Maybe it hadn’t.

“They’re called the Branch.”

“What are they?”

“A private organization known for creating bio-weaponry, usually for the government.”

The café’s door opened, and a girl walked in, a cell phone glued to her ear. She was talking loudly about a dress she’d just bought. When she got in line at the register, she twisted, catching sight of Nick. Her whole body changed, elongating, back arched, eyes heavy and appreciative.

He’s a killer. I’m sitting across the table from a killer.

My throat constricted.

“What is bio-weaponry, exactly?” I asked.

“Turning the human body into a weapon. Genetic alterations. That kind of thing.”

I straightened. Several things clicked into place. Nick caught my morphing expression, and he frowned my way. “What?” he asked. “What is it?”

I arranged my face into an expression that I hoped was innocent. “Nothing.”

His frown deepened. “If you know something, tell me.”

I’d never breathed the confession to a single soul. I wasn’t going to start now.

“It’s just…” I shrugged. “It’s hard to believe, that’s all. I feel like I’m in an action movie or something.”

“No.” He laughed, but there was no hint of humor in his voice. “That’s just my life.”

“You say you remember me, but how much do you remember?”

“Well…” He scanned the coffee shop. “Do you have somewhere we can talk without…” He trailed off.

Without people hearing.

My old wounds pulsed with warning. Gabriel—Nick—hadn’t harmed me that night, but he was still tangled in those memories, and even though he’d saved me, I was still wary.

“The park?” I replied. “We could probably find a bench or something where we’d have some privacy.”

He nodded, and a lock of hair fell across his forehead. He swiped it back. “You lead,” he said, “and I will follow.”

15

NICK

I KNEW WHERE THE PARK WAS, BUT I wanted Elizabeth to feel in control, so I pretended I didn’t know the way. She was extremely wary of me, and for good reason. I was part of a memory she probably wanted to bury.

It took us only five minutes to reach the park. She picked the bench. We sat in the shade of a maple tree, the fountain rushing behind us. The playground was packed, and the sound of screaming kids put me on edge.

Despite that, I pressed my back against the bench and took a deep breath and tried to act like I had my shit together.

For the next twenty minutes, I told Elizabeth half truths. I told her about the flashback, the one in the woods, because that was something she’d already know anyway. I didn’t tell her much about the Branch, only the barest of details. I made her think that I’d been out of the Branch for a few years, that I’d been piecing together my past since then. I wanted her to think she was a trivial memory on a long list of heavy shit.

I didn’t want her to know too much about me until I figured out why she’d been involved with the Branch in the first place, and why she’d been injured that night in the flashback. If I really had been sent to kill her, I needed to know why. There would have been a very good reason for it—the Branch didn’t go out of their way to kill inconsequential people.

When I was finished, Elizabeth stared at the grass glowing in the sunlight beyond the reach of the tree.

I cracked a knuckle. And another. I needed a drink.

“So this Branch,” she said, “they were the ones who took me?”

I tried to get a read on her face, tried to gauge whether or not she was playing me. Did she know why she’d been taken? Was she playing dumb to fool me?

Her eyes were squinted against the sun, her mouth relaxed, lips wet, shoulders drooped. I couldn’t read her very well, which was either an indication of my shitty-ass perception, or of her talent for hiding things.

“I don’t know for sure,” I said, “but they were involved. Especially at the end.”

What I didn’t tell her was that I’d been tasked with killing her. Me, specifically. Once I found out her name, it hadn’t taken a lot of deduction to figure out that the Target E named in my file was Elizabeth.

I didn’t plan on telling her that part. Ever. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t gone through with it. If I’d been given the order once, I could be given the order again. No matter what I told her, she’d never trust me. And I needed her to trust me.

“Was I the one who took you to the hospital when you escaped?” I asked her.

She nodded. “Yeah. You found me in the woods that night.”

“Had you been shot?”

She drew her hands into her lap and rubbed at the knuckles on her right hand, over and over again.

She was fidgeting. That I could read.

“No,” she answered. “I didn’t have any injuries.”

She was lying.

Son of a bitch.

“I could have sworn—” I started, but she cut me off.

“There was a lot of blood on me, but it wasn’t mine.”

“Oh.” I nodded, like that made sense. “I thought I was the one who shot you.”

“No,” she said quickly. “You didn’t hurt me. Ever. At all.”

I ran a hand through my hair. She had no idea how relieved I was to hear that. I’d been ordered to kill her, and I’d gone against the order. Maybe there was some humanity left in me after all.