After I shut the alarm off I press myself against the door, a feeling of defeat trying its best to wash over me, but I square my shoulders and walk off, dropping my bag on a chair as I make my way to the stairs. My feet find the places on the old wooden steps where no boards will creak out of habit and I silently ascend to the upper bedrooms. There are three. I don’t need three, since I am alone, and this makes the place feel empty and cold. A shudder erupts in my body as I walk into the elegantly decorated master bedroom—which I don’t normally sleep in since I’m a paranoid freak—and throw myself face-first on the bed.
Am I stupid?
Yes. I am the dumbest girl alive. I am the biggest fool to ever live. I am naive and gullible in ways I can’t even describe right now. Because I believed that if I worked hard, got good grades, took the path most traveled, every step away from the broken-hearted thirteen-year-old who sat and cried over a broken promise would lead to something else.
Something better. A new life. A new family. A new opportunity.
And where do I find myself now? Not digging up dinosaurs—which is also the foolish dream of a child. Kicked out of the world of the legitimate. Take time off to think about things, that’s what Professor Brown told me. But I can read between the lines just fine, thank you. What she was really saying is, We don’t think this program suits you.
And since digging in the earth to find ancient bones so I could put the puzzle pieces of the past together was the only thing that ever made me feel a part of society at large—well, the words ‘complete devastation’ run through my mind.
Growing up the child of a man who trains shadow government assassins was not a choice I ever got to make. It was my fate. I did not come into this world declaring myself to be a killer. I didn’t teach myself to hold and shoot a gun. To throw knives and shoot arrows. I didn’t drag myself across this country in an RV knowing secrets that certain people might kill for.
My father did that to me.
And while I don’t blame him—he did his best and all that training saved my life over and over again—I fucking hate that this is who I am.
And I have regrets. I have big-time regrets. And I have questions. Like why is this my destiny? Why do I have to live on the outside, forever looking in at all the things I want but can’t have?
This career was obtainable. I felt it. I still feel it. I’m qualified, I’m smart, I’m inquisitive, I’m a hard worker, and I get good grades. I didn’t fuck up anything too big doing my lab work. I made mistakes, like anyone new to the process of discovery. But I had no major missteps.
And a lot of good it did me.
There is something about me. I feel it burning inside me. Something attached to my soul that declares me different.
I don’t want to be different. I want to be same.
I roll over on my back and stare at the ceiling. Ford and Ashleigh did a good job as my parents after my father was killed and my fellow assassins and I fought our way into a tenuous illusion of peace. I traveled and made friends. Obtained a first-class education. Had a few boyfriends even. Nothing serious. And not because of Nick.
I was making progress in the love department. Steady progress. I had dates to dances in high school. One serious boyfriend freshman year of undergrad. Three one-night stands the rest of college.
All that came to an abrupt end in my senior year when I was abducted by a sick man looking for revenge over an old debt that wasn’t even mine. He did not rape me. It could’ve been so much worse than it was. I know that. But it affected me. It shut me down. Not right away. I put on that fake face I had practiced over and over again while I was adjusting to living the life of a normal girl. I went back to school after I was saved by my assassin friend, Merc. I finished up school in Colorado and moved here to this very house.
Merc and I never told Ford and Ashleigh anything about the abduction. Ford is a security freak and it was his idea to take most of the precautions. But once they left to go home—Ford holding me tighter that day than any other time in my life—I called James and everything just spilled out. He flew in specialists to fortify the house. He brought me guns and ammo. He even brought me some Kevlar clothing made special by a friend in Central America.
I insisted I wasn’t scared. The man who wanted to hurt me was dead. And I really wasn’t scared. I was terrified.
That realization was enough to rock my whole world, because I was always the fearless one. I was the one with all the answers. I was the one who would do the job no matter the consequences. And even though this thought I had today walking home with the FBI agent has been in the back of my head since that abduction—right now is the first time I will admit to it.
I am weak. I am small. I am a girl. Worse than a girl. I am a Company girl. And I have pushed all my fucked-up moments away into a place that hides the truth in order to protect this fragile part of me that lingers. The part of me that knows I will never be OK. I will never get over the things I have seen, the acts I have committed, and the violence I am part of.
I am damaged.
Terrified and damaged.
I swallow hard as I turn over on my back and stare up at the ceiling. The only thing holding my illusion together was school. My objective. Get that PhD and slip into a world of isolated academia. A world of digging in the earth searching for clues to the past. A world where only the joy of discovery matters. A world where I was no longer Sasha Cherlin, the child who can kill. I was Sasha Aston, the woman who clung hard to the only innocent thing about her upbringing.
