Chapter 80.
Alek quickly describes scenes from the war, the second grenade landing in the hospital lobby so soon after they’d lost Conner and Amos.
Jimmy goes quiet in a way that scares her.
“I was so sure Rupert was dead,” she says.
“He’s alive,” Jimmy says. “That kid . . . he keeps proving something.”
Alek’s voice cracks anyway. “Conner died to save Hannah.”
“I know,” Jimmy says. And you can hear he means: I’ll never forgive that.
Alek tells Jimmy about how they all teamed up to save Wyatt and the little girl from the burning building.
“And she lived?” Jimmy asks.
“Yes,” Alek says.
“All of you teaming up to do something like that is why you’re a part of all this,” Jimmy says.
All the images she’s been describing come washing over her at once, like waves in McMurdo Sound. Starting with the image of Conner Lynch’s dead body covering Hannah in the bomb shelter.
She’s so dizzy she has to lean against the nearest tree to steady herself.
“I’m not sure I want to be a part of this any longer,” she says quietly.
Jimmy’s voice turns firm.
“Don’t say that,” he says. “Not now. We need to see this through.”
Then he adds: “I just need to roll some things up.”
“Where are you?”
“London,” he says.
“Why London?” Alek asks.
There’s a long enough pause at his end that Alek thinks the call might have dropped.
Then Jimmy says, “Because the trail goes here.”
Alek looks around again, feeling even more paranoid now about being watched. Lowers her voice.
“Did you?” she says. “Find out, I mean.”
“It took some doing,” he says. “But, yeah, I think I did.”
Her heart slams. “Then tell me.”
“I can’t,” Jimmy says.
Alek feels heat rise in her chest. Not anger. Fear. “Why not?”
“Because if anyone is supposed to be a target,” Jimmy says, “it needs to be me.”
He softens, just a little. “I’m close, Alek,” he says. “Closer than I’ve ever been.”
“Jimmy—”
“I know,” he says. “I hate it too. But I don’t think it will be that much longer.”
Alek looks up through the branches, at a sky that doesn’t care. “Then what do I do?” she asks.
Jimmy answers without hesitation.
“You keep them alive,” he says. “You keep each other alive. And you keep being the people the world needs.”
He pauses, and when he speaks again, it’s quieter.
“And Alek?”
“Yeah?”
“If anything feels wrong—like ‘too wrong’—like something you can’t survive—you get out. You don’t hesitate. Promise me.”
Alek swallows. She thinks of Conner. Of Rupert. Of the way the rules keep changing.
“I promise,” she says.
“Good,” he says. “Because I’m about to make a move.”
“What move?” Alek whispers.
Jimmy’s voice turns serious in a way she hasn’t heard before.
“The kind that either ends this,” he says, “or gets me killed.”