stop scoping the area when Leesa sings, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
My teeth grit when she fires at the shard of glass I was using to survey the area a few minutes later, annoyed by my lack of response. I’m not surprised she spotted my snoop, she was trained by the best. I’m just frustrated she’s only using part of the skills Tobias taught her. His training goes beyond weaponry, tactical response, and combat drills. He coaches you to be a better person, and prepares you for the cruelness that generally comes with that. He taught me it’s okay to forgive as long as I don’t forget, and how dying with morals will forever outrank dying without them.
With that in mind, I press my trigger until it’s halfway cocked, then chance a glance around the corner of the hidey-hole where I am staked out. I’m barely half an inch out when Leesa fires one shot at my head. She missed on purpose, but that isn’t the point. The fact she thinks she can scare me irritates me more than the knife wound I spotted in Tobias’s neck during my quick peek. The amount of blood pooling between his fingers reveals he was most likely stabbed in the carotid artery. If that’s the case, he has one to three minutes before he bleeds out, and that’s assuming he’s only just been stabbed.
“Ahh… so there’s a little bit of bad hiding in that boyish persona of yours.” Leesa snickers with a laugh when I lodge three feet of air between the closest solid barrier and me.
I’m a sitting duck.
Well, so she thinks.
“Drop it.”
I shake my head. “That might work in the movies, Leesa, but this is real life. The only way you’re leaving this compound is by conceding or death.”
She smiles before gesturing for the men I see hiding in the shadows to move forward. I’m not surprised to discover one of them is Paavo. His weapon of choice is more fitting than the men flanking him. He’s holding a lupara, otherwise known as a sawn-off shotgun for English-speaking folks.
“Just shoot him and be done with it. I’m bored,” Paavo whines like a child.
When Leesa hesitates for the quickest second, I use her delay to my advantage. Even the strongest couple crumbles when infidelity is placed on the line. My once-blossoming relationship with Melody is living proof of this. We haven’t spoken in years.
Paavo balks exactly as planned when I murmur, “She can’t. The memories we share are too strong for her to forget.”
Like a child fighting for his favorite toy, Paavo falls into the trap I laid out for him. “What memories? What is he talking about?”
I steal Leesa’s chance to reply by asking, “Does he know about the little freckle high on your thigh?” I have no clue about any of Leesa’s freckles, but even someone with flawless skin has some sort of imperfection. However, men like Paavo don’t seek them out like I do, so he is as blindsided by my comment as Leesa. “It sits just below the tattoo you got two weeks after your mother died of cancer.”
This part of my comment is factual. Tobias ranks applicants on their academic accomplishments and word of their peers. I look at their pasts. Almost every single man and woman in the Bureau are there for a reason other than the wish to protect their country. They’re either running, have run, or will run at some stage in their lives. Leesa fills more than one box. She’s running from both her past and her present, and she’ll be running in her future too. I guarantee it.
“Made you look like the ideal daughter, didn’t it? But only you and I know the real reason you got that tattoo.” When I peer down to her right thigh, Leesa’s breaths become shallow and weak. “It wasn’t in memory of your mother, it was a reminder of how you swore you’d never end up like her. That you’d be a moral and upstanding member of society. That you wouldn’t be this.” I throw a head nod to Paavo during my last statement. “You’re a fraud, Leesa. You are exactly like your mother.” A solemn tear rolls down her cheeks when I add, “A whore for sale no matter how low the bid.”
With Leesa’s eyes on me, wide and terrified, and Grayson in position, I make my move. Paavo is fired on first. I take him down with a direct hit to the