Hello!!! Updating again :D hopefully I can keep writing, I’m having an issue right now where I can’t start chapters and I get frustrated but once I finally start them it’s like power-writing. So just pray for me to get it started lol. But yeah umm nothing else to tell you except oh I guess it could be a while before I update again, like 2 weeks, cuz I’ve been majorly busy ugh. First track meet got thunder-stormed out -__- I wasn’t pleased, I was so pumped to run the mile. Eh whatever. Okay, thank you so much for reading and stuff, honestly, you guys make my day every time I log in, I just cry and smile and yeah. I’m an idiot. Oh, and the song at the right is just a fantastic song and it makes me cry, and it's kindddda relevant lol so I put it in. I'm just going to start putting songs in, relevant or not, to get you guys into my genre. okay, see ya!

Gracias! <3 vb123321

Chapter Twenty



♦ Charlie ♦



Astrid was silent as we walked back to the hotel room. Now and then I would catch her looking at me in a way that made me feel uncomfortable, but as soon as I met her eyes, she turned away with an attempt at a casual look. It made me wonder exactly what Jay had said to her in the alley, which wasn’t helping the distracted state of my mind. My imagination was already painting vivid images about that conversation.



Josh had waved us away when we approached him and Joel; he was deep into an explanation of Jay’s actions and clearly didn’t want to be interrupted. Joel’s face was pale and he looked close to tears, but he nodded as Josh spoke to him with a serious face that I wasn’t accustomed to. I had found that he was much more parental with Joel than either Astrid or I, and so I was grateful that he had nominated himself to talk to the kid. I had enough other things to think about.



What wasn’t Astrid telling me?



What had she said to Jay?



What was Jay up to? How come he was suddenly Mr. Nice Guy? Or had he been for a while and I just hadn’t been around to realize it? It bothered me that I wasn’t even sure of the situation at hand; I was realizing that I didn’t like to be left out of the action. Maybe Jay had been telling the truth when he said that he had gotten me out of that place, and he had helped me when Finn had one of his fits – was he the reason I was even alive?



That thought refused to leave my mind, nagging at me until I wanted to pound the wall in frustration. Was I in debt to Jay Nicholson?



Astrid clearly wasn’t in any mood to discuss anything with me. She sank down on the bed with a moody look and pretended to ignore me, just giving me those searching looks. I collapsed on the couch, slouching and rubbing my eyes in exhaustion. I couldn’t remember the last time I had gotten a solid six hours of sleep; even three hours was pretty distant. The darkness of night stalked me into the early hours of the morning, driving me from the blankets until the sun began to creep up again.



I was antsy, worried about Josh and Joel and wondering if I should go out there and find them, but then they returned. Josh’s face was grim as he finished saying something to Joel, but the kid hadn’t lost his audacious attitude: He grinned at Josh and said, “Anyway, I told you Astrid had a thing for Jay. Didn’t I tell him, Charlie?”



The expression I produced on my face made Joel clamp his mouth shut tightly and look at Josh worriedly. It was only because I was supposed to be a highly-trained agent that I managed to laugh and say, “Of course you did. Josh just doesn’t like to be wrong.”



It was a mark of the strength of our friendship that Josh backed down from the insult; normally he would have argued for an hour, but now he just took a look at my face and said, “Joel, go dig up some food from the kitchen. I’m tired of hearing you complain about how hungry you are.”



“I don’t do it that often,” said Joel, looking affronted, but he didn’t pass up the opportunity, scampering into the tiny kitchen with his wide grin back on his face.



I leaned my head back as Josh sank down on the couch beside me. My eyes were prickly from lack of sleep, my head feeling overly-heavy, but I looked at Josh as he opened his mouth to say something. The hesitation was evident on his face, and for a moment I had the odd feeling of drifting out of my body and seeing the situation from his perspective: how I was being evasive and unclear and worrying. My stomach flopped guiltily, and I tried to make it look like I wanted him to talk to me as I held back a yawn.



“You doing okay?” he asked in a low voice, and I looked away, feeling defensive. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his mouth tighten ever so slightly, just enough to let me know that he was hurt that I wouldn’t talk to him.



