15 Seven
Night detonated around me at a hundred miles an hour. The Ducati's engine wailed, redlining on the long, almost empty road through the city. I felt the wind's fists pounding my helmet and the ragged heat of my own lungs.
I cut through the lanes like a razor, barely flicking the bars to miss the convoys of semi-trucks or the slow, blind suburbans that crept along the margins.
The Bureau's compound waited, still and silent as always, hidden behind the fake walls of the building stating this was a private security firm.
I made the turn onto the service route that snaked around into the underground parking lot, hit the brakes hard enough to shudder the bike, and skidded into the dark. Even after the blackout stretch, my eyes dialed in immediately. I counted the cameras as I approached the ground floor.
My body ran cold, then hot, then back to cold again. There was something knotted up under the sternum, and I hated that I couldn't name it.
I suspected it was frustration.
Not the mission kind, not even the dumb rage I sometimes let myself have after a successful task. No, this was new. A glitched loop in the last few hours' memory. Her face. Her hands, shaking on my jacket. The way she held her fear like it was glass that would shatter if dropped.
Security protocol at the entrance to the fenced off section of the lot never changed, which was either reassuring or suicidal depending on how you viewed the world.
I coasted up to the first gate, where the twin monoliths of carbon fiber and ceramic watched the approach.
The sensor arms unfolded with the same hesitant grace as always, a ballet of lasers and needles.
First, the retinal scan—burn of blue, a starburst in my left eye after I lifted the helmet's visor. Second, the fingertip. I killed the engine, yanked the glove off my right hand, and pressed my index finger into the pad. Cold, sticky with the residue of the night.
Third was the voice.
"Operative Seven," I said, and my own voice came out flat and strange, even to my ears.
The gate slid open, silent on its rails. I rolled the bike through, letting the engine purr as I followed the strip-lit lane to the main access. No one met me. There never was anyone, not unless you'd fucked up.
The compound looked like it always did—blank concrete and emptiness.
I parked in the shadow of the intake fan, next to another bike I didn't recognize.
Not many operatives chose a bike as their main means of transportation.
Maybe it belonged to one of the newbies.
Or maybe someone ruined their previous ride and needed a temporary one until they had their permanent one replaced to something similar.
In this line of work, collateral damage happened often.
I killed the engine and sat for a second, feeling the vibrations die inside my muscles and bones.
I pulled off my helmet completely, letting the cold air coming from the overhead fan freeze the sweat on my scalp. The night was as empty as it should be. But I still couldn't shake the edge off.
My hands moved on their own, checking every buckle and seam on my jacket before I stood.
Every movement precise, but faster than necessary.
Then I hid the helmet into its designated compartment after removing the spare one the client used.
I made sure the kill switch was set, and strode toward the access door.
Inside, the halls were deserted—no chatter, no music.
I took the left staircase, heading up, bandana still knotted around my neck.
At the first landing, I paused and checked the corners.
The lights here stuttered at exact intervals, three seconds on, one second dim.
I waited for the darkness, then moved. Old habit, not strictly necessary anymore since I wasn't in training, but the fact that protocol was religion in this place had been burned into my brain like a tattoo on skin.
At my door, I tapped the code into the pad and pressed my palm to the scanner. The lock buzzed, and I slid inside.
The room was exactly as I'd left it—everything in order.
I removed the gloves, tossed my jacket onto the chair, stripped off the shirt, wrestled out of my boots, then walked into the bathroom.
It was just as plain as the room itself, filled only with necessary things.
In the mirror above the sink, I stared at the reflection of the wings on my pec.
The ink almost glowed under the cool white light.
I pressed a hand to the burn above my hip disappearing below the waistband of my pants, traced the edges out of habit.
I didn't remember how I got it. It must have been before I lost all my memories. Before I'd come to live with Father.
Sometimes, I wondered if it had anything to do with the girl in my dreams. Or the angel.
After washing up, I returned to my room, settled on my bed, and grabbed the iPad.
I booted it, waiting for the scramble of pixels to resolve into the login. My fingers hovered over the keys. I realized, with a kind of sick clarity, that they were shaking. Not a lot, but more than my baseline.
I locked my arms across my chest and stared at the wall for a full minute, trying to throttle the loop of earlier events in my head.
