Chapter Fourteen

Saint Paul de Vence was much like Tuscany, only the people spoke French and everything smelled of lavender. It was a medieval mountain town, a day trip from the beaches of the French Riviera, and it was lined with ancient stone streets featuring shops selling everything from tablecloths to modern art to local herbs. Chalice-shaped fountains gurgled almost lyrically as photo-worthy alleys peeked behind every corner. Roads were so narrow cars couldn’t drive, making it a walking city, much like Venice. Ah, memories. I was haunted by them.

I spent the entire high-speed train to France reliving the London Eye, not the views, not the sunset, but the last five minutes, especially four specific words—“She’s not my girlfriend.” I wouldn’t let Marcus take them back. Not in the pod when we descended back to Earth. Not in Julian’s car when he tried to hold my hand. And not later that night when he knocked on my hotel room door. Taking it back, trying to offer some retroactive explanation wouldn’t change the fact that he said it, that he meant it, at least in that moment. The thought was in his head. He would never be able to suck the tears back up from my cheeks, the ones that fell the moment I got back to my room and slammed the door.

I’d never had a boyfriend. I knew I was doing everything wrong. I didn’t flip my hair. I didn’t sit on his lap. I didn’t let us go all the way the night after Antonio arrived. Maybe that was a mistake, or maybe I got lucky. I didn’t know. There was no advice column or horoscope to offer insight on how to talk to your boyfriend while your friends were being murdered and your parents were implicated in their deaths. We were complicated. I was complicated. But that was what made us work; at least that was what I thought. Except it seemed we only worked when it was my parents who were the bad guys. The second his brother entered the mix, the second I mentioned his parents might be corrupt, Marcus pulled away. I felt it the moment Antonio insisted his family wasn’t “that bad.” Sure, they knew about Department D, they worked for the organization, but they didn’t really do bad things. Marcus jumped on that, and any suggestion I made to the contrary, any theory, pushed him further away. He told his brother I didn’t trust him. He probably told his brother much worse than that. What else did he really think of me? And he wondered why I stopped us that night?

“Who needs a StairMaster when you can live in Europe?” Keira grunted as we climbed the steep hills of Provence. Even wearing sneakers, our ankles twisted on rounded rocks that were probably set in concrete sometime during the reign of Louis XIV. And we thought Boston was old.

“Seriously. There is no excuse for anyone living here not to have a butt like J.Lo.”

Keira and I didn’t chat much on the train, but in a good way. We watched a Sandra Bullock movie on her tablet and shared a bag of Gummy Bears while Marcus’s words echoed in my head. All she said was, “Let’s see how this goes, and we’ll take it from there.” There was no sense fighting about a plan that we hadn’t yet tried. If this kid slammed the door in our faces and refused to utter a word, then the entire strategy would need to be rethought.

So a lot rested at the top of this hill—our first Dresden Kid, Dani Zamen. He was a Turkish teen whose mother spent two years in prison for reporting on a fake military coup. Department D orchestrated evidence related to the false coup and arranged for the imprisonment of any journalist who didn’t report the “facts” the way they wanted. His mother was one of those journalists.

“This kid could hate us,” Keira pointed out. “What if it was Mom and Dad who did it? What if he pulls out a gun or something?”

“I’ve handled worse,” I said, remembering Italy.

“That doesn’t make me feel better.” She sounded winded. Our climb was a mix of curving roads and deep wide steps. We’d developed a pattern—step, step, up; step, step, up. It was exhausting, yet rustically beautiful, but we had the determination of tourists chugging to the crown of the Statue of Liberty: we were only doing this once, and the payoff was worth it.

“Are you worried about Marcus?” she asked, as though it were a casual question. Hey, look at that cloudless blue sky! The French country buildings! Doesn’t the air smell like flowers? By the way, do you think you sent your non-boyfriend off to his death?

“Of course I am,” I admitted.

Not that I wanted Antonio to go with him, there was something too eager about the way he suddenly wanted to help with the plan, but I should have at least told Julian to go. Only that would have left Charlotte alone with Antonio.

They were right—I didn’t trust him. Antonio hadn’t provided any inside information on Department D. He claimed he wasn’t high enough to know any, and maybe that was true, but he needed to bring something to the table other than his ability to chug alcohol and hit on women. Now Marcus was alone somewhere in the English countryside meeting a family that was destroyed by my parents’ organization, by our parents’ organization (though I doubt he saw it that way).

“I know Marcus made a dick comment. But if it helps, I don’t think he meant it. He feels really bad,” Keira defended, giving me a look like she knew she was diving into choppy water.

After the Ferris wheel, they’d all gone to the hotel restaurant. Instead, I chose room service. I didn’t answer my door when they knocked. I was humiliated in a pod on the London Eye in front of all of them, and more than that, I was pretty sure I was dumped for the first time in my life. I didn’t have any experience with this sort of thing, and maybe since I “wasn’t his girlfriend” in the first place, this didn’t count. But it felt like a dumping. And it hurt, on top of all the other hurt I was already feeling about Tyson, my parents, and my sister. There was only so much a person could take before she pulled up the sheets to her chin and turned off the light.