“No,” I replied unexpectedly. “I don’t really sleep – but that’s not really the problem.” I took a deep breath, focusing on the wall. “Did Jay really get me out of that place with Astrid?”



“What?” He blinked, and when I looked at him, I knew he wasn’t faking his surprise. “I don’t know…who told you that?”



“He did.”



Josh’s mouth formed a little O, his eyes drifting around the room as he took in what I was saying. “I have to admit, it’s not unlike Astrid to keep that from us,” he said after a moment, and then that deeply-ingrained sixth sense caused us both to glance behind me as we sensed a sudden movement in the bedroom doorway.



“He told me not to tell you,” she said quietly, her face void of emotion. “He made me promise. I don’t think he meant to say that to you, Charlie; it just came out.”



I could feel Josh looking at me but ignored him, watching Astrid for a long moment and trying to figure out what I was feeling. She hadn’t denied it, then, and my logic told me stubbornly that I didn’t owe Jay anything, that he had gotten me there in the first place and had messed up our whole assignment in France and was working for Cloying. But something in my chest hurt as I thought of Finn and his berserk rages and how many times he could have killed me but stopped just in time – by some intervention.



But why would Jay care?



Gritting my teeth, I ran both hands through my hair, gripping the ends tightly as I fought to keep my emotions in check. Astrid was watching me, a little frown on her face; she clearly didn’t get what I was going through. Why would it bother her, after all? Slowly I moved back into a more normal position, looking over at Josh. I could see in his eyes that he was still putting the pieces together, but once they clicked his mouth thinned and he gave me a look that told me he understood.



“He hates Finn, too,” said Astrid suddenly, sounding like she was talking to a child. “I know he’s sorry for what –”



I got to my feet and exited the room, slamming the door in her shocked face. In the hall of the hotel, I sank down against the wall, breathing hard and staring at a fixed point on the floor. Why couldn’t she understand? Why couldn’t she see what she was doing to me every time she brought him up?



After six years, she was still blind.







The darkness of the room is suffocating, filling my lungs until I can’t breathe. My mind plays tricks, projecting faces onto the shadows of the walls, pictures that make my chest hurt and my eyes burn. I tell myself fiercely that it’s nothing, that it’s just my imagination, but I can feel my sanity slipping away from me as I grow colder and colder. The temperature in the room is dropping – maybe another ploy to weaken my defense, maybe just my imagination again.



I press myself against the frigid stone of the wall, closing my eyes so they stop straining to see what isn’t there. At least my hands aren’t tied: The bruises and chafing are still obvious on my wrists, although I don’t feel any pain. I don’t feel anything at all when I close my eyes to my thoughts, just utter emptiness.



A sudden flash of light overhead sears across my retinas, and I open my eyes slowly to let them adjust. Immediately emotion floods through me once more, starting with a quickening heartbeat as I look up at the man that just entered. He is tall and heftily built, his face swarthy and impassive, dominated by heavy dark eyebrows. It’s a face I could paint in my mind at any moment, those piercing dark eyes imprinted on my memory.



I try to act as if I feel nothing as I say, “O que você quer?” What do you want? The Portuguese flows off my tongue more easily than the English that is native to me, and I start as I realize my thoughts have been in Portuguese as well.



Finn doesn’t answer, just stares at me with those penetrating eyes that peer into my soul, making my nerves tingle and the hairs on the back of my neck stick up. This isn’t the first time I’ve been captured or held by the person I was tracking, but never before did I feel so affected by my captor. This man is like no one I’ve met; I’m filled with a fear that makes me almost physically sick. And not only because of what he does to me.



“I thought you might like a visitor,” he says in that dialect, a malicious light gleaming in his eyes. I don’t respond, remaining seated against the cold wall, knowing that whatever he has in store isn’t pleasant. He beckons to a guard in the doorway and they come forward, shoving someone in front of them roughly. She falls to her knees on the floor, hair hanging in front of her face and hands tied behind her back as the guard jabs a machine gun into her back.



“No!”



I’m on my feet in an instant, staggering slightly as my head spins dizzily, but my feet are moving even before my eyes focus again, trying to get to her. Another guard steps forward, blocking my path by ramming me so aggressively that I fall back against the wall. The wind is knocked out of my lungs, my knees buckling as I try to stand again, but I fall to the ground. The guard presses a knee into my back so that I can’t rise, the barrel of his gun touching the back of my head.



