Page 29 of Agent Zero
She blinked at the contents, frowning.He couldn’t tell if it was his file or hers; the thought that she might be reading his made his skin tighten all over, in a not entirely unpleasant way.
“What is this?”Now Holly sounded baffled.Maybe he should have fed her first, or given her more water.
She looked up, those smoky eyes huge, her eyelashes matted, her cheeks flushed with remaining fever heat, and his mouth went dry.
My God.She’s so pretty.
She was, in fact, beautiful.He hadn’t seen it before, or had he?Was it just that smell, drenching him, working inside his skin?Thin and tired-looking, she was still gorgeous.Maybe he could just admit it now.
If not for the sourness of the drug tinting her scent, he could think she was sitting there all mussed and flushed after an entirely different chain of events.
He cleared his throat.“It’s, ah, a target file.Name, vitals, other information.Photos so you can zero them.The other’s stuff background, so you can...anticipate.”
“Anticipate.”She looked back down at the papers in her lap.“Target.”
“Yeah.”Euphemisms.Trade talk to make it easier to do nasty shit for your goddamn country.
Lies.
“My God.”The flush paled, and he had to stop looking at that mouth of hers.His focus was slipping.Was it degradation, or was it the persistent pressure below the belt?Hard to think logically, looking at her sitting in a bed.Especially when she was wearing one of his shirts, and he knew exactly what was under it.He’d had to search, really, because there could have been a telltale in her clothes.Besides, she’d been thrashing with the aftereffects of overdose.Sweated right through her jeans, as a matter of fact.
“What do youreallydo?No, wait.”She shook her head, pushing the first file away.It fell open, and he saw it was hers.“Don’t tell me.Or you’ll have to kill me, right?”
“No.”The whole point of this was to keep you alive.I didn’t even blow town, not that you’d know how easy it would have been.“Look, I was?—”
“Shut up.”She flipped the second file open, almost angrily.Stared down at it.“Oh.”
Was she seeing the CV?His service record?“I went into the Army because the only other option was being stuck back into a state home or halfway house.”The words were ashes.“Then there was the program.It turned me into...what I am.I did my job, served my country.”
“Good for you.”Pearly little teeth sank into her lower lip.She bit, hard, probably using the discomfort to orient.Her paleness was alarming.She was damn close to transparent.“Why do they...who arethey, exactly?”
He doubted she really wanted to know.“Are you going to call the cops?”Deliberately harsh.“Because if you are, I am not going to waste time explaining.If you’re not, you should probably take a shower, and we can get something to eat.You’re hungry—you’ll fall over if you don’t get a few calories in you soon.”
He saw the betraying little twitch.Her right hand, probably tempted to reach for the phone.Reese waited, trying not to breathe, because every time he inhaled it was like getting a mouthful of something too good to be true.
Then she looked up at him, blinking rapidly.Those marvelous blue eyes brimmed with tears, but she swallowed, hard.Her shoulders came up a little, as if she was used to settling burdens there.“One of these for me, right.And one for you.They...did someone try to...”
“Yeah.”
“Why?What did you do?”
“I don’t know.”Don’t care, either.But he probably should.Were they winding down the program?Were other agents being liquidated, or just him?Nothing had seemed off until the tomboy nurse locked him in that room—and the fact that there had only been a feeble privacy knob on the door meant that they’d expected whatever was pumped in through the vents to disable him in a matter of seconds, right?“I followed my goddamn orders.The only thing I did that they didn’t tell me to was ask you to coffee.”
As soon as the last bit was out of his mouth, he regretted it.
A single tear brimmed over.She wiped it away, roughly, with the back of one slim hand.Stared at him as if he was something slimy crawled out from under a rock.
Well, to be honest, he was.And even now she was trying to understand, instead of screaming-furious at him.Christ.Too smart for her own good, and too soft, as well.She didn’t deserve this.
“Is this some sort of joke?”Hoarse now.She shook her head, violently.“No, it isn’t.Because it’s not funny, and there’s no reason...there’s jobs on here I didn’t even remember applyingfor.God.And the...oh, God.Medical...God.God.”
“Holly…” What could he say?He’d already stuck his foot—hell, his entire leg—in his mouth, and kept chewing.
“No.Just don’t.”She scrambled out of the bed, and the sight of those long, bare dancer’s legs damn near starved his brain of blood.He even stepped closer, expecting her to have a little trouble walking, but she grabbed the wall and hauled herself along with grim determination.“Stay away from me!”Even her bare feet were pretty, but the cheap avocado shag carpet here was enough to make the skin crawl.
She deserved so much better.The bathroom door was flimsy plywood; she slammed it and spent a few seconds fiddling with the lock.He let her, listening intently.
The shower turned on, but he easily heard her hitching breath.The sobs went right through him, and he spread his hand against the door.Even though he knew it wasn’t a good idea to go inside, he wanted to.
