People like Yardley. And Gramercy.
The situation KC found herself in wasn’t entirely about Dr. Brown. It was about the choices she’d made. The things she’d done wrong.
So maybe she should stop waiting for Dr. Brown to save her from it.
Maybe she shouldn’t have waited for Yardley to save their relationship by telling KC exactly when it would be okay to be more vulnerable and stop fighting her own life.
Maybe.
“You’re right,” KC said. “He used my talents to make himself and his division look better. I was sequestered, without the opportunities to experience what it means to have colleagues.”
“My god.” Gramercy smiled again.
“That’s all you get, right there,” KC said. “You have to understand that I not only got started on the wrong foot with you, I didn’t have a first step to take with you. I literally don’t know how to work with you. At all.”
Gramercy looked at her for a long moment. “You are not the only tech,” he said. “You’re not even the only tech at the agency with your level of talent or potential, and I am very sorry, on behalf of the agency, that you’ve carried the weight of believing that you didn’t have colleagues or peers. I’m sorry you haven’t had more opportunities to see for yourself the positive impacts of your work. In the protection of our Constitution and the sovereignty of our country, it’s easy for us to forget those that protect values and concepts arepeople.”
KC couldn’t help it—she shrugged, just a little. That had been a very sincere and earnest speech, and she was KC. “I mean, colleagues sound nice.”
“Colleaguesarenice.” Gramercy tipped his head. “Mostly. Taken on the whole.”
KC laughed. It was the first time Gramercy had ever made her laugh. “I can’t imagine you being anything but coolly magnanimous.”
“I have hollered at you out of an open car window in the middle of the street.”
“Hmm.Holleredis what my grandma did. You gave an oppressed shout.” She leaned back. “But you wouldn’t have done even that if you didn’t care.”
“No.” Gramercy pointed at her. “I would not have. And now I can appreciate that you also care, which is good timing, because succeeding at this mission is going to be harder than jumping out of an airplane in a tuxedo and landing undetected in the courtyard of a Russian palace and stashing the parachute in time to give a toast to the president that distracts him long enough for his chief advisor to parlay with a diplomat and defect.”
“But you did do that, is what you’re saying.”
“It wasn’teasy. That’s my point. And this auction tonight will be many times more complex.”
“All right.” KC rubbed her hands together. “I’m listening.”
“First, I want to talk about some other stakes,” Gramercy said. “There hasn’t been a good opportunity to debrief.”
KC’s brain scrolled through the events Gramercy might know about that required debriefing. “The fight at the safe house?”
“If you survive a fight, the debrief’s built in. I was thinking more about Starbucks. And the conversation you had afterward outside the director’s office.”
KC glanced around the room. Nobody seemed to be paying attention to them, but KC knew it was an illusion. Their talk was definitely being recorded, for starters. Probably at least half the techs in the room had known she was dating the Unicorn before she did, and all of them knew now. She tightened her grip on her elbows. “No one likes to feel ridiculous.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t my decision.”
KC swallowed. “Sure. I could’ve guessed as much. What I keep thinking about, though? When I was sitting in the van a few blocks from the Starbucks, listening to the Unicorn with Mirabel, and the signal dropped—that ten seconds of silence was the longest ten seconds of my life. And nobody in the van said aword. Everyone elseknewthe love of my life had a gun on her. Everyone but me.”
“The reason—” Gramercy cleared his throat. His words had come out a little hitched. “The reason you’re going out there tonight is because you listened to the part of you that did know. Without being told. You acted, overriding protocols, likely saving an officer’s life, and absolutely handing the agency more information. I will tell you that I believe you will keep listening to that part of you, at work and with Whitmer.”
KC tried to think of something to say that would sound like agreement, but her stomach felt like she’d swallowed a rock, and she couldn’t tell Gramercy thatshedidn’t believe it.
There was such a big difference between knowing what she wanted and believing that what she wanted was possible.
He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Lucas and I. I told you it helped that he’s a general, and he has the security clearance to know about my work. I didn’t say what I meant to.”
KC searched his eyes. They were blue, like Yardley’s, but lighter, with flecks of green. He’d seen things she couldn’t imagine. He’d lived a whole life before she was born.
“Go on, then,” she said.
