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A man emerges from the forest. The same man from the road, dressed in black and carrying his pistol the way I’ve seen the Secret Service do. His eyes glide left and right before he moves to Henry’s side.
“Did you bring everything?” Henry asks.
“Yeah.” The man sheds a backpack at Henry’s feet.
Stewart groans. He turns his head—
The man in black squats and fires through the window at him. The bullet punches into Stewart’s side, traveling through his body before embedding in the door.
Stewart sags with a long, fading sigh, and he doesn’t breathe again.
“Motherfucker!” Henry grabs the man by the front of his dark shirt and throws him against the SUV. Their legs dance in front of my cracked window. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“He was still alive!”
“I didn’t tell you to fucking shoot, did I?” Henry hisses. The man is silent. “Did I?”
I hear my heartbeat for a full three seconds as the two men square off. I’m frozen, like an animal caught in a predator’s stare. What am I hearing? What am I seeing? Nothing makes sense. I’ve hit my head. I must be delusional. Or I’m unconscious and this all really is a nightmare.
Henry throws the man in black to the ground. He hits face-first, choking on dirt before he flips onto his back. “Hey—”
Three bullets slam into his chest. He flails with each impact, then goes terribly still.
Reality jerks forward in fits and starts. Henry curses. He grabs the dead man’s backpack and riffles through it. Pulls out a change of clothes and sheds his suit. Dresses all in black and then throws his suit into the front of the SUV. It’s been maybe a minute since we crashed.
I try to scramble away when Henry punches through my broken window, and I manage to throw an uncoordinated fist at his face at the same time I fumble with my seat belt.
Henry grabs my fist in one of his and twists. My bones grind and then snap, snap, snap.
I should scream. I should draw attention to this. I’ve been told to keep quiet and let the Secret Service save me if the worst should happen, but the worst is happening and they aren’t going to save me.
Henry is going to kill me.
He gets a hand around my neck before he undoes my seat belt. I fall in a tangle of arms and limbs, backward and upside down. Pain flares from my mangled hand, my ribs, my head. I can’t tell which way is up. All I can see are Stewart’s sightless eyes and a pool of blood dripping onto the dashboard and the roof.
Henry drags me by my throat through the shattered window, and I end up facedown in the dirt. The man in black lies a foot in front of me, motionless.
This is the end. I’m going to be executed by a man I trusted with my life.
There’s a traitor in your inner circle.
It wasn’t Valerie Shannon or Patrick Marshall or Dean McClintock. Or any of my cabinet.
We’re often closer than your shadow—and we have to be, to do our jobs.
I never thought it. Never even considered it. Never imagined one of my protectors could turn so fully against me.
“Why?” I choke out. “Henry, why—”
“Shut up,” he grunts. His knee lands on the center of my back, heaving the breath from me. My lips move like I’m a fish out of water. Henry slams my face into the ground. Dirt fills my mouth, slides down my throat. He’s going to suffocate me. He’s going to—
A needle stabs me in the neck. Ice floods my veins, spreading into my chest and down deep in my lungs. “We’ve got a long way to go,” Henry says, “and I need you to stay quiet, Mr. President.”
I roar, finally, shouting into the dirt as I try to fight him off, this man who I thought was larger than life, who I imagined as an American hero, who I was proud to have at my side. Now he’s going to kill me, and as my lungs seize and my heart races and my vision goes dark, the thing I regret most is that I never asked Reese to marry me.
Reese, I love you. I love you so—
