Chapter Thirty

Chloe

The door closed behind him. My eyes popped open, and I lay there on the bed, waiting to make sure he wasn't going to return.

But he was gone for the next thirty minutes or so. The bikini he'd bought for me was at a shop off the resort. I had time.

I flopped onto my back, staring at the smooth ceiling, with its white plaster and crown-molded sides. A large five-bladed fan spun lazily directly above me, helping circulate the warm salty ocean air.

Get up. Get moving. You have a duty to perform.

Muscle fibers twitched, but I didn't get up. I lay motionless. Staring straight up as warring halves of my soul fought for control.

I was coming apart at the seams. The decisions I'd shoved down and tried to ignore were bubbling up like a volcano that could never be truly corked. It had been easy to deny, to ignore, when I'd been stuck in the Dragon Isles. The excuses were plentiful then.

Now, not so much.

Frustrated, I shot to my feet, the bare skin of my soles slapping lightly against the cool tile underfoot as I paced across the room toward the door and then back again. Over and over until I may as well have been wearing a pattern into the tile.

You've come this far. You need to report in. They have to know what you know.

My eyes strayed to the knife and its sheath, lying atop the nightstand. All I had to do was get it to them. Tell them to make me a replica before I left to return. Then they would have it in their hands. There were any number of enemies in the Isles I could blame the "fake" knife on if I ever had to try to use it.

However, if I did that, there was no going back. Ever. I would have betrayed Silas, and our relationship would be fraudulent. I would be a liar, and there was nothing that could fix it.

You're already a liar. You've been lying this entire time. First to him and then to yourself. About who you are. You aren't a dragon. You don't belong among them.

I closed my eyes, breathing deeper. The stress was building, the pressure tightening my shoulders into knots, the beginning of a headache forming in my temples. Would he ever forgive me for what I was thinking of doing? For what I'd been sent to his island to do.

"Would you ever forgive him?" I whispered out loud, reversing the question.

The answer was clear.

I'd avoided the decision for as long as I could, but a fork in the road was now in front of me. I had to choose. There was no putting it off. The equipment that had been sewn into my clothing by the CIA was still there. Still waiting for me to take it out and try to get a signal back. I hadn't touched it, first because I had no information and then second because of Silas.

Every time I thought about reporting in, about revealing what I'd learned from the stars about the location of the Isles, I pictured him dead on a battlefield somewhere. Wings torn to shreds, scales blistered and peeling from his body as his great lungs rose and fell in short, ragged breaths. The life fading from him.

And it would all be my fault. I would have killed him.

Guilt gnawed at my insides, twisting my stomach into knots. For a moment, I thought I was going to lose control of it. The nausea never left. A presence that simmered. A new constant companion.

We're at peace. Why do they need new weapons? We should be focused on diplomacy.

An explosive snort filled the room. I wasn't that na?ve. Politicians just wanted to hear themselves talk. They were never on the front lines, never had to experience anything. They just sent off soldiers to die, and if the war resumed, that was exactly what would happen.

"Fuck."

I had to go, all because of that one question, that one "if" none of us knew anything about.

What "if" the war resumed? Could I live with myself knowing I could have given them something that would allow those soldiers to properly defend themselves?

More images of Silas being cut to pieces by the weapons I would help create flashed through my mind.

Frustration and anger boiling over, I grabbed a pillow from the bed, sinking to my knees as I screamed into it over and over again. Everything was coming apart. My mind was ripping itself apart with agonizing indecision.

Tears followed the screams.

I should never have let myself fall in love with him.

Time froze. Was that truly what had happened? Had I grown so weak, so fallible, that I'd let myself fall in love with the target? With Silas? That went against all my training. Everything I'd ever been taught, told, or read about. The biggest no-no in spycraft. That was how double agents were created.

Traitors.

I was on my feet in an instant, heading for the door before I could second-guess myself or my decisions.

Five minutes later, I was in the lobby of the resort, with a car being summoned to take me downtown. I'd operated in the Caribbean for two years while tracking a pair of Russians working with Cuba, so I knew where the local offices were—if they hadn't changed. I ordered the car to take me to the nearest, though I gave the driver orders to drop me off two blocks away.

Even in my current mindset, I wasn't stupid enough to let myself be dropped off at the front door. I wasn't ignoring all my training.

Just the important stuff.

The weight of the knife, strapped directly to my back beneath my shirt out of sight, was all the reminder of what I was doing.

"Gracias," I mumbled to the driver, shoving some of the cash I'd pilfered from Silas' stash into his waiting hand before slipping out into the crowd wandering the street market.

By arriving there, I could lose myself in the mass of people. Just in case. I slipped between two vendors stalls, ignoring the incessant hawking of their wares, and made my way deeper into the foot-traffic-only area, pausing every now and then to admire various items while using the opportunity to make sure I wasn't being followed.

After spending ten minutes looping back and forth without seeing any signs of a tail, I altered course once more and left the market, walking down the block and around the corner to a clothing shop.

I entered, pretending to look at the bright dresses and sequined shirts. But really, I was waiting, watching to see anyone who walked by on the sidewalk.

Nobody familiar did.

"Hola, miss," the owner of the shop, a surly-looking Latino in his late fifties, greeted me from where he sat on an old, worn barstool behind his counter, leaning against the back wall. A thick mustache drooped from the corners of his mouth, so long it threatened to tickle the big beer belly his arms rested on.

"Hola," I said.

"Can I help you?"

I stifled a frown. Clearly, my accent was slipping because he easily IDed me as an English speaker and not a native.

"I was wondering if Alvarez is working today?" I asked, my outer demeanor calm, even as my heart pounded against my ribcage.

Was I really doing it?

The owner didn't blink. "He's upstairs," he said. "Would you like me to go get him?"

I shook my head. "I know the way. I've seen him before."

"Okay." The owner reached under his desk and slid a key across the counter to me.

"Thank you."

I took the key and headed for the back, well aware the "owner" was now pressing a button to alert the CIA station chief someone was on their way up. He was also probably palming a silenced pistol. Just in case I wasn't supposed to be there.

I went up the rickety metal stairs and stopped at the second door on my right. The key unlocked the door, and I stepped inside. The next room was just a little box with another door in front of me and a camera in the upper left corner. Behind me, the door clicked shut. I was now trapped. Only Alvarez could let me proceed.

If he didn't, I wasn't leaving the square alive.

A voice barked over a hidden speaker, demanding identification. I read off my code. Then I glared. "It's me, Alvarez. Open up. I know it's been a few years, but come on."

There was a long pause. To my divided soul, it was an eternity.

I'm doing the right thing. I'm doing the right thing. I'm doing the right thing.

The door clicked open, and I was greeted by the sight of Alvarez staring at me down the length of a silenced pistol.

"Really?" I growled, reaching up to brush it aside. "Put that thing away. You know me."

He nodded. "And I know you're not supposed to be anywhere near here. Which begs the question, why are you here at my front door?"

"Because this is the first chance I've had to get away," I said.

I was really doing it. I was going to report in and give them what they needed.

Then what?

Maybe I could go back to Silas somehow? Perhaps the war would never resume, and my actions would never be discovered. We could just live our lives together.

"Are you okay?" Alvarez asked warily.

"I'm fine," I said, even though I most definitely was not. I was contemplating returning to Silas and staying with him willingly. That was bad. Really bad.

"You look like you're about to puke."

"I bet," I said uncomfortably. "Now, are you going to finally put that thing down and let me in?"

"That depends," Alvarez said. "Why are you here? What do you have to report?"

There it was. The question I'd been dreading.

I opened my mouth to answer.