Chapter 7
CHAPTER
SEVEN
My name is Poppy Ashcroft.
I’m a thief from the states, although I’ve stuck with small-time jobs to remain under the radar. My mom’s a teacher and my dad’s in prison for armed robbery. Against everyone’s hopes, I took after him.
Graham and I met while he was vacationing in Vegas and I was working at a casino.
On a particularly busy and prolific evening for me, he went right up to my register in the cage and said he’d noticed all the chips I pocketed in the last hour.
When I tried to make a run for it, he cornered me by the slot machines, handed me a blank card with a phone number, and offered me an opportunity for a better life.
Now I’m on a train with my mentor, hurtling toward Paris for the biggest job I’ve ever pulled.
I repeat these details to myself, over and over, until I start to forget where Sloane Walker begins and Poppy Ashcroft ends.
The trick of an undercover assignment of any kind is to internalize your new reality while gripping the truth behind your back, like a secret set of winning cards at a poker table.
Sighing, I press both palms against my eyes in a fruitless attempt to stay the puffiness.
It’s been an awful day of travel, and in some, distant part of my brain, I commend Graham for not complaining.
We descended from HQ to the village at the base of the mountain in the dead of night, proceeding to accomplish a series of tumultuous spurts of hitchhiking before arriving in Courmayeur, Italy.
The squeaking, dismal bus we boarded ended up feeling like a blessed respite.
With a small bribe and charming smiles from Graham, the driver allowed us to hop off early outside Biendrate, where the small town was still asleep as the sun rose.
We freshened up in a service station that’d seen better days and used a payphone to hail a taxi to Milan Central.
If anyone became curious about Graham’s sudden resurfacing, it would appear as if we spontaneously materialized in Milan. Any deeper curiosities, however, are my job to prevent.
The executive class section in the Frecciarossa high-speed train to Paris is exactly the type of thing I missed since Chelyabinsk.
Plush leather seats, complimentary champagne, and no constant state of alarm that I’ll get shot and dragged to a shallow grave for looking at someone funny.
It reminds me of the promises Raffaele had made before whisking me away at fourteen—a life of stability, glamour, travel—all the things I’d never see if I didn’t sign my future away to the ISA.
It ended up being the final decision I made about the trajectory of my life. Ever since it’s been confined to what to eat or when to sleep. And even that is debatable at times.
Raffaele had smiled down at me and said, “All those things are yours if you’re willing to work hard.” Then, noting my busted lip and split knuckles with visible admiration, he added: “And I can see you won’t have a problem with that.”
Of course a fourteen-year-old with an undeveloped moral compass and very little concept of home would jump at the chance. Little did she know that hard work meant no mistakes, or else we’ll toss you back to the shark-infested waters you came from.
Raffaele could say that the string of previous jobs weren’t punishments, and maybe they weren’t—not technically. They felt more like a less-than-subtle threat, as if he was saying, “Remember where I plucked you from, Sloane?”
The only way out of this life is death.
You’re nothing without us.
And he’s right. The reminders worked.
This mission, despite the feeling of impending doom lingering around every bend, needs to be my entrance back into the ISA’s good graces. I can’t afford anything else.
I’m thinking of actually thanking Graham for his opulent lifestyle that led to this train ride when I catch myself. A hard line will need to be drawn here. Previous partnered assignments were with fellow agents, not someone I’d be slapping cuffs on when all was said and done.
He’ll never hear me say it, but keeping this boundary will be particularly difficult.
It’s not because he’s got the incessant charm of a real-life James Bond—it’s because lines become hazy all the time in the field.
When I’m pretending to be his partner twenty-four hours a day, will I begin to see him as anything other than a convict on holiday?
Because I can’t.
Instead, I sink further into my seat, sipping my champagne as if the ever-present anxieties about this mission haven’t expanded tenfold.
