Emma isn’t normal. She’s a highly intelligent engineer who struggles with Bipolar disorder and a dark past. While working at a prominent defense company, she develops the next major weapon of mass destruction, which will redefine warfare for the future. After finally getting a date with her mysterious coworker, Ruel, she realizes they might have more of a connection than just romantic. On a business trip together to Russia, the two take their fledgling relationship to the next level the night before war is declared between Russia and the United States. With Interpol in pursuit, they flee the country amidst the newfound chaos and discover along the way that the other is hiding something, but neither is quite sure what.
We had never spoken like this out loud, only electronically. It began after an influx of borderline work-appropriate exchanges via company email around September. We decided it would be better to switch to our personal accounts. While these conversations were thick with flirtatious undertones and innuendo, we only ever spoke to each other at work. Even in our emails, the topic of my lingerie’s color had never come up.
Continue Reading Chapter 1: 7:30 P.M.
He did not know most things about my past, few people did. Ruel opened the silver door for me, and I slid into the black leather interior. Even though I saw his car every day at work, I hadn’t been inside of it until now. A jolt of excitement ran through me as I realized how intimate this whole event really was. Once we were on the road, I asked him where we were going.
Continue Reading Chapter 2: Pairing
“October twenty-third. You told me in an email. Referencing some past night you wrote, ‘I used to breath fire and that night I could see in the dark. I don’t like to think of that night. I still can see in the dark. Is that human?’ You must remember writing that to me.”
Continue Reading Chapter 3: Synchronized
Survival instincts set in immediately, and I left my smile on my face. Inwardly racing for a solution, outwardly remaining engaged with the situation. Ruel’s face was inches from mine. His hand had reached my face and he cradled my jawbone in his palm briefly before moving his hand around the back of my neck. It was only a miniscule change, but I knew with that hand placement, he could snap my neck in three seconds. He would depress a pressure point on my neck, a brief incapacitation, but enough time to reach up his other hand and twist hard enough to sever my spinal cord. Three seconds until his job here was done.
Continue Reading Chapter 4: Dinner Jackets
“It’s more or less etiquette training. For little kids. It’s fairly mean-spirited in that way, I think.” I laughed, but the spirit behind the dance training I had actually received was a bit more than mean-spirited. It was evil. Ronaldo’s dance and etiquette instructor, a wispy thing called Mrs. Katz, taught us something she called Waltz 42. Her words came to me now, “One, two, three. One, two, break. One, two, three. And lovely!” The point of the Waltz 42 was to break your partner’s wrist as a form of leverage.
Continue Reading Chapter 5: Waltz 42
I needed to warn Maria and Andrew. We had to leave the country as soon as possible. I screamed inside my head to make the phone calls, or better yet, just to go to their rooms. I could slip out without a sound. Ruel would never know, never suspect a thing. I was just a stupid girl who had become obsessed with him. Certainly he expected me to go back to his room tonight.
Continue Reading Chapter 6: Surrender
I woke up shivering. The room was cold, as if the heat had been turned off. I first noticed Ruel’s chest in my left peripheral, rising and falling in a calm rhythm. I moved closer to him for heat and pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders.
Continue Reading Chapter 7: Embassy
“Emma, I need you to listen to me,” he said, and pulled away from my ear to look me in the eyes in order to emphasize the urgency of the matter. His brown eyes were fiercer than usual with flecks of orange surrounding the pupils. My heart jumped and I swallowed hard. He continued, “We have to leave Russia. Now. Pack as quickly as you can, but only what you need. Make sure it’s warm. Make sure you have your passport, do not let it leave your body. I’m going to pack. You have six minutes. Do you understand?”
Continue Reading Chapter 8: Quattroporte
I glanced in the mirror again. They were gaining and the traffic in front of me was slowing even more. With the cars mere inches from each other’s bumpers, weaving through traffic was no longer an option. I groaned loudly. We needed a better evasion plan. I swerved into the right-hand emergency lane and sped towards the onramp’s entry point on to the highway, slowing only to squeeze between a weathered hatchback and the onramp’s traffic control light. With a quick glance to my left to avoid merging into a car, I left the car in second and floored it. Our bodies pressed backwards into the cool leather seats with the force of the car’s speed.
Continue Reading Chapter 9: Jam
“Who are you working for?” Ruel asked, his voice in a low growl. Had the switch not gone off and I’d not made the changeover to my old self, I might have been scared of him. As it stood, I found it encouraging, almost sexual. I took my right foot, which was still on the bottom rung of the ladder, and kicked him as hard as I could in his testicles. He groaned and I kicked him again, just as hard. This time he loosened his grip on me, so my third kick was aimed slightly higher to throw off his center of gravity. As he shifted his weight to steady himself, I rammed my left elbow into his ribs, and my right hand flew to my coat to pull out the pistol. With the momentum of my elbow swing, my body spun to face him, the Glock’s barrel immediately finding his chest.
