She was just like a stray cat—big-eyed, distrustful and twitchy if Cal moved too fast. The blue Ford started again; he eyed the gas gauge dubiously and dropped it into Reverse. When he moved his arm, as if to put it over the back of her seat, she flinched away so quickly her upper arm hit just below the window, hard enough that it rocked the entire damn car. “I’m just backing up.” Very quietly, firmly, as if her fingers weren’t on the door handle. “Okay?”
She swallowed once, nodded. Her skin was flawless cream, but her cheekbones stood out alarmingly. No gold hoops in her ears, but the tiny hurtful mark of piercing on the tender lobes. Dried sweat covered her, and she emitted waves of that glorious, mouthwatering scent. Everything in him tightened up a notch. He hadn’t expected this.
Sure, he’d kept going, knowing he had to find her. He hadn’t actually expected to. It should have been like everything else in his entire life—just enough good to get him to care, then a door slammed in his face and a kick to the gut.
He got them on the freeway with no trouble and decided that yes, they were going to make Cuartova on the eighth of a tank the Ford had left. She rolled her window halfway up and just sat there, staring straight ahead, an aristocratic profile marred only by an already-yellowing bruise spreading up one side of her thin neck. Someone was going to have to feed her some cheeseburgers.
Guess I’m nominated. He tried not to think about whatever had hit her to produce that bruise, because that thought did something funny to his insides. It was what the program called emotional noise, and that was dangerous. He was going to need all his wits to get her to calm down—and keep them both out of the government’s clutches. Division, she’d said. He’d just heard it called the program. It was as good a name as any.
First things first. They needed distance, and she needed water. He rolled his window halfway up, too—the sun had dipped lower in the sky, almost blinding him even though the visor was flipped down. His fingers found the Evian bottle and he fished it up from under his seat.
She still didn’t move, pressed against the door on her side, staring, almost vibrating with tension. Traffic was beginning to get heavier, and he hoped they weren’t going to get trapped in anything resembling a rush hour.
He’d asked Lady Luck for too much already today, and been answered with too many affirmatives, to risk it.
“You’re thirsty, right?” He kept one hand on the wheel, settling their speed at a solid sixty-seven to match traffic flow. “Here. I’ve got a couple more, but we don’t want you getting sick.”
That got a response. She turned her head slightly, studied him with that solemn expression. He returned his attention to the road, and after a few more of the white-painted stripes had unreeled to his left, his hand was suddenly lighter. She cracked the top, sniffed it cautiously, took a sip.
Jesus. She didn’t even trust a sealed bottle of water.
This, Cal thought, is probably going to take some work.
* * *
Two and a half hours later, Cal slid his backpack off his shoulder, slung his duffel into a chair and glanced at her. The motel was clean, at least, and tomorrow he’d find better transport. The Ford was making a wheezing sound he didn’t like—he never thought he’d live to see the day a Ford didn’t run until its doors fell off but started complaining after a little bump and some high speed.
It had gotten them this far, though. That was good.
One queen-size bed covered with a blue rip cord spread, snow-white pillows, a bathroom that didn’t reek, a spindly table and two chairs.
Trinity, silent, gaunt and grave, tiptoed behind him. She hadn’t said a damn word, not even when Cal asked her if she wanted bacon on her burger. She carried the bag of fast food as if it was full of something unspeakably foul, and the drink carrier balanced in her other hand still held two huge, pristine chocolate milk shakes.
She hadn’t even taken a sip.
It bothered him. There was some kind of cosmic law about sneaking the first few sips off milk shakes. You just had to.
“Yeah, why don’t you set that down.” He got the door, glancing out into the half-empty parking lot—nice and serene, no breath of pursuit. The mess at the rest stop had probably been discovered by now. They should have kept going, stopping only to pick up fresh wheels, but she was paper-white and moving like an automaton. That marvelous scent of hers—right now it was like a hot blueberry crisp, bubbling just from the oven, perfectly spiced—held an edge of fiery caramelization that was her body cannibalizing reserves.
You could do that for a while, with the virus helping, but it wasn’t optimal.
By the time he got the door locked she had laid the two bags and the drink carrier gently on the table and retreated to the wall near the bathroom door, putting her back to it and staring.
What the hell? “Aren’t you going to eat? I can tell you’re hungry.” I can flat-out smell it on you.
She didn’t respond, just studied the curtained window as if it was the most interesting thing in the world.
Cal sighed. “Look, you’re not in the military anymore, all right? Come on over and get some chow. Why do you think I got two of everything?”
A flicker of expression, finally, across that lovely face. “I...” The word was a dry little cricket, and Cal started digging for yet another water bottle. Stopping to get gas had involved buying another dozen liter-bottles of Evian, and she hadn’t bolted. “It didn’t occur to me.”
Oh boy. Training was harsh for a male agent, even with the virus helping. He didn’t think it was milk and cookies for a female, either, but her reactions were...unsettling.
“Yeah, well, come on over and pick your milk shake. I’m not going to poison you, for Christ’s sake.”
“Then what precisely is your intention?” Even dehydrated and too thin, her lips were amazing. They looked very...soft.
