Chapter Nine

Tyler broke first from the embrace, lips swollen, breathing heavy, questioning the sound coming from the building. It was just too coincidental.

“Is this part of your plan?” Andy asked.

Tyler shifted, glancing back to her. “No, but we’re going to take advantage of it.” And hopefully arrive first.

Grabbing her hand, they slalomed through thick skirted guests and panicked musicians scurrying toward the exit.

Tyler tugged on Andy’s hand. “Stay at the back of the crowd.”

Without drawing too much attention, he scanned the security detail, waiting for their break. He needed a distraction.

Then he recognized an opening. Security stepped away to convince an inebriated elderly lady to leave behind her mink.

“Now’s our chance,” Tyler said.

Hand in hand, they sprinted away from security and the crowd down the hall to the elevator lobby.

He punched the button. Nothing lit up. No little bells dinged. He swore. “The elevators automatically stop when the fire alarm goes off.”

“I’ve got a fireman’s key.” Andy hiked up her skirt.

“No time.”

“Stairs?” Andy asked.

“Stairs.” Tyler led the way and opened the door. The sirens continued to scream as they mounted the first flight of stairs. “Your dress is slowing us down,” Tyler said, his voice echoing off the cement walls. “Does it come off?”

“It is detachable. But we need this stuff. You’ll thank me later.”

“Stuff? Is that why it’s so floofy?”

“Floofy? Do you get to make up your own English?”

“Pshaw.”

With her arms full of skirt, Andy bounded past him. “Stop talking,” she said over her shoulder to him. “You’re slowing us down.”

He chuckled as he climbed the stairs two at a time to keep up with her.

When they arrived at the seventeenth floor, she was scarce out of breath.

“Through there,” he said consulting the map which Andy had taken from her purse. They threaded through the halls to the coded door.

“Do you trust me with the entry code now?” he asked.

Andy’s eyebrow arched. She faced away from him and dug into her bodice. Tyler rolled his eyes. Andy punched in the entry code.

Peeking in the windowed door, he noticed the office divided into four sections. Across from them, windows framed the night skyline of the city. Andy opened the door in almost a hallowed silence, like visiting a tomb of a loved-one. The only sound was the soothing gurgle of the aquarium.

“There,” Andy said. The tank glowed in the darkened room.

Tyler grabbed her before she could enter. “Someone’s here,” Tyler whispered. A man in a white catering jacket crouched in the shadows, searching behind the aquarium.

“Who are you?” Andy asked racing in although Tyler restrained her.

The man jumped up, pocketed something and darted out a side doorway.

“I think he’s got it,” Andy said.

“Stay here,” Tyler called over his shoulder as he followed him out the door.

Andy ran across the industrial carpet to the aquarium, the low hum of the oxygenator the only sound in the room.

“Please let it still be here,” she whispered.

She slid her fingers between the wall and glass. Andy willed her fingers to clasp around the jump drive. She scraped both the window and the glass. Nothing.

Andy’s heart plummeted. It was like hearing and feeling Brad die all over again. Frustration boiled in her heart, clinched her jaw, and inflated her lungs. Feeling powerless, she let her fist fly out and hit the wall. A framed picture of an ink blot, red as blood, rattled under her rage. She couldn’t fail Brad. This was the last thing he’d asked of Andy.

Andy placed her hands on the cool glass. It hummed gently under her touch. Colored fish swam by, flashing a tail, darting in and out.

Some part of her wanted to shake the stand, knock over the fish, to let them flounder as their gills fill with oxygen, to be shaken up, spilled out and gasping. Like her.

She sank to the floor, burying her head in her hands. Then she spotted something.

A small corner of a piece of paper.

“What’s this?”

Her finger pinched it to the carpet and pulled it free. A sticky note.

She read the sticky, memorizing it, and tucked it in her bodice.

Flashlights beamed around her. She ducked behind the tank.

“Who’s there?” someone called behind her.

Security detail.

