“Is this a prison?”
My heart fucking shatters into a million tiny, unfixable pieces. He came for me. He saved me.
And now, what. He’s just gone? He’s left me?
Fuck. That.
I rip the cords off my chest and peel the heart stickers from my skin. Wincing, I slide the cannula out of my arm and toss it onto the bed. The machines scream in unison as I sit up and swing my legs over the side. The pain is real, but not as much as the pain radiating from my heart.
A nurse barrels into the room, alarmed, hands splayed out in front of her. “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to lie down.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I need to go.”
“You’re in no state to be discharged.”
God, I hate being told what to do.
“Is this a prison?”
She falters. “No, but—”
“Then I’m leaving. Give me whatever forms you need me to sign to save your job.”
“Ma’am, you’ve been in a coma for five weeks.”
I freeze at the words she blurted out. Five … weeks?
It can’t be. There’s no way. I want to ask her to repeat herself, but I’m frozen in place, in complete and utter disbelief at what she’s saying.
She takes a small step towards me and indicates for me to sit back down on the bed.
“You came in with severe internal trauma. You had a ruptured spleen, lacerated liver, fractured collarbone and ribs. You’ve had major surgery and were sedated to assist with the healing. Please, lie back down.”
I hate that she’s right, because as if on cue, pain pulses through my body. Perhaps I should lie down.
But only for ten minutes.
Slowly, I return to my horizontal position as I try to process how long I’ve been in a coma for. The nurse fusses around me, repositioning my pillows, untangling the cords from the monitors.
“The man who left this notebook … Where is he?”
“He came every day for the first two weeks. He left that.” She nods to the notebook. “But we haven’t seen him since.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“He didn’t, I’m sorry.”
“Well, did he say anything? Anything at all?”
“No, I’m sorry, Ma’am.”
“Please,” I plead, stronger this time. “I need to get out of here.”
“No, I’m sorry. I can’t allow that.”
It takes me a few seconds, but I find it. I summon the raging hell-bitch that lives inside me and awaken it.
“I might look meek and unwell. But I’m not like your other patients. I could wrap this cord around your throat and have you choking, gasping for air in under five seconds if I really, really wanted. Or needed to.”
The nurse hesitates for a moment longer, the threat on her life obviously not on her bingo card. A cold ripple crawls over my body, and I know she can sense the shift in me.
“I could swipe your feet right out from under you, causing you to hit your head so hard you may never wake again … I can make anything look like an accident. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The nurse bites her bottom lip and looks around. Exactly the body language I’m looking for. All nerves.
“God himself can’t stop me from walking out of this hospital.”
“No,” she says, her eyes shifting behind me. “But he can.”
My head whips to the side to see a familiar figure emerging from the private bathroom within my hospital suite. A pale, lifeless orb burns a hole into my body. Any thoughts I was having simply evaporate as I watch O take a few menacing steps towards my bed.
“Hook her back up to everything,” Agent O instructs. “If she resists … sedate her again.”
The nurse begins to reattach me to the heart monitor which I allow her to do. I don’t dare remove my eyes from O’s. Her fingers feel cold and shaky as she grabs my arm, preparing to reinsert the cannula. I know if I allow this to happen, the chances of me being sedated again are high.
And I’m not fucking having that.
I slide my eyes from O’s to hers as I jerk my arm away. “If you stick that needle in my arm, I’ll break yours.”
Her eyes flit from mine to O’s, unsure about my direct threat.
“I’ll take it from here,” Agent O states simply, dismissing the nurse. She scurries away, the spineless brat. No doubt O has paid her off. Hell, he’s probably paid off the entire Intensive Care Unit.
“You’re like a fucken cat, Raine,” O says as he stands at the end of my bed. “Nine lives and all that.”
“Where is he?”
“How about we start with why the fuck you thought it was a smart idea to slaughter a bunch of motorcycle gang members while on an active assignment?”
The machine monitoring my heartbeat increases. “They deserved it.”
“You selfish bitch.” O steps to the side of my bed and slaps me across the face. The sound of his open-palmed slap echoes in the sterile hospital room. “You compromised the mission.”
Well. He’s fucking furious.
“I should have pulled you off life support and left you to die alone. Nothing but a Jane Doe. A cold, unclaimed corpse that would rot underneath an unnamed grave.”
“So why didn’t you then?”
O’s jaw ticks as he turns and walks over to the window, staring out over the Manhattan skyline.
O shoves his hands in his pockets. “I thought you two hated each other?”
Soren. I don’t want to panic, but my body betrays me. I feel clammy, a light sweat begins to cover my face, as all the worst-case scenarios begin manifesting in my imagination. I somehow muster the courage to ask a question that could end my world.
“Where is he?”
O turns, looks back over his shoulder, and says simply, “Gone, Raine.”
Permanently gone? Or gone by choice?
“Considering I thought you two couldn’t stand each other, imagine my surprise when Soren offers to trade his freedom for yours.”
My jaw hangs open, I forget to blink, to breathe. Trade his freedom? “What?”
“When you decided to go off script and start a war with one of New York state’s most powerful motorcycle clubs, you set off a chain reaction.
Soren was in the middle of collecting PARM-17 from Carson when they were alerted to you being abducted from the Golden Claw.
Soren decided to be a big, bad man and withhold delivery of PARM-17 until he knew you were safe and were to receive the best care.
The arrogant prick had me over a barrel …
so I agreed. But he had one final demand: He would only hand over PARM-17 on the condition that you were free. ”
My mouth goes dry. “Why would he do that?”
“Because apparently he thinks you deserve some peace.”
It doesn’t make any sense. Why would O agree to release me from the Agency? It’s not likely. He doesn’t make deals, and he sure as shit doesn’t do gestures of goodwill. He’d only do it if it served him.