She’s looking at me through her long dark hair, her eyes wide and frantic, the same fear that claws at my heart on her face. I try to reach her with my eyes, tell her that she’s going to be fine, but at that moment Finn moves back into my line of vision, stopping in front of her.



“Don’t touch her,” I gasp as the pressure on my back increases.



Finn laughs, the sound sending shivers up my spine, and he grabs hold of her hair, yanking her head back so that she grimaces in pain. “Are you going to stop me?”



I’m aware of a red mist on the edges of my vision, breathing heavily as I struggle to fight off the guard on top of me, but I’m too weak to succeed. Finn pulls something out of his pocket, holding it up to the light so that I can see the thin outline of the needle and the slight sparkle of the liquid that’s inside of it. Sudden panic punches me in the gut, bile rising to my throat as I dig my fingers into the ground desperately.



“No! Do it to me instead!”



Her face is white, her eyes fixed on mine, begging me to help, and I hate the helplessness I feel and the fear that pounds through my veins as I plead with Finn. He ignores me, arcing the needle over his head and plunging it down, down towards her bare wrist. I yell at him hoarsely as the guard presses my throat into the ground so that my words are constricted and I begin to choke, spitting and coughing.



The needle sinks into her skin, and my own wrists begin to tingle as her eyes first widen and then roll back in her head. She wilts to the floor, the guard stepping away from her as she lies face-down and unmoving. I say her name over and over, struggling to reach her before she loses control; I know only too well the effects of that liquid.



She begins to scream, her body convulsing as it tries to fight drug, and I’m shouting as well, cursing and swearing and screaming her name, begging Finn to make it stop. Her pain fills me, my eyes streaming as my chest hurts so violently that I can’t breathe. Her screams tear at my mind, my sanity slipping away as I fight with one thought: Get to her.



But I can’t reach her, the guard on my back shoving me harder and harder into the ground so that I’m drowning, black spots dancing in front of my eyes as my voice cracks. But still she’s crying out, sobbing my name again and again, and there’s nothing I can do as her agony crashes through my mind, knocking the air out of my lungs.



“Charlie!”



“Stop!” I plead, my vision completely black. “Stop it, please!”



“Charlie, wake up, you’re okay, Charlie, please!”



“Eu vou matar você!”



A sudden jolt sent adrenaline through my veins – I was falling – and then I opened my eyes to see the edge of the couch somewhere over my head. I was on the floor again. Panicking, I sat up so suddenly that someone near me gasped in surprise, but I still couldn’t see anything, my heart pounding so fast that I could barely get enough air. It was still dark, colors pressed onto my retinas so that I didn’t even see the hotel room as I choked on the bile in my throat.



That voice was saying something, I couldn’t understand what, and I searched for it. My face was wet, my entire body shaking, and dimly I could make out someone crouched next to me. Her face was shrouded in the darkness of the room, but I could make out the concern gleaming in her eyes and nearly passed out again in relief. She was here; she was okay.



But even as my mind registered this calming thought, my stomach revolted, and I staggered to my feet, ignoring her worried questions as I moved through the bedroom to the bathroom and leaned over the sink. Retching, I struggled to breathe correctly, my body shuddering as I vomited up the fear inside of me. Shakily I turned on the cold water faucet, allowing the water to pour into my hands as I splashed some on my face. I could hear muted voices from the adjoining room, tuning them out as I mopped at my face with a towel.



The door opened, Astrid stepping inside the bathroom and then closing it behind her. She leaned against it, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at me intently. I avoided her gaze, afraid that if I looked at her I would do something stupid. I was so aware of her presence in the room, of her eyes on my face, and it wasn’t making the whole breathing thing any easier.



“Josh and Joel are kind of freaked,” she said after a moment. “Are you okay?”



I exhaled slowly, staring at my reflection. My dark hair stuck up randomly over my head, wet and shining with sweat and water, and my face was so white that my eyes seemed like they were about to pop out of my head. I felt cold and clammy, shutting the water off and clenching the edge of the sink tightly.



“Charlie.”



