Chapter 8
Waiting at the shore is a sleek, charcoal-colored speedboat shaped like an arrowhead.
It looks stealthy and quiet and possesses the qualities you’d wish for in a watercraft about to slice through disputed territory.
Our gear stashed inside, Taylor and I buckle into the enclosed back seat and the boat takes off at a breathtaking speed.
Eventually, my body adjusts to being hurtled across dark water, and I relax and gaze out the port side window.
Bouncing along the placid surface, the wind whips past and howls at our intrusion.
Taylor is remarkably calm considering we are on our way to not one, but three assassinations.
Maybe this is part of her internal preparation for what lies ahead.
Which prompts me to lean to my right and ask, “So, when we get there, what happens? We go in full stealth mode: climbing walls, taking people out with tranquilizer darts?”
She shakes her head and pulls her hood back to unleash her blond mane. “First, we check in with our MidCountry Headquarters. Once our gear is unloaded, Mason and I will go over the blueprints and plan of action.”
“And I, what? Stay in and bake a pie? Hell no, I’m coming with you.” I turn in my seat and face forward, as if this shuts the issue down. It used to, back when I mattered.
Taylor is not perturbed. “Can you bake a pie?”
“Why, would that impress you?”
“Yes.” Stretching her legs, she calmly denies my request. “Theia said nothing about your participation. Only your presence.”
“That’s not fair.”
“What did you expect to do? You have zero experience and an aversion to violence.”
Petulantly I pout and cross my arms, turning away to watch the lights from land fade into the distance. Suspiciously, no boats patrol the waters. This area is a murky line between Papa’s region and Cornelius Thorne’s, but you’d think one of us would have a boat or two out.
Curiosity gets the better of me and I return my attention to Taylor. “Are you expecting any trouble in the water?”
“Probably.”
“And is there a plan if they spot us?”
“We kill them.”
“Oh. Well. Sounds like it will go swimmingly. Literally.”
Taylor leans back in her chair. “Relax, princess. We timed our exit with the changing of the guard. Not the hours we need to get to Detroit, but this late at night they are sluggish with the changeover. Have I given you any indication I venture into matters without a plan?”
“Aside from my kidnapping?” Her head lolls to the side in exasperation. “No.”
“Precisely. Let’s be quiet, please.”
“Not so fast. I am not going to sit here, freezing and bored.” Taylor groans and closes her eyes, like that is going to block me out of her world. I’m not so easily dissuaded, as she should know by now. “Let’s play twenty questions.”
“Let’s play no more talking.”
“Nope, sorry. Twenty questions. You get two passes.”
Taylor gives me a look of straight annoyance, but she doesn’t outright object. “I will allow you to ask five questions and I will answer them without evasion.”
“You know that’s not a game, right? That’s a conversation.”
Taylor shrugs. “I do not want to play a game, nor do I want to have a conversation. My offer is a compromise.”
“Okay. Deal.” A billion questions batter my brain like shutters in a storm.
But ultimately, my mind comes back to this mysterious brunette who appears to have an effect on my captor like no one else.
“So, the way I figured it out is this: Mason is your driver and backup. You’re the assassin. What was Hunter’s role?”
Taylor licks her lips and I spot Mason catching her eye in the rearview mirror. With patience—which is not my strong suit—I wait for my first answer.
“Hunter is the assassin. I am recon and planning.” I pause.
Taylor is an exceptional fighter and an outstanding marksperson.
Why waste that talent by keeping her on the sidelines?
Additionally, that means someone else should’ve infiltrated Papa’s party.
I would’ve never met Taylor, or been kidnapped. I’d be dead.
More soberly, I ask, “What happened to her?”
Taylor heaves a sigh and rubs her temples with her fingers. “She was abducted.” Her voice drops and she aims her gaze out the darkened windows. “Two years ago, our camp was invaded and they took her from me. From our cabin, I mean. In the middle of the night.”
My line of questioning comes to an abrupt halt. How did someone get inside headquarters? It’s in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by guards and populated with soldiers. “She lived with you.”
“Is that a question?”
“No. I’m wondering how they succeeded with a lock on your door and two trained killers inside.”
“Is that a question?”
“No.”
