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“You okay?You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Maybe I did.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Ana moved off down the street, fast but not hurried, watching our reflections in windows as we passed.Nobody was following.
“Ana?”
She didn’t stop until she reached a small park nestled between a café and a dental practice.Actually, “park” was being generous.It was nothing more than a scrubby patch of grass with half a dozen picnic tables and a yellow-and-blue swing set.A flock of birds was pecking at the ground at the far end, but apart from that, it was deserted.Main Street in Baldwin’s Shore was hardly a hive of activity.Ana took a seat at the nearest table, but rather than swinging her legs over the bench, she sat sideways, in case she needed to get up in a hurry.I mirrored her pose on the opposite side.If Ana was worried, then I was worried.
“Sis?”
“I don’t… Where do I start?”
“At the beginning?”
“The beginning… I hate thinking about the beginning.”She sucked in a breath.Surreptitiously checked her gun and forced herself to relax.Her shoulders dropped, but if she clenched her jaw much harder, we’d have to pay that dental practice a visit.“In the beginning, I was twelve years old.”
“Twelve?You’re talking about your time in Russia?”
Ana had grown up there, first in Vladivostok and then in Siberia, the pawn of a madman who’d trained her to do his bidding.He’d stolen her childhood, part of her soul, and almost her life as well.But she’d won her freedom, and now sheneverspoke about that chapter of her existence.
“Yes.Siberia.When General Zacharov chose me for his program, and I became Seven of Ten.”Ana’s voice dropped until it was barely audible.“Ten little soldiers, torn into our component parts and rebuilt in his image.Ten little drones, taught to act without question.We were all broken in our own ways.One, Two, and Eight didn’t make it through training.Two lost his head, quite literally.”
Ana choked out a laugh, but she looked shaken.
Ana never looked shaken.
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that hell.But you made it out.It’s in the past.”
“Is it?Is it?Seven of us survived.Two girls, five boys.I was the youngest.”
“Why are you telling me this?I mean, I’ll always listen if you want to talk, but why now?”
“Because that woman in there, the one talking to Bradley?”
“Darla?”
Ana doubled over, her laughter turning hysterical.“Darla?Darla?That’s what she’s calling herself?”
“In the flowery muumuu?”
“Darla?”Ana said again.“I guess it works.Da, in the muumuu.She’s lost her fucking mind.”
I was beginning to think she wasn’t the only one.
“Ana, you’re not making any sense.”
“That’s Nine.Darla is Nine.Gavno.She’s wearing fucking flowers.”
Had I stepped into an alternative universe?Darla wasn’t Ana Mark II.No way.She knew more about embroidery floss than Bradley did, and more importantly, she didn’tfeellike an assassin.Ana and I both knew it wasn’t possible to retire, not completely.Sure, we could pretend to be a suburban mom and a billionaire’s trophy wife, but long term, keeping up the charade was exhausting.It wasn’t who we truly were.And there were always tiny tells that would give us away—a reaction that was a little too fast, a gaze that was a little too probing.Granted, I hadn’t spent much time with Darla, but she didn’t give off those vibes.
“Are you sure?”
“Darya Volkova is a chameleon.Call it a gift.”
“Maybe Darla just looks similar?And it’s been, what, five years since you saw Nine?”