Codename: Nightshade (Deadly Seven Strike Force) (25 page)

Nick isn’t alive.

“He hasn’t aged a day,” Claymore says. “It can’t be him, aye?”

He looks to me, and I’m still shaking my head.

“Hey,” Claymore says, walking over to me. He puts his hands on my shoulders. “You did good. You didn’t die. We’ll figure this out. Aye?”

“Yeah,” I say, not fully believing myself. Claymore sees Nikolai in that face, too. That might mean I’m not crazy, or it could mean he’s about to end up like the rest of us. “I’m only alive because you shot him. Just like Countess did at the hospital.”

“Hesitation is normal when it’s someone you know,” he recites. “That’s why they gave him that face. I wouldn’t have fired so easily if I hadn’t been worried about you getting hurt.”

“Thanks.”

He slaps my arm to say 'don’t mention it' and turns back to the prisoner on the floor. “Where did she shoot him?”

“Right shoulder.”

He inspects the area, finding a hole in his shirt. “Son of a bitch.”

“What?”

“He’s got a tear in the front,” he says, moving his hand to the back of his shoulder, “and the back of his shirt, but there's not even a scratch on his skin.”

“How’s that possible?” I ask, stepping to them and surveying the damage myself. If he had been wearing protective armor, the bullet wouldn’t have exited the back of his shirt. Furthermore, I saw the blood. Even if the bullet just nicked him, it hasn’t been long enough for him to heal completely. I poke my finger through the hole in the front, feeling his smooth skin underneath.

My fingertip tingles.

I snatch my hand back. “That’s not possible.” I still feel every tear, stitch, bruise, and break in my body right now. “Unless he can magically heal overnight…”

We jump back as he wakes with a startled roar. He snaps his teeth at us, kicking his legs until we’re both far enough away that he can’t reach us.

“Bloody hell,” Claymore says. “That dart should have knocked him out for a good six hours.”

It hasn’t even been six minutes.

“Okay,” I say with a decisive nod. “He has magical healing abilities.”

“You make it sound like he’s a goddamn X-man.”

“Well…what else could explain that?”

“His metabolism is probably working at a faster rate than normal.”

Prizrak
snarls, yanking on his restraints.

“Who are you?” I ask him again.

He blinks as if he didn’t hear me, staring straight ahead. His lips are a hard line sealed shut.

“Hey!” Claymore kicks his boot. “The lady asked you a question. Who are you?”

Prizrak
growls… literally growls, like a beast… but he says nothing.

His eyes scan the room before landing on me. He stares so hard it's unnerving. No one since Nikolai has ever looked at me like that. I can only stare back.

Seconds pass with no one saying or doing anything but staring.

Finally
Prizrak
tilts his head and whispers, “
Poppy
.”

I look away just as Claymore turns to me. “Should I leave you two alone?”

“It’s not him,” I say, though who I’m trying to convince more, I can’t say.

“It looks like a duck, it’s quacking like a duck,” Claymore says. “Maybe you can turn it into a Swan Song or something if you're alone.”

I’m nervous all of a sudden. “Interrogation is your thing, not mine.”

“No time like the present to learn,” Claymore says, slapping my back before heading for the door. “I’ll keep watch on the perimeter. If he found us, damn well bet we need to get moving soon.”

I agree. This guy isn’t an agent. He’s a weapon. He’s unleashed on his target but he’s not operating on his own. His team won’t be too far behind.

I press my back to the door once we’re alone. He’s still watching me, blinking only when his eyes force him to. I feel like I’m back in the police station. I’m seventeen again, and Nikolai is just some guy who probably spells trouble for me.

“Let me guess,” I say, unable to keep from rambling. “They found you somewhere… prison, maybe. They stripped your mind and gave you a new face. They taught you how to be as close to him as possible, and now they send you in to kill us when our number’s up.”