Her voice ran through my head, bringing back the dream and her screams and that overwhelming fear. I needed to hold her, needed to know she was really there and she was safe, but I held myself back with a conscious effort, knowing she would freak out if I did something like that. I jumped as she stepped forward and put a hand on my arm, looking into her sparkling dark eyes as she gazed up into my face.



“Talk to me,” she said softly. “What can I do?”



Her eyes were like caverns, deep and dark and sucking me in until I felt lightheaded, her touch sending warmth through me to fight the coldness of the fear. I tried to fight the panic inside of me, but then I couldn’t stand it. In a swift motion, I swept her into my arms, holding her tightly. She didn’t react, except to wrap her arms around me as well and press her face into my shirt, and as my breathing began to slow I began to realize that she was shaking as well. Quickly I released her, but she still held my arms as I stepped back.



“I’m sorry,” I murmured, my mind spinning. “I just – bad dream.”



She was silent a moment, her lips thin and worried, but when she spoke, her voice was neutral. “What do I tell Josh and Joel?”



“Just that.” I couldn’t concentrate; just looking at her was making me dizzy. I wanted to hold her again, controlling myself with a struggle, the relief that she was safe almost overwhelming me. “Tell them not to worry, to go back to sleep. I’m okay.”



Her eyes were still anxious. “Are you sure?”



I nodded. “Go back to sleep. I just need a moment.”



She didn’t look convinced but said nothing, squeezing my wrists gently before exiting the room. The air in my lungs whooshed out in one big sigh as my muscles relaxed and I leaned back against the sink, rubbing my eyes exhaustedly. Even though I was almost sick with lack of sleep, I was too afraid of that dark, dark room to go lie down again, and I knew that I wouldn’t doze off again that night. She was safe; that was all I needed to know. I wished I had had the courage to ask her to stay with me again, but I hadn’t missed the uncomfortable look in her eyes.



When all was quiet in the bedroom, I slipped out of the bathroom silently and made my way back to the couch, throwing myself on it and clutching a pillow tightly. Switching on the light on the table beside the couch, I kept my eyes open and stared at the ceiling, keeping my body rigid so that I wouldn’t fall asleep. Anything to keep me from going back to that room. And to him.



As I did whenever the terror struck, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a photograph with trembling fingers. It was tiny, locket-sized, and smudged with blood and blurred by spit from when I had put it in my mouth to keep Cloying’s men from finding it. Looking at it was a paradox: It made me feel sick to my stomach and yet relieved, calming my frantic breathing but sending dread through me that I hadn’t felt before.



My mother’s eyes gazed at me, a gentle smile on her face. Sadie was smirking at the camera, leaning against my mom’s chest as she gave me that familiar teasing look with her grey eyes. I stared at the photo until my vision blurred; I couldn’t tell whether it was from focusing so long or from the tears that were beginning to gather in my eyes. Shutting them, I closed my fingers around the tiny picture and leaned my head back on the couch.



I missed them so badly. Now that I knew Astrid was okay and I had her with me, my worry spread to the other haunt of the nightmares of that dark room. Finn had never mentioned them – thankfully, he hadn’t known about their existence. My sanity would have disappeared weeks ago if he had. Even so, just thinking about him and his sources made me scared for them. Astrid had said that she hadn’t told them I was alive yet – why bother,I thought woodenly, when we were probably all going to end up dead anyway.



When the sun finally began to rise, I stirred and opened my eyes; I had been unable to keep them closed and had actually managed to doze for about an hour. Rather than refreshing me, the short nap left me feeling groggier than ever, and so I headed to the kitchen to put on the coffee. My stomach protested its bitter taste, but I forced it down, my eyes feeling heavy from the bags that were imprinted underneath them.



I turned as I heard someone enter behind me. Joel stood uncertainly in the doorway a moment, but when I gestured to the coffeepot and stepped slightly to the side, he came forward and helped himself to a cup.



“Astrid would really disapprove,” I said with a strained grin, to lighten the atmosphere.



He glanced at me quickly before grinning back. “Yeah, well, what she don’t know won’t hurt her.” Taking a large quaff, he coughed for a moment before swallowing, and I hid my smile behind another sip. He fixed me with those startlingly blue eyes. “So. I kind of wanted to ask you something. But if you don’t want to, just say –”



I shook my head to stop his nervous chatter, shrugging. “It’s fine. Shoot.”



