“I was going to say incredible.” She pauses, her expression shifting to concern. “But areyouokay? That headache?—”
“It’s nothing.” I kiss her palm, then each of her fingers. “Happens sometimes. Probably just dehydration. Or a patty melt. Maybe I oughta start taking LactoEase.” I look at her breath in the air, condensing from the cold. “We should get going, go back into the house. Should be warm enough, though if it’s too weird for you, we could go anywhere. Get a hotel.”
“I’m good with anything,” she says, reaching for her scattered clothes. I watch her for a moment, drinking in the sight in the dying light—the marks I’ve left on her skin, the satisfied curve of her lips, the way she moves like a woman who’s been thoroughly fucked. Ravaged, even.
And then, distantly, I hear it: the rhythmic thump of helicopter blades, growing louder by the second.
My little vacation is over.
“Nate?” Mia is frozen, her bra half-on. “Is that?—”
“Yes.” The hollow feeling in my chest spreads. “They found me.”
The helicopter sets down in the same field where Danny parked the Meridian. By the time Mia and I climb down from the hayloft, Julia is already emerging from the aircraft, her light hair whipping in the rotor wash, followed by two men in black suits.
She doesn’t look angry, which is a bad sign. What she does look is terribly, horribly out of place on my family property. It makes me feel sick, like she’s some sort of virus infecting my roots.
“Vanguard.” She stops a few feet away, hands clasped in front of her. “We need to talk.”
“How did you find me?” I say, grinding my teeth.
“How do you think? You know the hover car has its own tracking system.” Her gaze flicks to Mia, who stands slightly behind me, then back to my face. “I tried reaching you for hours. Your watch is in privacy mode, back at your apartment. Do you have any idea what that looks like from our end?”
“Like I wanted some space without you breathing down my fucking neck.”
Her eyes widen, and Mia gasps from behind me. This might be the first time I’ve ever talked to her like this, but fuck it.
The shock is quickly smoothed away. “No, what it looks like is that you’ve gone rogue, and that’s a very dangerous place for you to be.” She steps closer, lowering her voice. “Thirteen people are dead, Nate.”
The words hit me like a punch. “What?”
“Structural collapse. An old parking garage in Queens. The whole thing came down during rush hour.” She pauses. “By the time emergency services reached the scene, it was too late. But if you’d been there?—”
The realization settles over me like ice water. “I could have gotten them out.”
“Yes. You could have.”
I think about those thirteen people. People who got up this morning, went to work, parked their cars in a garage that had probably stood for fifty years, people who never made it home because I was here, in Montana, fucking a woman in a hayloft while their world collapsed around them.
“Why didn’t Paragon respond?” I ask, wishing that icy feeling in my chest would go away. “He’s supposed to be backup.”
If not the new me.
“Paragon experienced a malfunction.” Julia’s expression remains blank, but I can tell she’s holding something back. “He’s being recalibrated.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” I say. It sounds like an excuse. Itisan excuse. “I just wanted a break. I wanted to…”
“I know.” Julia’s voice softens slightly. “That’s why I’m here, Nate. You can’t disappear like this. You can’t just…opt out when you feel like it. People depend on you. Thecountrydepends on you. You have a role to play in the new America, and that role doesn’t include personal days.”
“I understand,” I manage to say. I understand now too well.
“I hope so.” She glances at Mia again, and this time, there’s something sharper in her gaze. “Miss Baxter. I think you know better than anyone by now just what is at stake. I trust you got what you needed for your article.”
Mia stiffens beside me. “I—yes. Thank you.”
“Good. Then I’m sure you won’t mind if we cut this excursion short.” Julia gestures toward the helicopter. “We can fly you tothe airport, where we have a jet waiting for you. A private one. Very nice. Compliments of Conrad Marsh.”
“She can come with me,” I say. “Danny can take her back in the Meridian?—”
