The Sway (4 page)

Cole tensed and gripped my hand a little tighter.

“Dad, you know I want nothing to do with you and your business. I just started a new semester and changed classes. I can't just take off whenever you feel the need to try to act like a real father,” he spat out.

Hank Thomas glared at his son. The animosity wasn't something I had been expecting; our intel hadn't pointed to any disruption in their family unit at all. In fact, it was the exact opposite. They went to Yankees games together and brunch every Sunday. Was this teenage rebellion, or had we been that wrong?

“Not up for discussion. I already cleared it with your school and told them I have provided a tutor for the time you will be missing. Enjoy your night.”

Hank walked past the two of us toward a door that had a fingerprint scan to allow access to the room. He placed his thumb on the device and waited as his identity was verified.

Cole pulled me toward his room. This wasn't good for the agency. Hank taking his son out of the states would be for very specific reasons. He had done it in the past during intense discussions involving his dealings in the Middle East. Hank pulling him now meant something was coming.

Cole slammed his door shut and pulled his fingers through his hair.

“How wrong is it to hate your father? Is it because I'm seventeen, or is it because he's the biggest asshat on the planet?”

I laughed and then covered my mouth. Cole had just described the agency's biggest problem as an asshat. Hank Thomas really was, in all honesty, exactly that.

I
sat
at Cole's desk and looked out over the darkening skyline. He was changing his clothes back in a closet beyond my field of vision. Even after the confrontation with his dad, he remained calm, calmer than I had expected him to be. I had to admit it impressed me. For a boy with no real understanding of what his father was capable of, he held his own. Cole was his own person, unapologetically, much to his father's dismay.

“Ready, Julia?”

I stood up from the desk and turned to see him dressed in tight jeans and a leather motorcycle jacket. I swallowed my lust for him and reminded myself we'd never even have crossed paths in this world if I hadn't been assigned to babysit him by the government.

“Yeah.”

A smile crossed my lips when he held his hand out to me. I took it and tried to ignore the adrenaline that pumped through my system.

Cole guided us out to the balcony that overlooked Central Park. Blending in with the building was a discreet set of stairs camouflaged seamlessly into the architecture to anyone looking directly at them. He kept his fingers linked with mine as he pulled me up the stairs. We should've been going down. My steps were hesitant, but his warm smile kept me going up to what was a waiting helicopter.

Why would we need a helicopter? I squeezed his hands, betraying my reaction to the surprise.

“My garage is in upstate New York. Care if we ditch school tomorrow?” Cole asked.

I shook my head and plastered a grin on my face. Of course, he wouldn't ride a bike like that in city streets. God, the wealth of these kids and the toys they had. I didn't know if I would ever expect it. A grin spread across my lips, but fear still shot through me, not helped by the rush of adrenaline.

I reached for my earring to switch my comms on. The agency didn't know that I was leaving Manhattan.

“Where upstate is your house?”

The whirling of the chopper blades echoed in my earpiece as the agent on the other side asked me to repeat. I didn't trust it enough to know my cover wouldn't be blown. I had never really done anything reckless. I was prepared for field work, but nothing prepared you for a one-on-one with a boy, a cute boy. Growing up in Utah hadn't allowed me to have a lot of wild abandon. Besides, I had been in the government's care since I was a kid. Who knew I had a thing for bad boys?

Every single move I'd made since Eisenhower had been made with purpose, calculated to get a direct result for the government. I wasn't just an agent; I was a trained assassin. The injections I'd been given from the moment I arrived at the academy chemically enhanced my physical abilities. I ran faster, had trained harder. Hell, I might even have better vision. I could for sure bench press more than the average guy my age.

How did I land in all this? My dad was retired Air Force and would do anything for the United States. That sense of patriotism was ingrained in me, so my parents had had no doubts when they'd sent me to Eisenhower. I could've easily handled Mr. Thomas earlier, but that wasn't the hand we were currently playing.

My ability to read, analyze, and react to situations before most people could blink was the ace up my sleeve. The agency I worked for didn't even know the extent of my ability. The program I was trained under was classified well beyond the clearance that regular CIA agents had. Eisenhower reported to the Director of the CIA, and most candidates were hand-picked by the president of the United States.

If I were to be activated under the Eisenhower protocol, my decisions would supersede any orders given to me by my current superiors. It remained typically pretty hard for most men in the government to take orders from a girl, especially a nineteen-year-old. Eisenhower chose to push me through the Central Intelligence Agency. I was placed there for
their
benefit.

