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“Bailey?” Blake’s voice snapped me out of my daydream. I couldn’t help but imagine her in the club, looking for Bailey but finding no one. Or maybe she had waited this long because she too forgot about her presence and only remembered when she hadn’t shown up for their scheduled time.
The thought made me unreasonably giddy.
The background was quiet, save for the low music. It was already past twelve in the morning, and according to Blake’s schedule, she should be leaving soon. Most of the club was probably leaving as well, trying to keep up the mask they put on for the real world. Many had jobs that required their presence, so most of the time they left around midnight, giving Blake the quiet she needed to call her girlfriend.
Or was it fuck buddy?
“Are you doing this on purpose?” she asked. “I know you’re mad and you don’t like that I’m performing, but maybe we can talk more about this? Bailey? Are you there?”
She stayed on for a few more moments before sighing and hanging up.
I threw the phone to the ground, making a mental note to dispose of it the next time I was on a job.
One roadblock down, one more to go.
“Oh little agent, I can’t wait until you find out what happened to her,” I said, a giggle rising in my chest.
Quinn
“Are you saying this job is too much for you?” Rolf’s gruff voice came from the other line.
I placed the phone between my ear and shoulder so I could hoist up the sniper rifle and peer through the scope. My body was aching from a few nights ago, when I had cornered Blake’s plaything. She fought back hard. Harder than I imagined she would.
But just like always, I listened to my training and with the help of the clean-up crew, I was out of there without a soul even noticing.
The wind was light that night, but it caused a slight chill to go through me. I had to ditch my normal all-black uniform for something a little less suspicious. Though a hoodie, ball cap, and jeans were great for a late walk at night, the gun in my hands said something entirely different.
From my vantage point, I could just make out the small corner of Blake’s small living room, but not much else. The warm glow of the light in her apartment shone in the darkness and acted like a beacon for all those currently watching her.
She had been walking back and forth from her bedroom to the living room in different outfits for about forty minutes. Some of them I had seen before. A tight-fitting tank top with leather pants. A loose blouse with jeans. All of them looked perfectly fine, but each time she would stand in front of the mirror, she would frown, twist around, then go straight back to her room.
Blake was getting ready for something.
My guess is that it was the club. It was the only place she went at this time of night. All while not knowing that her plaything’s body was currently decomposing in a forest not far from the club.
At the thirty-minute mark, I called Rolf, only for him to turn it into some type of lecture.
“I’msayingthat it’s suspicious,” I growled. “The guards she has on her are insane. She’ssupposedto be the calvary, but somehow she seems to have more people around her than the senator himself.”
There was a noise to my right. Alarm bells rang in my head, and I whipped the gun over toward the sound. The rest of the rooftop was empty but the one just across from me suddenly had two birds on it. Their squawks caused a dull headache to start behind my eyes.
How long was I supposed to wear myself so thin? How long would I force myself to take job after job?
More importantly,how much longer would I let Rolf push me?
“She’s a target for a reason, 7739.” I cringed at the use of my agent code. I didn’t like it when he used it after all these years. He did it when he wanted to remind me of my place in the organization, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt.
It put a wedge between us that was hard to shake, and I would be lying if I said my first instinct wasn’t to try and smooth over whatever caused the gap in the first place.
“I haven’t been able to get close outside of the club,” I said, scanning the area where I knew the agents were hiding.
Many stayed within a few blocks of her apartment but there was one that was further from the rest. Instead of watching his back, he never once let Blake out of his sight.
Meaning that whatever he was doing with Blake, wasfarmore important than his own life.
“Listen, these agents, they are treating her like a threat, and if I’m in danger, you need to tell—”
Rolf let out a bark of laughter. Shock and anger mixed violently in my system. My hands gripped the gun so tight the squeak of my gloves could be heard through the silent night air.