“All I’m gonna say is Marcus loves his brother,” Keira went on. “How would you feel if he tried to convince you not to trust me?”

I hung my head. Did she have to put it that way? My chest already felt like Marcus slipped a serrated knife inside it. Now my sister gave it a good whack.

I stared at the rounded stones beneath my Converse. “It’s too late to do anything now. Let’s just focus on Dani.”

“Okay, I see the sign.” Keira pointed ahead.

A Turkish import shop sat nestled between a French clothing boutique and a high-end stationery store. According to Charlotte’s research, Dani Zamen and his mother fled to the French countryside for a fresh start. His mom’s journalism days were behind her, as was her imprisonment. Now, based on their kaleidoscope-like window display, they spent their time selling Turkish bowls, lamps, tiles, vases, and jewelry in colors that seemed to explode against the ancient beige stone exterior.

“So we just walk in and ambush him?” asked Keira.

“That’s the plan.”

“Well, at least we’ve got a plan.”

…

A bell jingled as we stepped into the densely packed shop. Every surface was filled with stacks of dishes featuring patterns so elaborately painted you’d never eat off of the surfaces, let alone wash them. Bulbous brass lamps looked like they held magical genies. Chandeliers dangled with glass mosaic globes. Cases were lined with sterling silver jewelry.

Next to the register was the face we’d memorized from pictures—Dani Zaman.

I looked at my sister. No turning back.

“Excuse me, do you speak English?” I asked, stepping toward the counter. Turkish was not one of my languages, but Keira and I could both speak in French if needed.

“Of course,” he answered. “How can I help you?”

“Well, Dani, we’re hoping we can help you.” I cut to the point.

His face instantly changed, a hardness falling over his maple syrup eyes. This was not the gaze of a teenager who spent his days watching cat videos on the Internet. This was a kid who’d seen tragedy. I should know; I wore that look myself.

“What do you want?” He sounded defensive.

“I realize this is unexpected.” I kept my voice calm. “But my name is Anastasia Phoenix, and this is my sister, Keira.” I looked for a hint of recognition when I said our names, but there was none. “Our parents used to work for Dresden, for Department D.”

Embers lit in his eyes at the mention of the organization’s name.

“Then you’ll understand when I tell you to get the hell out.” Dani marched around the counter.

“I know. I get it.” I raised my palms.

“You get it? Are you kidding me?” His thick black brows crumpled like caterpillars as he halted a few paces away. “Do you have any idea what they put me through, put my mother through—”

“Yes, I do,” I interrupted. “Because they did the same to us. Our parents are dead.”

He rolled back on his heels, sizing us up, suddenly not sure how to react.

Technically, I was lying. My parents were alive, but we hadn’t seen them with our own eyes, so that gave us deniability. Besides, what Keira and I knew for sure was what we actually went through these past three years as orphans, and that was the story the Dresden Kids could relate to, that was how we’d get them to identify with us.

“We thought our parents were engineers up until the day they died in a car crash, their bodies burned beyond recognition. We’ve spent the last three years on our own,” I said, reciting the carefully edited speech we’d rehearsed.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dani offered. He still sounded suspicious, but I could tell we’d quelled his anger. “But I thought you said they worked for Department D?”

“They did, but we didn’t know that, not until I started questioning their deaths, who they were. Then I was kidnapped,” Keira explained. The kindness in her voice and the softness in her body—the way her shoulders rolled forward and her lashes fluttered—made Dani’s whole chest relax. He was listening to her. “My sister and I could have died, because of the work our parents did, because of enemies we never met.” When she turned to me, any frustration she expressed regarding Antonio or my bossiness was wiped from her hazel eyes. Keira was on my side. We were the Phoenix sisters. United.

“What do you want from me?” he asked.

“We want you to help us get back at the people who put your mother in prison,” I explained. “We want you to help us get revenge on Department D.”

He tilted his tan face to the side like he hadn’t heard us correctly. “Your parents worked for them. So did my stepfather, before he got my mother locked up in a Turkish prison and left me to live on the streets. How do I know you’re not working for them too?”

“Because my best friend was recently murdered by Department D, and they promised to pick off every person I’ve ever met unless we pick them off first.” My tone was harsh, completely unlike my sister’s gentle demeanor, but it was all I could offer. I couldn’t pretend not to be livid. Hollywood was not in my future. “You want revenge for what they did to your mother? You are never going to meet two people more motivated to give it to you than my sister and me.”

Dani stood silently, assessing us, and I waited patiently for my words to sink in, for him to read my face and see how much I meant it.

Only the response I got wasn’t from him.

“Let’s hear them out,” said a feminine voice with a thick Turkish accent.

I turned toward a back wall, and in a darkened doorway stood a woman with flowing black hair, a full oval face, and big chocolate eyes lined heavily with pencil.

It was Dani’s mother, Selen.