"You wanted to see me, Operative Seven?" he supplied.
"Who am I?"
A pause. Just long enough to let the question echo.
"You are Operative Seven," he said. "Best asset of the Bureau. Trained since age seven. Purpose-built for this." His words landed in the air like ice cubes, slow and deliberate.
That much was true. I'd started learning the basics as soon as I was removed from the group home. But, the hardest part of the training—the physical one—hadn't began until I was fourteen. Five years later, I'd be doing jobs on my own.
"That's not what I asked," I said.
"How do you mean?" Father sounded like he was enjoying it.
"What's my real name?"
"You've never asked before."
"I never needed to."
"And now?"
"Now I need to know."Because if she has one, then I must have one too.
He watched me. I couldn't see the eyes, but I could feel him scrutinizing me.
"Why?" he finally asked.
I tried to slow my breathing. I couldn't. My chest was still a furnace, still burning down the world. I locked my eyes on the dark spot where his face was according to my calculations, hoping my gaze landed where it needed. "I had parents once," I said. "They'd given me a name. I remember pieces of it. There was a beach. An ocean. There was an angel."
"That part of your life is in the past. Trust me, you do not want to go back there."
"Why?"
He exhaled, almost a sigh. "You had a difficult start. Many of the children who come to the Bureau do."
"I want to know my real identity."
Father was silent again, and it lasted longer this time. "If that's what you want," he supplied finally, sounding almost mournful. "But I'm warning you… You may not like what you find.”
"I don't care. I need to know."
He drew a deep, tired breath and said, "I hope you will not regret this, Operative Seven."
38 kimmy
I couldn't sleep.
For the past two nights, I lay in the dark with my arms folded over my chest, pretending that the faint city noises outside were ocean waves. Sometimes, I browsed through my favorite puppy reels or watched the spill of colored neon through the bars on the bedroom window until my eyes itched with exhaustion.
Mostly, though, I replayed what had happened between Seven and me. My mind kept looping the memory—the accidental collapse onto the floor, his hand at the back of my head, the sudden press of his body, the way his lips felt against mine.
It wasn't a memory that could be sanitized or edited.
It felt like a splinter lodged under the skin. Impossible to ignore, no matter how hard I tried.
Worse, every time I relived it, I expected to feel the old panic. The sense of wrongness. The freeze response that had defined my body since the penthouse party night.
But it never came.