I let the feeling ride out. When I was sure I could speak, I tapped my earpiece and said,
"Viper. Come in."
Viper responded right away.
"Yo, boss. You made it home in one piece?"
"Always," I replied, but my voice came out tight, clipped at the ends more than usual.
Viper picked up on it right away. "You sound like you spent the night inside a garbage disposal."
"I need you to check something out for me," I went on, ignoring his joke.
There was a brief lag as Viper typed something. "Hit me."
"Someone could be following the client."
A snort from the other end, then more typing. "Hold up—why would anyone be tracking the client?"
"Maybe one of the targets caught up," I supplied the worst-case scenario, which had never happened before. At least, not on my watch.
"Your job's pretty much done. Target one is cooked, target two is going down for forgery in a couple of days.
The only target still in play is the last asshole, but he's as radioactive as Chernobyl's breakfast nook.
Even if they still talk, which I don't see based on my digging into their channels, there's no pattern just yet. "
"That's why I'm asking you to look into it," I said, jaw tight as piano wire. "I don't want any surprises while I'm working the next two targets."
I heard him exhale, a note of surprise or…interest. "You want me to run a flag on client's cell too while I'm looking for the unwanted chaperone? See if someone bugged it?"
"Both. She's spooked. Someone could be getting close. Might be a contingency from one of the targets. But like you said, there's no pattern. Still, better be safe than sorry. Ping me directly when you find out."
The background sound changed—keys staccato, a can of something hissing open. "You got it, boss. Listen, are you sure you're not just…projecting?"
"Projecting what?" I asked flatly.
He backed off immediately. "All right." Professional mode. "I'll let you know."
There was a silence. Not technical. Intentional.
Then Viper added, quieter, "You ever think about just calling it? Letting the target fall where he falls, not chasing down every loose end like it owes you money?"
"No," I said. "That's not the job."
"Didn't think so."
He disconnected. I waited a few minutes, flexed my hands. The skin at the base of my knuckles was raw from gripping the bars, the veins raised and trembling.
I sat like this for a long time, unmoving.
Then, with nothing else to do, I stripped to my shorts and lay back on the bed, letting the dark roll over me.
I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but I wasn't able to sleep at all.
I even waited for the old nightmares to show up while I was fully awake.
But they didn't.
All I could see was her face, the echo of her voice, the ghost sensation of her hands clutching me over the rough leather of my jacket. I could still feel her presence behind me, hours later. Warm and alive.
It wasn't sexual. Just the clean, panicked grip of someone who believed—at least in that one moment—that I could deliver her from danger.
That made me feel powerful.
I stared at the ceiling. The burn above my right hip itched as it always did when I was in a mood, but I didn't scratch it.
I just let it ache, hoping one day the memories would return and explain how I'd gotten this scar.
But tonight, a different memory—more recent one—played itself in a loop.
The coffee shop, the way she barely hesitated at the sight of me.
She should have run. Instead, she took the helmet, jammed it on with her small hands, and straddled the Ducati.
The weight of her chest on my back, her fingers digging at my ribs, the way her legs clamped to the seat.
At every red light I expected her to bolt.
But all she did was hold on.
She trusted me.
I'd been taught never to break protocol. Never to meet the client, never to engage unless it was a life and death situation, potentially damaging the outcome of the job. I wasn't certain today this was the case. She could have called 911. Instead she called me.
The girl could have been paranoid. People with PTSD often imagined things.
And yet I'd gone to her without thinking. Worse—I'd wanted to.
There was no tactical justification for putting myself in her path, for watching her window after she went inside, for feeling anything at all when I saw her shadow pass behind the curtains. That was weakness, and in the Bureau, weakness got you dead.
But why had I continued to observe her?
Was it my curiosity, my desire to see what an ordinary life looked like?
My fists opened and closed on the thin sheet. I flexed the knuckles until they whitened, then let go.
I was a tool. A better tool than most. Someone who lived in the shadows, someone who didn't exist. But tonight I'd wanted to be seen. I'd wanted someone to look at me and know I was the reason they'd made it home alive. She'd given that to me, even if she never meant to.
I had no right to remember any of it.
Yet I did.
And I knew it would stay with me, burned in as deep as the scars I bore. Because if I hadn't managed to get rid of this feeling by now, I probably wouldn't be able to in the nearest future.