Page 43 of Love at First Sighting

Carter

My heart races as I push open the door to Marcus’s office.

The whole station is a ghost town. The moon casts eerie, broken shards of light through the shutters.

There’s no quiet office chatter, no phones ringing, no copy machines running.

The soft squeak of my wet shoe soles on the tile floor feels like it’s giving me away with every step.

I don’t see Marcus anywhere in the station, and his car isn’t in the lot, so I know we at least beat him here.

He’s got to be on his way, though, and the clock is ticking down. Especially if he knows I shot Brad.

I’ve never shot anyone before.

Holy shit, I shot someone.

In the car, I assigned levels of risk to our endeavor.

Going to Marcus’s office is DEFCON 1, and entering the bunker itself is maybe a 3.

If someone does show up—cops, Marcus, Brad—they’ll see me first. I can distract them long enough to let El escape safely.

And even if I can’t make it there after her, one of us has to get in.

One of us needs to let everyone know what happened here.

As much as I don’t like splitting up…

I crouch beside the desk, fumbling through drawer after drawer. I searched through these drawers before, but I didn’t know what I was looking for. We’ve never used the bunker, except for random storage, so it’s not like Marcus is carrying around the badge like a nuclear football.

I turn around toward all the books and folders on the filing cabinets behind his desk.

Maybe there’s some kind of crowbar or tool I can use to jimmy the door open for El, but there’s nothing.

Expense receipts, a dead cactus. I open his computer again and pull up the security system he hardly knows how to run.

It’s a screen full of camera displays, and El’s at the bottom of the steps in front of the steel bunker door.

I try a few buttons and passwords, scan my own PIS ID badge, but get an angry flashing Access Denied message.

Below that it reads: Invalid Clearance .

As I’m shuffling more things around, the station’s front door clicks open. I freeze. That’s not El. She comes with the quiet squeak of Converse and a waft of fruity cucumber. Not the sharp click of dress shoes and tobacco.

I don’t even have time to duck and hide.

“I don’t remember approving this overtime, kid.”

I swallow, fists clenching at my sides. Marcus hovers in the doorway, and annoyance simmers in his eyes. I saw the same look many times growing up. It’s the don’t ask or drop it look. Usually, he pulled it out when I was being a pain in the ass, but now it feels like a real threat.

My dad is dead because of something Marcus did, and that’s a secret he’ll do anything to keep buried.

His hand rests on his gun holster in a way I know isn’t him putting his hands on his hips. He’s ready to act if he needs to. I hope he cares about me enough to not kill me.

“I…was waiting for the rain to stop.”

He chuckles. “Sure. Explains the joyride you took through LA. And shooting Brad.”

“I didn’t mean to shoot Brad,” I confess.

Marcus lets out a heavy sigh. “He’ll be fine. And so will you if you drop whatever this is. Right now.”

“You know I can’t do that.” My throat knots with tears. “You know I have been looking for answers for years , and it was all right in front of me. You’ve made it so I could never find them.”

Every roadblock I hit, every obstacle he put in my face, was to keep me from knowing the truth. It was never for my own protection. It was never because he was trying to honor my dad’s wishes. I think of every night I fell asleep believing I was safe and taken care of, and how all of it was a lie.

I think there’s shame somewhere in Marcus’s expression.

“I know it was you. I know the truth. Or enough of it. So, you can either tell me the rest of it now or…”

“Or what ? You’ll go figure out the rest and nail me to the cross? How exactly are you expecting to do that, Carter?” His hand remains on his holster. “Be smart. Give this up and we can act like it never happened.”

“But I can’t…I can’t let this go.”

Now that I’ve rejected his peace treaty, his expression tells me he’s ready to go to war over this. “What do you think you can prove?”

“I was there that night in the hangar—with Ian Forte. I heard enough to know this comes back to you.” Marcus’s brows rise and his jaw tightens.

What’s missing in his eyes is guilt. “What I saw the night my dad died, what El saw—those were Terra’s drones, weren’t they?

