"Oh, G.o.d," Holly muttered as Dad opened the door. "Please, just let me go."
"Everything will be much easier if you get in on your own," Dad said. "Trust me."
"Why does she have to get in the car?" I asked desperately.
He gave me a sharp look that basically said to keep quiet. So that"s what I did because I didn"t see any other option.
Holly"s lip trembled a little, but she discreetly wiped the tears from her face and slid into the car. The back two seats faced each other and Dad sat right across from Holly. I moved in next to her and the sound of my heart pounding felt twice as loud inside the confined s.p.a.ce. The car began moving.
"Who ... are you people?" Holly managed to say.
Obviously she wasn"t convinced by the CIA thing and she seemed to think Dad and I were partners in crime rather than father and son.
"This is my dad," I said to Holly.
"Okay," she said slowly.
He hesitated for a second, his eyes on me. "And I do work for the CIA."
Holly shook her head and sank back into her seat with a sigh of defeat. "This is beyond creepy ... you"re never letting me go, are you?... I"m going to die or be one of those disappearing girls you hear about on the news."
"Stop," Dad said, pointing to the car window. "Look where we are."
I glanced out the window at the same time as Holly and saw that we were parked in front of the same museum we had left a couple hours ago, right behind a big yellow school bus.
"See, just like I promised. We got you back safe and sound."
"But ... what about those people ... and-"
"The people we were chasing are terrorists."
"Terrorists?!" Holly asked.
"Look, I think it would be best if we had a chat with your family, just to let them know about the situation today," Dad said in this smooth voice that would probably even calm someone in the middle of a war zone.
Holly shook her head vigorously. "I wouldn"t exactly recommend that ... my mom is a total nutcase about stuff like this ... she"ll completely freak. I"ll never be allowed out of the house again."
"If that"s what you want."
I had a feeling that"s exactly what Dad wanted. He seemed to know how Holly would react. What else did he know about her?
"Yeah, that would be best." She looked longingly out the window. "Can I go now?"
Dad nodded and put a hand on the door handle, preparing to open it. "Holly, agents almost never reveal their ident.i.ty. When we do, it"s doc.u.mented, and if anything leaks, we know exactly where it came from, trust me."
"I get it," she whispered, but her breath caught in her throat.
"Good."
I hated the way she was looking at me. Like she didn"t know me all over again. "I"ll walk in with you, Hol."
"No, really, I just ... want to go on my own."
"I guess I"ll see you at work later?"
"Yeah ... work," she said right before jumping out and slamming the door shut.
I sat there and watched her walking away until the car started moving again, and then I turned to Dad. "If anything happens to her-"
"Nothing will happen. You have my word," he said. "But I have to ask you ... how old are you right now, Jackson?"
He knew. Because of my hints? The tests.
My heart pounded harder than ever. But I kept my focus, knowing whatever information I gave him could be used against me.
"Did you know my real parents?" I asked him, hoping the quick change of subjects might catch him off guard.
He shook his head. "Not exactly ... no."
"Who did Courtney and I live with for the first eleven months...? Dr. Melvin told me that part."
He turned his eyes to the window, but his face remained completely unreadable. "Just someone who wasn"t able to continue caring for two children. That"s all I know."
Okay, obviously he wasn"t going to tell me those details. "Why am I like this?"
He turned away from the window and back to me, his face very businesslike. "I can"t answer that without asking a few questions of my own. Your abilities, I"m guessing you can use them freely?"
I wanted to lash out at him so badly. He"d been lying through his teeth the other day with Melvin. How was I supposed to believe a word he said? I sank back in the seat as an idea formed in my head.
"Dad, I"m not going to fork over all the secrets you want to know without getting something in return."
"Like what? You have everything."
"First of all, no more talk about high school, and I"m not quitting my job."
He shook his head and stared at me for a minute before speaking. "Is the job part for Holly? Because that just seems extreme for someone your age."
"And what age would that be?" I sighed, knowing I"d have to reveal a little. "Something happens to Holly two years from now. She"s my girlfriend in the future. Now I"m stuck here and there"s no way I"ll let that happen again. But I don"t know how to prevent it as well as you probably do. I want to learn whatever you secret-agent dudes know. That"s my second request. You have to teach me some spy stuff."
"What happened, Jackson? You can tell me," he said.
Part of me still saw my dad and not someone I had to keep hiding stuff from. And I really wanted to ask how that redheaded man had been in the future, two years from now, but also here, in 2007, with the same cut on his face. The shoe print. Like it had just happened.
"Not now."
He let out a breath, but nodded. "Okay. I"ve got plenty of ideas for beginners, also some manuals you can look over. I"m actually training a group of agents right now."
I laughed a little despite the tension still in the air. "You mean your secretary?"
Dad cracked a smile. "Yes, she"s one of them."
"How old is she?" I asked. I"d been dying to know ever since she told me to call her Miss Stewart.
"Nineteen."
"The CIA recruits teenagers?" I asked.
"In certain unusual cases, yes," he said, choosing his words carefully. "Jenni Stewart is fairly new. If you do run into her again, you can"t tell her your real age or how you got here."
I laughed a little because I knew she didn"t want me to know her first name. "I"m not telling anyone. I"m not an idiot."
