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1
TRENT
With my rifle, I lie perched on top of an apartment building, looking through my scope at the university campus below. Dread settles in the pit of my gut as I watch my mark. Something about this hit doesn’t feel right. Morgan Thomson doesn’t look like the usual targets I’m sent to eliminate. She’s much younger than I expected, probably around nineteen years old. That’s not to say that a young person couldn’t be a terrorist; anyone had the potential to be one. But nothing about this woman raises any red flags in my mind or screams danger. When I was given this assignment, I thought I was going after a disturbed outcast looking to hurt as many innocent students as they could. I hadn’t expected to see a blond bombshell who didn’t look like she’d hurt a fly.
This has to be some kind of mistake. I zoom in a little more to get a better look at her. I’m usually good at reading people, but nothing about her showcases the threat The Hotel thinks she is. I watch her as she makes her way across campus, a pair of rose gold Beats on her head as she clutches a couple of books to her chest. Her long, golden locks shimmer in the sunlight as if strands of spun gold naturally grow out of her scalp. She’s dressed in a peach-colored tank top and denim jeans that moldthemselves to her body as if perfectly tailored to her curves. I zoom in even farther, homing in on her piercing blue eyes framed by long dark lashes. A light dusting of freckles is visible across her nose and cheeks, almost invisible due to her tan. Something foreign stirs in my chest when my gaze falls to her full pink pout, but I quickly rein myself in to focus on my task. The first thing they teach us in training is not to get distracted in the field, as distractions can lead to fatal consequences. If she’s the threat I’ve been sent to eliminate, I can’t afford to have my thoughts run away from me—no matter how gorgeous she is.
The longer I look at her, the more wrong this feels. The innocence radiating off her makes it hard to see her as someone who plans to blow up a school. All the intel we’ve collected so far points to her being the organizer of the alleged terrorist attack happening here on campus, but nothing about her screams danger or makes me believe that her main objective is to hurt as many people as possible.
She smiles and waves at passing students, even stopping to take a photo with a couple of students who ask her. A slight frown settles on my lips as I watch her pick up some stray pieces of trash off the ground before tossing them into a nearby trash can. She spins around a couple of times before skipping along the sidewalk in a rhythm that I imagine correlates to the music flowing from her headphones. Potential bombers don’t usually skip along the sidewalk to pop music if they plan on killing innocent people. They also don’t stop to take photos with random people, especially if they know the person may end up dead because of them. With each minute that ticks by, that nagging voice in the back of my mind grows louder.
Yeah, something definitely isn’t right about this.
I connect my earpiece to my phone and place a call to The Hotel, the shadow government organization I’m contracted with. My eyes remain on Morgan as the call rings, a millionand one questions swirling around in my head. I’ve been on this rooftop since early this morning, watching Morgan move around campus, but I can’t find anything that warrants this hit. I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve second-guessed a potential mark, but my gut tells me things aren’t what they appear to be.
And I refuse to have another failed mission on my conscience if Morgan isn’t the person we’re after.
I retrieve the folder with Morgan’s information from my bag and look over it. There are pages upon pages of information gathered on her, from the other people involved with her, the potential organizations funding her, as well as potential dates for when the bombing would happen. I pause when I reach the black-and-white photos of her. She looks nervous or on edge in all the photos we have of her. She’s always looking behind her as if she has to constantly watch her back to ensure no one is on to her and her scheming. Her photos make her look as if she has something to hide, as if she’s sneaking around in preparation for something that’ll take many lives once initiated.
“This is Natalie speaking,” a soft voice says when the call finally connects, breaking me out of my thoughts.
“Nat, it’s Trent.” I close the folder in my lap. “I’m doing surveillance right now, and something doesn’t feel right about this.” I carefully think over my next few words. The Hotel doesn’t make mistakes. Any contracts I receive from them are always highly researched and vetted before they’re assigned, but I can’t deny the uneasy feeling sitting in the pit of my gut that’s telling me that this is wrong. “I wanted to confirm that this nineteen-year-old freshman girl is our alleged bombing suspect that I’m contracted to take out.” I reposition myself onto my stomach, peering through my scope just in time to see Morgan and a few other students settle down at a picnic table in the courtyard.