Without comms, Tyler warned her not to leave, but she couldn’t stay either. As silently as she could in her ruffled dress, she hurried through the doorway after Tyler.

“There!” Another security agent called behind her.

Andy’s heart lunged. Caught. She raced through another room filled with desks and computers to another doorway at the other end. She had no idea where Tyler had gone and no way to connect with him. There was no way she could take two armed security herself.

She ran into another room, but the locked door at the end stopped her. Frantically, she searched for another exit through another hallway, her hair slipping from the millions of bobby pins, blocking her sight. She tucked back some strands spying another doorway to her left. Footsteps sounded closer.

In a second, she darted through the doorway and realized it was the stairwell again. Once through the doorway, someone grabbed her from behind, hand over her mouth, pinning one hand behind her. He was strong, and he got the drop on her. She was only disoriented a split second until reflexes kicked in.

She chucked her elbow with all her anger and might into the assailant’s gut. An “oof” escaped his mouth, but it didn’t loosen the grip on her hand. She bit a finger over her mouth and stomped on his instep. Grabbing her attacker’s hand, she twisted herself around and faced…Tyler.

“It’s me, Andy,” he said. “I have something to tell you.”

“No time. We gotta run. Security.”

Andy hit the stairs in a run, spiraling downstairs. Tyler followed her, their foot falls echoing on the walls. Their pursuers climbing after them. Andy just had to focus on her feet going downstairs, one misstep could be dangerous at the speeds they flew.

Her calves burned. Sweat pooled under her armpits, her hair lay completely limp and hanging on her bare shoulders from the humidity in the non-ventilated stuffy stairwell.

Chilled air greeted them at the bottom. She and Tyler both hit a door at the same time opening it to another blast of cool but foul-smelling air. A few florescent light bulbs cast shadows on old tables, tablecloths, broken chairs, chandeliers, and office equipment.

“The basement?” Tyler asked hitting a shelf. “Where are we supposed to go from here? We’re trapped down here.” He knocked on the cement wall. “On the other side of this passes the largest river in North America.”

Andy scanned the room and breathed, calming her breath, thinking of her options amid the shelves of storage. “Is there another exit?”

“Why couldn’t you have gone up? Haven’t you noticed in the movies, they always go up?”

“Up?” Andy breathed, wrinkling her brow, still breathing hard. “In a dress? I would’ve tripped over the skirt a thousand times.”

“But if we were up, there would’ve been more avenues for escape.”

“Do you have a B.A.S.E. wingsuit under your tux?”

“No.”

“Repelling equipment disguised at a bow-tie?”

“We probably could’ve used your skirt as a parachute.”

Before she replied with a terse har, har, footfalls echoed in the stairwell. Without a word Andy disappeared between the rows and rows of shelves. If they couldn’t run, they could hide.

Gun shots rang out.

****

Tyler ducked behind a row of shelves.

More shots. Andy dove beside him, her skirt cushioning her fall.

Tyler whispered, “I’ve been able to follow your every movement just by listening to your flounces. As far as stealth goes, you get an F for the day.”

Andy gave him a disgruntled glare.

“Are you going to take your skirt off?” he asked.

“Are you propositioning me?”

He resisted the chance to banter. Any other time, her question would have turned him on. Okay, if he was being honest with himself, it did turn him on, but he couldn’t think about Andy undressing right now. Not with those goons hot on their heels. And he didn’t want Andy to know how great her frilly pink dress would look, lying on the floor next to—he had to stop himself.

Focus.

“No, you’re going to get us killed. It just sounds like the rustling of a tornado in here, plus,” he added, smoothing the skirt away from him with annoyance as it foamed up around his suit lapel. He couldn’t think about how it accentuated her feminine curves. Girls didn’t usually distract him. Andy was the one girl who could get him killed. “It’s getting in my way.”

