Page 58 of Agent Zero
She took the mug and thought about her odds of escaping, as both Six and Eight had done.As Fourteen had done before they liquidated him, as some of the others were showing signs of having done.
It was not enough to calculate, she decided.
Trinity began to plan.
THIRTY-FIVE
For once Holly’sback didn’t ache.The cabin’s quiet was full of tiny sounds—snow deadening all outside noise save the crackling of a fire in the bulky ancient iron stove and the faint static-rubbing sound of the AM radio station.Reese cocked his head to listen to the recital of air pressure, place-names, precipitation, forecast, as they ate.It wasn’t much—pancakes, bacon, eggs—but it wasn’t industrial food, and a glass of orange juice convinced Holly she wasn’t dreaming.She managed a few bites of bacon and at least two pancakes, a banner event.
The orange juice even stayed down.
The dinette set—two plastic chairs and a table left over from the ’50s, to judge by its pink top—was rickety but adequate.The cabin’s large main room otherwise contained a burlap-covered couch that folded down into a twin bed, and a ratty old armchair with a dusty afghan flung across it.Other than that and the stove, there was nothing but a collection of woolen rugs over a hardwood floor, polished silky smooth but gritty with accumulated dust.
Her nose kept itching, and her throat was a little scratchy.Probably just the change in the weather, and God knew she’d itched all over, relentlessly, for months now anyway.Holly snuggled deeper into the blankets—everything was new and full of packaging-smell, and while that was distracting it was better than dusty and nasty—and tried to get comfortable on the lumpy couch.
He’d even thought of flannel pajamas for her, but not for himself.Did he ever relax?
They probably trained him not to.
The dim flickering from the stove was soothing.Reese, by the front window, stood in what she was beginning to see as a habitual posture—head tilted to listen, hands loose, shoulders back.
“Hey,” she finally whispered.“Reese?”
He didn’t move.“Are you warm enough?”
“Sure.Can you...can you come over here?”Why am I nervous all of a sudden?
There were lots of reasons, she supposed.Here she was with this stranger in the middle of nowhere.They wouldn’t find her body until spring, if he had bad intentions.Of course, he wouldn’t have dragged her out all this way and...she could just go on and on in circles until she dropped.It wasn’t like she was going to survive this anyway.Each time she used the bathroom there were traces of bright red in her urine.She couldn’t eat, her hair was falling out, and really, honestly, it was going to be all downhill from here.
So it didn’t matter.At all.
Except even when you were dying, some things did.Even if you were in an exotic—to say the least—situation, on the run with a bionic superspy who looked so lost and forlorn, standing there watching, that her heart lit up inside her with sweet aching.
He glided silently across the floor, not even wringing a betraying squeak from the boards.“What’s wrong?”Dark eyes a glimmer in the dimness—did he have a cat’s vision now?Just how strong and fast was he?
I don’t have a lot of time left.So why not make it count?“Nothing’s wrong.”She snaked her arm out from under the pile of blankets, the couch creaking as her weight shifted, and felt blindly in the cooler air outside.You could tell it was freezing outside, even if warm enough in here.The air just felt different.
His fingers threaded through hers, warm and rough.“Holly?”Was he going to start making excuses?Or telling her,I was wrong, sorry, you’re not what I thought?
That was the thing about staying out of the dating pool.When you were thrown back in, you found out you’d forgotten how to swim.“I don’t think anyone’s going to be out there.Why don’t you come to bed?”
If that didn’t get the point across, nothing would.
“I, uh...I thought, the floor...”
“I don’t want you to freeze to death.”She tugged on his hand.
He’d gone so still he probably wasn’t even breathing.No, he had to be, because he spoke.“Well, you know, the couch, it’s not very big.I don’t want?—”
“Reese.”Firm and calm, as if talking to Doug when he was on one of his rampages.“Take your shoes off and get under the blankets with me.Please.”So I can do at least one nice thing before I go.
“Holly...”
“Unless you don’t want to, in which case I’ll just be really embarrassed, but that never killed anyone.”She could have kicked herself.Joking about killing someone with a bionic spy.Infection, but he wasn’t contagious.It wasn’t like it mattered, even if he was.What was one more thing to weigh her ailing body down?
“I just...if I do, Holly, I might not want to stop.”
“Oh.”That’s all right then.“I might not want you to.”