“Okay, um…” Joel’s eyes were jumpy, moving around the kitchen; I wondered if it was just the ADD or if he was scared of me. The thought made me feel uneasy. “Well, I was talking with Josh about Jay, you know…” He glanced at me. “And I was just wondering if you could tell me anything more, like, I don’t know – will I see him again?”



My immediate thought was that I wouldn’t care if he moved to the North Pole, but I looked into the kid’s eyes and couldn’t say anything. I had forgotten – he was new at this game, had no idea what it was like to have your life constantly turned upside-down. Naturally he was spooked; who wouldn’t be after seeing a brother thought to have died two years previously? I took a moment to formulate an answer, trying to find a way to keep that innocent gleam in his eyes.



“Well –”



“Josh says he might and he might not.” Joel’s voice was quiet; he stared into his coffee cup. “And I get it; I mean, he’s a spy and everything, so he probably doesn’t have time for me. But I just – I mean – I just kind of want to know why, exactly.”



Why what? Why he had never been told he came from a family of spies dating back two generations? Why he had never been considered to be one himself?



“Look, kid, let’s me and you talk about this.” I put the mug down, taking a moment to step into my best big-brother shoes. “I have a little sister who’s around your age – fourteen, fifteen. Her name’s Sadie. She’s known what I am since she was a little kid, ‘cause my mom figured she may as well know why her big brother wasn’t around.



“Now,” speaking louder as he opened his mouth to ask the question I knew was on his tongue, “I don’t really know why your parents didn’t choose to tell you. But I figure it might have been to keep you safe. Sometimes I wish Sadie didn’t know, because even though I know she loves me, I can see this look in her eyes sometimes, like she’s wondering exactly what I do. That TV stuff can mess with you, you know. I think…” I took a deep breath; I had never told anyone this. “I think she wonders how big a murderer her brother is.”



Joel’s eyes were saucers. My chest hurt at the naïveté on his face.



“So I think,” I finished quietly, holding his gaze, “Jay didn’t want you to know because he didn’t want to ruin his image for you. He’s done some pretty bad stuff; we all have. He messed up a few years back, and he’s still trying to get out of it. I know he loves you, Joel, and he wants to see you, he really does. But right now that’s going to be kind of hard, because he’s stuck in something that isn’t good.”



The words were choked in my throat; only the shine in Joel’s eyes was getting them out of me. I didn’t want to defend Jay, after everything he’d done, but saying the words helped get out a little of what I was feeling.



“You looked like you hated him,” said Joel after a moment, cautiously. “Why?”



I took a deep breath, looking up at the ceiling. “I don’t hate him.” It took me a second to realize that I wasn’t lying. “He just messed up. A lot. I think” – slowly – “I can almost understand why he did what he did. It’s basically what we’re doing now that Delta’s deserted us.” I looked back at the kid, but when I spoke I felt like I was talking to myself, consoling my own conscience. “Maybe it’ll all make sense someday, okay? We’re all still figuring it out. Just don’t judge him too harshly.”



“Okay.” Joel considered this for a while and then smiled up at me. “Thanks, Charlie.”



“Anytime,” I choked, bringing the coffee mug back up to my lips in an attempt to look casual. I couldn’t understand why I was defending him, why I cared so much about that innocence in Joel’s eyes, but the feeling was another paradox: Even though it made my head spin, the pain in my chest lessened slightly. I couldn’t understand what I was more disturbed by: the readiness I had come up with those words of comfort – or how much I found them to be true.



Once I had disposed of my cup, I made my way back to the couch, flopping down and pulling out my gun. Almost subconsciously, I began to dissemble it, my mind spiraling off to something else. I almost didn’t notice Astrid’s appearance as she came into the room and sank down on the couch beside me. Rapidly I finished re-assembling the gun and tucked it into the pocket of my sweatpants.



“Did you sleep?” she asked, her dark eyes on my face.



I shrugged, glancing at her and taking in the glimmer in her eyes and the sheen of her hair. Who needed coffee? Having her sit next to me was enough caffeine.



“I want to ask you a favor.”



