The Darkest Hour(40)

“Take out?”

“Kill.”

His eyes widen. “Ah.”

My throat grows tight as I think about that mission. It had been my first solo assignment, and it took place about a month after I landed in France. I left headquarters that rainy evening with a bounce in my step. I was so sure that I’d be pinned with a new title by the end of the night. Agent Blaise. I knew it would soon be mine.

My target’s name was Allard, a known collaborator who had gained the trust of a few Resistance members only to send them to prison. His reward? Money and a pat on the head by the Germans. Allard should have been a simple kill—he was old and slow and already sickly with a disease that made it hard for him to breathe. Harken had laid out the plan for me, too. I’d follow Allard into a busy métro car and knick his ankle with the tip of my umbrella, breaking open the skin so that the poison on the umbrella tip would seep into his bloodstream. Easy as the alphabet song.

It had started off without a hitch. I had worn my hair in two French braids and put on my pressed school uniform. My pièce de résistance, though, was a light pink umbrella edged with ruffles that I had sewn on myself. Tilly told me that she didn’t recognize me at all. I took that as a compliment.

Rain showers had drenched the city that day, packing the métro full with grumbling passengers. I followed Allard into a second-class train car and elbowed three men aside to get a seat close to him. Right before we reached his stop, I made my move. I maneuvered myself behind him while clutching on to my umbrella. My thumb hovered over the button that would release the needle tip.

But as I aimed the tip at Allard’s ankle, I broke out in a cold sweat. First-time nerves, I thought. My trainers told me that this might happen, so I breathed in deep and reminded myself of what Allard had done. A traitor like him didn’t deserve to live.

I tried aiming the umbrella again, but everything worsened from there. My fingers shook. My neck reddened. I didn’t know what had come over me. Thinking about Allard’s crimes made little difference, so I thought about Theo. I would never see my brother again, yet someone like Allard kept on breathing. That gave me just enough wherewithal to press the button and swing it at Allard’s foot.

It was too late. The doors opened, and Allard plunged onto the crowded train platform. I scrambled to catch up to him but ran into a young woman instead. She couldn’t have been much older than I was. Both of us fell to the ground, and I was about to run off when she cried out and clutched her calf. Somehow my umbrella had grazed her skin, and now a thin line of blood was staining her stocking. It was just a nick, but dread filled me to the brim. Within a day or two, she wouldn’t be able to get out of bed, and it wouldn’t be long until she stopped breathing completely. The poison was that potent.

I stood frozen on the platform, watching that coward Allard shuffling away while this girl dusted herself off. I had my orders, but I couldn’t leave her to die.

A heavy hand fell on my shoulder right then. I spun around to find Harken standing over me. Apparently my first solo mission wasn’t a solo one after all. He had been tailing me all along, and seeing the scowl on his face, he must’ve regretted sending me out already.

“Sir—”

He shoved a tiny bottle into my palm. The antidote. “Take care of the civilian.”

“I’m sorry!”

“No apologies. Not here.”

“But—”

“You’ve done enough. Find the girl. Fix this.”

He gave me a push. I made it five steps before I turned around to apologize again, but Harken was long gone. By the time I returned home, everything had been settled. I had caught up with the girl and swiped the top of her foot with my umbrella tip—this time with the antidote rather than the poison. Harken had taken care of Allard. It wouldn’t be long before Allard would be found strangled in a rundown café restroom, but Harken wouldn’t let me off easily just because our target was dead. He sent me to desk duty so fast that my head spun, and that was where I stayed until he finally agreed to give me another chance with Monsieur Travert. Not that that had gone much more smoothly.

“Did you catch your target?” Dorner says, cutting through the quiet night.

“We did,” I reply dryly.

“Ah,” he says again. “The Resistance … trains you for this type of thing?”

I tense. He’s likely asking me that out of scientific curiosity, but I don’t like the implication behind the question. Yes, the OSS and the Resistance trains their agents to kill, but we weren’t the ones who started this war. “Don’t the Nazis train their soldiers to kill people?” I retort.

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he murmurs. “My apologies.”

I wave him off. There’s no more time for I’m sorrys and chitchat. I urge us back into a run.

With the coastline just beyond our fingertips, we draw so close to the ocean that the spray of salt water dusts our faces. A curtain of fog greets us, too, and I hope it will grow thicker. It should mask our arrival at the beach.

I spot a village ahead. If the map is correct, it will be Auderville—and that means we’re nearly there. North of town, we reach the cliffs that buttress the ocean and we skim along the tops of them until I find a rocky path down to the beach. I hurry down the jagged boulders, but my hand slides off a slick rock and I nearly lose my grip. Dorner is quick to catch my wrist, though, and I mumble a merci. That’s twice now that he has watched my back tonight. I wonder what Harken would say to that. Frankly, what would I have said to that before I met Dorner?