Annum Guard: Blackout Part 20

"Moroccan, cool." Mike takes a step closer, and I eye the door. I did what I came to do, and now I need to get out without looking too suspicious. "I stayed at a riad in Marrakech a few summers back. Gorgeous place."

"I've never been." Exit strategy. I need an exit strategy. "Sorry, I probably shouldn't have come. I just didn't want to leave without saying good-bye, so . . . good-bye." I stick out my hand.

Mike takes it, then pulls me into him, and before I know it, his lips are on mine, kissing me with urgency. He's a traitor! my mind screams, but my lips part to find his tongue as yearning rips across my belly, spreading downward.

Mike holds me tight, pressing his body into mine, and I let out a moan. This feeling-the excitement, the danger-it's exactly what I felt the first time I kissed Abe.

And then I pull away.

Abe.

"I can't do this," I say. "I'm sorry. It was a mistake to come here."

"Iris, wait-"

But I've already opened the front door. I leave without looking back.

I'm the traitor. To Abe. To my missing teammates. To myself. I raise my hand to call a cab, and when it pulls to the curb, I put all my feelings to the side. I say good-bye to Mike.

At least until I have to testify against him.

CHAPTER 20.

It's nearly midnight by the time I get back. I go straight to Abe's room and knock on the door. He opens it.

"Done," I say, not moving from the hallway. "Can you check it to make sure it's working?"

"I already did." I can't tell what he means. Whether he just checked it ten minutes ago or whether he was listening the whole time.

"Mike kissed me. I let him."

The truth hangs between us like a dense fog. I can barely see him and he can barely see me, even though we're so close.

"Okay," is all Abe says.

"Abe-"

He holds up a hand. "I really can't right now, Mandy. There's too much going on, and I don't want to get distracted. We'll work through it, but not now."

Now it's my turn to say "Okay."

"I'm tired," he says, and I see the exhaustion written on his face. "We'll talk in the morning."

"I love you," I say as he starts to shut the door.

"I know." He pauses. "And I love you, too." The door closes, and I wander down the hall to my room. What happened was wrong. And I let it happen.

Never again.

I plop myself on my bed, but unlike Abe, I'm not at all tired. The opposite, actually. I've never felt more awake. But Abe's right. I can't dwell on him and me right now; I can't dwell on Mike. My time here is limited. It's on to Bonner.

Game plan number two.

A while later, there's a knock on my door. It's 1:08 in the morning.

I push off the bed. "Abe?" I whisper. He can't hear me. I crack the door. It's not Abe.

The Narc's frizzy hair is pulled back into a messy ponytail. I can't tell if she has liner smudge under her eyes or if they're dark circles. She clutches a folded set of papers to her chest and looks at me with wild eyes. My mind panics as I glance over my shoulder to the spiral notebook on the bed. The notebook in which I've spent the last sixty minutes plotting her demise.

"Pack a bag."

"What? You said I had until the end of the week to get out."

She shoves the folded stack into my hands. I look down and unfurl it. Seven pages full of dates and addresses, in probably the smallest font size there is. I have to squint to read it.

"What is this?"

"Pack a bag and meet me downstairs. I'm telling them you went home to your mother. It's as much lead time as I can give you."

"Wait . . ." I struggle to put it together. I don't want to get my hopes up, but they're already hurtling out of the stratosphere. "Are you sending me after XP?" I look back down at the papers in my hands, which are now shaking. "Is this a list of every XP mission?" There have to be several hundred missions here.

"Don't be ridiculous," Bonner practically spits. "Those are all the Annum Guard missions. Every one of them. I don't know the XP missions. You have to find them."

My head is spinning. "How? By going back in time and stealing them from myself?" I think of Red's warning.

Bonner doesn't respond.

"Wait, seriously? That's what you want me to do?"

"We don't have much time. You have to get away from here." She starts for the stairs.

"Bonner!" My call is hushed.

She doesn't turn.

"Marie!"

Then she does. But she doesn't say anything.

"Who are you working for?"

She slowly shakes her head. "I don't even know. Just pack a bag and come downstairs. I'll tell you what I can."

"How do I know I can trust you?"

She shrugs. "You don't." And then she's gone.

I shut my door. The papers are still shaking in my hands. I set them on my dresser and stare at them. This could be a huge trap. I could be walking into the middle of a blackout. Maybe they're downstairs right now waiting for me. Or maybe Bonner really is trying to help me.

There's only one way to find out. I grab a duffel bag from the bottom of my closet and start stuffing clothes into it. I don't bother with any of my things. I go straight for my historical wardrobe. A baby-blue, silk colonial gown; a simple, gray Victorian dress with a lace collar; a soft corset that isn't at all period appropriate; a tweed skirt suit that I think is from the thirties or forties; an orange polyester jumpsuit from the seventies. As much as will fit. Then I rip the pages out of the notebook and shove them in the bottom of the bag. I toss the mission ledger on top, zip up the bag, and sling it over my shoulder.

