself to finally acknowledge the black hole in my chest. I choked back a sob and doubled over, my hands gripping my thighs like I could push reality away by sheer force. I swiped my eyes and wrestled with my composure. When I finally straightened, I pressed my shoulders back and swallowed hard. The rest of this journey, I’d have to make alone. And maybe that had been the right way, all along.