It’s a solid theory, really. The Deadly Seven are in the business of fucking with people’s minds until we end their lives. The only way to kill us is to return the favor. Although, it doesn’t really hold up with Countess, considering she never knew Nikolai.

He tilts his head. I wish he’d stop doing that. He looks like a damn lost puppy when he does that.

“
Poppy
,” he says.

Anger flares with a burst of acid in my stomach. “How do you know about that? No one knows about that.”

He shakes his head, turning away.

“No.” He’s not going to shut me out like that. I crawl onto the bed, grabbing a rifle shell. I’m in his face, shoving the shell so close it nearly pokes him in the eye. “How do you know what this? What it means to me and him.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes tell me the truth. He recognizes it, just like he recognizes me.

“That’s not possible,” I say. “He’s the only other person who ever knew. I never told anyone who gave these to me.”

“Codename: Nightshade,” he says, his eyes roaming the lines of my face. “Primary target.”

“No.” I can’t believe it. No one knows my face. No one knows my identity except for my team members and the council. "This isn't right."

“Codename: Nightshade,” he repeats. He’s not paying attention to me. He’s a broken record, trying to get back on track.

“No,” I say, grabbing the front of his shirt. “How do you know these things? Who told you?”

I shove him against the bed, and he just keeps repeating my codename.
Nightshade
.

I unlock him from the handcuffs and attempt to drag him to the bathroom. He’s big and heavy. He’s not putting up a fight, whatever loop his mind is caught in has neutralized that for the moment, but it takes me damn near ten minutes to get his ass into the bathroom where the shower is still running. It takes more muscle to pull him into the tub. Once he’s in, I hold him down with his face under the spray. He coughs and gags as his mouth fills with water each time he tries to say my name.

“Who are you?” I shout. “How do you know who I am?”

“Codename: Nightshade.”

I backhand his cheek. “Who are you? How do you know about Poppy?”

That seems to do the trick, breaking him out of his trance. He blinks three times before focusing on me.

His hands are around my neck the next second. We’re both wet, and the floor is slippery. We roll around, trading jabs, until I manage to get the upper hand and trap him beneath me. I pin his hands above his head, but he keeps struggling. My skin’s too slick and he uses that to wiggle free. He’s simply too big for me to overpower a second time. He flips us over, trapping me beneath him.

His hands are around my throat again. Raw rage contorts his face. That beautiful face. Darkness is creeping in around it as I start to choke.

I don’t know if I’m just done fighting, or if I’m convincing myself to believe the lie. Maybe I’m just ready to die, I don’t know. Maybe he’s my Daeva after all—my beautiful ghost. He’s squeezing the life from my body, but it feels wonderful. I’m back in the training room, fighting with my general and he’s touching me.

I want this to be Nick. I want to be nineteen again. I want to go back and hold him tight, make him stay with me and not rush off into danger.

“I loved you,” I whisper, lost in a memory, in bed with my ghost.

He stops. Everything stops.

The grip against my throat eases. A thousand different emotions cross his face. Shock is the one that takes hold. “
Penelope
.”

I thought hearing him call me Poppy would be my undoing, but my name on his lips cracks open the last wall around my heart. “Nikolai.”

I don’t think. I just react. My arms are around his neck, my lips meeting his. For one infinite second, everything is as it was. He feels the same. He tastes the same. Everything since the last time I was like this with him becomes a distant nightmare.

That is, until I realize he’s not kissing me back. He yanks away. His eyes are wide, fear and confusion mixed with a healthy dose of anger reflecting in them.

Something slams behind me, and without warning, Nikolai falls limp on top of me.

Ugh. Still as heavy as he always was, too.

I pull the dart from his shoulder and offer Claymore an upside down glare. “What the hell was that for?”

“What the bloody hell are you doing, Shade? I said interrogate him, not have a wrestling contest with him in the bathroom.”

I groan, shoving Nikolai off of me. “I think this is more complicated than we originally thought.”

