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It was hard enough hearing that AJ had been the agent assigned to follow me, but knowing the FBI was watching me made my skin crawl. I had inadvertently put a target on the back of everyone I had met in the past six months.
He tried to explain. “The Bureau needs you, but given your history they wanted to make sure you’re clean. That there were no connections from your past that might interfere before they tried to bring you in on the team.”
I huffed. “They’re worried about my past? Incredible. They are the ones lying and hiding in the dark.” My comments were directed toward AJ. He was the one who had betrayed me.
“Can you blame them? You hacked the FBI, Syd. They still aren’t over that.”
“I had good reason to do that. They know something about me. About where I came from,” I hissed. “I hacked because I needed that information.”
“Yeah, well you made a lot of enemies that way.”
“I stopped hacking. I don’t do it anymore. I wear a big white hat now, but I guess if you’ve been on my ass for six months you already know that.”
He nodded. “I do. White looks good on you.”
I ignored his shameless attempt to flirt. “But even with everything you know. Everything you observed. It took six months to decide I was trustworthy?” There were layers of anger we hadn’t begun to touch. I knew we didn’t have time to unpack that baggage right now.
“Things took a turn. My assignment changed.”
I peered at him. “What kind of turn?”
“There’s no way to say this without scaring you.”
“We’re on a plane about to go down. I’m past that. What is it?”
“I’m not the only one following you.”
I didn’t like the way he said it. I didn’t like the worry in his eyes. AJ didn’t do that. He didn’t worry. He was too confident. Too self-assured. But I saw it. There was fear when he spoke the words.
“I’m the one trying to protect you, Syd. I’m the only one keeping you safe.”
Chapter Eleven
“What are you talking about?” He was right. He did scare me. “Who? Who is this person?”
“Chicago. Phoenix. Charleston. D.C. There was someone else there wherever you went. We went. He was there too.”
He hadn’t given me substantial information I could use on the dark web to track the plane chatter, but I had a feeling it was coming. The hair on my arm stood up.
“Who? Who was there?” Why didn’t he just tell me?
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Always there. Close, but not close enough that I could ever identify him. He feels like a ghost, but I know he’s not. He’s as real as you and I are.”
“How do you know? What evidence do you have?”
“I don’t have an hour right now to go through six months of weird shit. I know you deserve these answers, but one thing at a time.”
“You can’t tell me because you don’t know.”
I buried my face in my hands. I didn’t have enough time to process everything so quickly. “I don’t understand anything. I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t know why the FBI cares. Who is following me? Why would someone follow me? And you? Why are we on a plane headed to nowhere?” I was on the verge of tears. They were hot and heavy and just on the edge of spilling over.
“Hey, hey.” He took my face in his hands. “Don’t do this now. We’re going to get off this plane. And we’re going to talk all this through. And we’re going to be able to do that because you are the most brilliant hacker I know. Retired, reformed whatever, you know how to do this. You’re going to figure out the threat and how to get a message to the agents on the ground. There is a way through this. I know there is.”
I looked in his eyes. All I could think about was how much I had missed them. How I had tried not to dream about him. How I forced myself to stay away from his picture. How I’d blocked his number in my phone. How the sound of his name broke me every time I heard it.
“Ok, Syd? You’re going to keep going. You can do this. You can save this plane.”
I nodded. “But what aren’t you telling me? Give me something, AJ. If you want me to trust you, give me a reason to.”