“Paris is beautiful this time of year,” Graham says, one boot propped on his other knee. He opted for a sweater and dark-wash jeans, uttering something six hours ago about not wanting to ruin a suit. The face of his silver watch catches the sun each time he tinkers with it.
The monotonous reply, “I’m sure it is,” falls from my lips.
While I’m reasonably positive the train car full of men and women in sharp pantsuits and tailored, double-breasted blazers have no interest in our conversation, one can never be too sure.
Sloane would say that Paris in the fall typically passed her by in a blur of auburn and gold, never stopping long enough to focus on the romance of it.
Poppy, however, had only traveled via roadtrip through the States.
She’d be excited to be here, I guess. I can’t even fathom excitement at present.
“Vastly superior to Russia’s autumn, don’t you agree?”
Our gazes meet.
“Why would you say that?” I snap. My chest tightens, the bees swarming in my ears as if summoned.
He tilts his head like I’ve said something unexpected. “It was merely an observation. An attempt at conversation.”
I draw one breath in and another out, not breaking eye contact, unwilling to appear anything but unfazed. Russia in the fall. My fingernails bite into my palms and my heartbeat begins to slow from its sudden, erratic pace. Merely an observation. A coincidence—nothing more.
One by one, my senses fall back under my control.
As if admitting temporary defeat, he sits back in his seat and taps the window. “There’s so much to show you—the Berges de Seine, watching the sunset at Sacré-C?ur, a picnic in Champ de Mars,” he says, his English accent lilting into flawless French.
I grit my teeth and swallow Sloane’s reply. Flirting was definitely not in the mission brief, although it doesn’t surprise me that Graham Baudelaire finds it appropriate to hit on his mentee and new partner. How would Poppy respond?
“This is a work trip,” I reply flatly.
There. All business, no pleasure. Poppy’s background isn’t that much different from mine—she’d be the type to easily see through him.
Graham arrests me with a knowing smile. It would probably do something to someone’s heart, or cause those butterflies I hear talk of. Not Poppy or Sloane, though.
I mean, he’s not bad looking. Don’t get me wrong.
Filing away those kinds of facts is part of my job.
And that’s all it is—a programmed reflex designed to optimize missions and improve my performance as an agent.
When I note that he seems to be relatively physically capable, with a towering stature and broad shoulders, it’s to calculate how I’d be able to overpower him if a physical altercation were to arise.
“You’re staring.”
I blink and brush it off with great effort. “You look tired,” I lie, “haggard.”
“We had an eventful evening,” he replies with a note of cheekiness that turns the heads of our row partners.
One is a man in his 50’s, recently divorced or cheating on his wife, based on the faint ring tan and the lurid gazing he’s been exchanging with the much younger woman across from him.
I send them a glare, half because I want to, and half because I’ve decided that’s what Poppy would do.
They dip their chins and make valiant attempts at pretending they hadn’t been caught.
An affair, then. Maybe he’ll trip onto the train tracks later.
“Need I remind you of our arrangement?” I say, leveling Graham with an innocent stare. Two can play at this game. “Continue to throw yourself at me all you want, but I’m simply not interested. I only agreed to learn from you, not be hit on at every turn like I’m some… piece of meat.”
His jaw tenses but I note the spark in his eyes. “My apologies, Poppy. It’s just that I can’t help myself around you.”
“That’s only natural.”
Graham murmurs something in French that I can’t catch before leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “You’re more trouble than you let on, Agent,” he whispers.
My gaze darts across the cabin, flitting from passenger to passenger, searching for any sign that he was overheard. No one’s moved an inch since I last checked. I sit up straighter and fix my attention on the blur of pastures and villages outside, intent on ignoring him the rest of our train ride.
I realize with alarm that he’s managed to smudge the boundary lines even further in only a few minutes.
My name might be Poppy Ashcroft, but I am also Sloane Walker, field agent for the ISA and the one who’ll be dragging Graham back to prison when all of this is over.
This new life is a lie. Our comradery is a lie. His charm is a lie.
There’s no other option.