“I have to go up north,” she said in an even voice, “for an assignment.”

“Up north,” meaning the surface streets of Los Angeles. Meaning it probably had something to do with the Federal Coalition. Cate was a senior agent now. She’d earned her wings. If they were sending her up there, it was to do something important for Alban.

“So you won’t be coming with us?” I asked.

Cate glanced behind me and waved at whomever she saw standing there. I felt something cold drip down the back of my neck, though my hair was nearly dry.

“There you are,” Cate said. “I was just about to tell Ruby that she’ll be in good hands on the Op. You’ll keep a careful eye on my girl, won’t you?”

Rob had never, not since the first day I met him, willingly touched me. He, like the others, knew better. Still, I watched his hands where they hung at his sides, dark hair curling on the backs of his knuckles. My throat tightened.

“Don’t I always?” Rob said with a faint chuckle.

Cate stood, her moon-pale face glowing in the artificial light. “See you later, gator.”

It was her stupid, childish send-off, the same one she always gave us when she left. The others wouldn’t have hesitated to finish her little rhyme; Jude had thought up the little good-bye as a play off her call sign. Now, I could barely choke the words out.

“In an hour, sunflower.”

As soon as they walked away, I saw Cole sitting at the other end of the room, an open book on the table in front of him. By the dark look on his face, it was more than clear he’d heard the entire conversation.

You said you would protect him. Was there really no one in the entire League I could trust? These people couldn’t be counted on for anything. All of their promises bled into lies.

Cole shook his head, turning his palms face up on the table. It was a weak, silent apology, but at least he understood. Shifting this one single piece on the board was enough to change the whole game.

SIX

THEY SMUGGLED JUDE AND ME into Boston in broad daylight, riding in the jump seats of a fat-bellied cargo plane. It was an older model than the one we’d used to fly back from Philadelphia, and its smell lent some possibility to Jude’s theory it had once been used to move dead meat.

I watched the enormous crates in front of us, trying to ignore the way they creaked under the strain of the straps holding them in place. All of them were marked with Leda Corporation’s elegant golden swan, which felt like some kind of horrible wink from the universe. The rational part of me knew it didn’t mean anything—that it wasn’t some bad omen. We flew on Leda Corp’s planes all the time. They’d realized the benefit of playing nice with both Gray and the Federal Coalition, which meant they had special “privileges” to travel to and from California to move their product. As uncooperative as always, Gray had the brilliant idea to try to starve the Federal Coalition out of California by forbidding imports into the state and exports out of it—unfortunately for the rest of the country, California was where most of the fresh produce was, and they had easy access to the oil they were drilling in Alaska.

The Federal Coalition was our matchmaker, though. We got to piggyback on flights like this in exchange for serving as their knife in the dark. Alban saw it as a “fair trade” for the intelligence we’d gathered and countless Ops we’d run on their behalf over the years, though I knew he wanted more. Specifically: respect, money, and the promise that he’d be given a place in their new government once Gray was out.

On the other side of the plastic-wrapped heap of crates was Beta Team, laughing, laughing, laughing at some joke that had been lost to the steady snarl of the engines.

I pressed the backs of my freezing hands against my eyes, trying to ease the throbbing there. What little heat was still circulating in the cargo space must have been clinging to the ceiling, because I felt exactly none of it. I sank down lower in my seat, wrapping the black puffer coat as tightly around my center as I could with the seat belt in the way.

“Deep breath in,” Jude was chanting, “deep breath out. Deep breath in, deep breath out. You are not in an airplane; you are floating through the sky. Deep breath in…”

“I think you actually have to be taking deep breaths for that to work,” I told him.

The plane dipped, only to bob up a second later.

“Is that—” His voice cracked. “Was that normal?”

“It’s just a little turbulence,” I told him, trying to pull away from his grip. “It happens on every flight.”

Jude had strapped a tact team member’s helmet to his head and a pair of goggles over his eyes. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that if the plane went down, a head wound would be the least of his worries.

God. He couldn’t handle the stress of a plane flight.

This was a mistake—I should have fought harder, argued, swayed someone to get Jude off this Op. Back at HQ, the thought of having to bring him along to search for Liam had been frustrating, an annoying dose of reality to swallow, but now…now I was just scared. How was he going to handle the pressure of escaping Rob and Beta Team if he couldn’t sit still for five minutes? If his imagination had already stolen his courage and had made a run for it?

Maybe I can find a way to leave him with Barton, I thought, rubbing my forehead. The problem was…how did I know that Barton wasn’t one of the agents who sided with Rob in arguing for attacking the camps? How did I know that any of his teammates wouldn’t gladly put a bullet in Jude’s skull, neat and easy?