Vortex (36 page)

The fact that she trusted them and not me pissed me off, even though I understood
why. “Do you think Agent Collins really cares what happens to you? You’re not even
a full agent yet. They can erase every shred of evidence. Make it look like your secretive
behavior these past few months was the result of … I don’t know … a crack addiction …
and you died from a drug overdose.”

“Oh, great. So, we put the guns down and you jump right to the mental games.” She
glared at me, then her expression turned smug. “That’s preferred, actually. I’m better
at reading people’s real intentions than everyone else in my division.”

I couldn’t help laughing. “You need some better competition. I think you suck at guessing
people’s real intentions, otherwise you wouldn’t be holding me at gunpoint. I already
told you I wasn’t going to hurt you, remember?”

A flicker of emotion crossed her face at the mention of that night I had caught her
in my apartment. The glare returned quickly. “Yeah, because you want to recruit me.
Drop the Eyewall numbers down a little bit.”

“They’re lying to you, Holly … about everything,” I said, realizing my voice had suddenly
become a lot more intense. “I’m not the bad guy.”

“I’m not, either. How great is that? Let’s make friendship bracelets and have a sleepover.”
She laughed, but there was no humor in it.

I took a chance and scooted across the floor until I was sitting right in front of
her. She held her breath, gripping her gun tighter. “I can take you away from them.
We can go anywhere you want. What happened to Adam … that wasn’t an accident and it
wasn’t us, I swear.”

Her eyes locked with mine, holding my gaze. “What happened to your shoulder? I saw
the scar.”

My fingers absentmindedly lifted to touch my right shoulder. “A bullet hit me, but
it didn’t go all the way through.”

“I’ve never been shot,” she said flatly. “Yet…”

I flinched, seeing that horrible day in her dorm room all over again. I’d never get
rid of that image. “About what I said…?” I pressed, because she had changed the subject
so quickly on me.

She turned her head to the side, looking away from me. Obviously she wasn’t going
to respond to my offer. In this situation, Holly had the mental advantage over me
because I was just another guy to her.

An hour ticked by without her saying a single word or even making eye contact. But
I think her fight to stay awake won and she had to keep talking.

“How long have you been an agent?” she drilled.

I jolted up from my now-lying-down position as the sound of her voice cut through
the silence. “Just a few months. How about you?”

Another long pause, her eyes half closed. “I started about a year ago. Adam had done
some serious hacking job and got caught. He totally freaked out and told me about
it because he didn’t know what to do. Anyway, instead of putting him in jail, the
CIA recruited him.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard they do that.”

“All they wanted him to do was basic field training and computer stuff. Nothing like
what I’m doing now. He had this one training assignment, just beginner stuff, convincing
a receptionist to hand over medical records. He took me along and then totally blanked
and I jumped in to rescue his ass and completed the assignment for him … but of course—”

“They were watching?” I guessed.

She nodded, and when she spoke again her voice started to shake. “But I didn’t even
think about that at the time, and a few days later a man was in my kitchen, talking
to my mother about a very special honors program he wanted to put me in. Complete
bullshit, obviously, and I knew right then. At first I really loved the training,
the assignments … and Agent Collins was totally cool to work for.” She drew in a deep,
shaky breath.

“Hol, Adam knew Tempest isn’t bad … I saw him just before—” I froze, knowing I had
just said too much.

Her face twisted with anger and I thought she might shove me away from her. “Don’t
talk to me like you knew him! You don’t care about Adam and you don’t care about me!
I know exactly how this game works, probably better than you.”

“I’m the one who found Dr. Melvin dead. I wonder who made that mess. Not Eyewall,
right?” My voice had gotten louder and she shrank back a little. I ran my fingers
through my hair, trying to calm down. Nothing was going how it was supposed to. “I
didn’t mean to yell. I’m sorry.”

An eerie calm had taken over her expression and she whispered, “I found him, too …
Adam. It was the single most terrifying moment of my entire life.”

“You couldn’t have been there,” I said. “I would have known.”

“Believe me. I was there.”

