“I’m sure that will be a comfort to you when the time comes,” she said. “And the meeting has to be today?”
“This afternoon.”
“Bring me in for the briefing, then.” Dr. Brown had never let her sit in on a briefing, not even when she told him she needed to be included to understand the scope of what the black op required. But if KC was going to be made—or ruined—risking her career to keep the secret of Dr. Brown’s op, she wanted to feel like she’d done it as a part of something good.
And she wanted to see the Unicorn with her own eyes before she sat in a van and did what she could to keep them alive.
“You’ll be provided with the information necessary for you to—”
“Let me go to the briefing!” She yanked at her seat belt and twisted to face Gramercy. “I have a better chance of not fucking this up if I know the players and the stakes.”
“You won’t fuck this up.”
“No, because you’re taking me to the briefing.”
“Because you can’t.” Gramercy’s voice had gone hard. There was nothing to argue with when he used that tone, and KC didn’t bother. She opened her car door.
What a waste of a day. She’d thought after her run, after she’d blown off some steam, that she might check in with Yardley. She regretted sending her that text yesterday, essentially telling her to get out, already. There was no reason for acrimony.
No reason when the end of their relationship was completely KC’s fault.
“KC.” Gramercy had opened his window.
“What.”
“Figure out what you can put together in advance, but then we’ll need you in the van at thirteen hundred.”
KC lifted her hand and gave a sharp salute, knowing she’d log in within the hour. She would be in the Unicorn’s ear for this op. She never had before. She’d handled only the very barest of the Unicorn’s data—their fingerprints, their location—because silos and separation meant safety. It was one of Dr. Brown’s mantras and the reason he usually gave for why, for so many years, he’d kept KC with him in their silo of two.
Still. The Unicorn was a legend, and KC had admired the finesse of their work for some time. It would be exciting to partner with them, even for moments.
She headed out of the alley.
“KC!”
The volume with which Gramercy spoke her name in a dark alley at dawn compelled her to turn around. He was leaning his forearm out the open window.
“For what it’s worth, I know it’s hard. Maybe you’ll be surprised, and it will work out. Can’t tell you how many times everything went right up to the line, looking bad, and in the end, there was rescue. Don’t lose hope.”
“Are you talking about my love life, my career, or the fate of our country?”
Gramercy shrugged, and the tinted window went up.
She turned around again and started walking, shoving surprise furious tears off her face. As soon as she got to the end of the alley, KC began to run.
She kept going, faster and faster, until she was a block from home and her shoe caught a slick pile of wet leaves, dropping her down to the asphalt, her knee grinding into the road.
“Motherfucker.” KC heaved herself up and looked up at the sky and stomped her feet, feeling blood trickling down her shin.
When she limped into the house, she was surprised to discover Yardley at the kitchen table, wearing the extra-short navy-blue robe that murdered KC every time she put it on. The morning light made her skin glow, and her ordinarily shiny, perfectly perfect inky hair was messed up everywhere.
KC’s stomach soured. She’d loved morning Yardley. Morning Yardley had been entirelyherYardley. Messy, sexy, gorgeous in the raw.
But she wasn’t KC’s anymore.
She knelt down to untie her shoes, grateful for the sharp sting in her wounded knee. Glad to be able to look at the damp knot of her shoelaces so she didn’t have to look at the woman she couldn’t stop disappointing.
They’d met at a backyard barbecue. Yardley was a friend of a friend of a roommate, and KC had heard her very memorable name a few times in passing but never run into her until that blistering-hot summer day. She turned around from laughing at a joke and spotted Yardley Whitmer in a white strapless sundress, her bow-shaped lips painted red, dark hair braided and pinned up, looking exactly like the illustration of the goddess Athena in KC’s favorite childhood collection of Greek and Roman mythology.
