“Manipulation,” I laughed humorlessly. “Sounds like the only one manipulating me right now is you. Fuck you!”
I grabbed my bag and stormed out of the office. I unclipped my helmet, shoving it onto my head and pulled my keys from my pocket.
Fuck Sarah. Fuck Bradley. And. Fuck. Enoch.
Six lives. So close I could almost taste it.
Four
June 20, Saturday
Emory
The adrenaline had worn off hours ago, leaving way for every inch of my body to be protesting in pain as I paced the length of my living room.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
My body might have been exhausted, but I couldn’t get my brain to shut up. I couldn’t get Sarah’s words out of my head.
Was I being manipulated? Had I been too naïve? Had I let them take advantage of me? Had I given up all control over my life to yet another piece of shit human being? Los Siete. Reformation. The FBI. And now, WITSEC.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this was all Bradley’s fault in the first place. He should’ve been keeping tabs on Enoch. He should’ve moved me out of Anchorage before Enoch and I crossed paths. This was all his fucking fault. I told him when they placed me here that I knew someone in the Air Force that could get stationed here. And he assured me that it wouldn’t be a problem.
And look where that fucking got me.
I fucking hated myself for trusting yet another person with my entire life and letting them fuck it up.
I shook my hands out, trying to get the anxiety coursing through me to stop.
What if Enoch had already spread the word I was alive?
What if Los Siete was on their way to kill me right now?
The only thing that was clear to me was that I was on my last life, and I wasn’t going to spend it starting over, hiding and hurting. Or waiting for someone else to take it from me.
A knock on the front door made me jump. On instinct I grabbed the gun from the coffee table that I’d been staring at all afternoon as I contemplated using it.
Fuck, what if it’shim?
My heart was pounding in my ears as I talked myself down from a crazy spiral. I was being paranoid. It was probably just Bradley.
The pounding on the door repeated and I forced myself to walk to the door and peer through the peephole.
Bradley.
My shoulders sagged and I unlocked the deadbolts and chains and pulled the door open. It was barely open a crack before he was pushing himself inside and locking the door behind him. He gave me a studious once over and shook his head slightly.
“Marshals are downstairs with a van. They’ll pack up and we’ll get on the road. I can have one of the guys patch you up in the van. The plane is waiting for us on the tarmac.”
I met his blue eyes, swollen with heavy bags beneath them and more wrinkles than the last time I saw him two and a half years ago. His sandy brown hair was covered by a ball cap, a black sweatshirt and jeans covering the rest of him. He looked like a dad who’d just driven all night to bail one of his kids out of jail.
“You fucked up.”
He squinted at me and crossed his arms. “You don’t say.”
“You should have known that Enoch moved here. You. Fucked. Up.”