“I can’t. I have too much stuff stashed in here.” She grabbed the hem of her dress, lifting up to reveal quite a bit of leg, Tyler noticed, and rows upon rows of pockets sewn into her petticoat. With a flick of her wrist she fished out a flashlight on a lanyard, clicked the button and flashed the small LED beam, slipping it around her neck. There were other things he caught glimpses of, a pocket knife, duck tape, floss, rubber gloves, and throwing stars.

“Nice, what is this?” he asked. A red string dangled from somewhere in the back.

“Don’t pull the cord. It’s a flotation device. Self-inflatable.”

“Really?”

“Hey, you’ve got to be prepared. I couldn’t very well waltz in here with my huge bag. This was a clutch-only event.”

“An ice pick? I thought I was being poked.”

“Funny, I thought that was you.”

Tyler smiled.

“Okay, let’s find a way out of here,” he said.

Andy paced the perimeter of the basement. Black and orange mold bloomed around the lower edges where the river licked the bottom of the building. It smelled like rotting forest, making her nostrils sore, her lungs ache. The damp mustiness made her claustrophobic. On the other side of the foot-thick concrete wall churned the Mississippi River dangerously fast.

Tyler tore off his jacket, thrusting it to the ground. “We’re like trapped mice down here.”

“I’m not giving up. There has to be a way out, a dumbwaiter or something.”

Tyler kept his hands to the walls.

Andy turned up her nose. “This orange, slick, oozing mold reminds me of somebody’s Sunday morning sick attack.”

Tyler ignored her. “Often in these old buildings there is something useful.” He ran his hand along the wall as he paced.

“What are you hoping to find?” she asked. But Tyler ignored her as he was stalked away from her.

He ignored everything but the banging at the door, causing his heartbeat to rise to his throat.

“Tyler,” she hissed. “Where are you?” She drew closer, her flashlight beam finding him. “They’ve found us. We’ve got to hurry.”

He returned into the light. “Okay, you go to the left, I’ll go this way. We’ll meet at the front.”

“Tyler.”

He raced along the wall in darkness, his hand along the concrete, feeling rather than seeing. The faster he ran, the faster they could get out of here. Then a shelf overturned making a terrific noise, and Andy screamed.

He tore toward the sound. He found Andy, unconscious, lying on the floor, in a puddle of dress, a gallon of paint can nearby. He lifted her gently, in case she had hurt something. Her face was so sweet when she was relaxed.

His gaze flit to her lips, defined with lipstick. They parted slightly when he tilted her head upright. There was something about her skin, smooth and a little glistening, her cheeks flushed red. All around her hairline were beads of sweat, the crown of her head matted with blood. He held her head in his lap, a bright stain spreading across his shirt. Her eyes blinked open.

“Hey, are you all right?” he asked. Andy just stared at the paint can, then at a shelf leaning toward the wall. Tyler checked her for a concussion.

“My skirt.” She winced with pain. “It knocked a feeble shelf.”

“I knew it would be the death of you.”

She smiled.

Tyler breathed a sigh of relief. “Can you stand?”

“I think so.”

Tyler lifted her to her feet, Andy winced more and grabbed his chest, falling into him. He held her close, even if it meant blood stains on his tux. A crash sounded nearby. They froze.

Footsteps flooded the aisle. Tyler’s hope failed. There was no way he could escape with a wounded girl, or attack all these men and keep Andy safe. The two of them together, at their best, could possibly take them all, but Andy was like an abandoned baby zebra on the grasslands.

Tyler just had to think. He needed a plan, a strategy. Smelling her scent so close, he couldn’t concentrate. Tyler inspected the walls. And there he spied it. A little door painted over with thousands of layers of paint, but it was what he wanted, at least he hoped it was.

“Andy, you’re brilliant.” He might have missed it circling the perimeter so fast. But Andy hurt her head right underneath it. “The coal chute.”

He stood to examine it, but it was no use. They were upon them.

