No Fair Lady

I’m already plotting it out, planning ahead as I scribble the number down, then pass her the pad and the pen.

“Five minutes,” I warn. “Not a second longer. Then we need to disappear. People are starting to wake up.”

I see the flash of rebellion in her eyes for just a moment.

The defiance that says she wants to stretch it to six minutes, seven minutes, more. Until Mandolin wakes up and has no choice but to see us.

I see behind her polished exterior just like I did so many years ago.

Fuchsia is still that girl who captured my attention in a breath.

That relentless, strange, bright-eyed girl who had the nerve to lay a senior military official out on the floor and come to my penthouse to plot a coup without caring about the consequences.

But I can see, too, the moment when she realizes I’m right.

She does care.

Because it’s not about the consequences to her.

It’s about the consequences to Mandolin.

Goddamn, it kills me.

I think, given half a chance…Fuchsia would’ve been a badass amazing mother.

Her eyes darken, and she lifts her head, looking back through the window for several aching seconds.

I think I’ll remember her like this for the rest of my life, fresh with longing, the first pink hints of sunrise falling over her. She’s wearing this expression of mixed joy and wrenching loss on her face, beatific and tortured and serene and painful. The full emotional spectrum of every human being who ever drew breath lit in her and shining all at once.

Then she sighs, quickly scratches something down on the notepad, and rips the sheet off.

Fishing in her pocket and pulling out a plastic-wrapped ball of pink hard candy, she folds the note around it.

Then she looks around, spies the soccer ball against the fence—and slips over to kneel down, tucking the paper-wrapped candy under it.

Smart.

Mandolin will probably see it as soon as she heads out this morning, stopping like any girl would to kick the ball a little before heading off to school, only to pause when she notices something that shouldn’t be there, resting in the same space where the ball had been.

I hope she understands it.

And I hope she knows we’ll be waiting.

If it’s in the cards, it’ll happen.

It’s meant to.

I’ve always known that.

Just as I’ve always known that one way or another, I’d find my way back to Fuchsia.

We’ve waited this long. So what’s a little longer while we work to un-fuck our mess?

As the sun rises in a hot golden burst, I offer her my hand.

“Time to go, wildcat.”

She slips her hand in mine, gripping my fingers with a warmth and certainty that says she hasn’t forgotten how we used to make each other feel.

The promises we made each other. The same promises it’s not too late to fulfill.

Together, hand in hand, we disappear into the back streets of Bainbridge and then Seattle.

We take our sweet time, walking slowly, making our way back to the car on foot. It’s not just about not being seen.

It’s about letting this sink in.

This feels like polar opposites, an end and a new beginning.

That’s something you don’t rush.

Drawing near where we left the car, though, Fuchsia slows, looking up at me.

For the first time since I’ve known her, I don’t see the same fire in her eyes or the sharpness waiting on her tongue.

She looks completely lost, at wit’s end.

I give her a smile. Even the most formidable women have their weaker moments.

Maybe that’s what men like me are really for.

To be here for them to lean on until they can stand on their own two feet again.

“What now?” she asks softly. “What are we even good for anymore? This feels like all there is to us. No more missions. Nothing left to destroy. Our daughter isn’t even ours, and we just—what?—vanish to Alaska? Why? To rot away in obscurity?”

“To live, wildcat,” I say softly, lifting our clasped hands to kiss her knuckles. “We disappear and regroup. Then we find out what it means to truly live.”

10

Sweet Dreams (Fuchsia)

This isn’t how I ever imagined my ending.

The last month spent hidden away in Oliver’s snowed-in cabin outside Alberta has been all kinds of different.

Strange.

Enlightening.

Unnerving.

Wonderful.

We only came back because it was the easiest place to hunker down while he made arrangements—and while I made a few phone calls, too. To clear out his things, making sure his data stash was put into the right hands and migrated into a secure storage facility somewhere in Sweden.

It’ll stay there as our insurance policy, ensuring we stayed off the radar before we made any major moves that could be easily tracked.

I’ve arranged my disappearance many times, but not forever.

There’s a funny freedom in that feeling I don’t really know what to do with.

But I’m also terrified, deep down, that if I disappear, I’ll be truly lost.