But even now, I wasn't sure of their ultimate goal. I did know that, if activated, the chemical reaction my body would create would be lethal to my target. I gave my body and soul away to the government, for the safety of the country I love. Apparently, the agency and the protocol had the same agenda for the time being, or else I would have been pulled off of Cole a while ago. Still, sometimes, the lack of control in my actual life scared the crap out of me. I didn't do a single thing without clearing it with the government—a form of prison if I'd ever heard it. I wasn't behind bars, but I was theirs. What would happen when they were finished with me?

Cole leaned over to help me with the straps on my seat belt. I let him, even though I was more than capable of attaching the harness. My thought process had me too consumed to care. He handed me noise-canceling headphones with a mic attached. The helicopter blades loudly rotated and Cole spoke to the pilot through his mic, but I wasn't privy to the conversation as my device didn't have access to their comms line. I read his lips, but I couldn't see the pilot's face to know what he was saying. Something about his private estate in upstate New York … somewhere near the Catskills?

Catskills?

That had to be at least a two-hour flight. Suspicions regarding my current situation erupted in my head. I began reviewing the last few hours in my mind, without the distraction of having to look into Cole's green eyes.

If I hadn't been distracted by his boy-next-door/built-like-a-Roman-soldier looks, I would've realized that this situation had been out of my control since we'd left my apartment and the watchful eye of the government. My instincts shot on high alert and I refused to be swayed anymore by my emotions for this boy, locking them into the box my training had given to me, and slipped on my mask that allowed me to be happy, fake, and calculating.

The city slipped behind us, and the landscape changed from industrial to rural. Darkness had almost fallen, but the last remaining traces of light outlined the gorgeous scene before me. I had never approached upstate New York from a helicopter. The view of the Catskills proved to be beyond any picture I could have found on Google. Seeing nature's beauty through my own eyes, rather than someone else's camera lens, never got old.

The first time experiences were the ones that shaped our souls. I would look back on this moment when I was old and wrinkled and no longer an asset for the government. Cole slipped his hand onto my thigh and found my fingers. He looked at me through long, thick eyelashes and smiled. I smiled back, controlling every muscle in my body, even though the smile wasn't fake. My senses were on high alert and my skin tingled. I couldn't pinpoint why.

We landed on the backside of an estate completely surrounded on every side by mountains. Well-hidden, almost fortress-like. From what I could see, the stone compound was massive. It could easily be as big as the Heidelberg Castle I'd seen while on a mission in Europe.

The chopper touched down and the blades stopped spinning. I unhooked my harness and replaced the headphones. Cole's stare had turned intense and burned wherever it touched. He looked different when I turned to face him, like I was looking at a different Cole altogether.

This boy was not the one I had been tracking the last six months. Cole had been wearing a mask, too. I saw it slipping. His eyes became sharp and cold, assessing. He was aware of every single thing. Almost predatory.

Crap. How had I not seen it before? My stomach dropped as I choked on butterflies. How had I been played? I had never miscalculated. I never made mistakes. I twisted my earring, like it was a nervous habit, and heard static in my ear. No service for comms, but I needed to let them know. This wasn't in the plan. This changed everything. I needed to find a landline and dial in.

“You won't be able to get a hold of them,” Cole said.

My neck snapped to the left as panic and adrenaline pumped through my blood. My left hand twitched in anticipation as my training started to flood my memory. Limited space, no communications. I looked out the window, beyond Cole. As soon as I could, I would fall back into our recovery. I could play along I needed to, to survive.

Cole tilted his head and recaptured gaze.

“I'm not working with my father.” He spoke slowly, as if to a three-year-old incapable of understanding him. “He thinks we're at a cabin. He has no idea that this even exists. It isn't exactly mine alone. There is a group of us.”

I was digging my nails into my palms so tight, I had broken the skin. Hot moisture slid along my skin before a drop of blood landed on my jeans.

Compound? Us? Who in the hell is us?
What was Cole involved in?

“Who are you?” I asked.

Cole gave me a half smirk. That smirk that sent ice through my veins. Without his mask, seeing Cole for who he really was … This man, he was deadly, and I was his target.

“Caldwell, we're bigger than the government. We're kind of like a sister school to Eisenhower, or we were. Their program was compromised shortly after you graduated. The Sway has people in every early recruitment program across the world. I've been with them since I was twelve. I've been relaying my father's dealings to them, and in return, they've kept me safe and kept the government from acquiring any specific intel that could get my father locked away in a prison that doesn't exist, as far as regular citizens are concerned,” Cole said.