Tyler immediately jumped into action. His foot caught one man across his cheekbone, smacking his head against the shelf containing more paint. Another man lunged and leaped onto Tyler’s back while a third man approached to throw a punch. Tyler swung the man on his back, walloping the other, knocking them both down to the ground. More men spilled down the corridor of shelves. Tyler glanced behind him. Men in suits. He surveyed in front of him. More men in suits. He breathed a huge sigh. This wasn’t going to be easy. He shot a glance at Andy fading as pale as her bodice. They had to get out of here.

A man tackled Tyler against a shelf, spilling a flashlight, batteries, and cases of light bulbs in boxes. He wrestled the man to the ground by grabbing his shoulders and then kneed him in the chest. With the wind knocked out of him, he should be out of commission for a while. Tyler stood and blocked another uppercut from another guy. Holding on to his opponent’s wrist he pulled it upward, then around until it snapped in a joint lock, then Tyler flung him on to another oncoming man.

He stood, pleased. His actions ebbed the tide of flowing men.

Andy’s eyes fluttered. “Just leave me, Tyler. Run.”

“I can’t leave you,” he said.

“Now’s your chance.”

“No.”

“Tyler—”

Blood from his lip, mixed with saliva, sprayed as he faced her. “I won’t leave you.”

More footsteps.

Tyler had been in tougher situations, Djibouti, Jakarta, Senegal, a Somalian pirate brig, less maneuverability, more men, but tonight he was worried about time. Andy was bleeding out. He readied himself to attack again, but the group of men only gathered at the end of the corridor of shelves, the foremost man retrieved a gun from under his jacket.

“Enough,” he said, leveling the gun right at Tyler’s heaving chest.

Tyler was a duck in a gallery, and he knew it. The man had a straight shot at ten feet, bodies blocking a way for Tyler to even reach them. Breathing hard, blood dribbling from his lip, Tyler held up his hands to surrender.

“Take them,” the man said. “The boss wants them alive.”

Scattered men on the floor began to rise, shaken, with firm grudges fixed in their eyes against Tyler. Two of them apprehended Tyler, none so gently, one on each arm, holding him fast.

Two others yanked Andy to her feet. Pain shot across Andy’s face, and he wanted to hit the guys again.

“Let’s go,” the man said. “And no funny business.”

The small entourage marched around the lines of shelves to the basement stairs. Following them, the man with the gun stayed close.

At the elevators, the gunman and a man in a brown tux chatted. “Are they working, Bobby? Cuz I’m not hiking up no thirty flights of stairs.”

“Yes, take them up,” Bobby replied, clicking the button. “He’s expecting them. I’ll be up after I take care of a few things.”

If Tyler ran, they would just shoot him and haul his corpse back. And Andy couldn’t follow him out. No, if they broke out, they broke out together. Never leave a man. Or a woman.

A familiar face flashed in his mind. A friend. Bleeding, his receding hairline flapping open with a gash. Christiaan had offered his hand, but it wasn’t enough.

BING!

Tyler’s eyes flew open at the sound of the elevator, his heart pounding. The two men forced him inside the elevator car, Andy beside them.

The button for the PH lit up. Tyler’s stomach lurched when the car began to ascend. Upward. To Tyrone.

Tyrone.

They would not be welcomed warmly.

Andy leaned against the wall as the elevators opened, eying the man who kept his gun firmly to Tyler’s head. The men forced her out of the elevator and into the lush apartment.

With the abundance of antiques, Andy would’ve enjoyed seeing the apartment under any other circumstances. It was a pity she was there as a quasi-prisoner/medical patient.

She followed behind Tyler who strode confidently across the marble floors, straight to a dining room table where Tyrone sat.

“So you’re here,” he said, concentrating on his food.

His face reflected in the polished inlaid wood, over which glowed two chandeliers. To his right was a professional kitchen, gray granite, white cabinets, and subtly hidden stainless-steel fridge.

Behind him a wall of glass revealed the speckled lights of the city.