“Yes, the mark has been confirmed,” she answers. “I vetted the hit myself. You should have all the information on her in the folder you were given when you were assigned the contract.”
I sigh inwardly. Her words should reassure me and make it easy to do my job, but they don’t. The proof of Morgan’s involvement was in black and and white on my lap, but it’s so hard to ignore the proof in living color down below.
I look back out at my mark, watching as she laughs at something another student said. This doesn’t make any sense. How does a bubbly young woman like her get wrapped up in something like a terroristic bomb threat? I sigh deeply and shake my head.
“Yeah, I have that information, but after watching her for a few hours…I don’t know. My gut tells me that we may be missing something or that things may not be what they seem with her,” I finally say. “And my gut hasn’t been wrong yet.”
Her keyboard clicks over the phone for a moment as she types something into her computer before speaking again. “As I said before, I vetted this hit and approved it myself, so everything is accurate in your file. But since this seems to be a concerning matter for you, I’ll look into it a bit more just to confirm that the information we have on her is still correct. For now, stand down on carrying out the hit until you’re given further instructions.”
My shoulders sag in relief. “Thanks.” I look through my scope again, satisfaction filling me to know that I at least have bought Morgan a few more days before I had to take her out if she’s indeed the person I’m here to take out.
“I do want to remind you that if you’re wrong, hundreds of people will die,” Natalie warns. “She’s a person of interest in a terrorist attack, and as long as she is on that campus, everyone there is at risk the longer we wait.”
My earlier satisfaction is quickly replaced by dread once again as a knot of worry lodges in my throat. There’s always that chance I’m wrong about her, blinded by her perceived innocence. In my line of work, it’s not uncommon to come across marks who are good at pretending to be things they aren’t. It’s easy to think a woman isn’t capable of being a terrorist, but there have been a few times in my career when that’s definitely been the case. But I don’t get that vibe from Morgan from what I’ve observed, so I’m willing to take the risk of postponing the hit until I receive a second confirmation.
“I understand. I just want to be sure about this one because the woman I’m observing doesn’t seem to match the woman in my folder.” I watch as Morgan takes yet another picture with another student, her pearly white smile giving the bright sun a run for its money. “I’ll keep an eye on her in the meantime and continue to assess the threat until I hear from you.”
“Good. Report back if anything changes, and I’ll be in touch once I’ve reconfirmed our information,” she states before the call ends.
I turn my focus back to my scope and continue observing her. In order to truly find out if she’s the person I’m looking for, I have to find a way to get closer to her. You can really learn about a person by watching them from afar. On the outside, she appears to be a bubbly, social college freshman who probably won’t even hurt a fly. But even I know that the most dangerous people are skilled at wearing deceiving masks. And with a threat as great as a potential bombing, I literally can’t afford to be wrong on this.
A group of frat guys in letter jackets approach her table, one of them smiling and running his hand through his hair as he says something to her. A slow grin creeps across my lips as a plan unfolds in my head. While Natalie works on confirming information on her end, I can bide my time by blending intoher world as a college student to get closer to her. I don’t often engage with a target before carrying out my hit, but this unique circumstance requires special measures to get the job done.
I sit up and lean against the ledge of the building, grabbing the folder once again. I locate her social media handle before opening Instagram and typing it into my search bar. My eyebrows raise in surprise when her profile loads onto my screen, showcasing her 990,000 followers. I click on a random photo of her wearing workout gear while holding a container of some kind of supplement she’s promoting, taking note of the positive comments on her profile. It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that a woman as well-liked as she is would want to hurt people.
As I scroll through multiple photos and comments, more questions form in my mind. I just can’t imagine someone as visible as her being responsible for something as vile as a university bombing. A gorgeous woman with that many followers isn’t capable of something like this. A grin roots itself onto my lips.
Make that 990,001 followers because she’s just gained another one with me.
2
MORGAN
“Hey, Morgan!”
