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One
Betty
Igrip the arms of my backpack and heave myself up the slope, lungs burning. On my left side, the jungle bristles with life, with bird cries and monkey screams bouncing through the trees. Where the slope falls away on my right, molten rock creeps across an ashy lava field, moving at a slow walking pace.
The air up here is hot enough to cook my eyelashes. I’m frying.
Adjusting my grip on the backpack, I cough to clear my parched throat. In the distance, lava drips over the sea cliff into the water, steam hissing into the blue sky.
“Um, is anybody listening? Come—come in?”
The wire they put on me tickles my sweaty skin, threaded beneath my tank top. It’s a constant reminder that they’re listening. Listening, watching, wondering whether I’m useful after all. And probably whether they should bother bringing me home, because I know too much now, right?
When my earpiece buzzes to life, I get a tiny electric shock. “What is it, Miss Hale?”
The man I only know asEchosounds bored. Tired of my shit.
Well, I’ve spent the last three days tramping around this godforsaken island all alone with no company but his cranky voice, so the feeling is mutual, buddy.
“He’s definitely here? Somewhere near the lava?”
A pause, then a long sigh crackles in my ear. “That is our current best guess, Miss Hale. Agent Dawes is… elusive.”
He’s telling me.
“It’s hot,” I say, plucking the front of my tank top away from my stomach. White was a mistake. The fabric is mottled with yellow sweat stains after searching all morning, and streaked with god knows what from my hike through the jungle. Gross. “It’s really hot up here, Echo.”
“It’s lava,” he says, tone flat. “Of course it is.”
Lava.From a volcano. The one that rises up in the distance, red-hot rivulets streaking down its sides. Huge clouds of black smoke belch into the air from its peak, and I keep freaking myself out thinking that the ground is shaking. That it’s gonna erupt properly any minute, showering me in hot rock and choking ash.
This cannot be how I die. On a tropical island in the middle of the ocean—one that doesn’t even exist on most maps. Dressed in army-issue boots and camouflage pants, with bug spray and sunscreen slathered an inch thick on my bare arms, when at this time on a Tuesday Ishouldbe checking the stock of paper cups in the cafe.
What am I doing here?
Is this a fever dream?
I pinch myself for the hundredth time since all this weirdness started. Nope, definitely awake. Awake, and pinned between a deadly jungle on one side and a lava field on the other, hunting a man who could snap me in two with his bare hands.
Agent Dawes.
Despite the heat, I fight a shiver.
“What if he doesn’t want to be found?” Shading my eyes, I peer between the trees. Though the sun blazes high overhead, the shadows are thick between the giant leaves, like the light can’t penetrate. He could be watching me right this second, and I’d have no clue.
“That is whyyouare here.”
I lick my lips. My sweat is salty. “As bait.”
“Correct. And when you bring Agent Dawes back to us, you will be rewarded for your trouble.”
Ha. Whatever. I’m not doing this for money, and Echo knows that firsthand—turns out it’s really hard to refuse a bunch of armed agents who turn up at your studio apartment in the middle of the night. One look at the curved knives strapped to their thighs and I couldn’t offer them enough snacks, couldn’t be more polite, bustling back and forth in my crop top and ratty old sweatpants.Would anybody like a coffee? I have decaf!
Little idiot. I cringe thinking of myself three days ago, but then, what else was I supposed to do? Slam the door on a bunch of secret agents? As if that would work.
“Climb higher,” Echo orders, his voice clipped in my ear. “You’re barely halfway up the slope.”
“I’m catching,” I grind out, stomping my way up the bare rock, “my freaking breath. I don’t hearyouworking up a sweat, mister.”