My stomach sank. It must have been after … way after. “Tell me what happened.”

Her eyes focused on the wall behind me. “Another agent came to pick me up that day
and we went to go get Adam. The second we walked into his house, we found him … He
was covered in blood, I couldn’t even see his face. He wasn’t breathing, but his eyes
were wide open, staring right at me, like he was begging me to help him, but it was
too late.”

I squeezed my eyes shut for a second as the pictures, the memory of seeing him, flooded
my brain. Pain rolled in giant waves over me. Holly’s hands had neglected her gun
and were now lifting to cover her face. Her reaction startled me, but maybe this was
the first time she had really talked about Adam.

Her voice was thick with tears when she started speaking again. “The guy I was with,
Carter, dragged me out of there before I could do anything. He said it was protocol.
I don’t even remember getting in the car. We just left him there like we never saw
it. And later that day, I had to sit across from his mother in the police station,
while a detective questioned me. I had to lie to her face … say I hadn’t seen him
all day.” She uncovered her face, revealing her tear-stained cheeks. “Do you know
what the police told her?”

“What?” I whispered, even though I had already read the report a dozen times.

“They told her he fell or tripped on something.” She sucked in a breath, trying to
smooth her voice, but it only got more unstable. “He was murdered, and his own mother
thinks it’s her fault for not wrapping up the damn vacuum cord or something. I can’t
say a word … nothing. I have to keep letting her think, day after day, that she could
have prevented her son’s death. That maybe she even caused it … and I don’t want to
do it anymore. I don’t want to do any of this. But there’s no way out. I’m just going
to be this person whose sole motivation for following orders is to be able to walk
into my house and not see my mother bloody and lying on the floor like Adam.” Her
hands lifted to her face again and tears came out harder and faster.

I felt like a truck had just run over me. I reached for Holly and my arms went around
her, pulling her close. It was stupid to touch her, get this close, because she didn’t
trust me, but none of that even crossed my mind. This was Holly, crying … I couldn’t
really think about all the invisible barriers between us now.

“I’m so sorry, Holly … so sorry. This should have never happened.” I forced down the
lump in my throat and squeezed her tighter. Her cheek pressed against my chest and
her whole body shook with sobs. I moved over so I had my back to the wall, bringing
Holly with me, her face buried in my shirt now.

Nothing I’d ever done with Tempest had felt this frightening. Whatever Holly had gotten
herself into was far worse than my division. She was in way over her head. And it
was all because of me. She squeezed me around the waist and I could feel her trying
to pull herself together, to stop crying. She tilted her head upward a little and
I brushed the tears from her cheeks with my thumb. My heart skipped a beat. Her mouth
was so close to mine …
Focus! Focus on getting her away from them, convincing her to let me help. We could
run away to some island that no one knows about and stay there forever.

If I could rescue Holly from this horrible fate, that would at least be one accomplishment
toward saving the world. Her fingers slowly moved from my waist to my chest, but it
felt like she was holding something—a sock, maybe? I had only a half second to contemplate
the item before the rag was pressed over my mouth and nose. The fumes from the poison
invaded my nostrils and made everything turn black.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

JUNE 20, 2009, 10:00
A.M.

“Jackson … Jackson!” A hand smacked my cheek.

The hard floor was underneath me again, the smell of sewers returning to my nostrils,
nearly causing me to gag, a thin layer of sweat forming across my forehead. I wiggled
my eyes open and looked right into Kendrick’s.
Kendrick … not Holly?

“Don’t try to sit up yet.” Both her hands pressed against my chest, forcing me to
stay down. “God … your heart is racing. What did she give you?”

I tried to recall more specifics about the scent of the chemical-covered rag Holly
had smothered me with. “I don’t know … How did you get in here?”

A high-pitched beep went off above our heads and I looked up to see a hole in the
ceiling, a big chunk missing. “So that’s how she got out,” I said to myself.

“And it’s how I got in.” Kendrick pulled out a tiny handheld computer and punched
in several numbers. Seconds later, the door swung open.