A love of dinosaurs.
My father fostered that love like my life depended on it. He took me to museums and places here in the West where bones were found, tracks were still visible, and all the unanswered questions were about what these ancient creatures ate, how they raised their young, and lived out their days until the final blow that wiped them off the face of the earth.
And maybe he knew? Maybe he knew all those years ago that I needed this innocent hobby to get me past the person I truly was? To blind me to the facts and make me forget that I was born a Company girl.
I will not cry about the end of this life. I will not.
I have ended my life before. I can pick up and move on. I can even find another, more suitable, program to join and continue the illusion that I am normal.
I could.
But I know I won’t.
Because Nick Tate still holds me captive. His broken promise still hurts. The way he pushed me aside that last night I saw him still stings my heart. The scream that came out of my mouth as I was led down the dock to a waiting boat by James and delivered into the hands of Merc.
I watched Nick fade that night. But he never disappeared for me. As much as I tried to say he did, even after Agent Jax told me Nick was looking for me, it’s just not possible to forget the person you were meant to marry and spend the rest of your life with.
And I wonder, and have wondered all this time, if being a Company girl would’ve been so bad if I’d been with Nick.
It’s a frightening thought. Especially after seeing first-hand what they did to the girls who were not raised by my father. The ones not raised and loved by the Admiral, like Harper was. His little princess was spared the brunt of the consequences, just like me.
But the child assassin fate was tempered by the fact that my destiny was Nicholas Tate.
And yet it wasn’t.
It’s so wrong to wish for the life I never had. It’s wrong. Because so many people put their lives on the line to give me this second chance. They made sacrifices for me.
I am filled with shame because if Nick had offered his hand that night when I was thirteen and kept his promise to make me his, I would’ve said yes. I would’ve walked away from all the friends and family who love me so much, and they would be the ones left behind instead of me.
I would take Nick’s hand. I would gladly take his hand and disappear into a life of crime and uncertainty. Death and lies.
Shame on you, Sasha.
Yes. Shame on me for wanting my only chance at true love.
“Yeah,” I say to the ceiling. “I should feel so much shame because my future was stolen from me.” It’s ridiculous and it maddens me that every one of my old friends from the Company days got their happy ending. It infuriates me. It makes my whole body rage with heat that I must suppress my dreams to make things right.
Why? That’s my only lingering question. “Why did you leave me, Nick Tate? Why was everyone allowed to determine what was best for me back then except me? Why am I stuck here, on the edge of fulfillment, while you live the life you chose? Why am I not allowed to make my own choices?”
And most importantly, why are you looking for me again?
I don’t think it’s because I’m in danger. Nick would not contact me, of all people, if that was the case. He’d call James or Merc. They’d leave me out of everything, like they always do. They’d gather their guns and ammo. Call up old favors. Turn back into the dangerous and insane men they used to be.
They’d take care of things and I’d probably never know about it.
So why is Nick looking for me?
I’ve tried to put it out of my mind since Agent Jax corralled me into that interrogation room at the airport last summer. I came home and went back to my studies. Went through the motions of work and pretended that this was the life I chose for myself.
But it was all a lie.
Nick. Nick. Nick. The name reverberates in my head every moment of every day. Hidden. Secret. But still there, no matter how many times I try to deny it.
“You’re mad, Sasha.”
I am mad. In every sense of the word. I’m furious and insane.
“Call home.”
My words startle me for a moment. Enough that I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone and dial the number.
“Aston residence,” Five says on the second ring.
“It’s me, Five.” I can almost feel him smile. “Is Mom there?”
“Sasha,” he breathes in that all-knowing way, unnatural for a ten-year-old. “Did you know that we are leaving for New Zealand tomorrow?”
“What? Since when? I thought you were all going to look at colleges?”
“Since Ford—”
“You mean Dad.” Ford hates it when Five calls him by his name.
“Whatever. He got a call to shoot a new pilot show.”
“Oh, well, that’s great, I guess.”
“Great? Great? No, it’s not great. Sparrow Flynn’s birthday is tomorrow and Princess Shrike tells me they are having a party. I was not invited to this party, Sasha. And now my plans to crash it are ruined.”
“Why the hell would you want to go to an eight-year-old girl’s birthday party?”
“The Princess will be dressed up like a biker, Sasha. It’s a biker theme and I have purchased her a leather jacket for the occasion. I wanted to be there to see the joy on her face when…”
I tune him out as I think about what the fuck is going on at home. Princess Shrike’s father—her real name is Rory, only Five calls her Princess—is world-famous custom bike builder Spencer Shrike. So this only makes sense in that context. And I don’t even bother asking how he got his hands on a leather jacket fit for a nine-year-old. This is Five we’re talking about. “I got nothing for that, Five. Can you get Mom?”
