Prologue
Irish
Crested Butte, Colorado
June
Buck led the other people we were traveling with and me into the ranch’s main house.
“Hello?” he called out.
“Hey, Buck,” I heard a female’s voice answer; she walked up and hugged him.
“Where is everybody?” he asked.
“Out surveying.” The woman turned and looked directly at me. “Who are you?”
“Paxon Warrick,” I said, stepping forward and extending my hand. When she took it, a feeling I couldn’t explain, other than to say I never wanted to let go, washed over me.
“Flynn Wheaton,” she said. Her cheeks flushed, and I gripped her hand tighter.
“Great name.”
“Yours too.”
When Buck touched her arm, I dropped Flynn’s hand and watched as she met and shook the hands of the other people in the room. More than once, I saw her look over her shoulder at me.
I knew from the brief I’d received that Buck only had one sister, which meant Flynn was twenty-one years old. What I’d give to take ten years off my age and be five years older than her rather than fifteen.
When most everyone other than me, Buck, and one person besides Flynn left, she walked over to me. When she looked into my eyes with her mesmerizing blue ones, all thoughts of age faded into irrelevance.
I longed to reach out and run my fingers through her long hair that was light brown with golden highlights. When she turned her head just slightly, I saw shades of red too.
Flynn took a deep breath when I stepped closer. I opened my mouth to speak, but words escaped me. If she and I were alone, I’d tell her how beautiful she was. But we weren’t, as I was immediately reminded when her brother, who’d left momentarily, returned.
“Ready?” he said to me.
“I should head out now too, but I’m sure I’ll see you later,” said Flynn, seemingly jarred out of the same trance I was in.
“I’d like that.” I followed her to the front door and watched her walk away, wishing, maybe for the first time ever, that I could leave the wretched hell my life had become and follow.
I
1
Irish
Williamsburg, Virginia
Thirteen Years Ago
I’d been at The Farm—official name Camp Peary—for a little over two months when another recruit, Sumner Copeland, arrived. He was the son of a senator and, in general, a pain in my fucking ass.
Even though I was eight weeks ahead of him, there wasn’t a single training exercise, physical or mental, where he didn’t best me. What made it worse was that our instructors appeared to be pitting us against one another, something I hadn’t seen them do with any other recruits.
After two weeks of that bullshit, both Copeland and I were called into the big boss’ office. I was stunned by what he told us.
“Irish,” he began, using the nickname I’d received my first day there, when the in-processing agent told me Paxon was a “pussy” name, “Cope here will be acting as your handler from here on out.”
I looked at Cope and then at the boss, knowing I had two choices. I could accept his decision or leave. What I couldn’t do was argue.
I’d been counting the days—one hundred and twenty-four, to be exact—until I could finish my training and never see Cope’s smug face again. So, what did the boss’ announcement mean? “Define here on out.”
The boss cocked his head. “For as long as you both work for the CIA, son.”
“No fucking way!” I screamed inside my head, smart enough not to say it out loud. “Does this mean he’s my superior?” I felt like a jackass as soon as I asked. I mean, I should know what a “handler” does, right?
The boss rested his arms on the desk and leaned forward. “It means he’s responsible for making sure you have every single thing you need to accomplish your mission and live to accept the next.”
Which meant, if he fucked up, I was the one who died.
“Any other questions?”
“No, sir,” Cope answered before I could.
I repeated his words, and we both stood to leave.
“Listen,” Cope began when we were outside the building. “I want you to know this wasn’t my idea.”
“I didn’t think it was.”
“I’m too much of a risk to put out in the field. If I weren’t assigned as a handler, I would’ve been tossed out of the program.”
I highly doubted that was the case. “Why?”
“My father. Major handicap, my whole fucking life.”
The last words, he muttered, but I heard him, and for whatever reason, it made me like him more.
“This is all about trust, Irish.”
“Right.” On my part anyway. What did he have to lose? Sounded to me like he’d be sitting behind a desk while I risked my life.
Cope looked as though there was something else he wanted to say, but I didn’t encourage him to continue. Only time would tell whether I would feel the trust that this was all about.
2
Flynn
Crested Butte, Colorado
Thirteen Years Ago
As much as I never, ever wanted my oldest brother to leave, I knew he had to. All he and our dad did was fight. Porter, who was the next oldest after Buck, said they always had, especially after our mom died.
I was only three at the time and didn’t remember anything about her. There were pictures of her around the ranch house, and my brothers told stories, but I had no memories of my own.
“Hey, squirt,” said Cord, brother number three in oldest to youngest in our family. “You hangin’ in there okay?”
I looked up from the book I was reading.
“You need anything, you let me know. Understand?”
“I understand.” I wouldn’t go to him, though, if I needed anything. I’d either ask my brother Holt, since he was closer to my own age, or Johnny, the head cook at the dining hall where my father usually had me hang out when he and my brothers were busy on the ranch.
Since I started kindergarten, Holt and I had gone to the same school and he always looked out for me. Next year, he would go to middle school and I’d be left on my own. Just thinking about it, made my stomach hurt. Now, I was only made fun of when the other kids knew my brother wasn’t around. Once he was in a different building, it would be all the time.
“Hey, heifer!” they’d shout and then moo at me when there was no teacher within hearing distance. I hated it, but less because it hurt my feelings. It was the humiliation that made my cheeks heat and my stomach ache.
I’d begged Holt not to say anything about it to our older brothers or our dad, and he never had. Maybe he was afraid, like I was, that our father would think it was funny. Worse, he might start calling me that himself. Every so often, I could swear I heard him making pig sounds when he caught me in the kitchen, getting a snack.