“You’re wondering why, aren’t you? Why would I agree?
” O turns, leans back against the windowsill, facing me.
“At first, I wasn’t going to. Why would I willingly give you up?
One of the best Black Widows we have? All those years of training, conditioning, teaching you …
For what? To give you what you’ve always craved? Your freedom?”
O pauses and shakes his head, chuckles softly. “No. I wasn’t going to have that. Especially after the shitshow you caused with the Raptors. You needed to be punished. Not rewarded.”
O runs his tongue along his teeth. “But as Soren kept talking … I realized something. I could have the best of both worlds. I could retain a strong operative in Soren, while simultaneously punishing you.”
The clock above O’s head suddenly sounds deafening. The incessant tick tock rattles my brain.
“What better way to teach you a lesson than by freeing you, yet denying you of the very thing you want. Him.”
My chest rises and falls faster and faster. “What did you do?”
“I gave him what he asked for.”
“No.” I shake my head, a guttural scream rising in my chest. “No fucking way. The answer is no. He was to be free, to be done with this shit! Release him. I’ll stay,” I stammer, the words rushing out of me, one after the other. “Y-you don’t get to do that, h-he doesn’t get to do that.”
“It’s too late, Raine,” O interrupts, and the smugness in his mismatched gaze makes me want to rip his throat out. He pulls something from his jacket, a sleek black envelope. “You’re officially severed from us. Free on paper.”
My rage detonates. “You fucking asshole! How could you let him do that! He was free from you!”
“Wasn’t my idea,” O says mildly. “He walked into the cage and closed the door himself.”
I swallow and try with all my might not to crack, not to break in front of the man who has been the cause of so much misery in my life.
“Do you want to know why he left so easily?” O cocks his head to the side. “What have I always taught you, Raine? Attachments cause weakness. And Soren’s biggest weakness? Was you.”
My heart damn near flatlines as I feel my chin tremble. This is my fault.
“He’s a man with nothing to lose now. Exactly how I like my operatives.”
“Y-you fuc—”
“Nurse!” O bellows.
The door to my room opens, and three nurses come in. O gives them the signal, and they move to restrain me. I thrash and cry out, but I’m weak. So fucking weak. “No!”
The needle pricks my arm before I can stop it. My reflexes begin to slow, thoughts dazed, and I feel like I’m being dragged underwater, the drugs swarm my senses almost immediately. The nurses hastily exit.
“Once upon a time, Raine, you were my favorite agent. God, you were so bloodthirsty, so eager to please. But now? You’ve become too much of a liability,” O says, walking over to my bedside.
Now that I’m under the effects of drugs, he deems it safe to stand near me.
He stares down at me, one normal eye, one dead one. “Just like your mother.”
The heart monitor machine begins to go crazy again.
“W-what are you t-talking about?” I struggle to speak, to sit up.
“You’re just like her.”
Bile rises up my throat as he lets the silence stretch. He enjoys this. Taunting me. Hurting me in the worst possible ways.
“Want a farewell present? How about this: Your mother wasn’t killed because of a revenge hit,” he says, as he leans down to my ear. “She was executed for what she built and stole.”
The words sound muffled, foreign. Built and stole?
“PARM-17 wasn’t the government’s project.”
I know what’s coming, but I’m still shocked as O confirms it.
“It was hers.”
Have you ever watched someone relish in others’ misery? O swims in mine like it’s a pool, and right now he’s doing synchronized swimming in it.
“Vivienne was a hell of a woman. An incredible operative—and our lead geneticist. Bet you didn’t know that, did you? She was a genius, an absolute whizz.”
Why didn’t I know this? I feel as if I’m underwater, drowning in slow motion. I’m being dragged into an opiate sleep, but I force myself to stay awake. I must stay awake.
“She designed it from scratch, had a vision. She threw herself into studying cell mutation and regeneration. Brilliant work, really. Pulitzer Prize type stuff except the general population can’t really know about this, can they?
Would cause panic if it became common knowledge we could transform our bodies into the optimal killing machines … Can you imagine the power?”
My body shakes as I struggle to remain conscious, the drug coursing its way through my body, wave after wave.
“But, it turns out her vision and our vision weren’t the same. She wanted to heal; we wanted to enhance.”
I feel nauseous, groggy, but determined not to fall asleep.
“She was smart, your mother. Realized our aim was to use it to enhance our field operatives with PARM-17—she wasn’t thrilled about that,” he adds. “She threatened to pull her research and delete every file related to it if we didn’t agree to her terms. But I don’t take lightly to threats.”
Air evaporates from the room.
“We refused, and to her credit, she made good on her threat. She deleted everything relating to the formula. Then she stole the only ten vials in existence, selling them off to a contact who paid her a large sum of money for it. I’d heard she planned on using the money to disappear and start again.
Create a new life for you. Did you know that was what she always wanted? To get you away.”
My heart ruptures. All of this is new information to me, and I’m struggling to process the enormity of the conspiracy. Nothing has ever been what it seems. Nothing. All these years, I’d never known she was a scientist. Why? Why did I not know?
“But it’s not what we wanted for you. Or her. Once she made it clear she was against us, she became a sanctioned hit.”
Everything inside me flakes into little pieces. Like old paint peeling off a wall.
O gets off on watching me break, the look on his face one of glee as the news carves a hole in me so deep I fear there’s no coming back from this pit of despair.
They killed her. He killed her.
O turns toward the door, but not before his eyes flick back to mine one last time.
“If I ever see you—” I begin to threaten, words heavy and dragging.
“You won’t.”
The door closes just as the darkness pulls me under.