That was the exact right word.
“Um.” I didn’t think much past getting you someplace safe. “Well, maybe we could talk a bit.”
“Talking is dangerous.” But her shoulders eased, and she slid her backpack off. She was covered in dust, but it only burnished her, made that flawless skin and those high sweet cheekbones shine all the more. Tentative relaxation bloomed through her scent, as well.
Yeah. Just like blueberry cobbler, with some vanilla ice cream swirling through it. Which just happened to be his favorite dessert ever. His mouth was outright watering. “Why did you think I wanted to hurt you?”
That banished any relaxation, but she took two delicate, doelike steps away from the wall. “Bronson.”
“You think I’m mad because you shot him? I’m only sorry I didn’t do it myself. Come on, this won’t stay hot.”
A fractional shake of her head, heavy honey hair swinging a little. “I...worked...for him.”
Aha. Well, that makes sense now. “We all did. Why don’t you sit down?” He pulled out the chair with its back to the curtained window, his skin crawling at the thought of sitting in such an exposed position. But it would mean she could take the more secure chair, and that might help. He sank down and began divvying up the food, his hands shaking just a little.
This wasn’t at all how he’d expected this to go.
“I...planned. And analyzed. Threat factors, mission percentages, exposure ratios—”
“Yeah, well, I went into the field and liquidated targets.” Cal’s mouth was dry, so he took a shot of chocolate milk shake. He set the water bottle precisely where she would reach for it if she sat in the other chair. “We weren’t just having tea parties out there, honey. We’re even.” Or not even, because I did the actual killing.
“My name is Trinity.” Was that a ghost of irritation crossing that wan, pretty little face of hers?
He’d got a reaction, at least. It cheered him immensely. “Hi, Trinity. I’m Cal. W
ant to have dinner with me? I mean, I know it’s too soon to tell if it’s anything deep or meaningful, but I feel this connection, you know?” Dammit. Mouth going. Must be nervous. Girls hadn’t made him nervous since the day in high school he first figured out he could make them laugh. It might not have gotten him frequently laid, but at least it got him attention, and that was good enough. If you were patient.
Cal had found, much to his own surprise, that he was a reasonably patient man. Attention sometimes got you lucky, too.
She didn’t even crack a smile. She did lower herself in the other chair and stared at the food as if she had no idea how to unwrap it.
“Go ahead. You don’t have to say grace or anything.”
She reached for the milk shake. “He ate like this.” A small shudder ran through the first word; there was no mistaking who he was.
Bronson. Who had always reeked of fast food and clogged arteries, the sweet-roasting of oncoming diabetes and the flat wet ratfur of lies and bureaucracy. Sometimes a breath of a different perfume had reached Cal across the table in debrief, and he’d wondered at it. Why it made his mouth water. Why any smell on such a pile of blubberous paper-pusher would give him any reaction at all, much less that particular one.
It wasn’t until the corridor, under fire and face-to-face with her, that he’d guessed why.
“I always wondered,” she continued, “what these tasted like.” She stared at the frosted plastic, her winged eyebrows tightening just a bit and that mouth of hers slightly pursed.
Jesus. “You’ve never had a milk shake?”
Her thin shoulders hunched a little. She was so controlled, so precise, the tiniest movement was like a shout. “Not that I remember.”
Something else that Holly had said occurred to him. Cal munched a mouthful of fries, giving himself time to think it over. “So...what do you remember?”
“Waking up.” She took a sip of milk shake, and a strange expression floated over that otherwise-serene face. “On the table, after my viral loads had stabilized and I had survived the induction process.”
Oh. Cal’s jaw threatened to drop. “Induction?” He’d heard the term, once or twice, from the medical personnel. All their scraping and poking, tolerance tests and function tests—they’d probably done those to her, too. Or even more, since she was a female agent. Reese had a heavily redacted agent file that said female—maybe it was hers.
It was a hell of a thing to think.
She nodded, once. A slight dip of her chin, and for a moment something flashed in those dark, dark eyes. “They succeeded in stripping me of emotional noise. Unfortunately, the process proved fatal for every male Gibraltar candidate, even agents carrying a full and initially stabilized viral load.” A longer sip of milk shake, her throat moving as she swallowed, and Cal shifted a little in his flimsy chair.
Just looking at that tiny movement did interesting things to him. That smell reached right down and pulled on every string a guy was led around by before he started thinking with the big brain instead. And those big wounded eyes of hers... Jesus. She was downright dangerous. “Wait. You’re saying—”
“I told Ms. Candless.” She unwrapped her burger with quick grace, poked at the bun experimentally with one finger. “She asked me about feeling. I do not feel. I calculate, I plan, I assess. I have no emotional noise.”
“You don’t, huh.” He considered this. “Why are you running, then? Seems to me the odds are pretty much stacked on their side. Division’s.”
“Not necessarily.” She poked at the bun again. “Is there any nutritive value to this?”
“Empty calories, but you need them. Are you going to eat?”
She glanced at him, a troubled, tentative look as if she expected him to yell. For a second he was back in the hallway again, the popping and zinging of live fire, her smell riding the air and everything in him narrowing to a single, small point. She thought she had no emotional noise?
