“You’re bulletproof. You cannot be touched, baby. You can’t. Because I’m your shield. That’s all you need to know. That’s the only thing you need to know. Just—” He pushes on me until I turn around enough to look him in his eyes. “Just believe in me.”

“You’ll come back for me?” He smiles and my heart breaks. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

“No,” he says too quickly. “I’m not leaving. Not for good anyway. I’m gonna go get what I need and I’ll be right back. And then we’re gonna go watch the damn sunset. If it’s the last thing I do, I will get another sunset with you.”

And then his chest rumbles with a laugh and I feel like the saddest person on earth when he tilts me forward, slips out from behind me, and walks out to do his job.

Chapter Thirty-Three - Harper

A few minutes later a door slams two floors below me. A few minutes after that, Sasha appears on the terrace. “Harper? Are you OK?”

“Do you trust him?” I ask her as I stare out at the Pacific Ocean. The view he has, holy mother, it’s perfect.

Sasha lets off an uncomfortable laugh. “Well, he’s not very nice most of the time. And he’s killed a lot of people compared to me. So I guess not. But—”

I look over at her and then point to the chair next to my chaise longue. “But what?”

“But he’s good underneath, I think. Well…” She backtracks as she takes a seat. “Maybe not good. But I think he’s… trying really hard.” She throws her arms up in the air. “I think he wants what’s best.”

“Best for who?”

“You, I guess. Him. Maybe even me, I’m not sure about that. But he’s nicer than Merc. Not as nice as Ford, but he could be a lot worse.”

“Hmm. I’m not sure could be worse is good enough to trust him with my life.”

“Why are you in danger anyway? I don’t get it. Why does everyone want you? Why don’t they just leave you alone?”

“Because when I ran away last summer I took something very valuable.”

“Like… gold?” she asks.

I laugh, not to make fun of her innocence, but to appreciate it. It’s been a long time since I felt that innocent. Even though people think I’m this weak little girl, I’m not blind to what’s happening. I just bottle it all up inside. That’s where my panic comes from. That’s why my heart races. That’s why I need those pills. Because those pills make me forget what’s real. Those pills let me live in the fantasy everyone sees on the outside. But on the inside—“No, not gold. A drive with important things on it.”

“Oh,” she says. But her face is scrunched up in confusion. “Does it have money things on it? Because my dad says money is what makes people do bad things. Well…” She stops to think about this. “He used to say that.”

The fact that she can say that without crying almost makes me want to cry. She’s like the rest of us Company kids. She’s learned to live with the bad. She’s learned to bottle it up, or at the very least, keep it to herself until she can release it. She’s learned to deal. “No, not money. Names. Names of families in the Company and what they paid to be who they are in the organization. That determines who they are in the outside world.”

“Oh,” she says again. But this time she gets it. “I know it’s wrong. The stuff with the kids and the promises. It’s wrong to do it.”

“It’s very wrong. But that’s not all they do, Sasha. If this was just about prearranged marriages, well, there might be some sort of public outcry, but no one would care enough about a few girls who are given well-to-do husbands when they turn eighteen to make any kind of difference.”

“Oh.”

This time it’s clear that she’d rather not talk about it, but my lips are loose and I have such a need to tell someone. “They control everything. All the largest governments. All the critical infrastructure. Power companies. Water. Farmers. Armies.” I look over at her. “Hospitals, and airports, and medicine.”

She tries to swallow down her question, but it comes out anyway. “Do they do bad things with that control?”

“Sometimes. They killed your father. James says they killed our mothers. Those are bad things. But I don’t think they do the really bad things just yet.”

“Yet?” Her word echoes mine.

I look at her intently. She’s so strong for being so young. She’s like me, only much, much better at it. “There are worse things they can do with that control, Sasha. They could…” I let out a deep breath. “They could change the world with it. And not in a good way.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes and then I stand up and turn to her. “I have to walk across the alley to get something in my apartment. Do you want to come with me?”

“Should I get my gun?”

“Yes, Sasha,” I say calmly. “You better get your gun.”

Chapter Thirty-Four - Harper

Since the day I met James under the pier, nothing has ever happened the way I thought it would. For instance, my apartment is not trashed. It looks exactly the way I left it. Of course, there’s not much to trash if people did break in. But the door jamb seems fine so I’m gonna assume that the people who came here looking for what I might’ve left behind were either very considerate… or they never showed up.

Reluctantly I admit that no one came looking.

And that stings a little. Because what the f**k? My father knew where I was all year and he couldn’t even be bothered to show up? It makes me angry. Or maybe it hurts. I’m not sure. But I am sure that it doesn’t feel good to run away for a year and not even the most valuable stolen property on earth can make him care.

I want to scream. But Sasha is looking at me weird as I stand in the middle of my puny living room. “What?” I ask her.

“Why are we here?”

“Just check the bathroom and the closets to make sure no one is hiding.”

She raises an eyebrow at me but she walks off to do that.

I grab a butter knife and a mini flathead screwdriver from my silverware drawer and then walk over to my one chair and tip it over. The floor in here is uneven, severely in places, so two of the legs have nickels glued to them to keep the chair from rocking. I pry them off with the knife and take them over to the kitchen counter and turn the light on so I can see them better.