Continue Reading Chapter 10: Organization
“I’ll be back for you in one hour,” Jeremiah told me from the passenger seat. He rolled up the window and drove away, leaving Ruel and me a block from the safe house. I kept my head down the best I could to avoid any cameras. Ruel ushered me into an empty hallway belonging to an old apartment building. I followed him up wooden stairs that sagged in the middle, polished with the wear of hundreds of years of tenants’ daily treading. He unlocked a door on the third floor and led me into what looked like a minimally furnished apartment. I wondered how long Ruel planned to stay here.
Continue Reading Chapter 11: Shepherds
A series of dark figures morphed into a daytime scene. People were hustling below me in downtown Atlanta. It was windy. I was on the roof of a building looking at the street. A group of five men emerged into the plaza across from me, and I spotted him. Emilio Hernandez. My mark. Two of the men were bodyguards, and the other two must have been associates. I didn’t know who Emilio was, or why I was killing him, I just knew I had to.
Continue Reading Chapter 12: Dying
“She’s awake,” I heard a male voice say. His voice was not fully developed, but he sounded like he was in his teens. I could hear bodies moving and shuffling around me. I blinked a few times trying to adjust to the light. My body hurt, I had a dull ache all over, and it felt like a huge weight was resting on my face. I was in what looked like a bedroom with two or three other people. The teenage boy and a matronly woman hovered over me. I wondered if she was my mother. A man stood in the background with his arms crossed, looking mildly amused.
Continue Reading Chapter 13: Predeal
I stood up and ran to the bedroom door to leave, but before I could reach it, he grabbed my leg and pulled me to the ground. I landed face-first with my hands barely bracing the fall. His body was on top of mine before I could react, so I threw my elbow back in hopes of hitting his face. I made contact, and he flinched briefly. I squirmed underneath him, trying to wriggle my way out. He recovered too quickly. He forced me over and onto my back in a way that disabled the use of my arms. His forearm pushed hard into my throat, forcing my head to the ground, and I regretted ever finding his muscles remotely attractive. He leaned down so his face was extremely close to mine.
Continue Reading Chapter 14: Demons
Darrin was in the kitchen now. I could almost feel his breathing as he approached. His stealth training was awful, but I counted myself lucky for this and focused on the task at hand. I was banking on the fact that he’d do a full sweep through the kitchen and into Ethan’s room, especially since the window was open. To calm myself, I reviewed my methodology. Disable and decapitate. It was straightforward enough.
Continue Reading Chapter 15: Kidnapped
Spring hung in the air outside, but in the cab it smelled of a putrid, oily vinyl. Our plan was to confront David after his three o’clock class. Ruel and Jeremiah decided it was best for just Ruel and me to go. Ruel also suggested we not bring any luggage. I thought this might look suspicious at customs. What Norwegian would come all the way to America without luggage? But, fortunately, everything had gone smoothly. It felt weird to be back on American soil. I didn’t feel like I belonged here anymore. I felt like I had emigrated and was just passing through.
Continue Reading Chapter 16: Boston
None of the government offices or military bases within the city borders had made communication with the outside. It was assumed they were being held captive. U.S. troops were trying to get into the city by flooding in from all sides, but so far there hadn’t been a tactical advantage. The Russian siege had been too well planned and too unexpected, leaving Boston in isolation.
Continue Reading Chapter 17: Gin
Like everything else in Myrtle Beach, even the cemeteries seemed to be thrown together at the last minute. I yearned for the churchyard in Timisu de Sus with its ancient tombstones, weathered and cracked, covered in snow. The stones here were too new; the sunlight glared off their glossy finish and made it difficult to read the engravings.
Continue Reading Chapter 18: Sway
Now Bradbury? Was the organization some sort of global dystopian book club? I thought back to the Hebrew exchange between David and Ruel at MIT. Translated it was from Cat’s Cradle. And the Speaker for the Dead reference Ruel had me make before, was that some sort of code?
Continue Reading Chapter 19:
He was going in through the front door without any weapons. Kalyna and I were entering from beneath to find Ruel, who we assumed was in the interrogation room. I would bring Ruel back to the car, and Kalyna would meet Jeremiah in the archives room to destroy the files and footage they had of all four of us. I’d pick them up, and we would all drive off into the sunset, or something like that. In the back of my mind, I was assuming none of us were making it out of there.
Continue Reading Chapter 20: Parting
I followed behind them up the same stairs we had gone down months ago, before my initial surgery. I wondered if they had taken me out the side door to transport me to Romania. I had been unconscious during it all, so it was likely. I didn’t ask. I was more concerned about how Diana and Costin would react to seeing me. The last time hadn’t ended so well, and now they were essentially fugitives, which was entirely my fault.
Continue Reading Chapter 21: Fjords
