He flashed a smile, there and gone again. “You weren’t searching for a reason to do it. You were searching for a reason not to. You were looking for my redemption.”
I pushed to my elbow so I could see his face.
His thumb grazed my jaw. “You decided I was worth saving despite it all, and…that was it.”
“You still tried so hard to convince me you were evil.”
“Iamevil.” He smirked and rolled so my body was pinned beneath his, just as he liked it. His mouth brushed mine. “You’re easy to love despite your stupidity.”
I gasped when he kissed me and tried halfheartedly to buck him off, but soon, I gave in to the worship in his touch.
“You’ll pay for that remark,” I said when he let me breathe.
“Yeah? Show me how.”
38
The Interview
It is the policy of the United States that the American people have a right to know the activities of their government…
—FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, 5 U.S.C. § 552
As I expected, the two soldiers who survived attacking me were charged as Theo had warned and locked in the stockade. Adam said the story of the man Lucas left dead in the forest had spread throughout headquarters, and he suspected we wouldn’t have any more trouble.
“The dude must have been hit on the head a few too many times,” Adam said with a timid laugh. “Only a fool would come at you knowing Lucas Scott had offed five Blood Colonels for you.”
I considered telling him Lucas’s total body count from protecting me was far higher than that, but the reminder of how many people had tried to kill me in the last year was hard to stomach.
I settled on a weak smile, and Adam had clapped me on the shoulder, commiserating.
Just one week before Lucas was meant to lead his covert ops team to assassinate Commander Haynes, the reporter arrived. The Prime Delegate sent me a summons to meet her at once, and my soul crumpled.
“You don’t have to do this,” Lucas whispered, sensing my dread.
“She’ll find a way to punish us if I don’t.”
His mouth tensed into an angry line, and he didn’t reply.
Adam escorted me through the forest, and I met Williams where she instructed—in a small room near Theo’s office. Her smile when I arrived made my fist itch to find her nose, but I restrained myself.
I wasn’t the only one giving an interview, apparently. Twelve others had volunteered, mostly escapees from imprisonment.
“Before we record anything, he wants to review each of your stories in private,” Williams said. “You’ll be last.”
She extended an arm toward a bench, where a couple of others sat with fidgeting hands and pale faces. I perched in the corner and proceeded to ignore everyone and everything.
My forest served as my pastime.
One by one, the others were called back. They each spent a quarter hour with him, then went on their way, their faces tinged gray as they fled his presence. When it was my turn, I stepped into a small room with a decorative fireplace on one side and a large landscape oil painting on the other.
With a welcoming smile, Williams introduced me to the reporter.
Logan Bergeron, hailing from Toronto, looked like a college girl’s wet dream. He had auburn hair parted roguishly off to one side, enough stubble to seem as if he’d just risen from a busy night in bed, and glasses he kept pushing up his nose when he’d toss a shy smile at the floor.
Charming. Coy. Obnoxiously trustworthy in his tweed jacket and plaid button-up.
I hated that I liked him.
