Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
I open my mouth to tell her she’s wrong. I want to say that what I feel for Vanguard—what I’m starting to feel, what I can’t seem to stop feeling—isn’t a weakness. That maybe, just maybe, it’s the most human I’ve felt in years.
Maybe…ever?
But I don’t. Because she’s not wrong, and we both know it.
“Copy that,” I say instead.
“Good.” She steps back, her voice returning to normal volume. “Now, go write something journalistic. Your cover won’t maintain itself.”
I leave the safehouse twenty minutes later, my laptop bag over my shoulder, the light drizzle coating my shoulders as I walk. With Halloween a week away, decorations have taken over the city, and the air is filled with the sweet smell of caramel corn.
I think about what it must have been like to live here during the Dark Decade. Other than my brief visit early on, I’d watched the news that came from foreign reporters (the only ones who could provide the truth), and I read the newsletters from those in the underground. I know that, despite the economy collapsing and the dollar failing, AI and robots taking over jobs, the segregation and the terror on the streets, not to mention the civil war that almost broke out on US soil, that things sometimes seemed…normal. That Halloween was still a thing. So was Christmas. That people still bought houses and went to school and had weddings. They managed to keep living while being ruled by autocrats and oligarchs, to have lives even when they didn’t know if they’d be targeted by the government and lose their rights for looking at an official the wrong way at a checkpoint. Families who’d lived here for generations, suddenly questioned. Immigrants who’d built entire lives in this country, vanished into detention centers. I saw the footage that made it out that chilled me to the core. The raids. The children screaming for parents who weren’t coming back. And when it was over, when the regime finally collapsed under its own rot, America’s answer was to build a superhero. Wrap the whole bloody mess in a flag and call it hope. I mean, I get it. Every nation needs something to believe in after trauma like that. But I’ve seen too many countries try to heal by looking forward instead of backward, refusing to learn from history.
Which is why I need to keep my mission at the forefront of my brain. Because what Julia said about failing forward? I feel like that was some sort of admission. A confession, even. Global Dynamix rewrote the path forward by burning away what didn’t work before. But what if they also burned away what did work? What if the new future is somehow worse because it’s all under the guise of being better?
I think about Vanguard and how fitting he is as a symbol, because if he really can be used as a weapon, then they’re hiding it in the most beautiful, reassuring package there is.
If Vanguard is a weapon, everything they’ve rebuilt will fall apart, I think to myself.
I take the long way back to my hotel, cutting through side streets and doubling back twice to check for tails. Old habits die hard and all that. But they’re the kind that keep you alive in this business, even when part of you wonders if staying alive is worth the cost. At any rate, I have to be extra vigilant now, since I have a so-called stalker who can make himself go invisible.
My mobile buzzes against my hip. The burner, not the journalist one.
I check the screen and my stomach drops.
Cal.
He’s never called me while I’ve been on a mission, which means he probably doesn’t have good news. For a moment, I consider not answering, letting it go to voicemail so I can deal with it later.
But Cal would just call back. He’s persistent that way. We all are.
I duck into the doorway of a closed bodega and answer.
“Cal.”
“Mia.” His voice is warm, familiar, threaded with concern he’s trying to hide. Honestly, it feels good to hear. “How are you?”
“Fine. Busy. You know how it is.”
“Do I?” A pause. “Because from what I’m hearing, things are getting complicated over there.”
I close my eyes. Of course, Bayo reported back. Of course, Kat did too. That’s protocol—keeping London in the loop, making sure the home team knows what’s happening in the field. I just didn’t expect it to be Cal on the other end of that loop. I have to assume they haven’t told Mank everything, or he’d be the one giving me a call.
Or possibly extracting me.
“Things are under control,” I say carefully.
“Are they?”
“Cal—”
“You sound different, somehow.” His voice softens, losing some of its professional tone. “Maybe America is rubbing off on you. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “Really. Just tired. Jet lag and all that.”