He called me Caldwell. He knew who I was. I had no cover.
He called me Caldwell.

This couldn't be real. How did he know? How did he have access to this kind of intel? He was ticking off government secrets like he wasn't blowing my mind and turning my world upside down.

I released my fingers from the grip I'd held them in and rubbed my hands together. He knew my real last name. No way on God's green Earth I was buying this load of BS. If Eisenhower had a sister school, I would've known about it. Things like that didn't just exist without anyone knowing about them. Especially people like me. I ran through my intel in my head on all of the CIA's early recruitment. Eisenhower was the only academy of its kind. Nothing else existed to train adolescents.

“What's going to happen next is going to piss you off. I'm sorry about that, truly. I didn't think I was actually going to like you when I got put on you. So really, I'm sorry about this,” he said.

Wait.
He
got put on
me
? Who were these people? What did they want, in the end? And what if I got activated? I looked at him as I actually processed that he said that something was going to happen. As in, this moment.

Cole pulled out a syringe. The needle was long and the vial thick, full of a blue, iridescent liquid.

Shit. I put up my right hand to block his attempt at putting the syringe in my arm. He reacted by squeezing my arm with his left hand. I tried to retaliate with my other hand.

“This will block your chemical trackers. It also neutralizes your activation. For all intents and purposes, the United States government will assume you're dead. Your name will be honored. Your parents and brother will be taken care of. As much as you think you're serving your country, the control they have over you isn't right.” He grunted out the words before taking a deep breath and quirked up a half-smile “This is going to hurt.”

He appeared so calm and in control. Monstrous, even…

Cole jammed the needle into the muscle of my upper right thigh.

“I think you hit the bone,” I whispered.

He smiled at me and shook his head.

That was the last image my brain saw before my vision blurred and I succumbed to the darkness.

D
rip
, Drip, Drip.

I closed my eyes tighter, in an effort to stay asleep, even though the brightness of the morning tried to pierce my closed lids. What was that annoying dripping noise? No tap leaked in the apartment. Could I have forgotten to close the one in the kitchen? Maybe Cole had forgotten as he'd been there last—

The events from the night before flashed through my brain like a slide show on crack.

The Sway—whoever they were—had taken me captive. Through Cole, who'd been
put
on me. The dripping and slow beep now registering could only mean being in some sort of medical facility. I pulled on my wrist to find no restraint there. Bad choice by them; they should restrain someone with my particular skill set.

An IV ran into a vein on my right hand. I opened my eyes slowly so that I could take in my surroundings. Nobody else in the room with me. Light grey scrubs covering my body. White walls devoid of decor. The only things in the room were a bed, an IV pole, and me. I glanced out the window, trying to find out the position of the sun to figure out if it was late or early in the morning.

“Julia, good. You're awake.”

I looked around the room to find the source of the voice, but it'd boomed from the speakers integrated into the ceiling.

“Once you've been debriefed, we can get you to more comfortable accommodations. A nurse will be in shortly to take out your IV. Welcome to The Sway,” the guy over the speaker said with perfectly enunciated words. Slight New England accent, nothing heavy.

As if I would wait here like a docile little thing. They had another think coming.

I stood up from the bed and placed my feet on white linoleum before pressing the stop button on the IV and removing it from my hand. I didn't need a nurse to do something I could very well do myself.

“Ah, apparently, the nurse isn't needed. Do you want a bandage?” he mocked.

I nodded to the wall, assuming cameras monitored my every breath. A panel slid away from the center of the space, and a girl who had to be younger than me came in with a clear plastic box holding nothing else but gauze and medical tape in it.

I wouldn't be able to incapacitate her with the tiny box. But I could with my legs. They really should've restrained me.

I let the girl, who actually looked kind of nice, put a Spiderman Band-Aid on my hand. She smiled at me and her deep brown eyes knew. She knew I was going to try something. She seemed excited about it. Sick bitch! I gripped her forearm and her eyes lit up. Her innocent demeanor wasn't fooling me anymore. I was sure she got away with a lot because of her petite frame and big eyes.

“Thank you so much.” I released her arm.

She slowly nodded and smirked at me. “You're as good as Cole said you were.”

I sat back onto the standard hospital bed and swung my legs up.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” I said, examining my nails and not paying her any more attention. Now that must have bugged Little Miss Too Innocent, to be dismissed without a glance.

She replaced her supplies in the box. “Right, of course you don't. I'll see you at training.”

What the hell? My brows furrowed and I immediately released the wrinkles from my forehead. Not before she saw the emotion, though.