My wallet, keys, and phone were still lying on the floor where Holly had dumped out
the contents of my pockets. I snatched the items from the floor and headed for the
door.

Kendrick followed behind me as I thundered up the steps and reentered the subway tunnels.
I stopped for a second when I felt her hand on my arm.

“Are you … are you okay?” she asked.

“Don’t baby him … He’s already spoiled and pampered.”

We both turned around to see Stewart, looking slightly battered, her clothes torn
and hair frazzled.

“Do you know if Holly’s okay?” I asked, looking at both of them.

Stewart glared in my direction, then gave me a shove, nearly knocking me onto the
tracks. “Seriously? Blondie leads you right into some kind of high-tech cave, doses
you with chloroform or whatever she gave you, somehow manages to climb up the walls
and knock out one of the ceiling tiles, then leaves you drooling on the floor while
she escapes without a scratch … and you want to know if
she’s
okay?”

We had just walked outside, finally breathing fresh air, and I was surprised to be
hit with late morning sun. I’d been down there for hours. “I think they tricked her.
She wasn’t supposed to be locked in the room with me.”

“Junior, I think it’s time you face the truth,” Stewart said.

“What do you mean?”

“Blondie’s got skills,” she said, lifting an eyebrow. “Way more than you ever realized.”

“No … she’s…”
Was everything last night just an act?
I froze in the middle of the sidewalk, piecing together this crazy puzzle. But the
way she was crying … there was no way that was fake. It didn’t mean she trusted me.
Just that she used real grief to manipulate me.

None of that changed the fact that I knew Holly was scared and all she had wanted
to do was survive last night. She could have killed me while I was unconscious, but
she didn’t.

But now wasn’t the time to present this theory to Kendrick and Stewart. They both
looked more than a little pissed at Holly and Eyewall. “What about everyone else?
What’s the mission status?”

Kendrick and Stewart exchanged a glance, then Stewart answered. “We lost two agents,
killed one Eyewall chick … someone we hadn’t been in contact with before. Freeman’s
holding four near the underground hospital.”

“Which two agents did we lose?” I asked, feeling the weight of being out of it for
several hours.

“Miller … Parker’s partner,” Kendrick said.

“And Davis,” Stewart said.

I exhaled heavily, glad that I had made it out alive, but feeling guilty for the same
reason. “They were outnumbered. How did they get two of us?”

“They knew exactly what we had planned. Every detail, down to who was gonna follow
who. And they know all of our strengths and weaknesses,” Stewart said, moving to my
other side. “If Kendrick had been locked in that room that you were in, she’d have
decoded the lock on the door within an hour. You, on the other hand…”

“Can shoot a gun really well … which didn’t help me in that situation.” We had arrived
in front of our building and I figured Stewart would come in with us. “Do you think
we have a mole?”

“Freeman thinks so,” Stewart blurted out.

“Okay, so neither of you told me what happened to you guys,” I said.

Both of them grinned. “Kendrick took Collins down in no time … which is seriously
insane, and I’m not sure what was going through her mind. I had some dude named Strowski.
We caused a little bit of a riot in the middle of a film studies class, but he wasn’t
too hard to catch.”

I couldn’t imagine Kendrick running after Agent Collins. That would be like me facing
Freeman, and, well … actually, I had done pretty well against Freeman in another timeline,
but he hadn’t expected me to know any form of self-defense.

After Stewart headed for her place, Kendrick and I took the stairs in silence, but
just before I opened my apartment door she started to say something. “I just … I wanted
you to know … I get it … Holly … If Michael were in another agency—”

“Yeah, I figured you would.” I leaned against the doorframe, thinking about my next
move … thinking about Holly and everything I hadn’t told my partner since we were
experimenting yesterday morning. I straightened up the second I remembered the biggest
item of all. “Hey … wanna go somewhere with me? I have something really cool to show
you.”

JUNE 20, 2009, 12:30
P.M.

“I can’t believe no one knew about this,” Kendrick said, spinning around to look at
the hole in the floor of Dad’s closet.