Codename: Nightshade (Deadly Seven Strike Force) (27 page)

“Aye.” He lets go of me and picks back up his project. “How long?”

I blow a shaky breath between my lips. I’m not in the business of sharing secrets, this one least of all. “You remember my eighteenth birthday?”

A goofy smile pulls his lips. “Aye, Millie, I do.”

I’m silent until he glances at me.

His eyebrows go up. “Really?”

“Yeah… kind of… he told me he wanted to try dating that night.”

He gets this look—part frown, part impressed as hell. He holds up his fist, and I bump it with mine.

I’ve never had girlfriends or done the whole slumber party bullshit. Sitting on a toilet with Claymore as he builds a homemade EMP and gossiping about my love life is as close as I’ll ever come to it, I suppose.

I’ll take it.

“Fair turn?” I ask.

He tosses a finished piece down and searches for the next bit he needs. "Aye?"

“When did you and Marko start… whatever it is you guys have?”

“We have a profoundly committed relationship with the understanding that he’ll never know what I really do for a living and I’ll never know… who he does when I’m not around,” he says. “And, uh… six years.”

Six.
A year before I met Marko. “You started tapping that when he was
nineteen
?”

“When did General Sourpuss start snaking your pipes?”

The way he looks at me makes me blush. “Touché.”

We both laugh.

“Go check on him,” he says. “I’ll stay in here with the door shut… and the water running, if you want.”

He finishes by waggling his eyebrows.

“That won’t be necessary,” I say, kicking his side playfully as I stand.

“Damn. I see what Marko likes in you.”

I miss a step as I exit the bathroom. I don’t know if he’s just teasing or if he’s hitting a nail on the head with that one. I close the door behind me.

Nikolai is staring at the ceiling when I near the bed. He flinches when he realizes I’m there.

“Sorry,” I say, holding up my hands. “You can sleep if you want. We won’t hurt you.”

He moves his arms, rolling his wrists within the cuffs. Normally there’d be bruising on his skin, raw wounds where the metal rubs, but his wrists look immaculate.

“How do you heal like that?” I ask.

At least this time he doesn’t close his eyes. He looks at me, but I don’t think he sees me. He doesn’t say anything. I wonder if he even knows what his body can do.

I remember when he first taught me how to punch. It felt like years of nothing but him beating me. His fists were hammers that never missed an inch of my skin. And then one day, I hit him. I know there were lessons. I know I trained my muscles to bend and flex the way I wanted them to. I know my eyes followed every movement he made, processing it into output within my own body. I know I was conditioned to learn how to fight.

But that didn’t make the first time I actually succeed at it any less mind-blowing.

That gives me an idea. Nikolai always had a way of talking to us during training. It distanced us from our humanity and made us capable of rebuilding our minds for our missions.

I’ve been talking to him all wrong.

“What is your mission?” I ask, planting my feet shoulder’s length apart like General Zolkov always did. My voice is firm, commanding.

And he responds to it. He straightens up a little. “Codename: Nightshade. Primary target.”

“What are you to do with the primary target?”

“Public elimination,” he says, tugging slightly on his restraints. He doesn’t seem to like that command. I wonder if he comprehends who
Nightshade
really is. “With covert capture and delivery to headquarters.”

What the hell?

“If you eliminate primary target, how can you capture and deliver? Are you to kill primary target?”

Another tug on his binds. Some part of his mind is not on board with killing me. “No, target is to be presumed dead but to be delivered alive.”

I don’t like the sound of that. “Where is the delivery site?”

He tilts his head, narrowing his eyes. “Headquarters.”

“Where is headquarters?”

He blinks but says nothing.

All right, next question. “What is your course of action if your mission is compromised?”

“Compromise is not an option.”

Compromise is not an option
.
Nikolai used to tell me that.
You focus on completion, Poppy. Compromise is not an option.

“You have been compromised,” I say. “What are you to do now?”

His left cheek twitches, and my eyes are drawn to the scar. “Primary target is still in play.”

“Yes,” I say, adding more force to my voice. “But you have been compromised. What is your next course of action?”