Without glancing up, he gently patted his lips with a napkin and drank red wine from a goblet. “You know it’s extremely rude to interrupt a man’s meal.” When his beady eyes met Andy’s, his eyebrows raised as he grimaced. “This is a pleasant surprise,” he said. Andy faced Tyler hoping for some clue. He had none to offer. Tyrone continued. “It’s not every day the person you are searching for marches to your doorstep. Welcome. Andrew Baker, is it not?”

Andy’s heart lunged. Her head throbbed as her heartbeat quickened.

Tyrone’s eyes narrowed. “I owe you a little something, don’t I?”

Andy didn’t know what he was talking about.

Tyrone’s eyes widened, his fingers placed on his fork and knife. “Did you know in historical times in ancient Korea, cooking for the king was a sacred privilege?”

Andy didn’t understand what he was talking about. Either she wasn’t all there or Tyrone wasn’t.

“Food controls destiny. How many people do you think had their fate changed through the food they eat?” He leaned forward. “How many kings were poisoned to gain control?” His eyes narrowed. “I could kill you right now.”

Tyler remained confident, cool, despite the gun at his back. “You can’t kill us. We have powerful friends who know we’re here. You kill us; they’ll track it down to you.”

“Yeah,” Andy blurted out. “Don’t mess with him, he’s FBI. You don’t want to tangle with the US government.”

Tyler flinched.

“I have a great interest in the US government.” Tyrone gave Tyler a more thorough inspection, regarded him as he would a suit he was interested in purchasing. His eyes pinched together scrutinizing him anew, white puss weeping from the corners. He returned to his meal. “No, this man has deceived you. He is not FBI.”

Andy’s heart stuttered.

Tyler remained confident. “He’s just trying to introduce doubt, Andy. Don’t listen to him.”

“Don’t listen to me?” he shrugged. “I know every FBI agent assigned to this area. I pay for them to be, shall we say, myopic, on certain occasions. This man is not local FBI.”

Andy’s head throbbed, her mind hurt. Her heart ached. She was confused, and she didn’t like it.

“What do you want with us?” Tyler demanded.

“You come in here, threaten my security, set off the fire alarm during my daughter’s engagement party, and my men find you sneaking around my building. I should ask you, what do you want?”

They didn’t set off the alarm. Or Tyler lied.

Who was the man running out of the room? Something didn’t add up.

Tyrone rose, strode to his kitchen and extracted knives from their case with the sound of metal against metal. “I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

“Why not use a gun?” Tyler asked.

Tyrone laughed. “Guns? Guns are for the weak. It’s much too easy. And mostly painless.” Tyrone pitched forward. A knife flew through the air. Tyler blocked it, slicing his hand. Tyler, bent, attempted to grab the knife, but another one whizzed through the air, landing next to his foot.

“You get the idea. If you twitch, I hurt you. But don’t worry, I won’t kill you this way. Too messy to clean up. I prefer,” he paused, “other methods. Now tell me, why are you here?”

Though his aim was accurate, his knives sharp, he had only a limited supply of them.

In a flash, Tyler removed both knives and ducked for cover behind a huge black pillar as Andy kicked her captives with a mule-kick followed by a quick side-kick, rolling to safety behind a second black pillar. No plan, just survival.

Tyrone, surprised, hesitated, unsure where to throw his knives—at his enemy in the big dress with blood overtaking her or the unstoppable man. His mark was on the man. He threw a knife at Tyler. Bright red soaked through Tyler’s shirt, blood spilling on wool carpet.

They needed to get to the elevator. A knife glanced off the wood. Andy prayed he wasn’t coming closer. When she ducked around the corner, she saw the elevator. The elevator dinged announcing its arrival. She dug into her skirt for her fireman’s key.

Just as the doors open, a man in a brown tux exited.

“Bobby, get them!” Tyrone yelled.

Before she could react, Tyler kicked Bobby, grabbed his doubled body and smashed his face into his knee, shoving him out as he sidled in. Another knife whizzed, nearly hitting Andy as she ducked into the doors.

