Page 29 of Rescued By the Operative

As always, I go in with the best intentions, refusing to make eye contact.

This time, she has a question for me, which surprises me.

“I’ve been watching you for 31 days, and I still can’t seem to trace your family tree,” she says, a little groggy from lack of food and water, probably.

“You’ve been watching me? How amusing,” I say, trying to sound cold and detached.

She nods. “Your eyes are like the Smiths, but you carry yourself like a Barker.”

I go back to the backstory that the Bureau has created for me in my files. My story has to be consistent for everyone who hears it. “The Wyoming Smiths are related to most of the folks around here,” I say with a shrug.

“I guess,” Georgeann says. “Weird that I don’t remember you. I never met a Wynella Smith.”

I clear my throat. “You were, what, 12, when my family split off and yours came this way?” I know the history of this group. Studied it for years.

The prisoner nods.

“You couldn’t have known everyone,” I conclude.

Finally, I meet her eyes. What I see there is knowing. This girl damn well knows something. Or she suspects something.

I say nothing, keeping a bland look on my face because I refuse to let her rattle me. I’m trained to be unflappable.

“Maybe you’re right,” she concedes.

Happy to be off that subject, I hold out the tray to Georgeanne expectantly, but she doesn’t move. Instead, she stares at me, which makes me feel more flustered than I did under her interrogation.

In my flustered state, I cross the cell with her tray and walk over to her bed. “If you’re not going to stand up and take your tray, I guess you’re expecting room service,” I say, sighing.

I know what I promised Carl, my handler. That I would stay vigilant, even if I felt sorry for this girl. But I guess my head has been scrambled by a guy. I haven’t eaten in a while because I’ve been thinking about getting railed in an alleyway by a desperate cowboy named Jake.

That’s the only thing that can explain why my guard is down as I’m setting the food tray on her bed, muttering, “I see your punishment hasn’t broken you yet, maybe I should?—”

The next thing I know, I feel a sharp stabbing pain in my side, just below my ribcage.

I barely have the wherewithal to grab my hidden weapon after I drop the tray, splattering mock tapioca everywhere.

I fall to my knees, scrambling for the gun I keep hidden under my uniform, coughing out, “They’re going to beat the crap out of you, you little idiot!”

On the floor, I roll over to look at my assailant, but she’s gone.

Evidently, I’ve left the cell door wide open.

I’m in deep shit now.

Chapter Twelve

Jake

Ennis is uncharacteristically quiet as we unload the truck bed.

“What’s eating you?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Shit’s starting to get real, that’s all.”

My brother looks around at what we’ve done.

“Huh?” I say. “It’s been real for a while.”