From where he was sitting, it looked as if she was wrong. Right now, though, she was back to stray cat, and he got the idea the next few moments called for some very, very careful handling of this shy, beautiful, too-thin, finely tuned agent.
“I smelled you on him.” It wasn’t the best thing to say, but at least it kept her interacting. “On Bronson.”
She straightened a little. “That’s why you asked him if he changed his cologne?” A smear of dust on her cheek made his fingers itch to smooth it away.
“You heard that?” If they’d been hiding her behind glass all that time...he’d been so close, close enough to touch, and never knew it.
“Debriefs were taped.” She didn’t shrug, but he got the idea she wanted to. Under the button-down and the camisole, she was braless. He could tell, because the sudden coolness of air-conditioning in here caused certain...reactions.
“Very voyeuristic.” He hadn’t felt this breathless since he’d been a teenager. Christ.
That flicker across her wan, beautiful face again. Irritation? Or was it the ghost of a smile? “Protocol. Agents meeting face-to-face was discouraged, but I had to analyze, and that was the best way. Besides, I am...was...high-value, having survived induction.”
Was? “Was?”
“I suspect now they are simply tying up loose ends. However, several aspects of this particular situation are troubling. I must analyze.”
“Well, eat first.” He watched her apply herself to a French fry, then another. She chewed as if it wasn’t an enjoyable experience, but she did seem to like the burger. At least, she finished it and looked a little wistful as she surveyed the empty wrapper.
He made a mental note to get her two extra-bacon next time and decided there were a great many things troubling him, too. Like how the hell he was supposed to deal with a woman who said she didn’t have feelings. It was like a bad country song, except they were both in it together, and Cal had a chance to make up for everything. All the lies, the pain, the fighting, the blood.
If he didn’t screw this up, it would be a miracle.
* * *
The real questioning started much later than Trinity thought it would, as she was neatly folding the wrapper from her burger and smoothing the greasy, empty fry packet. Cal simply balled his own packaging up and dropped it into the grease-stained bag, finally turning his attention to the dregs of his milk shake and examining her critically. “So what were you doing in Felicitas?”
She concentrated on making the wrapper’s creases nice and sharp, then deconstructed the fry packet. It was of more solid almost-cardboard, and its topology was interesting. She filed the problem of the machine responsible for its construction away for later analysis—it was always good to have something in reserve. Without a problem to dissect, she was uneasy. “I have to go back,” she said finally, carefully.
“Oh?” His sandy eyebrows rose. His face was even and regular, and far more mobile than it had appeared in the debrief tapes. Living color was different, so to speak. Now she could understand why he was thought handsome. There was a certain regularity of features that was pleasing enough, but it was his seemingly unguarded attitude that would draw an interrogation subject in and coax them to reveal more than they should.
She kept glancing at his expression, smoothing the burger wrapper. So far, he seemed remarkably even-tempered. “Yes. Recent events will, at least, lead them to calculate that I won’t return to that area. Which improves my chance of success.”
“Success at what?” He sucked at the straw, the reluctant fluid in the bottom of his cup gurgling, and set the milk shake aside. “You might as well tell me.”
Why? “I have to.” Very simple, in case he didn’t understand. Surely he was intelligent enough to understand it was a given parameter if she bothered to voice it at all.
“Why?”
“I have to find...” She shut her mouth, abrup
tly aware of the risk. Should he somehow guess she was involved with the operation that had brought him in and liquidated Tracy Moritz, warning him of her plans was an error.
“Find what? Something in those old military installations right next to Felicitas?” He shook his head. “No dice. You’re with me now, honey, and we’re heading for a safe location.”
“And where, precisely, do you calculate either of us would be safe?” She found herself rolling the fry packet up, but it was too thick to do so neatly, and a rasping went up her back. His presence was oddly soothing, she decided, but the packet was extremely displeasing in its current asymmetry. “Given the chance of infection or, more likely, unacceptable information dispersal from either of us, Division will want to disinfect as thoroughly as possible. It’s only a matter of time.”
“So we go over the border. Hook up with Reese and Holly, and—”
She was already shaking her head. “And endanger Ms. Candless, as well as draw attention to ourselves? Unacceptable.”
“Which part? Endangering Holly or drawing attention? You’re kind of cute.”
What? She blinked, and he reached across the table, sliding the burger wrapper away.
He unfolded it, eyed it critically and then began to fold again, fingers deft and gentle despite calluses from combat and training. “You don’t want to endanger Holly, who has Reese to look after her, so that’s a nonissue. And you’re already thinking for both of us. That’s good. I’m a tactical sort, not much of a big planner. It’s good to have that on my side.”
Your side? “What exactly do you think—”
“Here.” He held it up. Trinity blinked. He’d folded the wrapper into a...what was it? “It’s a crane.”
She studied it further, then saw the resemblance. “I see.” She took it back, his fingertips brushing hers. For some reason, the slight touch felt overly warm. An agent’s metabolic fire, perhaps, but the heat slid down her arm in a decidedly odd way. “You simply fold it in the right sequence, the angles all fall into place. Interesting.”