“We all train together. You'll have to fight our best physically, mentally, and emotionally. The Sway isn't for the weak,” she said with an air of promise.

I nodded. “And if I don't comply?”

She barked out a laugh. “You can decide on your compliance after your initiation in five minutes.”

Her eyes narrowed on mine, and she purposefully pushed the long sleeves of her black spandex jacket up her arms. Around her dark skinned wrists were tattoos of different numbers and words that formed into bands that looked exotic.

“I'll see you tonight, Julia,” she said through a smile and slammed the door to my room shut.

A panel on the wall directly across from the bed slid open to reveal all-black clothing. “Caldwell, the camera feed will go dead for exactly sixty seconds. If you don't want everyone in this room to see you naked, I suggest you change quickly. In three, two, one…”

I scrambled off the bed, smiling like an idiot at the notion that someone, somewhere, was giving me sixty seconds of privacy. Thank God for small comforts. For the moment, I could focus on this and not on all the creepy stuff Little Miss Too Innocent had spewed.

I stripped off the scrubs and left them in a pile on the ground while glimpsing black boy-cut panties and a black sports bra to my right on a little white plastic shelf. I slipped them on and examined what to wear.

One black spandex racerback tank top, a pair of size two black cargo pants, black athletic socks, combat boots, and the same spandex jacket the other girl was wearing. Standard. Simple. All in my exact sizes. Kind of creepy.

“Caldwell, the feed will be live in twenty seconds. I hope you're decent. Otherwise, the guys in this room will start catcalling.”

I smirked. Right, like they would be catcalling at me. I also had bigger things to worry about. I pulled the tank top over my head and slid the cargo pants up. I was doing up the zipper when three gentle beeps echoed softly around the space.

“Good, the guys back here were getting a little too excited. I'm glad you could pull yourself together. If you want to tie your hair up, there are supplies in the bathroom.”

Bright blue lights illuminated another panel. I walked over to it barefoot and stared at the door.

“Abracadabra.” There was probably a magic word to make it open.

“Smart ass. Press the door.”

I pressed in and it clicked and slid into the wall. The Sway obviously had some very wealthy investors.

“No cameras in here either, right?” I asked.

“Right.”

I slid the door shut and took care of business, used a washcloth to wipe down my face and armpits, washed my hands, and pulled my hair into a high ponytail at the top of my head. I shrugged at the blonde girl staring back at me in a “eh, you'll do” gesture. I scanned the room—no windows. No route for escape. At this point, I wasn't sure if it was worth making a break for it. This wasn't some back door operation. This was militant, precise. It reminded me of Eisenhower but also better, more advanced. Which also meant I better be damn careful and on my guard.

When I walked back into the stale room, Cole was sitting on the bed looking at the floor. I grabbed the socks and boots, then parked myself on the ground to get to work lacing up the shoes. I could feel him watching me; he didn't owe me anything. He'd made that clear when he took me hostage and shot me up with a gigantic needle. Jerk.

“I'm sorry about earlier. We couldn't bring you in until the time was right,” he said.

I tied the boots, keeping my face devoid of emotions.

“Julia, please. I think we could be real friends now. No fake bullshit to hide behind. No more five-inch heels that you wouldn't wear if you had a choice. You can be you. You can even dye your hair back brown, if you want.” Cole slammed back onto the bed and threw his arm across his face. “I like it blonde, though.”

He mumbled the last part so quietly that I almost didn't hear him, not sure if even the cameras could pick up the words. I looked up at him and his head dropped to the side. Damn his boy-next-door charm. I smiled, even though I shouldn't have. Worth it, though. Cole's eyes lit up in response to me. I wanted to punch his perfectly symmetrical model face and break his nose, but I just smiled and pretended.

Cole escorted me out of my room to four armed guards who were waiting outside the door when I exited.

I lifted my eyebrow to them. My lips turned up. “At ease, boys. I'm not going to try to break your necks.”

A hand settled flat in the small of my back; Cole now stood inches away from me. The guys ushered me down the hall. Left, two rights, another left, and then toward two double doors at the end of a dead-end hall. Above the door, a statement had been printed on the wall.

Bravery is required, honesty is necessary. Trust is only given when earned. The brotherhood will sway the world to unite. Never underestimate the power of loyalty.

Interesting. The morals were sound, not enforcing a religious view, but rather one of goodness that could be found in mankind. I wish I wasn't impressed, but I was. The similarities to Eisenhower were creepy on an “I swear someone is following me” level. Everything that I couldn't wrap my head around at Eisenhower as a child, that made me want to rebel, made sense here. Only because I was older. Not because they were better. They were still the enemy, for Hell's sake. The double doors had slid open.

