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The words stuck in her throat as her mind raced to process what she was seeing. A doodle, invisible to the naked eye but perfectly captured by the infrared lens.
Exactly as the creator intended.
Slowly, like a nightmare taking form, the image resolved itself. A single, stylized rose. The long stem curved gracefully, but it was the thorns that drew the eye—wicked-looking, almost claw-like in their menace. And there, at the tip of one thorn, a single droplet of blood.
Her breath caught. The room spun. Memories flooded back. She’d seen that doodle far too many times to forget it. In the margins of class notes, absentmindedly sketched during longlectures. On scratch paper, discarded without a thought. And on one spectacular forearm, inked permanently as a symbol of promises made and broken.
“Cody Lassiter,” she whispered, the name tasting bitter on her tongue.
Destroyer of dreams.
The van suddenly felt claustrophobic, the air thick and oppressive. Paige’s fingers trembled as she zoomed in on the image, her past and present colliding in a nauseating swirl of emotions. The rose mocked her, a silent reminder of everything she’d lost and everything that now hung in the balance.
2
Cody Lassiter.
A name Paige long hoped never to hear again.
She watched the team exit the mansion through her array of monitors, her mind still reeling from the unexpected blast from the past. The shame of her MIT days crept up her spine, hot and unwelcome.
The team was aware of her history. It had all come out when she was recruited into their former group, BlackOut Squadron. Still, she couldn’t help the hot flush of humiliation that colored her cheeks. In her last month at MIT, less than four weeks from graduation, someone hacked into the admin mainframe and zeroed out over a hundred student accounts. The incident cost the university hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost tuition.
And the trail led straight to her.
Cody was the one who turned her in. Her almost-boyfriend. The first guy she’d ever fallen for. He’d come across the evidence on her computer. Worse, he’d refused to believe she had nothing to do with it.
The memory of that day still stung. Cody, his face a mask of disappointment and betrayal as he headed off to the dean’soffice with the evidence, destroying their budding relationship. Her father’s trust. And dynamiting her future.
No MIT graduation. No bright, shining future for the wunderkind who’d been accepted to the elite university’s uber-elite computer science program at sixteen.
For three long years, Paige had thought her future was over. Until BlackOut Squadron had plucked her from obscurity, offering her a chance at redemption.
But her romantic life? That had remained in shambles. Cody’s refusal to believe in her had crushed her, shattering her trust in relationships. And learning later that he’d been recruited into the Consortium? That had been the final twist of the knife.
The van’s side door slid open with a metallic screech, jolting her back to the present. The team piled in, bringing with them a gust of chilly air and the scent of damp earth.
Graham slipped the van into gear, the engine rumbling to life as they pulled away from the decaying mansion.
“Alright, Paige,” Bridger’s voice cut through the tense silence. “What’s got you looking like you’ve seen a ghost?”
She took a deep breath, the words sticking in her throat. “It’s Cody Lassiter. He left that message. He wants to make contact.”
A chorus of surprised murmurs filled the van.
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Tai leaned forward, his eyes bright with interest. “We need an in with the Consortium, and he’s reaching out.”
“But why?” Mason asked.
Exactly what Paige wanted to know. Why now? And why her?
Cody and Jason had met briefly on a mission long before the Consortium, or BlackOut Squadron, existed. She was well aware of Cody’s poor opinion of her. Why not contact Jason?
Mason looked pained. “He can’t be stupid enough to think we’re just gonna let his evil overlords kidnap another one of us.”
Seriously. That hadn’t worked out so well for the last Consortium operative who tried it.
“How about this time we do the kidnapping?” Bridger winked at her. “You’re more than due for payback. Am I right?”