“How would you like to hear my proposal for my newest invention? I’m seeking early investors for my new technology app. I project that if a prototype can be developed in the next twelve months, we can go public in two years.”
“Five,” I say patiently. He’s had a dozen of these ventures over the past few years. “You’re ten years old. I’m not investing in your gaming apps.”
“It’s not a game this time, Sasha. It’s an app that will change death as we know it.”
“Morbid,” I reply. “Get Mom.”
“Morbidity has nothing to do with it. People will pay for years to have what I’m developing right now. A subscription that will last until infinity.”
“Five, I need to talk to Mom now.” I sigh into the phone and he stops his protest.
“You’re upset,” he says in that unaffected way he has. A tone he’s perfected to make people believe he’s never emotional, only objective. My little brother is a freak of a genius, just like Ford. He speaks six languages and he’s well on his way to a seventh—Icelandic, of all things—and could probably have passed my orals today without a glance at the topic beforehand. They’ve been trying to get him into summer college programs for two years, but he’s afflicted with the most overpowering of emotions, and has been since he was four.
Love.
I almost snort into the phone thinking about it.
He loves Princess Rory Shrike. The name alone makes me smile, makes me happy that I called home to talk to my mom about this new development in my long career of developments.
“I can tell you are crinkling your nose at this very moment.”
“I’m gonna hang up and call Dad and tell him you’re looking for investors again if you don’t call for Mom right now.”
“Fine.” he huffs. “Mom!” he screams. “Your eldest is on the phone with disappointing news.”
Neither him, nor Kate, my little sister, are my real siblings, obviously. But Kate was one and Five was newborn when I came to live with Ford and Ashleigh. So it was just easier to become one of the kids. Of course, they know who I really am. We are not a family of liars. But I like calling Ash Mom and Ford Dad. Even if the kids aren’t around.
The phone makes some muffled noises and then Ashleigh is there, a little out of breath.
“Hey,” she says. “How did the orals go?”
I can hear excitement in her voice and all the questions I had a few moments ago are replaced with regret. She’s smart too. Not a genius like Ford, but she’s got her master’s degree in psychology and has a private practice that specializes in treating children with autism-related disorders. She’s always encouraged me to follow my dream of digging up old bones and she’s been my biggest cheerleader from the moment I walked into their house and she became the mother of a teenager at the young age of twenty-four.
I can’t bear to tell her the truth, so even though we are not a family of liars, I lie. “Awesome,” I say through my fake smile. “I passed easily.”
“And the internship?” She’s still breathless, like she’s got all her fingers and toes crossed that I get the one that went to Mike. The one I’ve been talking about for months. “Did you get the one you wanted?”
I can’t lie that much. Maybe I can still go back to the program. Give it a few weeks of soul-searching and figure out where I went wrong in my lack of enthusiasm for anthropology. I could still get back in. But that internship is gone. “No,” I say with genuine disappointment. “I didn’t. Mike did. Mine is still up in the air, but I’m OK with it. He really deserved it.”
“Aww, I’m sorry, Sasha. But you’ll get something great, I just know it.” Her brightness comes back when I agree, and then we talk for several more minutes about Ford’s new show and their Christmas plans. I tell another little lie and say I’m going home with friends.
She accepts that easily. I used to have friends. She has no clue I’ve gotten so antisocial since I moved here. Of course, that’s because she has no idea about the abduction that spurred my melancholy in the first place.
I hang up with a false laugh and promises to come home and see them in the spring when things settle down.
I throw my phone on the bed feeling dirty for lying, as well as ashamed for being ungrateful for the full life I have. The sadness threatens to overtake me, so I get up and go run the water for a bath.
The tears are coming. Today was just too much, and I only allow myself to cry in the tub. I have done this for years. I lock myself away from the world, dip my whole body under the water, and let the tears flow undetected. It feeds my illusion that not a single tear has touched my face since I walked out of that hotel room for the last time. The hotel room where Nick left me but promised to come back. The hotel room where James explained the facts of life.
Not sex.
Loss.
Loss is a fact of life. And he pounded that home good and hard.
But I remember when the dream was fresh. The day Nick walked into my life and promised me the world. Promised me a future filled with his smiling face. Promised me a life with him by my side.
I take off my clothes and step into the tub, waiting for the hot water to pour out of the tap in a waterfall that drowns out the reality outside my house.
My tears are falling for his broken promises the moment I slip under.