I glanced around. I lay in the midst of flattened trees and stripped bushes. I didn’t see Nash anywhere. If I were dead and in Heaven, wouldn’t Nash be here, too? And my family members who had gone before me? Angels? Harps? Singing and that sort of thing?
I saw none of that. Instead, I saw only Lucy and the semi-flattened woodlands around us. But I could still hear the voice that sounded like Miles calling my name.
I turned my head in the direction of the voice and saw Miles, Cameron, and Gracie racing toward me. Wait. . . Gracie?
I did a double-take. Yes, that was definitely Gracie.
“Oh, thank you, Sweet Jesus!” Gracie said, coming to her knees beside me. “Thank God you’re okay!”
“Where’s Nash?” Cameron asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think he might be dead. Am I dead, too?”
“You’re not dead,” Miles said, “which is an ever-loving miracle, I might add! I swear that if you ever try to pull any more crazy stunts like this ever again, I will kill you myself!”
So I was not dead, but Nash might be. Please, God, no, I prayed. Please don’t let Nash be dead. I just wanted to spend some time with him. Any time—even just one day. There was so much I still wanted to learn about him. So much I still had to tell him. So much of his lips, body, and soul I wanted to explore.
“Find Nash,” I murmured.
“We’ll keep looking,” Cameron said. He stood up and called to some dark shapes in the distance. “Over here!”
Large, looming men jogged towards us. They were dressed all in black except for the letters ‘FBI’ in white across their torsos.
The men in black arrived and began checking my pulse and testing my bones for breaks. For the first time since I regained consciousness, my body began to register pain.
One of them looked up at Cameron and nodded.
“It’s okay,” Cameron told me. “You’re okay.”
It was then I noticed that Cameron was also dressed all in black with the letters FBI across his chest.
I frowned at him. “Wait a minute. Where’d you get that uniform?”
Cameron flashed me a badge.
A tsunami of conflicting feelings washed over me. Relief. Anger. Happiness. Rage.
He bent down to help me to my feet. When I was up, I hugged him. And then I slapped him.
“You are FBI and you let me go in there by myself? All alone? To most likely die?” I punched him in the ribs. “FBI?For real?
So that’s why he was able to kill those thugs in the garage so easily. So that’s why life on the run didn’t seem to bother him. That’s why he could be so cheerful in the face of life-threatening stress. He was trained to handle all of it.
Before I could punch him again, Miles grabbed my arms and restrained me.
“Lay off,” Miles told me. “It was necessary.”
“I’m sorry, Chloe,” Cameron said, “but I’ve been deep undercover for more than five years now, and I was under strict orders not to reveal myself, no matter the cost.
“But why?” I said. “Why the press release and all the sneaking around and stuff? If you’re FBI and you knew you had probable cause, why didn’t you go in and raid the place?”
“This was never meant to be a public operation,” Cameron said. “Can you think why?”
I was so tired and hurt and stunned that I could barely think at all, let alone piece together the secret motives of the FBI.
Cameron saw my blank look. “Certain government officials are aware that our energy policy needs to change. And they’re aware of the need for stricter regulation and a move toward green energy. But these officials, who will remain nameless, are also aware that Big Oil is the richest industry in the world and also one of the biggest campaign contributors. There is hardly anyone in office that is not beholden to PetroPlex in some way, shape, or fashion. If these officials came out publicly against PetroPlex without popular opinion behind them, their careers would be over.”
It all began to make sense to me now. “So instead, they launched a covert operation to expose the dirt and corruption in the industry and spark a public cry of outrage. Then when the country cried out for effective regulation and clean energy, the PetroPlex lobby couldn’t hold them back.”
“Right,” Cameron said.
Wow. I felt like my world view had been rocked. “But if it was so covert, why risk the operation