If we’re compromised, our only course of action is send out an S.O.S. and either meet our fate or go underground and wait for backup. I’m not sure what his programming tells him to do.

He looks confused as he tries to riddle out my question. “Primary target—”

“Is the one who has compromised you, so what's your next course of action?”

His eyes widen, and he stares at something I can’t see as his breathing grows heavy. “I… report to my handler for reeducation.”

Reeducation.
What in the holy seventh ring of Hell does
that
mean?

“What happens if you don’t report?”

He’s a terrified kid lost in the dark right now.

But I push him one more time. “What happens? Tell me!”

The last bit I shout. It sounds like a bark. I don’t mean to be so rough, but I need answers only he can give.

He flinches, tries to swallow, and whispers, “I don’t know.”

He’s breathing so hard I’m afraid he’s about to have a heart attack. He pulls against his handcuffs, frantic.

“Hey, hey,” I say, rushing to the bed, leaning down in front of him, holding his face between my hands. “It’s okay. Just breathe.”

I exaggerate my own breaths over and over until he matches his to the rhythm.

“That’s it,” I say. “In.”
Inhale
. “Out.”
Exhale
.

He’s staring straight into my eyes. His head is heavy in my hands. I don’t know what just happened.

“You don’t have to report back to them,” I tell him. “You don’t have to complete any more missions. You’re free.”

He shakes his head, closing his eyes. “No.”

I press my forehead to his, unable to keep my cold detachment. He’s so much better at that than I am. I love him too much to be mean.

“Shade.”

I jump at the sound of Claymore’s voice. My eyes sting, and I shield Nikolai with my body.

Claymore holds up the thing he’s been building. “I need to run this over him.”

I nod a few times and press a kiss to Nikolai’s forehead. I don’t care that both men in the room look at me like I’ve lost my damn mind when I do it. My emotions are on top of my skin, in the air around me like a fog.

“Unlock the cuffs," Claymore says. "I don’t want to electrocute him.”

Right, we’re about to fry everything inside of his body with a device my friend built in the bathroom.

Claymore tosses me the keys and I lean in to unlock Nikolai’s right hand first. His face is inches from mine. I feel his gaze burning into me. Feel his warm breath against my cheek. This could be a big mistake. I can free this one hand and he’ll snap my neck before Claymore can do anything about it. I don’t tell him not to. I don’t hesitate. I release his hand and rub his wrist. He obviously won’t bruise, but that doesn’t mean this wasn’t uncomfortable.

His hand hangs limp for a second and then his fingers close over mine. It’s not aggressive. It’s almost like he’s touching me to make sure I’m real.

My eyes meet his eyes before I move to unlock the other one. I bring his two hands together in his lap when I’m done. There’s no fight in him, just confusion.

Claymore gives me a look when I climb off the bed.
It’s an act,
his eyes tell me, but I can't find it in me care if it is.

Nikolai never gave up on me. I’m not about to give up on him.

“I’m gonna just touch this to your chest, mate,” Claymore says, holding up the EMP.

Now
there’s a fight in Nikolai. It’s not the same as before. This is a caged animal, afraid to get beat. I can’t really blame him. Claymore did drive a knife through his foot a few hours ago. He doesn’t do much except ball his fists, but I know he’ll attack Claymore if he gets any closer.

“How does it work?” I ask.

“I’ve never gotten to use one,” Claymore says with a pout on his lips.

I sigh, taking it from him. “What do I do?”

“First, make sure you’re not wearing anything metal that can react to it… and, uh, we should probably strip him of anything metal, too. Though, I doubt it would hurt him too much.”

Nikolai’s glare is lethal.

I try to not smile when I see it. “Right, zippers and buttons and all the things that make clothes so easy to wear.”

“Aye.”

Nikolai’s wearing standard ops clothes—a black turtleneck and black cargo pants with black boots.

“You mind if I undress you?” I ask.

Claymore clears his throat. “Bloody hell, it’s a damn soap opera.”

“You mind waiting in the bathroom some more?”

“Aye, I do,” he says, but he walks back into the connecting room, anyway. “Just yell 'I was thinking with my pussy' if he attacks you.”