Bobby struggled to his knees, stopping the doors from closing, grabbing Andy’s leg. Tyler, with a weight and strength advantage, lifted Bobby up as a body shield just as a knife sliced through the air. A sickening thud broke the air. Bobby’s eyes bugged out and blood blossomed on his brown tuxedo. Bobby stumbled to the ground, a knife caught in his back just as the doors closed.

Tyrone’s man stabbed by Tyrone himself.

****

“Uh-oh,” Tyler said, once they started descending. He sat back contemplating what just happened.

Tyler caught his breath while holding his side, blood covering his hand. They were safe. For now.

“The fireman’s key will allow us to go uninterrupted,” Andy said weakly, a pallor creeping over her face.

“Where are we going?” He smiled through a wince. “I told you we should go up, not down.”

“Up? Tyrone was there.”

“But the roof. There are dozens of ways to get off a roof.”

Andy crossed her arms, her lips pale, her body listing toward the wall.

“Okay, basement it is.” He slumped to the floor, holding his side, then sensed the gun on him.

She held the gun firmly toward him. “Who are you?”

“Not who you think.”

“You work for them?” She tossed her head upward.

He glanced sideways at her. “Depends on which ‘them’ you’re referring to.”

“The bad guys?”

“No.”

She held firm.

“I’m a good guy,” he said.

“How can I trust you?”

“You can’t.” His voice softened. “Except you know me, Andy.”

“I don’t think I know you. I know lots of lies about you.”

Even with a gun and him wounded, Andy, in her condition, was no match for him. In a flash, he held her immobilized on his lap. She still had her gun, though, pointed at him. He let her keep it. He had counted its shots. “You’re out of ammo.”

Andy let it drop. “Why did you lie to me? Why do you always lie to me?”

“I couldn’t let you go. You had the entry code. And it’s not every day a witness to a murder of a person of interest falls into your lap.” He cocked his head to the side for emphasis, giving her a half-smile. “Literally.”

Ding. The doors parted, and he leaned on them, holding them open. Andy elbowed him, but he held her firm. “You can let me go now.”

Begrudgingly, he let her go. She stalked out the elevator but before she exited, he grabbed her and passed his hands up her skirt.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“You’ve got something I want.”

“What?”

“The Personal Flotation Device.”

Sighing, Andy flipped up her skirt to reveal the PFD. Tugging on the cord, he propped open the elevator doors as the PFD expanded to fill the gap, preventing them from closing. “That should hold them,” he said as he started down the hall.

“Who do you work for?” she asked.

“Classified information.”

“What do you want?”

“Classified.”

Andy let out an exasperated sigh. Her struggles weakened; she was waning.

“So, what’s your real name?” she asked.

“Classified.”

“Okay, where are you from?”

“Classified, too.”

“Can’t I know anything about you?”

He flashed her a wide grin. “You know I’m hot.”

Andy frowned. “Listen this partnership isn’t going anywhere if all you feed me are lies. Lies, lies. Men are good at telling lies.”

“Sounds like you’ve been hurt.” It was a tease, a jab, but he couldn’t help but probe for information.

“That’s classified,” she said.

“Classified, eh?”

“Yup.”

He snorted and stopped in the hall to face her. “So, it’s okay for you to have classified secrets, but not me.”

“But I don’t lie about mine.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Not like how you lie,” she said.

“What’s wrong with lying?” he asked.

“People hurt others when they lie.”

“Hmmm, not unlike Andy Baker.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Her eyes flashed as she faced him.

He gave her a sly, knowing glance.

To his amusement, Andy scrambled to justify herself. “But I have to use my aliases. If not, it is certain danger or death.”

His tone changed, serious now. “Then maybe, maybe you understand,” he said, all playfulness gone, “why I can’t tell you anything.”

“Yes, but it’s different—”

He was dangerously close to her. For once he let his veil slip, the real him showing through. “You’re right. It’s different. They trained me for years, robbed me of my life, any hope of family, made me perceive the world differently. They transformed me into a killing machine.”

