Page 12 of Factory Thief

“I didn’t do that. I was framed.”

“Yeah, right. Your fingerprints were found on the knife.”

“I don’t know how they got there.”

“It was found in your place.”

He shakes his head. “You know what? Believe me or don’t. It doesn’t matter. Did it ever occur to you that your bosses wanted me busted out because I’m innocent?”

That gives me pause. It could be, but the Factory usually focuses on large-scale solutions, not individual people.

“So, what makes you so important you got framed for murder?”

He sighs. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

I roll my eyes and reach into the back seat, keeping the gun pointed at him the whole time. I extract two bottles of water and deposit them next to his thigh. “Open one and hand it to me.”

He uses his forearms to steer while he accomplishes my assigned task. The water isn’t cold, but it’s wet, and without a trace of salt to boot.

I drain half of it one go, careful to keep my eyes open and focused on Jack while I swallow. He bursts into nervous laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“If you weren’t pointing a gun at me, well…the way you drank that water would have looked rather suggestive.”

My cheeks redden, and I grab the second bottle before he can.

“You just bought yourself a thirsty ride.”

Jack grimaces. “Thirsty ride to where, exactly? Where are you taking me?”

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out.”

He glances over at me, brow furrowed in thought. “Are you a spy or something?”

“Or something.”

“That’s exactly what a spy would say.”

“Spies owe allegiance to a government. I’m my own woman.”

“I thought you were working for the Factory?”

I squirm in my seat. “That…that is a temporary condition. Once I repay myFavor, I’m done with them for good.”

“I still find it hard to believe a school for the gifted employs spies, concocts jailbreaks, and wants a convicted murderer in their midst.”

“It’s a lot more than a school for the gifted.” I sigh and glance out the window for a brief moment before I remember to cover him. “They try to help make the world a better place, in a lot of different ways. Their methods are…unconventional, but I can’t disagree with their goals.”

“Are you sure you know them as well as you think you do?” Jack’s question hangs in the air, and I choose to answer with stony silence. We travel for about an hour without speaking. Tension crackles in the air the entire drive. He’s watching me, and I’m watching him. Like a pair of angry cats just before the hissing and clawing starts.

His voice startles me out of a reverie as the first pink inklings of dawn show on the horizon.

“What did you say?”

“I said, I have to pull over.”

“Not a chance.”

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