I flip him off and toss the EMP beside Nikolai. He moves away from it like it’s going to bite him.

“It’s okay. I don’t think it will hurt you.” That’s as reassuring as I can be about that. As much as I would like to continue the fragile progress we seem to be making, I know time is of the essence right now. If he does have a tracker on him, which I’m assuming he does if he has a handler, then we might already be under surveillance. “I know a girl should really buy you dinner before asking you this, but I need you to take off your boots and your pants.”

He watches me for a long moment. His cheek twitches. I can tell he’s debating something, but I’m not sure if it’s to do what I ask or to kill me.

Eventually, he scoots forward and starts unlacing his boots.

I exhale slowly, thanking whatever force talked him into still trusting me. He places his boots together next to him and slips out of his pants, folding them meticulously before laying them beside his boots.

My palms sweat as I look at him. He's wearing black boxer briefs with his turtleneck. His legs are so pale it’s like they’ve never seen the sun. That’s nothing new. I used to tease him about how white he was.

I shake the memories from my mind and focus on the job at hand. “You sure this won’t stop his heart or anything?” I shout to Claymore.

“I’ve never used one before,” Claymore shouts back, enunciating each word slowly.

Right. He told me that a few minutes ago.

I climb onto the bed, picking up the EMP again. My hand shakes.

Nikolai notices. His fingers brush the back of my hand softly.

My throat goes dry.

“What are you going to do?” he asks.

I’m stunned into silence for half a beat and then catch myself. “It’s an EMP. Do you know what that is?”

The corners of his eyes squint. He does that when he’s trying to process info, I’ve noticed. “I think I do. Will it hurt?”

“I hope not,” I say, shoving him so he lies down. He’s being obedient. I shove up his shirt, placing the device in the center of his chest. I’m not sure where a chip would be planted if they put one in him, but Claymore suggested we put it on his chest so I’m going with that.

“How does it work?” I shout.

“Push the button on the side to charge it up,” Claymore answers. “A green light will glow in the center when it’s ready. Push the button on the front when it does.”

He was able to build that sophisticated of a device in the bathroom in less than an hour? Claymore can’t be human.

I push the side button and count the seconds as it charges. Nikolai swallows noisily and stares at the ceiling.

“It’s going to be okay,” I say. “They won’t be able to hurt you anymore after this.”

“I don’t care if they hurt me,” he says, his eyes still looking up. “I just don’t want them to hurt her.”

My heart stalls for a second.

The light turns green.

I swallow.

“Close your eyes,” I say, pushing the button.

In my mind, I’ve built this up to be an explosion of sorts. I don’t know why. I’ve witnessed an actual EMP strike in the field. You don’t feel it or even notice it. Everything just stops working all of a sudden. It’s how I imagine death is to a body. One second everything is going along, running fine, and the next it stops.

So, I’m not exactly surprised that nothing happens, but I am wary. The green light glows brightly for a few seconds. I assume that means it’s doing something. Nikolai’s eyes are closed, his lips pursed in a hard line. I hope that means he’s just concentrating and not trying to keep himself from screaming from the pain.

I know I should remain focused at the task at hand, but I scan what I can see of his chest automatically, narrowing on the hint of a red flower tattoo above his heart. Memories press against the doors locked in my mind, and I unconsciously touch my finger to it.

Any doubt I had that the damn thing was doing anything ends the second an electric shock zings up my finger. My muscles lock up like I’m having a seizure. The wire in my bra and the zipper at the back of my skirt grow hot. I remember Claymore telling me to remove all the metal from my body and curse myself for not listening to him.

It’s not that bad.
It’s just a light sting all over my body. The heat is getting intense but the layers of fabric are keeping my skin safe for the moment.

The green light dims after a few seconds before sputtering out.

I take a deep breath. “You ok—?”

I can’t finish the question. Pain strikes my upper abdomen, under my right breast. The underwire has melted through the fabric and is scorching my skin. I yelp and jump, tearing at my shirt.

“What is it?” Nikolai asks.

“Ow… ow… ow!”