Over two hundred faces stared back at me. I moved forward like Marie Antoinette going to the guillotine, the guards flanking me. By default, they ushered me to the front of the room. Nerves ransacked my body as I forced myself to swallow them. My body was on fire with so much attention focused on me, a flush creeping up my body from the prolonged staring. Not going to happen. Best quell this before it shone on my face. I half-considered waving like a beauty queen in a parade, but that wasn't my style.

I needed to come up with an image that would allow me to control my emotions. That's the technique they'd taught us at Eisenhower, to take the focus to something else and center around this picture. Sometimes, imagining beach waves rolling in and out worked, but not right now. Not with an entire militia staring me down, like I was the devil himself.

With focus, the people around me blurred until it just looked like fields of tan and gray, no distinctive eyes staring holes through my skin. Someone cleared their throat and it echoed throughout the room. All eyes went to a well-built man standing behind a podium and dressed in the standard black uniform, except he had on some trendy, plastic-framed glasses.

“This is Julia Caldwell. We head-hunted her away from the government last night; she was part of the Eisenhower protocol,” Hipster Dude said.

The guards around me inched away, giving me a wider area of space. Apparently, I was a threat.

“She's been given her first round of treatment to kill the link that would make her active. There's no reason you should fear her at this point. She'll get her next round tonight and her final tomorrow,” he continued.

Some people in the group nodded along, and a few smiles beamed in my direction. No one in the room could've been older than twenty-five. Including the guy speaking up front who was obviously the leader.

“Julia, we'd like to debrief you first. We think every person in The Sway should know who you are and what we plan to do with you. Then we can vote on initiation. This has been done with every recruit here, so please don't feel like we are singling you out,” he said.

Polite of him to debrief me after being kidnapped and jabbed with a needle. Then inviting everyone to be involved in the torture, like a team-building activity.

Three distinctive beeps went off and shifted my attention to a chair set in the center of a platform. The contraption was in the process of releasing metal arm restraints that were pressurized automatically. A nurse stood by—rather, she looked like a nurse in a child's body—organizing cords to monitor vitals and brain.

I'd sat in a lot of lie detector chairs before, but this one seemed to have more components to it than the standard Government Issue.

Joy. Why in the world would a group that took me put me through rounds of questioning? I was the captive? I should be questioning. This is some twisted form of Stockholm's syndrome.

The room dimmed slightly as they put me up on stage. I was on display and pushed down into a chair. They started to restrain my ankles and I kicked at them. My hands were next as I jerked and twitched away. My hundred-and-twenty pound frame was nothing against four grown men.

The nurse leaned into my ear. “This will monitor your heart, brain waves, pulse, perspiration, and your brain will be displayed on the screen behind you as we proceed, showing which parts are responding to the sequence of questions.”

Yes, much more intricate than the standard government lie detector. I looked around, slowing my breathing, remembering to dig my nails into the chair handles to cause pain, in an attempt to beat the lie detector. I had no idea what they wanted, but I knew too much and if they wanted it, I had to protect my knowledge.

They slid a mesh net of electrodes over my head; probably was what would be mapping my brain. This was going to be fun. Did they think this would break me? Of all of the things I'd been through, of everything I'd seen, this was what they thought would bring me down? Which part would light up when I controlled my emotions? The screen was behind me and the crowd of The Sway sat in front of me. What did that even mean? The Sway? Who went by that name? At least Eisenhower was named after someone. The Sway. Lame. I could see their reactions, but not the reasons for them. A control freak's worst nightmare. I tried not to fidget in my chair as beads of sweat dripped down my neck.

“Please state your name.”

Okay, here we go. Bring it.

“Julia Katherine Caldwell.”

“Where are you from?”

“Salt Lake City.”

“Who do you work for?”

“The Central Intelligence Agency.”

“What is your current mission?”

I hesitated and felt my temperature go up. A blush crept across my chest as I glanced around the room for Cole. I felt my tongue get tied, swelling up in my mouth as I stumbled out the words. Why was I feeling the need to tell the truth? This could be an easy lie to fake. What did they give me? I scraped my nail beds against the chair, pushing pain through my system, but the truth slipped out of my mouth.

“To infiltrate Cole Thomas and gain his trust on behalf of the United States government. If his father were to step out of bounds according to their standards, I was to take Cole hostage on behalf of the CIA to use as leverage.”