Chapter 20
petra
Thank God Jenna got here when she did. Elaine was having symptoms of shock, and Vera was bleeding badly, not to mention the general physical stress of the last day and a half for her. Even more, since she’d been on the mission to deal with Petrov right before this. She was breaking down.
Which left me to pace the house.
I’d been relieved to see Caitlyn, hoping just for someone to talk to so I didn’t lose my mind, but then she insisted on some time to herself.
I gave her a tracker, just to make sure, but she spent a long time sitting there, so I gave up watching it and just went to the control room, the mission planning center that Vera and I used when we were here.
It was up in a mezzanine level overlooking the gardens, with sleek controls and an oversized computer screen and a map table, and I stood at the screen, logging in and flicking through the project files, before I pinged Glenn.
To my surprise, he was responsive right away, and I initiated a call, his face flickering onto the big screen, sitting in his computer lab—old-fashioned as he was, he only had one room in his compound for computers, but it was decorated in the same old Victorian style as everything else, Glenn in a high-backed office chair under the shadow of the old raven carving that presided from the bookshelves behind him.
“Petra,” he said slowly, his one good eye gleaming. “I hear the wedding went through. How was the ceremony? Don’t tell me the reception is already over.”
“You know what’s going on, Glenn. How has Whitecliff been on us? Yulia Mikhailovna found the house. She almost killed Elaine before they finished the ceremony. If I hadn’t been on patrol and gotten into a fight with her outside, she would have done it.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing you were on patrol. Well done.”
“What is going on right now?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Once this is done, Petra, then we can have the mission debrief. Now isn’t the time for your questions.”
I clenched my hands tighter on the dashboard. “Are you hiding something?”
“I am always hiding something. You do not have nearly the status within the Blackbirds to know more than that. Don’t forget your place.”
I gritted my teeth. “I’ve given you everything. For years. What more do you want? I don’t know how to sell my soul to you more than I already have.”
“I am looking for two things, Petra,” he said. “Loyalty, and results. You have shown me one of them. And now you are beginning to sound like you show less of it. Once I see both of them… then, and only then, can we consider your status.”
“Glenn—” I growled, but he cut me off.
“See to it that the mission is complete. If it goes off without a hitch, and Horizon is completed thanks to you… perhaps we can call that results. Until then—ciao.”
He hung up. I clenched my jaw, hanging my head, fighting back useless tears.
Dammit. All these years, and what was I? Still just a useless foot soldier? I was the woman in the driver’s seat, and that was all I was good for. Taking more relevant people where they needed to go, and keeping them safe.
All I’d ever be.
I was really going to help kill Elaine for this? And then whatever we would have to do to deal with Caitlyn, too?
What even happened if we succeeded? Maybe I’d be successful then. Maybe Glenn would recognize me then, and I’d have those results.
What results? That I laid the groundwork for death and devastation on a mass scale?
And he’d keep stringing me along forever, promising me a reward if I just kept going a little bit further. Just a little bit more. Forever.
“Dammit,” I choked, pounding my fist on the desk. “Dammit, dammit.”
My chest tightened at the sound of the door opening behind me, and I turned back with a snarky comment ready for Vera, but it wasn’t her. Wasn’t Jenna, either, who I’d half-expected.
No. It was Caitlyn. Leaning hard on the doorframe, her face twisted in pain.
And she pointed a gun at me.