Andy faltered as she spoke. “I understand.”

“No, you don’t.” The words tore at him, but he needed to say them, shooting out of him like ammo from AK-47. “When I meet someone, I don’t see a person, Andy. I see a target. There’s a chance I might have to kill one of them. If I have to take some guy out, I can’t wonder if he’s got a family at home. He’s a mark, Andy, like a tin can sitting on a log.”

“I just want to know who you are.”

“I can’t just tell you whatever you want to hear, indulge your curiosity because you want an emotional bond with me. It just isn’t going to happen. You get to know what I want you to know. What they want you to know.”

“They? Who are they? Wait, I know. It’s classified.” Andy didn’t bother waiting for an answer from Tyler. “So, do ‘they’ know about me?”

He nodded, taking her hand, heading down toward the storage room.

“What did you tell them?”

He grinned, giving her a glance from the slit of his eye. “I told them you lie all the time.”

“Not funny.” She weakly hit him on his shoulder, stopping for a breath. Andy paled. “You think I enjoy lying with my body, being so emotionally dishonest? For once I want a guy to wrap his arms around me and love me and whisper in my ear, ‘I love you, Andy.’ Not Gertrude or Mary Lou or Tiffany. I hate living a lie. For once, when I’m with someone, I want there to be complete and utter honesty between us, no lies, no masks, and no aliases. Just pure simple truth.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Not love?”

“Truth is a part of love.”

He faced away from her. “Then I will never know love.”

“You will never let anyone in?”

“How can I? Will you? Will you give up your charade, Andy? For love? Would you give up your life-long goal for it?”

“I would. If I could. Wouldn’t you?”

“I guess my goals are too deeply engrained.” He continued down the hall. The basement was a maze of whitewashed limestone walls. Every doorway was too similar to the next, and last time he was in too much of a hurry to remember specifics.

“Aren’t you lonely?” Andy followed.

His shoulders gave a clipped shrug. “There are plenty of women in my business,” he said, adopting the air of nonchalance.

Andy snorted. “I’m sure there are. But anybody you can trust?”

“I don’t trust anybody.”

“Not even me?”

He grinned and winked. “Especially not you.”

“Have you been lying this whole time?”

“It’s hard to tell, isn’t it?”

“Arg, you are so aggravating!”

“Just keep thinking that.”

“Do you even know when you’re lying?”

He stopped. “Does it matter?”

Andy glowered.

“So my name isn’t Tyler.”

“Oh?”

“It’s Axil.”

Andy raised her eyebrows.

“Zane,” he said.

Andy frowned.

“Proctor?” he proffered.

Andy rolled her eyes.

“Granite,” he said with eyes bright, laughing at her frustration. But really, he was trying to keep her mind off the pain.

“Fine, if you won’t tell me, I’ll call you, Angus,” she said, leaning against the wall again.

Lifting his arm, he flexed. “Because I’m so beefy?” He was pleased she smiled.

“It was the name of my dog,” she said. “I bet Angus isn’t from Brooklyn or Kansas, either?”

He carefully weighed his answer, tilting his head to respond. “No, but—”

“I knew it. Liars. Men. All of them.” Her energy ebbed. Her body weakened. The light faded from her eyes.

They needed to stop again. He halted, listening for footsteps. “Nothing I told you was a lie, Andy. I did grow up on a farm, just not in New York or Kansas, then ran away and lived in a rough neighborhood. Made friends with a mentor who taught me how to take the fight externally. Someday, I’ll go after the very people who stole my parents away from me.”

“I’m sorry,” Andy whispered between blanched lips.

“I’m sorry I had to tell you.”

“Your parents are dead?” Her eyes grew heavy.

He hesitated. “Yes.”

Andy sighed. “So why can’t you tell me everything?”

“To protect you. You said yourself it was okay.”

Then he found the door to the storage room.