and we headed into the underground parking garage.
It wasn’t until we were safely inside the house that any of us spoke again.
“Hey! That was a late study session.” Ethan flashed me his dimples, meandering out of the living room in sweats. He gave me a quick peck on the lips, then paused, his smile faltering.
Josh appeared in the doorway, also in sweats and a band T-shirt. “What happened?”
He rushed over and gave me a kiss too, holding on to my hand.
Alec was the first to speak, but he didn’t answer their questions; he just posed another one.
“What the fuck was that in there?” He looked between Tyler and me, his mouth set in a firm line but his eyes full of fear.
“We have a lot to discuss, but I think we should do it on the plane.” Tyler ran his hands through his messy hair—a sure sign of stress.
“Plane?” I asked. Josh, Ethan, and I all turned confused looks on him. “What plane? Didn’t you just set a meeting with Stacey?”
“We couldn’t risk anyone getting suspicious,” Alec answered for him.
“You all know there’s a mole in Melior Group.” Tyler sighed. “Well, considering tonight’s events, things are worse than we thought.”
“How?” Josh kept his questions simple and to the point.
“We had agents disobeying direct orders. Some are outright siding with Davis. There’s a faction within the organization that believes we should align with him—that his goals for Variants are in line with Melior Group’s. It’s a load of shit, but it goes as high as management. We can’t trust Melior Group anymore. We have to go dark,” Tyler explained.
“Dark? What does that mean?” I thought I was being somewhat dramatic when I said nowhere was safe anymore, but it looked as if I was more right than I thought.
“We’re gonna run.” Alec took my other hand and gave me a sad smile.
“We were planning a trip to Japan anyway.” Tyler shrugged. “We just have to move it up from next week to, well, right now. And we’ll have to take a roundabout way to get there.”
“Get packing, you three,” Alec barked.
Instead of obeying, Ethan crossed his arms over his big chest. “Is someone going to tell us what the fuck happened?”
Alec’s eyes narrowed, but I stepped between them. “I’ll fill them in while they pack. My go-bag is ready anyway.”
“Of course it is.” Alec chuckled darkly as I led the way up the stairs. It felt good to have a task, something to keep my mind off the dark thoughts threatening to creep back in at any moment.
I gave the guys the abridged version of the evening’s events, sticking to the facts and leaving out my insidious thoughts. After several bone-crushing hugs and my repeated assurances that I was fine—something I wasn’t entirely convinced of myself—they reluctantly left my side to go pack.
I rushed through a quick shower, washing off the heat of the day and the mess of the evening. Meticulously and precisely, I tied my damp hair back, dressed in simple dark clothing, and grabbed my go-bag from the bottom of my wardrobe. I didn’t give myself time to slow down and think. Our best chance to get away undetected would be under the cover of darkness, and we had to hurry.
I rushed downstairs, worried I was holding everyone up because of my shower, but I still beat Ethan and Josh. They came jogging down the stairs just as I reached the bottom.
Once we’d all converged in the foyer, I unzipped the front pocket of my backpack and handed each of them a new passport with a new identity.
“Oh, right.” Ethan took his wallet out of his pocket, stared at it as if he didn’t know what it was for a second, then dropped it onto the side table.
“Jonathon MacLaine?” Alec scoffed, but his eyes danced with amusement.
I gave him a smile and shrugged. I’d toyed with the idea of giving them all action hero–adjacent names but decided against it. This was serious, and I took it seriously. Unfortunately, Alec’s Die Hard identity was already created by the time I came to that conclusion.
“These are really good, Eve. Thank you.” Josh tucked his new passport into his pocket just as Lucian came rolling out of his wing.
“OK, you’re all set.” He came to a stop before us. “The more stops you make, the better, but you’re leaving at night and when no one expects it, so that’ll help. Evelyn, do you have those new passports you’ve been working on?”