Her face was deadly serious, and I narrowed my eyes slightly, nodding and waiting for her to continue. She took a deep breath.



“Pierre texted me yesterday.”



I didn’t know how to react to that one; my brain was too exhausted to register it for a few seconds. “Okay,” I said, when it became clear she was waiting for my response, and a flicker of surprise appeared in her eyes at my lack of interest. I forced myself to think about what she had said, remembering Pierre and her and what she had told me about him and the other agency. My stomach began to feel queasy all over again.



“Well…” Astrid gave me a dubious look. “He wants to talk to me, and so he offered to meet up somewhere.”



“No.” The word came out of my mouth before I digested her words, an automatic reaction, and she frowned. I didn’t let her speak, cutting in, “It’s too dangerous, Astrid. Even if we could trust him, which we can’t. I thought we agreed that other agent who tracked us to the safe house came from his agency, and they’ve tried to kill us on multiple occasions. I’m pretty sure this is some sort of set-up.”



She was giving me a weird look. I took a moment to glance back at my words and see if I had said anything out of context; with my mind the way it was, I would hardly be surprised.



“Charlie,” she said after a moment, her voice deceivingly calm, “I’m not asking you if I can go. I’m going to go one way or another, but I want to ask if you want to come with me.”



I hesitated. It had clearly taken her a lot of courage to ask me that, considering the mutual feeling between Pierre and myself, and I respected that. “Does Josh know?”



Her eye roll was so familiar that I had to hide a smile. “Is Josh our dad or something? What’s with this sudden responsibility thing?”



“I didn’t mean that,” I said hastily, my spirits already lightening. “I just think you should tell him before we go.”



It took her a moment to catch on, but when she did, I didn’t regret my decision: Her eyes lit up and she gave me a genuine smile. “Thank you, Charlie. I’ll go tell him now.”



I felt bad leaving Josh with the kid again – it seemed we were always doing that – and to no one’s surprise, he didn’t agree right away. But once he had stormed out of the bedroom and confronted me about it, only to find that I had already consented, he reluctantly said that he’d stay with Joel.



“But that doesn’t mean I like it,” he added darkly. “Just be careful, okay? Don’t trust him too much. And if you have anything good at that café place, bring something back for us.”



The “café place” turned out to be a small coffee shop several miles away. Astrid drove, even though I said that we should walk, and a few minutes later we pulled into a parking lot near the place. Before we exited the car, I took a moment to scope out the area, noting the lack of traffic and the early-morning quiet. A few pedestrians moved on the streets, out to get their morning coffee, but nothing looked suspicious.



“What do you think?” asked Astrid, also peering around. “Should we go in?”



“Pretty sure we decided that when we left the hotel,” I said, pushing open my door and stepping out. “Come on, then.”



Astrid flipped her dark ponytail over her shoulder and popped up the collar of Jay’s old flying jacket, tucking her hand into the crook of my arm as we walked across the street. I reacted in surprise, glancing down at her, and she widened her eyes at me meaningfully.



“A cover,” she explained with a wide, guileless smile. “Two teenagers walking into a coffee shop look stupid unless they’re dating.”



“I’m pretty sure we look stupid anyway,” I said, hiding my discomfort and the hurt I felt from her casual tone. “I mean, neither of us has changed clothes in, like, a week.”



She smiled, punching my chest. “Shut up.”



I tried to laugh, tried to feel as lighthearted as she clearly did. It was a beautiful morning, warmer than it had been in ages, and the sun lit on her hair, turning it to a shining ebony. Her proximity was sending my nerves into a tizzy, intoxicated by the sparkle in her eyes and the laughter on her lips, but despite all this, I was apprehensive. I didn’t want to go into the café, and not only because I didn’t trust Pierre. I had a bad feeling about all of it.



Astrid took a deep breath before she pushed open the door of the café. It sported one of those annoying bells that tinkled as we entered, drawing all wary eyes to us. Astrid acted as if she was saying something amusing to me, a grin coming obediently to my own face as we seated ourselves at a round table with two chairs.