I linger in the hallway and glance at Abe's door. We're not going to have that conversation. At least not yet. I have to trust it'll be okay to wait.

Annum Hall is dark as I slip down the stairs. I'm on the landing between the first and second floors when there's a noise that makes me jump. A loud crack, then a bang as the front door is forced open. The alarm sounds for one quick second, then falls silent.

Did someone just break into Annum Hall?

I wait. No one is responding. They must not have heard the alarm, or maybe they mistook it for a faulty smoke detector. It was just a few beeps. I'm all alone on this.

I hurry down the stairs. I step off the last one and freeze. Bonner's office door is open, and there are two hushed voices coming from it.

The smart thing to do would be to haul upstairs and get help. Backup. But I don't always do the smart thing. I tiptoe down the hallway to Bonner's office.

"I don't know how many times I have to say it. You messed up, Marie." The voice is male.

I stop. I'm only a few feet from her open door. I don't recognize the voice. Nothing about the tone or inflection is even remotely familiar.

"This is not what I expected." That's Bonner. Her voice is rushed, frantic even. I flatten my palms against the wall behind me.

"No one pays you to expect anything. You do as you're told."

"If I'd known people were going to get hurt, I never would have agreed . . ." Her voice gets loud, and then she drops it back down to a whisper. "No one told me what they really wanted me to do."

I can't breathe.

"Well, darlin', that's part of being the lackey. No one's ever going to ask your opinion, cuz no one cares. You wanted to play with the big boys, and well . . . tag. You're it."

"Please," Bonner says, and the way she does twists my heart. She's scared of this man. And in a split second, I act. I move toward the door. There's a huge man standing with his back to me. He has a square-shaped head, a pudgy neck, and shoulders that stretch for miles. Bonner is in front of him, her face distorted in anguish.

And then she looks up and catches my eye. She jerks her head to the side-telling me to get the h.e.l.l out of here in no uncertain terms-and looks away. And so I take another step, just to the other side of the doorway. I'm standing in front of Red's closed office door.

"Are you going to take me like you took the others?" Bonner's voice trembles.

"You're going somewhere, yes."

There's a gasp, then a gargle, then, "Sandline!"

My breath catches in my throat. She has to mean that for me?

"What the h.e.l.l are you blabbering about?"

Is that a pa.s.sword? To what?

She says it again. "Sandline!"

"Aw, shut up, Marie."

There's a m.u.f.fled slide and a cry and a thunk. Then another. And another. I feel nauseated. I clutch the edge of the doorframe, ready to pounce and help Bonner, but every rational thought in my brain is telling me to stand down. Not to blow my cover.

There are footsteps. A grunt. The sound of Bonner being hoisted up. And I'm standing right outside the door.

My hand flies to Red's keypad. Please! Please, Red, tell me you didn't change your code! I punch 126512 into the keypad, and the door silently clicks open. I slip inside. I keep my hand on the k.n.o.b, making sure the door hovers a few millimeters from the frame. Closing it would make too much noise.

Footsteps pause out in the hall. Is he looking at the door? It's pitch-black in here. I can't see if Red has any weapons. But then the footsteps start again, fainter, then fainter still. The front door shuts a few seconds later.

What just happened here?

Where did that man take Bonner? And why?

My thoughts run together. I'm so dizzy. I wait. I don't know how long. I don't know whether I'm more afraid that the man might come back or of what I might find in the next office.

Finally, I open the door, one inch at a time.

Or is Bonner dead already?

No.

Her office is empty, but Bonner's computer is on. The security camera feed is up, each of the twenty-four boxes showing the same black-and-white static. My brain is static, too. Clouds rolling in on a harbor, and I can't see, can't think. But then there's a beacon. Sandline. That has to be a pa.s.sword. Something she wants me to know.

I should get someone. Red. Abe. I need help. Bonner needs help, and the sooner the better. But I don't want to involve anyone else in this mess. If these people know we're after them, they'll come for us first. I'm not losing anyone else. Not Abe, not Yellow . . . h.e.l.l, not even Green.

No, I'm following this lead. Alone.

I grab a piece of notepaper from the desk.

Bonner was taken. I went after the people who did it. You have to trust me to do this alone. Please. -Iris I place the note on the center of the desk and sprint toward the gravity chamber.

I'm halfway down the stairs when I realize I can't project without my watch, which is locked inside the safe. I screech to a halt. I do need Red. Dammit!

But then I realize . . .

Sandline . . . could be the code to the safe?

I'm off and running again, tearing into Sit Room One. I drop the duffel bag to the floor and reach for the keypad to the safe, then stop. It's a numeric punch-pad. There are no letters.

I step back and make myself take a breath. Let my Peel training kick in. I need to let logic and levelheadedness take over.

All right, let's start with the obvious. A phone keypad. I visualize it in my mind. SANDLINE. That's 72635463.

The pad beeps, but the light on the bottom stays red.

I think about Bonner. She's smart, but she also knew how much danger she was in. My gut is telling me she wouldn't make the code too hard to crack in case she had to count on someone else to get into the safe.