And you’ve been pulling the strings the whole damn time. ”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Marcus starts. “You and your father are exactly the same. You think everything is colored in black and white and never see the gray area. You don’t see the whole picture.”

Marcus steps closer. This time I draw my gun. If Marcus was the one who made me fail my exams, he knows I know how to use a gun. He knows I can be dangerous, too.

“Carter…Don’t do something you’re going to regret.”

“Like you did? If you even regret it?”

Marcus holds his hands up in surrender and glances across the desk at me. “You really want the truth?”

“I deserve that much,” I say. “No, I deserve even more than that.”

Marcus nods slowly. The rain picks up, splashing torrents of water against the rickety windows. I stare him down and ponder how I’m still going to get El into the bunker. I suppose the backup plan is, if I know what I need to know, maybe he’ll let us leave. Maybe he’ll at least let El leave.

“The Fortes have been working with PIS under the table for a long time. They have the technology we lack, but we have the access to government schematics and tools. PIS is the laughingstock of the Defense Department, and we’re one wrong move away from being cut loose entirely.

Howard Forte was a good businessman. He knew a good trade when he saw one. ”

“That’s treason.” I sigh.

Marcus rolls his eyes. “So is breaking into government offices. So is shooting a federal employee. To name a few…I offered Terra what they wanted—top-of-the-line information. They gave us something to make our job easier. To make us valuable. To keep us afloat.”

It doesn’t sound as bad when he says it like that. It sounds like a simple government cover-up where no one gets hurt. It’s easy to see how he’d think the same.

“Those surveillance drones?” I ask.

Marcus nods. “They save us time. Money. Agents. They were never meant to hurt anybody.”

“Just intimidate and spy on civilians.”

“How’s that different from what we already do? You’re part of this, too.”

I keep a covert eye on El in my periphery, making sure she doesn’t try to come back for me before this conversation is over. I need her to stay downstairs until Marcus is gone. “So, how did we go from security drones to my dad being dead?”

Marcus swallows hard. This is the part he’s afraid to share. This is where the secret lies. Government fuckery is part of the job. Murder isn’t.

“He didn’t learn anything from all our jobs. Truth number one: Everyone who speaks out lives to regret it. Your dad didn’t want me getting wrapped up in something I couldn’t get myself out of.”

Pain builds in the pit of my stomach. My dad was kind and easygoing. He was always eager to invite my friends over for dinner or sleepovers. There was no one who didn’t like him. Whatever issue he had with Marcus, I knew it must have come out of a place of care. Yet, only one of them is dead.

The right side of Marcus’s jacket falls open, revealing an ID badge strapped to the inside of his coat. That is what I need.

One tap of the badge and El can get safely inside the bunker downstairs, find the backup file, and run. And I need to hope Marcus isn’t going to use his gun on me.

“How’d it go from him trying to protect you to you killing him?” I ask.

“Carter…” Marcus’s jaw firms to a straight line and his words come through gritted teeth.

“No,” I snap back. “I deserve to know. You can’t start and then not finish. Because you can tell me now, or I’ll keep looking for answers, and you know I won’t stop.”

“What do you think you’re going to find?” Marcus laughs bitterly. “Any proof has been long gone, kid.”

I don’t flinch. He knew my dad well enough to know he backed everything up. A backup of his file might mean he knew something would happen to him.

“We’ll see about that.”

“No one’s going to believe you. Carter, you have to understand your dad gave me no choice.

He was going to blow the whole operation wide open, no matter who it hurt.

It was either stop him and keep PIS running or spend the rest of my life behind bars.

This wasn’t just about me. It was about everyone in this sector. ”

Marcus says it so plainly, so cowardly , I wish he were vile and evil.

I wish there was no humanity to him, because it’d make it easier to write him off.

Instead, I’m stuck staring at someone I spent years looking up to and trying to impress, only to realize that in his worst moments, he’s going to choose cowardice.