I glanced around the room; Pierre was nowhere in sight. Only a few other people were in the room, three men in business suits seated at separate tables, two giggly teenaged girls, and a college kid with a laptop. Frowning slightly, I told Astrid I was going to grab something to eat and walked up to the counter to do just that. As I ordered two muffins, I looked back at Astrid, some sixth sense telling me of her change in attitude: Her jaw muscles had suddenly gone rigid, her eyes drawn to some place behind me, and suddenly her cheeks were a little pink.



Even before I turned to look at the door, I knew why: Pierre had just entered, his brown hair swept suavely across his forehead as his green eyes scoped out the room briefly. When they landed on Astrid’s face, he smiled and walked over to our table. That familiar rush of dislike returned as he pulled out my chair and flopped down into it, flashing Astrid that white smile.



Paying the cashier, I snatched up our muffins and made my way back to the table with ill grace. Grabbing a chair from another table, I seated myself so that I could see the room, handing Astrid her muffin and fixing Pierre with an unfriendly look. I had forgotten how stupidly good-looking he was; his effect on Astrid was very obvious from her tongue-tied look.



He was staring at me with an unreadable look in his green eyes. “They told me you were alive,” he said, not clarifying who ‘they’ were. “I wasn’t sure if they were lying or not.”



“Nice to see you, too.” I peeled the wrapper off my muffin, popping a piece into my mouth. “Want some? It’s banana-nut.”



Pierre gave me a weird look. “When did you turn into Josh?”



“That’s right, pretend like you know me,” I said, glancing at Astrid to see if she was breathing yet. Her muffin sat untouched in front of her, her eyes darting to his face and then looking back at me quickly. I caught a glimpse of reproach as I spoke but shrugged it off; I really didn’t care about his feelings.



As the awkward silence ensued, I decided to cut to the chase. “Why are you here?”



“Charlie,” muttered Astrid, actually blushing, and I gave her a look.



Pierre shrugged, reaching out and taking Astrid’s muffin. He raised an eyebrow at her, smiling as she nodded. “I just wanted to see you guys. It’s been a while.”



I choked on a nut. “Excuse me? And you owe me a pound for that muffin.”



Astrid gave me a flat look. “Grow up, Charlie,” she said, which I thought was distinctly unfair, given how pink in the face she still was.



“It’s good to see you’re healthy, Charlie,” said Pierre, smirking at me slightly. I wanted to punch him; I’d forgotten how prickly he made me feel. “I guess I should be a little more specific: I wanted to see Astrid. Which is why I texted her.”



“Okay, and?”



He looked over at Astrid, his green eyes beginning to do that thing designed to make girls drool over him, something I could never copy. “I know that Young has an AWOL set up against you guys, and I just wanted to say that I can help you get back to the States. I can help you get into his good books again.”



I didn’t believe him for an instant, but he was looking at Astrid with an intense expression, as if he was telling her something secretly. Whatever it was, she was clearly listening, because her face went still, her eyes narrowing minutely. Feeling uncomfortably like I was watching them through a window, I said, “Thanks, but I think we’re okay.”



“Did Astrid tell you exactly what that AWOL covers?” Pierre’s voice was silkily calm, eyes still fixed on Astrid, whose lips tightened. I looked sharply at her, wondering if I was missing something, but she shook her head, her eyes still gazing into Pierre’s. He reached out and took her hand, covering it with his own in a sign of affection. I resisted the urge to pistol-whip his knuckles, clenching my teeth.



“And how about Young’s deal?” he said, and something shifted in Astrid’s eyes.



I frowned. “What deal?”



“How about you, Pierre?” said Astrid suddenly, not looking at me. “What agency are you from, then? Why have they been following us everywhere?”



“You know I can’t tell you that,” he said calmly. All at once he stiffened, his eyes averted by Astrid’s finger, which was moving in a pattern on the tabletop, drawing a figure: Ω. Her eyes looked up at him innocently as slowly he took his hand off her other one, moving it to the right pocket of his jacket.



“What are –” Pierre took a deep breath.



“I am wondering a couple things, though.” Astrid didn’t let him speak. “Why don’t you have a British accent?” And as Pierre rolled his eyes, she continued. Only the sudden tautening of the skin across her cheekbones gave me warning; her voice didn’t change at all as she said calmly, “And why is that Stephen guy from the SIS sitting at that table over there?”