Taylor threads her fingers through her hair. “There was no lock on our door then. No reason for one. No one has ever gotten into our headquarters before and no one has come back since. It was one time. One night. We were both asleep.”
Shame and guilt are so heavy in her expression I have to physically hold my own hand to prevent myself from offering comfort. The tight set of her jaw and the clear anguish in her eyes is enough to make me back down on the Hunter questions, at least for now.
“When’s your birthday?” Her eyes spell relief.
“Not sure,” she says. “Theia tells me it is probably in the last week of December. They found me the day after Christmas, and an infant can die from exposure in a day.” She shrugs her shoulders.
So much for brightening the mood with my lighthearted question.
“I would ask when yours is, but you know I already know.”
“Yes, your stalker knowledge is quite charming.”
“Funny.”
“Anyway, I have two more questions.” She is not amused but nods her head to allow me this indulgence. “Who took her?”
“Are all of your questions going to be about Hunter?”
“Maybe.”
She sighs irritably. “Leader Wolfshield.”
Well, shit. What business would a leader have with a rebel member? How did she know where to go? Why take Hunter, but not Taylor? While I want to know that information, I have a question that’s been pressing on me since my abduction.
“I’ve gone over the night of the ball in my head a million times in the past few weeks and I keep coming back to the same question because it doesn’t make any sense. Why did you dance with me?”
Taylor’s eyes look beyond me and grow wide with concern. “Get down.”
I unbuckle my seat belt and slide to the floor of the boat. Within seconds a bullet smashes through the window and punctures the foam headrest I was leaning on. Taylor retrieves a sniper rifle from within her bag, flipping levers until it makes a cocking noise.
“Stay down. Do not get off the floor until I say so.”
She pulls her hood back up over her head and crouches, walking out onto the open back of the boat.
Partially hidden by the edge of the boat, she flattens to her stomach and peers down her scope.
I don’t know how she expects to hit an enemy; we’re bouncing on an unsteady boat, she could easily tumble off into the lake, and our enemies have laser sights.
Thin red beams cross over the boat, searching for a shadow to hit.
Because I’m an idiot with a death wish, I rise on shaky knees and peek out the shattered window.
Three people stand on the open deck of their boat, guns trained on us.
Taylor’s sniper rifle goes off with a moderately noisy but muffled bang, and one of them falls lifelessly into the water.
Bullets fly past her. My stomach lurches.
Each time her rifle pops, a light on their boat is smashed, until their searchlights are dark.
“Mason, lights off and get me in close.”
Mason masterfully maneuvers us to their left side, almost unseen.
Taylor uses the confusion to jump over the whipping water and onto their boat.
We veer off and Mason keeps their boat within eyesight but pretty far behind.
Scrambling to my feet, I glue myself to a window.
The water is dark, only the shadow of the other boat breaking up the ripples.
Powerlessness piggybacks on my fear, riding the current of my adrenaline as I fight off the desire to vomit. I have to trust she can handle herself.
Without warning their boat slows to a stop.
Mason creeps closer to their vessel, flicking on our light and illuminating a pile of corpses on the deck.
Blood drips off the side of the boat, as well as splashed over the scene of the struggle.
It’s a ghost ship until Taylor finally staggers out of the cabin, arms full of weapons.
Mason pulls up beside her and cuts the engine.
Venturing into the cold, I wait on the other side for her.
Spattered in blood, she cheerfully drops looted weapons at my feet. “Free stuff.” I can’t respond, only gesture vaguely at the blood on her. She looks down. “Oh. Not mine.”
After a successful pillage, we take off into the nebulous black void between the water and sky. Taylor checks on Mason, then returns to her seat and buckles in. She looks at me. “Are you okay?”
My breathing is erratic, my heart is pounding, and I’m pretty sure my organs have rearranged, but I keep my voice steady. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, but I will be.”
“Not your typical Saturday night, is it?”
I stare out the window. “You watched me, you would know. How much was I ever out of the mansion?”
“Not often,” she replies. “I estimated about fifteen percent of your total waking hours were spent outside the mansion.”
“My freedom existed solely in that fifteen percent. Any choice I ever made was in that fifteen percent. The remaining eighty-five percent I was locked inside, banned from going anywhere other than to my scheduled lessons or appointments. Everything I’ve done has been what my mother or father wanted me to do. ”
“What do you want to do?”