Chapter 12 - Ado

Staking out the warehouse at Hognose Creek for days, with everyone on the team working in shifts, yields nothing. This could be a good or a bad thing, but I’m no optimist.

“It’s a positive sign,” Aris says, addressing the room during our Monday morning briefing. His voice is confident, calm. He always sounds like that. “Activity on the boat route hasn’t changed, so they don’t know we’re onto them yet.”

He says it like it’s a victory, but it doesn’t feel like one. In five days, he and a few of the others will be out on Attlefolk overnight, gathering intel and setting up cameras for the anticipated visit of some more of our so-called friends. Keira and I have been told to sit it out, which only makes my nerves worse.

I’m not sure anything about this mission could be called a good sign. We still know next to nothing about these people. Once patched up, the two men we took into custody said nothing. It seemed like they knew nothing worth saying, too. They’re with the police now, locked up for smuggling medical contraband across state lines to the Canadian border. Years of operations, right under our noses.

Byron confirms later in the same briefing that the third guy is still missing. No one in town reported any sign of him, so he must have known better than to head south from the creek after being shot. Probably hit the highway by nightfall. Probably two states away by now.

I grind my back teeth together hard. I try not to look at Keira, and she tries not to look at me. The friction between us, already thick from the years we spent apart, has only deepened since that night at the creek.

Something broke between us out there, and I’m not sure how to fix it.

Sunlight cuts through the turned blinds over the floor-to-ceiling windows, slipping in bright, yellowish shafts out over the table. It seems to divide us from one another. We’re all behind the bars of a cage.

Then Byron speaks up again, casually, as if it’s no big deal. “Oh, one more thing. There was an attempt to hack Keira’s phone last night.”

A cold wave of fear washes over me. I feel like I’ve been dunked into freezing water.

Keira raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

Byron shrugs. “You wouldn’t have known. Our firewall blocked it automatically. This kind of thing happens all the time, especially with our work—I block attempts like this on the rest of the team most months. There are always people trying to trace our devices, figure out who’s involved.”

Aris nods, his face calm, unfazed. “Nothing new for us. Just means we’re on someone’s radar, which we always are. It’s why we keep our security tight.”

Keira leans back in her chair, her expression neutral. “So, I’m on that radar now, too.”

Byron gives her a reassuring smile, or his closest attempt at one. It looks a bit like a grimace. “Yeah, but don’t worry. The attempt didn’t get through, and it’s being handled.”

But I’m not reassured. My mind races with possibilities—what if they know more than we think? What if this isn’t just an ordinary hack? What if Keira’s in more danger than anyone realizes? She’s only been with us for a short time, and now, because someone has noticed her presence in our network, she’s in the shit right along with us. For the rest of us, this is everyday life. But Keira’s different. Too much time has passed.

I can’t stand the thought of her being a target. Not again. Not after everything.

I glance at Keira, trying to gauge her reaction. She always was good at putting on a brave face, acting like nothing could rattle her. But I know her better than that. I see the tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers tap restlessly against the edge of the table. She’s worried, even if she won’t admit it.

Something inside me snaps. Before I can stop myself, I speak up. “We need to do more than just block a hack. This is a problem.”

The room goes quiet. I feel half a dozen stares burning holes in me. Aris meets my eye silently, raising one eyebrow. I can tell by the look on his face that I’m about to walk a thin line.

Keira’s head jerks up, her eyes narrowing.

“I’m fine, Ado,” she says, her voice low but firm. “It was just a failed hack. They didn’t get through. This kind of thing happened all the time at the agency—happens, I mean.”

“That’s not the point,” I snap back. “The point is they’re after you now. You’re on their radar, and that puts you at risk. We can’t just act like this is normal.”

Byron leans back in his chair and folds his arms. “We’re all on their radar, Ado. This isn’t new. Keira’s no different from the rest of us.”

I glare at him, my anger flaring. “Stay in your lane, Byron.”

Byron’s eyes narrow. “Careful, Ado. I get that you’re upset, but that’s not fair. We all do what we can.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” I snap. “Always so quick to play it cool, but where were you when that guy got away? If Keira’s in danger, it’s because we weren’t prepared.”

Before Byron can respond, Zane pipes up in a biting voice. “Watch your mouth, asshole.”

I turn my glare on Zane, ready to fire back, but Byron holds up a hand. “Shut up, Zane, stay out of this.”

Zane huffs but goes silent. I spy Maisie in my peripheral vision. I see a shiver run through her. I realize the room has gone deadly silent around us.

