“There they are,” Luke says and points to the waiting truck, one hundred yards away. “Come on, Reagan. Run.”
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Luke pushes me up the hill from the basement and the two of us sprint to the truck. Maybe the others can help my mother, I think. They’ll come inside and save her.
“Go, go, go,” Luke yells to Eduardo and bangs on the side of the truck as we reach the back. Cooper and Laz grab my arms and pull me inside. Sam grabs ahold of Luke and pulls him in.
“We’re in,” Luke says into his earpiece and slams the truck door. The crashing metal makes me jump. “Go, Eduardo. Go.”
“No, we can’t go,” I wail. I feel the truck move. I slam my hand on the side of the truck with all the strength I have, trying to get Eduardo to stop. “We have to go back for Mom.”
“We can’t, Reagan.” Luke grabs me by the shoulders. “There’s nothing to go back for.”
“We have to help her.” My voice is strained from screaming.
“What happened?” Dad asks from the other side of the truck, tears welling up in his eyes. His voice drops to a whisper. “Where’s Elizabeth?”
“She’s chained to the wall in the storage room.” The truck makes a wild left turn. I grab on to the side to stop myself from falling over. “We have to go back there. We can’t just leave her.”
“Reagan, she’s dead,” Luke screams. He grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me, tears swimming in his blue eyes. “I’m sorry. She’s dead.”
“She’s not dead,” I shout and push him away.
“You saw her get shot,” he says and grabs on to me again. “You saw the same thing I did. Torres shot her in the head.”
“She’s dead?” Dad asks, his voice shaking. He looks up at Luke, his lower lip trembling. “Is she really dead?”
“I’m so sorry, sir,” Luke says and shakes his head. “There’s no way she survived that gunshot wound.”
“But we can’t just leave her. We have to go back. We have to go back,” I scream and reach for the truck’s back door. Luke pulls me away by my waist and holds down my hands and my arms.
“Reagan, we can’t,” Luke says, his voice hushed and breaking in his throat. “She’s gone.”
And that’s when I break down. Every part of me, my skin, my blood, my heart, my lungs, feels like they’re being stabbed by a hundred knives. Pierced by a thousand bullets. Set on fire by a million matches.
“We have to go back,” my voice squeaks as the pain doubles me over, racking my body with sobs. I search for new air but it doesn’t come quickly enough. “We have to go back.”
“Shhh. Shhh. Shhhh,” Luke whispers in my ears, his arms holding me from behind. “Shhh. It’s going to be all right.”
“No, it won’t,” I scream. My legs are trembling. I fall to my knees. “It will never be all right again.”
My body crumbles into a ball. Luke kneels next to me and puts his arms around my shoulders. I raise my hand to the center of his chest and push him away. I don’t want him to touch me. I don’t want anyone to touch me. God, take me, take me, take me. I hug my body to my knees. And I scream. And I scream. And I scream.
EPILOGUE
The plane’s engine roars, filling the deafening silence in the cabin of the CIA’s jet. After forty-eight hours of hiding in Ecuador, CORE has finally given us clearance to return to DC.
Torres is alive. And looking for me.
The AC blasts from the vent above my head and a shiver convulses my body. Luke feels my body twitch next to him. He carefully places his warm fingertips on top of my icy hand. For the first time in days, I don’t pull away. But I don’t grab for him either.
I pull my burgundy cardigan tighter around me; Mom’s favorite sweater from her go-bag. It still smells like her, a mixture of her face cream and the Givenchy perfume Dad bought her every Christmas. I lift a corner of the fabric to my face and take her in. How long can her smell linger? A month? Two months? By Christmas, she’ll be gone.
I haven’t cried today. I feel strangely guilty about that but I think I’m cried out. My body aches from hours of heavy sobs. The excruciating pain I’ve felt the last two days in the safe house has been replaced by numbness. I don’t feel anything, not the heartbeat in my chest, not the warmth of my blood, not the air in my lungs. I’m way past half dead. I know exactly what will happen once the numbness fades so I hold on to it for as long as I can. The pain will be replaced by rage, at myself, at Santino Torres, and I don’t know if I’m ready to feel that yet.