Jail, or killing your partner.

This answer fucking sucks. It’s so embarrassingly weak, so disappointing, and in a way, I feel more galvanized than ever.

And because of that, I do hope he rots behind bars, and I’ll make sure of it.

“You got him killed—you nearly got me killed—because he was going to turn you in? You did something wrong and you were going to face the consequences, so you got your own partner killed?”

“I didn’t have another option.”

“Maybe try not committing treason next time, you jackass. That’s a good option.”

“I didn’t expect you to understand.” Now he sounds angry. I take a step back, my gun aimed at the center of his chest, with his desk between us. The key card is in his jacket. If I can get close enough to grab it, El will be able to get inside.

“How could I? How could you ever expect me to understand? I don’t have my dad because of you. I don’t have…” A family , I almost say. “You made other people pay for your mistakes, and it’s time you paid for yours. And I am never going to forgive you for what you’ve done.”

Marcus takes another step toward the desk, urging me to put the gun down. Something on the camera shifts in my periphery and I don’t hide my glance well enough. And Marcus looks there, too.

“The girl…”

My voice shakes. “Ian was right. You shouldn’t underestimate her. And you shouldn’t underestimate me, either.”

Before he registers what I’m saying, I fire a shot at the Agent of the Year award on his desk.

Glass shards spray into the air, a few digging into my skin as well as his.

With Marcus distracted, I dive forward, grabbing his jacket and pulling him close to the desk.

He lets out a frustrated grunt as I dig into his jacket, grab the key card inside, and slam it onto the card scanner.

It snaps back on the retractable cord he has it on, whacking him in the side as it returns.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m making this right.”

I turn my gaze to the computer screen where El wiggles her way through the bunker door and pulls it shut behind her. She’s in. She’s going to get the file, and hopefully get out of here before Marcus can track her down. If I can keep him distracted for a little longer…

I hear the gunshot before I feel anything. It’s not until I glance down and see my stark white shirt turning a furious red that I realize what’s happened. I draw my fingers to the center of my stomach, watching them stain.

“Shit,” I gasp before the pain hits. And when it does, it’s obliterating. Marcus lowers the gun and slides it back into his holster. He doesn’t need to say anything for me to read the look in his eyes. I had no other choice .

I drop to my knees and grip harder at the wound.

I know I’m supposed to focus on slowing the bleeding and calling for help, but the pain is so blinding, all I want to do is collapse on the ground and give up.

But El is still down there. And she’s about to be in danger if I can’t keep Marcus from getting to her.

Marcus rounds the desk, coming to finish the job. I pull myself to my hands and knees, minding the shattered glass on the ground. I’m prepared to look up and find the barrel of a gun pointed at my head. El’s voice echoes in my mind.

You need to come back to me .

I should have pushed harder to tell her how I felt, spit it out way sooner, even if it scared me. Because now I’m not certain I’m ever going to get the chance to tell her how much I love her, or that for the first time in so long, I feel loved, too, and how it feels so good.

Instead of shooting me, Marcus grabs my bad arm, disregarding the years of surgeries and physical therapy it took to get it working right again, and jerks it behind me.

I have no idea what he’s doing at first, but then a handcuff clinks around my wrist. Then the other latches around one of the radiator bars.

Well, I didn’t see that coming, but why not throw another calamity on top of this day?

I mean, at least he likes me enough to not murder me here and now, but he will leave me for dead chained to a radiator.

He doesn’t say another word before storming out of the office and heading for the bunker.

Heading for El . Fuck. Fucking hell. I need to get myself out of here and get to her.

I glance down at my shirt. This is bad. This is really bad.

I’m beginning to feel light-headed, and I taste blood in the back of my throat.

I slide a hand into one pants pocket and find lint. But when I reach into the other, I hit gold. Well, not gold, but a bobby pin.

There , I hear El say. For the next time you get stuck in handcuffs.

All I know is I am so fucking glad I wore these particular pants today.