Page 101 of Lethal Weakness

“I want to, but I’m so scared.”

He nods gently, but our faces are so close; his nose traces mine. “I understand.”

Maybe I’m not as scared as I think because right now all I can think about is him kissing me. The distance keeping his lips from mine seems like nothing at all, and when he tilts his head, my eyes flutter in preparation to close… undeterred to receive his affection.

Instead, he takes his hat off, setting it on my head. “This will keep Avery from looking too close. It’s easy to hide behind.”

“So you can stay mysterious?” I guess as he opens my door for me, swallowing my disappointment about the non-kiss.

“So people don’t know you actually care.” He looks at me so openly, and honestly, for the briefest moment, I’m awestruck to be the one he’s sharing his truth with. As if I can see the darkness that used to surround him dissipate the longer he’s around Avery and me.

But when he shuts the door, severing our connection, and returns behind the wheel, his mask of seriousness is back on, reminding me of the man in the mask I swore I’d never be able to figure out.

And that our nightmare isn’t over yet.

* * *

I haven’t been home in years, but I know we’ve been driving north for ages and passing a lot of familiar road signs. He won’t tell me exactly where we’re going because he says it’s safer that way, but I’ve been running with my suspicions.

He could be taking us to Canada. He admitted last night to his ghost team that he already had our passports ready to go, real and fake. At that moment, I didn’t have the time to really dwell on that, but I’ve had plenty of time while we’ve been in this truck.

Just before he takes the interchange that would lead us towards Albany, I feel anxiety twist in my gut. “My parents don’t have the space or money to take us in and deal with my problems,” I tell him bluntly.

My emotions are too raw today to focus on how much that stings.

My life would have probably turned out differently if I had the option to go home. If I wasn’t forced to handle everything on my own.

“I’m not taking you there. That’d be too obvious to anyone looking for you.” He takes the interchange that will take us East, and I stare at him in the rearview mirror. “We have about two more hours.”

I look out the window at the new signs along the highway.

“Boston?” Where he grew up.

His eyes flash to mine. “There’s a place that I know will be safe, and I think you guys will be more comfortable than in some random safe house in the middle of nowhere.”

“I didn’t think you had any connections to your past.”

“This one is a… distant connection. Project Obsidian recruits operators without next of kin for their high-level ops. The danger associated with the job is too risky to have a family waiting for you at home. That’s who you saw in my house, other guys like me. The ones you saw patrolling outside are different. They are qualified in tactics but don’t have the flexibility to disappear on the ops like the full-time operators. They have too many strings to be invisible. So they’re essentially on call, and show up when needed if we’re close by.”

“Disappear?”

“My name isn’t in any database. Jack O’Connor doesn’t exist anywhere besides on my birth certificate, but even that’s buried deep. If anyone runs the plates on this truck, it will come back to Jack Smith. A nobody from nowhere.”

That’s why Jack said he was no one… He really is a ghost.

“Why did you tell me your real name?”

“I slipped up.” He glances at me in the mirror. “The first time in my entire career that’s ever happened… Even when I was a SEAL.”

“You really had no intention of telling me who you really were?”

“Not at that time. Not until it physically hurt to lie to you.”

“The lies that were meant to protect me…”

“Project Obsidian is highly classified because it’s incredibly dangerous, Linden. I was trying to protect you.”

“Project Obsidian,” I ponder that name out loud. It rings no bells, but I guess that’s the point. “How many other Ghosts did they recruit?”