Page 50 of Remade

Tanner, always with his hand in the air, had asked why they’d gone through the hassle. Why they hadn’t just taken him out with a gun or poison or whatever. And Legacy had said, “The perfect murder is only perfect if you’ve never heard of it. Until the end of the war, the Russians believed their agent had died in a fire—an accident, along with all the intel he sat on.”

I figured it out. “You wanna take him out without Karl Hahn suspecting foul play and retaliating.”

Bo merely smiled.

“He catches on quick,” Darius noted.

I stood a little taller.

“He’s a good recruit,” Bo answered. “One might even mistake him for a Quinn.”

Damn. Just like that, my ears felt hot.

Darius smiled, and he actually looked pleased.

That was a good sign, wasn’t it?

Maybe I was dead. Maybe I’d done enough good deeds, and this was my reward, to finally be happy. In which case…

Welcome to my personal heaven.

THEIR PERSONAL HEAVEN

November 26th, 2024

Bo Beckett

“Again!” I yelled and blew the whistle.

All nine recruits sucked in some air before they went under the surface again.

Water quals were fun.

Decked out in jeans, long-sleeved tees, and boots, they’d spent the past three hours in the pool for an endurance drill that would last for however long they managed. Two junior operators on lifeguard duty, me with my pretty whistle, and Coach taking notes next to me.

“Keep an eye on Riley,” he muttered. “He stalls before touching the pad.”

I nodded in understanding. Rules were simple. Each recruit was to hold their breath for as long as they could, and when they resurfaced, they had to touch the yellow pads along the edge that logged their time.

We’d taken eleven stopwatch pads out of the supply closets last week, but then we’d lost two more recruits yesterday. Aaronhad squirmed his way out by saying he’d changed his mind and wanted to become a firefighter instead, and Caleb had flunked out. His test scores hadn’t improved lately, and he’d opted to blame others.

Nine remained.

Thankfully, we felt good about all of them. They were strong, determined as fuck, and fast learners.

We’d officially reached the stage in training where the following dropouts would suck. Coach, Danny, and I saw potential in all of them. But we hadn’t gotten to the difficult parts yet.

“Operator Beckett!”

I glanced toward the doors and spotted Green, so I asked Coach to cover for me for a moment and limped over to her. She had her daughter with her today, so she’d offered to watch Alex after school too.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, the girls are watching a movie in the rec room,” she assured me. “Quinlan asked me to give you this.” She extended something—oh, fuck yeah, it was the check. Perfect.

“Thank you.” I’d been waiting for this. I verified the amount and nodded in satisfaction.

I’d had to jump through some hoops and talk to Quinlan directly, and he’d agreed with me. Of-fucking-course Leighton should be paid for the work he’d done in the field, whether he was a recruit or not. The cheap motherfuckers in accounting could choke on their hemming and hawing about regulations and rules.

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