Page 47 of Code Name: Scorpio

Chapter 14

Cassandra was standing in the darkness of rural Texas wearing someone else’s clothes and trying to remember how to breathe normally.

Black shirt, black pants, black boots that were a half size too big because the Rogue supply closet didn’t carry her size. Isaac Baxter stood a few feet away, scanning the tree line with a focus that made her feel simultaneously safer and more aware of how much danger they were actually in.

He hadn’t said much since they’d arrived. He didn’t need to. Everything about him communicated calm proficiency, and Cassandra was borrowing as much of it as she could. She could see why Fallon had fallen in love with the man. He was unflappable.

Nolan, on the other hand, hadn’t stopped talking.

“You know what this reminds me of?” He was leaning against a fence post like they were waiting for a concert to start. “Summer camp. That night activity where they send you into the woods with a flashlight and a buddy and you’re supposed to find your way back.”

“I never went to summer camp,” Cassandra said.

“No? Okay, I can see that. You seem like more of a ‘stayed home and took the family computer apart’ kid.”

He wasn’t wrong. “And put it back together better than it was before.”

“See, that’s the spirit.” Nolan grinned at her. At least she thought he did. It was dark enough that expressions were more suggestion than certainty. “You’re going to be fine. Walk in, do your thing, walk out. Just like summer camp, except the counselors are armed.”

She almost laughed. She wanted to. Her body was doing something between laughing and shaking, and it was taking concentration to keep the two from blending together.

“How long has it been?” she asked.

Isaac checked his watch. “Since the last time you asked? Two minutes.”

Two minutes? It felt like two hours.

Ryder should be meeting them here soon. Isaac and Nolan had already explained that a set time pretty much didn’t exist when you were undercover. Ryder would be here as soon as he could.

She forced down the how long question again.

She’d broken in to bank accounts from her couch. She’d dismantled offshore shell companies in her pajamas. But she had never stood on someone else’s property in the dark, waiting to break in to an actual building with actual armed people inside it.

Her heart was hammering so hard she could feel it in her teeth.

“You okay?” Nolan asked. Not pushing, just checking.

“I’m great. Living the dream. Always wanted to be a spy.”

“Technically, you’re more of a consultant.”

She let out a hysterical huff of air. “Think that will make me any less dead if I’m caught?”

“Eh, you never know. It’s generally frowned upon by criminals everywhere to use the spy bullets on a consultant. Consultant bullets are more like imaginary laser beams.” She caught a glimpse of his grin and felt something in her chest release, just a fraction, just enough to take a full breath.

Nolan was distracting her. Had realized how nervous she truly was so had put on a show. Clever.

But she just wanted this over with.

A shape materialized from the darkness ahead. Cassandra’s whole body went rigid before her brain caught up. Ryder. Moving through the scrub brush without a sound, dressed dark, appearing at the fence line like he’d been part of the landscape until he decided not to be.

He looked different. It had only been a couple days since she’d seen him—since she’d kissed him—but this seemed to be a different man altogether.

This Ryder was someone she hadn’t met. Harder. Quieter. The warmth she’d gotten used to at the compound wasn’t gone exactly, but it had been packed away somewhere she couldn’t reach. She’d known he was undercover. She hadn’t known what that would look like on him, and it startled her in a way she wasn’t prepared for.

His eyes swept Isaac, then Nolan, then landed on her and stayed.

“Hey, princess,” she said. Her voice didn’t come out the way she wanted.