He helps me up. “How so?”

“I don’t know how or why, but this really is Nikolai.”

“You know that’s insane, aye?”

If I had a nickel for every time someone validated that my thoughts were insane, I would be rich. I don’t point that out to him. I just nod like a toddler being scolded.

“Even if this is him, which I’m not agreeing it is.” He wags a finger at me to emphasize that. “And he forgot who he was, which is ridiculous, because he’s
not
Zolkov.” Another finger wag. “You can’t expect that a man remembers ten years of suppressed memories after just a few seconds of alone time with you. You’re good, lass, but you ain’t
that
good.”

Ouch
. Way to kill the dream, MacNeal. “You know if this whole agent thing doesn’t work out, you have a bright future in writing romance novels.”

He offers me a flat look in the rearview mirror. We’re in another stolen car—this time, an SUV. He’s driving, and I’m in the backseat with Nikolai’s head cradled in my lap.

It might be completely bonkers, but I’m convinced it’s him now. I don’t know what was done to him. I can’t explain why he looks like he hasn’t aged in ten years. And I don’t care.

I do, however, have his wrists and ankles secured with plastic zip ties. I’ve learned my lesson.

We’ve abandoned the plan to hit the Pentagon for the time being. After a thorough search of Nikolai’s suit, which produced nothing but a handful of weapons, Claymore hit him with five darts and said we needed to get mobile. We left nothing behind in the room that could be traced.  I’m wearing the clothes he got me, and my backpack is on the floor by my feet.

As far as anyone is concerned, we were never there.

It’s been ten minutes since we left the motel, and Nikolai is snoring softly. I run my fingers through his hair. I don’t give a shit if he wakes up wanting to rip my throat out. I’ve wished for a decade to be able to do that again.

“So no tracking device on him,” I say.

“That we could find. Doesn’t mean there’s not one
in
him.”

That’s true. A lot of us are deployed with monitor chips much like the ones implanted in the family pet these days. The Deadly Seven, to my knowledge, don’t have implants, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t offered them to us. It’s a Catch-22. If you’re ever rendered incapable of contacting base, taken prisoner without warning, or just plain lost, the chip can be activated to find you no matter where you are. But then, the chip can be activated to monitor you no matter where you are or what you’re doing, without your consent or knowledge.

“Well then, we need to find someplace that will help neutralize any signal, just in case.”

“Aye.”

He drives two hours away, to George Washington forest. The elevation mixed with the isolation of trees will help confuse the signal a little. I don’t know if the tranquilizers were too much for his system, or if he was actually just exhausted, but Nikolai stays asleep for the entire trip.

“He’s faking it,” Claymore says, turning around in his seat to glare at him. “He’s hoping we give something away because we think he’s asleep and can’t hear us.”

I want to tell Claymore he’s just suspicious of everyone, but I can't. It’s a technique we all use.

We’re parked in a remote part of the forest, nothing but trees all around us. “Did you bring camping gear?”

“No," he says as he climbs out. "We won’t be staying that long.”

His door slams shut, and I run my fingers through Nikolai’s hair one more time. “This is gonna hurt you a lot more than it does us.”

Claymore opens the back door and waits for me to indicate that it’s okay for him to remove our visitor from the seat. I follow him to a close cropping of trees, keeping watch as he ties him to the trunk of a giant fir.

Nikolai’s head hangs forward as he continues what's most likely a charade. His hands and feet are still bound by the plastic strips.

“It’s admirable that you’re able to stick to your methods,” Claymore says, flipping his knife in the air in front of him.

A cold chill runs down my back. I try to ignore it. Interrogation is a nasty business… something I’m only mildly skilled in. The best in our group has always been Claymore. He has an uncanny knack for reading people, and he doesn’t have a problem making someone bleed for answers.

He kicks Nikolai’s boot. “I’m counting to three and then doing my thing, mate. You’ll do yourself a favor to wake up now.”