The Espionage Effect(101)

“Devin, are you all right?”

My eyes flew open. Alec’s sharp features came into crisp focus. “Alec!”

I threw my arms around his neck. Then I tightened my grip, clinging to him so tightly, he had to pry my hold loose. “Easy. You’ll drown us both.”

Then I hit him upside the head.

“Ow!” He winced, then pulled back, ducking as if I’d raised an arm for another blow.

My arm hovered above my head. I slapped down hard on the water instead.

“You idiot! I thought you were dead.”

“Close. Got stuck in my parachute and a mess of seaweed. By the time I worked free, a current had pulled me a quarter-mile farther out to sea.”

Sudden anger replaced the anguish I’d been wallowing in, and I resumed my freestyle stroking toward shore with renewed vigor.

Alec kept pace with me. “So, I’m assuming you’re okay, then.”

“Define ‘okay’.” I ground out. My hip killed me. Unfortunately only in the metaphorical sense. My whole world as I’d known it to be had turned upside down. And I wanted to destroy everything fragile and smash everything breakable I could lay my hands on. Literal…very literal.

“Still breathing,” he continued as we swam. “No broken bones. Not in life-threatening danger.”

Lucky for him, he didn’t fit the category of fragile or breakable. “Then, I’m fine.” Not even close, but passable by his definition.

Several long silent minutes later, diagonally flowing waves began to break parallel to our position and a few feet ahead of us. I tentatively stopped kicking and let my lower body fall. My feet hit sand just shy of vertical, and I bent my knees, letting the ocean flow pull my legs beneath me. Using the momentum, I pushed up and stood among waves whose lapping surface pushed against the back of my upper thighs.

I trudged forward, bearing the walking motion in my hip slightly better than swimming.

Once our feet hit dry sand, I glanced toward where Escobar’s house once stood on the precipice. The structure proved to be one of those fragile things I’d been able to destroy. A column of thick black smoke spiraled up into the air before sheering off into the wind current. As I stood there watching the devastation, the distant sound of multiple sirens began to wail.

Without another word or thought, I headed north, leaving Alec to stand there.

Oddly, no emotion assaulted me. Only the absence of emotion.

Like I’d been bled dry and had nothing left to give.

Seconds later, he caught up, then kept pace right beside me, but respected the silence I’d initiated. When we reached the stretch of beach in front of his house, I continued walking, not breaking stride. Once I passed the far corner of his lot line, Alec disappeared from my peripheral.

On a sigh, I turned around. I couldn’t do this. Not now. Things had been left undone, unsaid. After the crazy roller coaster ride I’d been consigned to without my permission, I needed answers.

“Do you have access to my parents?” A spike of anxiety pulsed through me.

He stared at me with his dark, assessing eyes. Hesitation shone clearly through their depths. The delay of our personal business bothered him.

But he gave a curt nod and outstretched his arm up toward his house.



I couldn’t remember the walk up to his house. Not how we entered. Nor how the charcoal towel got wrapped around me.

My awareness flared sharp the moment a low motor hummed. Through an aperture in the ceiling of his office, opposite from his desk, descended a flat-screen TV as Alec’s deep voice murmured from behind me. Once it reached its lowermost position, after several clicks on his laptop keyboard, a frozen image appeared on the screen.

On a sage-green background, an artistic infinity symbol stretched horizontally. The ivory narrow loops on either side appeared to be etched. In the middle, where the linear paths intersected, gold shimmered.

My legs trembled as I stood there: the fading effects of adrenaline. Why wasn’t I pumped up now? Exhaustion. Irritation.

I’d had enough. Of all of them. Of the charade.

“Come, sit down.” The air behind me stirred. A gentle hand pressed to my shoulder. “You look like you’re about to collapse.”

“No.”

I didn’t offer explanation. He didn’t ask.

After a life filled with half-truths and duplicity, I intended to stand before those who’d enacted the travesty. Cold fury settled into my gut. The muscle tremors began to dissipate. White-hot determination surged a fresh dose of adrenaline into my veins.

They no longer held court over my fate. And in the wake of their inexcusable crimes, I would be their judge and jury.

The green background on the screen glowed brighter, then faded away into a live image. In the center of a round gleaming black expanse of floor space, stood my parents, expressions impassive as ever. Behind and above them, on a semicircle dais, were the shadowed silhouettes of a ten seated figures.

“The High Council,” Alec provided as he gave my shoulder a firm squeeze before stepping away.

I still felt his close presence, the air charging electric between us even in the tense moment, but he stood behind me, in support of what I was about to do.

Hair likely plastered to my head, face itching from the dried salt and sand encrusting my skin, I pulled the towel edges tight into my fists as I straightened, lifting my head high.