LITMIR.BIZ

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a deep breath (it hurts, even breathing hurts, I wish I would pass out but I don’t have time to) and look straight up into his eyes. “I work for very, very bad people. And I am going to do whatever I can to keep you safe from them. I need you to help me keep you alive, okay?”

      He looks back to the alley and I can see in the lines of his body that he is still completely torn. Then his shoulders settle and angle toward me and I’ve won him, at least for now and now is where I do my best work.

      “Okay,” he says. “But you’ll have to answer some questions.”

      “Believe me, I have more than you do. We need a car.”

      “I have a car—”

      “You’re dead, remember? This means no car, no ATM, no using anything that can be traced back to you.” My head is spinning. I can’t hear my instincts if my head’s not clear. I’m already so scared that I don’t know how to listen to just myself. “The other guys. They have a car waiting. We can use that.”

      There are so many problems. There will be no body because Adam isn’t dead. But no! Cole in the alley! A whole new avenue is opening up to save me and Annie and Adam, too. North really was the right choice. Maybe my instincts aren’t totally broken.

      I pull out my phone with my good hand and lean heavily against the wall of the building we’re in front of.

      “Someone’s going to see us.” Adam looks around nervously. “You’re bleeding. A lot.” He stares at my arm, not blinking, like he’s entranced. Then he shakes his head, closes his eyes, and opens them. I can see in his face he’s made a decision, decided not to be freaked out. It’s not what most people would do right now. I kind of love him for it. “Let me take care of your arm.” He drops to a knee and pulls his backpack off his shoulder. “I have a kit in here.”

      “It has to look like something I could have done myself.”

      He nods and opens a compact first aid kit (why does he have that in his backpack? I should have one of those), pulls out scissors, and cuts away my sleeve above the wound. I don’t look. I hate blood.

      “I’m going to call someone. Be totally silent. He can’t hear you.” I push the 1 on my phone and it rings twice before James answers.

      “Fia, beautiful, are you done? Do you need me to arrange a flight home?” His voice is light and easy, but there are questions there. He’s worried about me; he didn’t want me to do this job in the first place. I want to read into it, but I can’t let myself.

      “Ambushed,” I say, gasping in pain at something Adam does. “I got shot.”

      “Where? How bad?” James tries to sound like he is all business, but I hear an undercurrent of genuine concern. Maybe I’m just pretending I do. I don’t know.

      “In the shoulder.” I grit my teeth, then swear loudly. Adam’s hands are steady and sure, and I wonder why he can be this calm over something a gun did when he was so terrified by the gun itself. “I’ll live. Three guys, don’t know who they were with. They weren’t ours.”

      “Of course they weren’t ours!”

      “You never know. I left all three down but alive.”

      “And the mark?” He asks this more carefully. He knows what this will do to me. He knows, but he still couldn’t stop his father from sending me.

      The mark is carefully applying tape and gauze to keep me from bleeding too much. The mark has gentle hands that are stained with blood now, though not in the same way mine will always be. The mark is a person, and he has beautiful eyes and he helps puppies and he trusts girls he really, really shouldn’t. The mark is breathing very deeply and evenly, deliberately. The mark is silently mouthing something to himself and I want to know what it is. I want to know what this boy who has to be scared out of his mind is mouthing to keep himself calm while he patches up my arm.

      “Dead. Body in an alley with the three guys. I’m guessing they’ll do cleanup duty since there’s a lot of their own blood there and they don’t want to get fingered.”

      “Can you get back?”

      “I’ll manage.”

      “Are you sure?”

      “Yes.”

      I almost hang up when he talks again. “Fia?”

      “What?”

      “I’m glad you’re okay. I’m sorry this happened.”

      I want to believe him. So much. “Sure you are.” I end the call. Adam puts the finishing touches on my bandage, then looks up into my face. “Congratulations,” I say, smiling weakly. “You’re officially dead.”

      He frowns, then unbuttons his black shirt and puts it around my shoulders so it covers up the bandage. He’s wearing just his thin white tee now. “Can we talk?”

      “Just as soon as we steal their car.” I stand, wobble slightly, which is humiliating because I do not wobble, then walk quickly in the direction Cole said the car was. Adam follows, a half step behind. There’s a car idling, a black sedan, with a driver. No one else. I wish I hadn’t been shot, because this would be much easier.

      I should go for stealth or something, anything, but I’m too tired. I walk straight up, reach down and open the driver’s door (should have locked it, that was phenomenally stupid of them), and am surprised to see a woman, midtwenties, behind the wheel. She has brown hair and brown eyes and a kind face that is frozen in shock.

      “You,” she says, like she knows me.

      I answer by grabbing the stun gun out of my purse and using it on her.

      “Pull her out,” I say. Adam doesn’t move, so I say it again. “Pull her out.”

      He does, gently setting her on the sidewalk. She isn’t unconscious, but she’s curled up against the pain and I almost feel sorry for her.

      “I should drive,” Adam says, looking at my arm.

      “You don’t know where to go.”

      “Do you?”

      “No, but my guess is always better than yours.” My guess is always better than anyone’s.

      He gets in and I do, too. The seat is leather and still warm. I pull out, calmly, driving exactly the speed limit as I head east—no more north for me, thank you very much—out of the city. We’re lucky. I flew here, but it’s only a five-hour drive back to Chicago.

      I look for OnStar, but I don’t see anything. And I don’t feel like the car will be traced. I don’t think they’ll call the police, either. I have a good feeling about this car.

      “Fia.” His voice is flat and I glance over to see him staring intently at me. I wish we were at a deli, eating and laughing and feeding Chloe. I miss Chloe. I wish she were my dog and I had an alcoholic father and I were the type of girl that Adam could date and rescue and fall in love with. I wish my left arm didn’t hurt so much I wanted to die, because it also means I can’t tap tap tap my leg, and without that fidget I don’t know how to stop the thoughts and feelings flooding through me.

      So much blood today.

      “What do you do?” I ask, scanning the road. “You’re just a student, right? I can’t figure out why they want you dead. Do you have important parents?”

      He leans back and rubs his forehead. “My dad is a dentist and my mom runs a day care.” He swears softly. “They’re going to think I’m dead, aren’t they?”

      “You can’t contact them.”

      “This will kill them.”

      “You’ll probably get listed as missing. They’ll have hope. And you aren’t really dead, which is the best part of their hope. It’ll be okay.” I want to reach over and take his hand. But I can’t.

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