"So you haven"t told Holly?" he asked.
"What do you think?" I rolled my eyes. "She thinks I"m a high school dropout from Jersey."
The first sign of worry crossed Dad"s face. "She doesn"t think that anymore. I already told Agent Stewart to check on her and ... invite her to a company party at our place."
I rubbed my hands over my eyes and groaned. "Great. Now she"s freaked out and she"s going to hate me for lying ... Seriously? A company party? That should be interesting."
"I"m sorry, I thought it might smooth things over," he said with a sigh. "If she saw we were just normal people."
"Even without the CIA, she"d never think we were normal." I changed the subject so I wouldn"t end up yelling at him. "What about your CEO office that I"ve seen a thousand times?"
"It"s a government-run company made to look like a normal corporation. My involvement in the day-to-day operations is limited."
Just hearing him saying this so casually was infuriating. "Okay, so, first I find out you"re not really my father, and now you"re in the CIA and everything I knew about your work life is fake. A complete lie. What do I actually know about you?"
"It"s complicated, Jackson. People could lose their lives if agents like me don"t take every precaution to conceal what they do."
I leaned back and crossed my arms, staring straight at him. "Then tell me what exactly you do. Fight bad guys that can somehow be two years in the future and then here, wearing the same clothes, with the same cut on their face?"
"I think we should go talk to Dr. Melvin," he suggested.
"Not yet. You can take me, but I"m not going to tell you anything else." I turned my eyes to the window and saw big raindrops. .h.i.tting the sidewalk at an increasing rate. "I have to go to work later and see how much Holly hates me."
Probably more than I could make up for, which made me feel more alone than ever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2007, 2:30 P.M.
When I got to the gym later for work, I had several versions of conversations worked out in my head to get Holly to not hate me, but Mike had his own plans for me.
"I want to touch up all the red paint on the sign behind the gymnastics floor. Since Friday"s a light day, I figured we should do it now." He stood facing the back wall of the gym, pointing up at the word TWISTERS, which was painted in red against the white wall. The red was peeling and chipping in places.
By the time I spread plastic all over the carpet and set up the ladder and paint trays, Holly and Jana had arrived to teach their cla.s.ses. I jumped down from the ladder the second I saw her and walked over.
"Hey, Jackson, how"s it going?" Jana said with a friendly smile.
This was a good sign that Holly hadn"t said anything to her.
"Good. How about you? Glad it"s Friday?" I asked, faking calm.
"Totally." She elbowed Holly in the side and Holly finally looked up at me.
"Um ... yeah, Friday"s ... good." She chewed on her thumbnail and shifted from one foot to the other.
Jana"s eyes darted between the two of us and she shook her head and walked away, like she sensed we needed privacy or something. Holly glanced quickly at Jana and looked like she might run after her, but I put my arm out to stop her.
"I"m so sorry about this morning. I had no idea anything like that would happen."
She stared at my fingers, which were now gently curled around her bicep. Her whole body stiffened. "I"m fine. Seriously, it"s no big deal ... I won"t tell anyone, I swear."
She ducked under my arm and took off before I could respond. Mike came out of his office and clapped his hands loudly. "Get painting, Jackson! I can"t wait to see the finished product."
I had no choice but to return to work. The whole time Holly was teaching, I kept looking over at her, and I could tell she was a bundle of nerves. I just wanted to be lying in the gra.s.s with her again, feeling more relaxed than I"d felt in such a long time. My eyes stayed focused on the wall in front of me for the rest of the evening.
"Hey, Holly, you want to come to my parents" party tonight?" Jana shouted from across the gym as they were putting away mats at the end of the night. "You can come, too, Jackson."
I started to climb down so I could respond. "Sorry, I won"t be done for a while and I"m really beat. I"ll probably just go home and crash. Thanks for the invite, though."
"I might come," Holly said after Jana had walked closer to her.
Jana dug through her purse and pulled out her keys. "Awesome. Just head over whenever you"re done."
"You"re leaving now?" Holly asked, letting the panic creep into her voice. "I still have my skill sheets to fill out. I promised Mike I"d leave them on his desk."
Jana already had her back to us and her cell phone up to her ear. "So finish and then come over. I gotta go. My mom"s already p.i.s.sed that I"m not home yet."
The second Jana left us alone in the building, Holly raced across the gym and busied herself by sitting under the balance beams, scribbling furiously on the top sheet of a large stack of papers.
I sighed before climbing up the ladder again. Getting back in Holly"s circle wouldn"t be an easy task. Basically, I"d lied to her about almost everything.
I barely glanced over my shoulder at her as I reached for the large bucket of red paint hanging on the side of the ladder. Too much of my weight shifted to one side, and seconds later I went tumbling down. I landed flat on my back with the ladder across my stomach and the bucket of red paint tipped over at my feet and splattered everywhere.
"Oh, my G.o.d!" I heard Holly say, and then she was beside me, lifting the ladder upright again. "Are you okay?"
I nodded, but the wind was completely knocked out of me and I couldn"t speak.
She leaned in closer, scrutinizing my face. "Can you sit up?"
Slowly, I pulled myself up, trying to take in a few short breaths. "We all knew I"d fall off a ladder eventually, right?"