Page 12 of Love at First Sighting
“You were raised by a single mom. I can tell you where your dad is—”
“I don’t care.”
“Fairview Ave. Milo. Oak Crest Elementary School.Kidz Bop 2.” He spits these things out, and I don’t know the connection, but they feel oddly familiar.
Street I grew up on.
First pet (an ill-fated hermit crab).
Name of my elementary school.
First album I remember buying.
“Are those my banking security questions? Dude, how thefuck—”
I hope this is all not on the internet already. I worry my phone’s been hacked—god only knows what they’ll find.
“I told you—I have your file. We know everything about you, and it’s how I found you. You also geotagged yourself at the gym, so…”
Goddamn Pamela the Pilates instructor.
“Listen to me.” He steps closer. There’s a rush of late-summer wind and another smell of sharp cologne. He feels like a malfunctioning human time machine. The full black suit, the hat,fucking suspenders, all seem like they’re from another time, but things like his Converse, modern speech, and general knowledge of social media ground him well in the current timeline.
I don’t notice how close he’s gotten and I’ve dropped my guard. “I need to know what happened to you.”
I could tell him everything. I’m scared in so many different ways. Not only do I have to cope with what happened to me, but I also have to live with the fact that no one believes me…and that this could happen again. Whoever this man is, no matter what he promises, he’s not going to be any different from the rest.
“I’m not telling you anything. Go watch the video yourself and write your smash piece on how crazy I am.” My voice wavers. “I’m sick of giving people things they won’t return.”
His shoulders drop and he holds his hands up in surrender. “Look, I know you’re scared, but it’s my job to get to the bottom of this.”
He carefully opens his jacket and pulls out a leather ID case. He flips it down and shows me the card and silver badge inside, and I freeze.
The logo is the same one I saw on the crashed drone—three stars and three letters. PIS.
Oh…well, I hadn’t been expecting the name of the agency to bepiss.
“Piss?” I ask.
“No. You say the letters. P-I-S.”
“Okay, so you work for piss.” I read the name etched below the logo.
Special Agent Carter Brody
I examine it from a distance, but reach out after a second to feel the raised metal logo in his hand. Special Agent Carter Brody yanks the badge back.
“Hey.”
All I know is I am even less inclined to talk to thegovernmentthan I am to talk to the press. If they’ve sent someone after me—even if he’s a rookie—I saw somethingreal. Something I’m not supposed to be talking about. I know I should be scared, but right now I’m vindicated.
I saw what I thought was a UFO. Now a man—quite literally in black—is cornering me in a parking lot. The tinfoil hat is manifesting already.
There’s no way anyone’s going to believe that a man in a suit and fedora is following me around. That’s almostmoreridiculous than a UFO.
I just have to get the hell out of here and outsmart this fool, even if he is extremely pretty.
I step closer so we’re toe to toe. He’s got plenty of inches on my five-seven frame, safely above six feet, and everything about his presence should be predatory. Yet he doesn’t feel that way one bit. The sharp slant of his jaw tightens, a muscle in his cheek flexing as he chews his gum.