Byron’s calm acceptance of the situation only makes me angrier. He’s too relaxed, too willing to let things slide. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re not taking this seriously enough or doing enough to protect Keira.

Keira stands suddenly, pushing her chair back with a loud scrape.

“Enough,” she says, her voice cutting the room in half. Olivia breathes out so hard that her breath whistles. “I’m fine. I’m not some fragile thing you need to protect.”

“Keira—” I start, but she cuts me off.

“No, Ado, I don’t need this right now.” I can see a flicker of anger and frustration behind her eyes. She’s done with this conversation.

Aris finally steps in, his voice disappointed and final. “Alright, that’s enough for today. The meeting’s over. Everyone go cool off. We’ll reconvene tomorrow.”

No one argues. Chairs scrape against the floor as everyone begins to gather their things, the air still thick with unease. Bigby murmurs with Rosa and Veronica. Wind whistles against the high windows, as if even it is trying to listen in on our fracturing tempers, our stupid dramas. I feel stupid. I feel like I’ve been set aflame.

Keira brushes past me without a word, her face tight with anger.

I catch up to her in the hallway. She’s fast, but I’m faster. I can’t let it end like this. Not again. We haven’t talked about what happened on the stakeout. We haven’t talked about anything.

“Keira,” I call after her, my voice strained.

She stops, her shoulders stiffening, but she doesn’t turn around. I take a few more steps until I’m close enough to see the set of her jaw, the way she’s holding herself together by sheer force of will. “Can we talk? Please?”

“What is there to talk about, Ado?” She turns to look me in the eye. Her stare staggers me every time, even now. “You made your point. I made mine. And I don’t need your opinion on my safety—I don’t need that kind of lecture from you.”

“That’s not what I was trying to do,” I say quickly. My tongue is thick and heavy. Somehow, I can’t speak now, even though it feels like when Keira’s there, all I do is speak. But now I can barely breathe. “I just—damn it, Keira, I never meant to leave you behind. Not back then, and I don’t want to now. I—”

Keira throws a hand up to stop me talking. I look her in the face and she is livid. She looks desperately angry, the kind of hot, hopeless anger of someone who already lost.

“Leave me behind?” she demands. “Is that what you think happened? You didn’t just leave me, Ado. You abandoned me. You left me in a hellhole, with no idea if you were even alive or dead, and I got myself out, and I lived, and not a single bit of it was thanks to you. And now you think you can just waltz back into my life and act like nothing’s changed? Like you have a right to me?”

The words punch through me and reduce me to nothing. I try to respond, but the weight of everything we’ve been through—everything I left unsaid—closes around my throat, choking the air out of my lungs.

I stand there, my mouth open, but nothing comes out. Keira is the only person who I ever felt I could truly, openly speak to. Now, that’s gone.

Keira’s eyes narrow as she watches my silence stretch on.

“That’s what I thought,” she mutters bitterly. “You’re still the same. You don’t care enough to even try, do you?”

“No, that’s not it!” I finally manage, my voice rising, though it sounds pathetic even to my own ears. “I care—I care more than you know. But everything got so messed up, Keira. I didn’t know how to—”

“Stop,” she says. Her voice drops, quieter now but still edged with steel. “Just stop. I’m done with this. I’m done with you trying to play hero when all I needed was for you to be there. But you weren’t. And I can’t keep pretending like any of this is okay, or like I’m okay, or like it’s going to be fine when it isn’t, and it’s not.”

The wall she has built between us expands before my eyes. I see bricks pile atop its battlements, obscuring my view of the other side. She’s gone. I see that now. Maybe she was always gone.

She steps back, her gaze hardening. “I’m leaving, Ado. I’m done with this conversation. Don’t follow me.”

Before I can react, she turns on her heel and walks away, her boots clicking against the floor as she disappears around the corner. I’m left standing in the empty hallway, something roaring inside me, an impending storm. Or maybe the storm has already passed, and now, I have to live with the aftermath. Maybe I knew it all along. I still feel the echo of her words reverberating inside my ears.

A hand claps down on my shoulder, and I turn to see Percy standing beside me. His expression is soft with understanding.

“You’re an idiot,” he says, but there’s no malice in it. “Go after her.”

I blink, trying to process his words. “She—”

“I know what she said,” Percy interrupts. “But if you don’t go after her now, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

He squeezes my shoulder before letting go and walking past me, leaving me alone in the hallway. I stand there, his words settling inside me. Go after her.

I breathe out, running a hand through my hair. Maybe he’s right. Maybe this is my last chance to make things right.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I turn and head in the direction Keira vanished.