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Lila breaks away to yank her shirt over her head, and throws it onto the floor. Her bra is blue and covered in lace butterflies. Then she comes back into my arms again, her lips opening, her skin impossibly soft and warm. When I run my bare hands over it, her body arches against me.
She starts to unbuckle my belt with fumbling fingers.
“Are you sure?” I say, pulling away.
In answer she steps back, reaches around, and unclasps her bra, tosses it in the direction of her shirt.
“Lila,” I say helplessly.
“Cassel, if you make me talk about this, I will kill you. I will literally kill you. I will strangle you with your own tie.”
“I think that tie’s downstairs,” I say, fighting to remember why in the world I wanted to talk as she comes forward to kiss me again. Her fingers thread through my hair, tugging my mouth down to hers.
A few short steps and we sprawl backward onto the bed, knocking pillows to the floor.
“Do you have anything?” She’s speaking against my shoulder, her bare chest against mine. I shudder with each word and force myself to focus.
It still takes me a moment to realize what she means. “In my wallet.”
“You know I haven’t done this a lot.” There’s a tremble in her voice, as if she’s suddenly nervous. “Like, once before.”
“We can stop,” I say, stilling my hands. I take an unsteady breath. “We should—”
“If you stop,” she says, “I will also kill you.”
So we don’t.
13
I WAKE UP WITH SUNLIGHT streaming in through the dirty windowpane. I reach out my bare fingers, expecting them to brush warm skin, but they close on a tangle of bedsheets instead. She’s already gone.
I didn’t stop loving you, Cassel.
My skin is alive with the memory of her hands. I stretch, bones all down my spine popping languorously. My head feels clearer than I can ever remember.
I grin up at the cracked plaster of my ceiling and picture her creeping out of the room while I’m sleeping, hesitating to kiss me good-bye, not leaving a note or any other normal-person thing. Of course not. She wouldn’t want to seem sentimental. She’d dress in the bathroom and splash water on her face. Carry her boots and run across the lawn in stocking feet. Sneak back into that fancy penthouse apartment before her criminal mastermind of a father could realize that his daughter spent the night at a boy’s house. At my house.
I can’t stop grinning.
She loves me.
I guess I can die happy.
I head into my parents’ room and dig around, find a beat-up leather duffel bag into which I stuff a couple of T-shirts and my least favorite pair of jeans. No point in packing anything I like, since I have no idea where Yulikova is taking me or whether I’ll ever see any of this stuff again. I stash my wallet and identification under my mattress.
My objectives are simple—figure out if Yulikova’s going to double-cross me, do the job so Patton can’t hurt my mother, and come home.
After that I guess we’ll see. I didn’t sign any papers, so I’m not an official member of the LMD. I can still get out if I want. At least I think I can. This is the federal government we’re talking about, not some crime family with blood oaths and slashed throats.
Of course, even if I’m not an agent, I’ll still have to deal with everyone else who’s looking for someone with my particular talents.
I imagine for a moment being on my own after high school, living in New York, waiting tables and meeting Lila for espressos late at night. No one would need to know what I am. No one would need to know what I can do. We’d go back to my tiny apartment, drink cheap wine, watch black-and-white movies, and complain about our jobs. She could tell me about gang wars and all the new things that fell off trucks, and I could—
I shake my head at myself.
Before I get too involved in fantasies about an impossible future, I better show up for detention. Otherwise I’m not even going to graduate from Wallingford.
Glancing at the clock on my phone, I see that I have about a half hour. That gives me time to go back to my dorm, pick up Sam, and figure out what we’re going to say on Mina’s behalf. Barely enough time, but still.
