“Promoted to Supervising Agent? Oh man, this is going to be epic!” Mitch was spastic with excitement.

I had planned on just taking down whoever came with me, and Mellin’s rules meant anything I did that left Mitch tied up or on his own would get him killed him anyway. So I had only one real option: I had to reprogram him, get him to spit out all the brainwashing so we could run together. It was be the biggest reconnaissance mission I could have been handed, especially now, at the very last minute with no time to plan for it. And maybe Agent Mellin knew the impossibility of the situation I was in now, the one she had put me in.

Of course, the real problems would begin after we’d gotten away, when I’d have to convince Rose not to slit Mitch’s throat for being a traitor in the first place, if we ever got to her. And to make sure the others trusted him enough to allow him to travel with us. I wasn’t so sure I could convince them to trust me to begin with. Not after yesterday.

No one has to know, French. No one ever has to know.

But I would know. I wondered if I looked different. I ran a fingertip down the small fold in my cheek from the laceration I’d gotten trying to find my mother.

Mitch pulled off his bag to pack some water, and I remembered something. “You still have the GPS tracker?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant. “Because you know they’ll find it. This is a longer mission, and they’re no fools.” If I could make sure we weren’t tracked, it would buy me more time and space to figure things out.

“The device from yesterday has been removed from the bag,” Mellin answered quickly, letting me know my questions were not welcome. “Enough. Time to go.”

Soon we were loaded back into a van, going over our story to make sure it fit together seamlessly. Seams could be ripped.

“What will you say about the institute?”

“Only that I was held without speaking to anyone the entire time. But I was fed and had access to water.”

“And did you see any others inside?”

“No one. I heard voices, but that’s about it.”

“And what did they say?”

“Not much, but they sounded content.”

“Excellent.”

After hours of driv ing, with one break to empty our bladders on the side of the road, the vehicle stopped, and we jumped out the back and into the day I had been dreaming of for weeks. We checked the map for final directions, making sure we were pointed the right way, that we understood where the targets had last been sighted, then burned the paper and buried the ashes under a silver birch who watched with knotted eyes. The rest of the day was walking, nothing but movement and the soft torture of knowing I was getting closer with every step. Every muscle in my body wanted to shape the movements of ‘RUN.’ I just wasn’t sure in which direction.