Chapter 8: Life in Color

I look at him, finding the answer I need, then at her.

"Mrs. Cope—or whoever you are—yes, we trust you."

There really isn't a second option in this situation, and we both know it. If this woman means to harm us, it's as good as done. We're cut off from the world in here, and I've already counted six vulnerabilities a moderately clever agent could exploit. If she has other intentions, well…we might as well hear them.

Edward looks like he might throw up.

She nods her head and gives us a wry smile. "What else are you going to say, right?

"Yes, Mrs. Cope is my name. Shelly, if you prefer." She pushes the safe deposit box toward us and backs away. "I'm unarmed, as you can see. This will be easier if you can stop kicking yourselves."

Edward flips through the contents of the box: papers and trinkets. "What's this about? You said yourself time is limited." He's agitated.

"You must know there are ex-agents alive in the world? Ex-Sundial, I mean?"

His eyes narrow. How could she have known that this—life after Sundial—is his one and only obsession? He's been waiting years for someone to mention "ex" and "alive" in the same sentence. If she were out to manipulate us, this would be the way to do it. I look away from Edward. I want him to believe her. I can be skeptical enough for both of us.

"Ex-Sundial. Yes. Only since 2001, supposedly," Edward says.

She shakes her head. "No. That was just when Aro made his big power grab. We've been around, in fact, since World War II. And I do mean we in the usual sense. I was one of you."

She fishes a photograph out of her box and hands it across the table to Edward, who glances at it and hands it to me. She's wearing a plain white button-down dress and ankle socks in the grainy picture. She squints into the sun.

"I'll spare you the history lesson, except to say that Sundial wasn't always what it is now. We used to be an agency of last resort, deployed only rarely. That began to change subtly in the '60s, and more dramatically after 9/11, of course. But then these past few years, with the feds slashing budgets and cutting corners, Aro…Aro has grown more powerful and less careful, which is the worst possible combination for someone with his ego.

Edward and I exchange glances. This all corresponds to what we've both secretly suspected, though there's never been any point in our acknowledging it, and we certainly would have never spoken about it out loud.

"We have new intelligence indicating he's gone rogue. This was our only window for enlisting you, for reasons you'll understand very soon. It's bad enough already, the things he's involving you in, but this new business we caught wind of…well, it needs to end."

I nod my head. My heart is pounding in my chest. I want so badly to hear her say she's here to take us away from all of this—to cripple Aro's operation by removing two of his more experienced agents. I have to stop myself from scanning the room for an escape route; I already know none exists. "And if we decide to agree with you?"

"Well. My associates and I—yes, there are several of us—we know what a bind he has you in. But we also know the only way to stop him is from the inside. That's all there is to it." She pulls out a chair and sits down, which subtly levels out the power dynamic between the three of us. "We need your help."

Edward stares, his mouth hanging open. He's never looked more like a seventeen-year-old boy in my eyes. "You need our help?"

"Sorry, kid. I wish I could say I was here to bust you out, but until Aro is removed from power, my hands are tied." She smooths her hair and then flattens a wrinkle at her knee before looking Edward square in the face. "There's only one way for you to part ways with him on your terms: Sundial needs to be destroyed."

Edward laughs bitterly and drags his hands over his face. "It's that simple, is it? Don't you think I've dreamed about it every single day for the past, I don't know, three or four years? If there was any way, I'd have found it, believe me." He leans over the table and rests his weight on his knuckles. His eyes are pinched at the corners, and it makes him look half-deranged. "It is impossible. He will find us out, and he will kill us. We'll be lucky if he kills us quickly."

I hear myself gasp. He's frightened. Really scared. "Edward, just…hey, look at me. Hear her out."

"Hear her out? A friend of ours is in the hospital right now, having successfully mutilated herself beyond recognition, because she thought her only way out was to make herself less valuable as an asset. I call that a pretty fucking hopeless situation." He whips around and faces Shelly. "So for you to come in here with your fake dementia and your old-lady wig like you think you're some genius—"

I put a hand on his trembling arm. His skin is hot. "What is the matter with you? You're being super rude." I've seen him lose his cool with Aro, but it isn't like him to lash out this way. I lower my voice to a hiss. "It's not some costume. She always wears a wig, like a lot of women at Evergreen."

He doesn't apologize, but he does manage to look contrite.

Shelly is unshaken. "Believe me, we understand how difficult this is. But this isn't just about you. More people than you can imagine are in danger now. You're going to need serious help, absolutely. And we are gravely serious. You'll find out very soon how serious."

I decide to tackle a less volatile subject. "Wait. You said there's a number of you. How have your communications gone undetected?"

"Everything is analog, to begin with. We use a lot of paper and antiquated devices, control the chain of possession. We're good at scrambling retransmissions." She peers at us. "And with Aro so focused on his high-tech marvels, well…there are ways to hide very major things in plain sight. Tunnels, for example."

At that, Edward looks up, a question frozen on his lips.

Shelly nods. "Sundial has no knowledge of those escape routes of yours—neither of them. Your house, Edward…old Rufus Crowley is a friend of a friend. He helps us match particular buyers with old Volturi safe houses from time to time. In fact, I had half a notion that you had gone digging and tracked me down through him."

Edward shakes his head.

"Yours was a bit trickier, Bella…sorry about the mice, by the way."

"The decoder was you, though? On purpose?" I ask.

"And the book. Yes. It was a bit of a test, I'm afraid."

"You watched to see if we'd turn it all in."

"We were planning a message drop in your basement room next, Bella, but…circumstances have changed. Some new information has come to light, and the timeline was accelerated."

Edward releases a low hiss. I glance at him and see his hands braced behind his neck. "That Hemingway book. I had it with me when we evacuated."

"But there's nothing remarkable about it. Would it have meant something to Aro?"

"Yes, dear. He doesn't suspect you, but he knows that book and how it's used. He'll test your loyalty. Soon. You need to be prepared."

This is a lot to absorb. I rest my head in my hands, feeling dizzy.

Everything changes now, I think to myself. I don't miss a word of what Mrs. Cope says to us during the remaining minutes we spend in that shielded clamshell of a room, but I'm also hyper-aware of this refrain repeating itself endlessly in my brain. Even before I hear her outline the risks and the gravity of what she's proposing, I know I'll say yes. Because everything changes. This changes everything.

I'm thinking it, but it's thinking me, too. I don't have a choice in the matter. This thing—this feeling—comes surging through me, unleashed by these new revelations. This shift in circumstances. More than circumstances—everything, it seems, has shifted.

Being in this moment feels like that day Edward and I watched a middle school kid demonstrate a prism at a Volta League expo. This young girl—she was younger than Bree is now—was so delighted with the colors.

"It's one thing going in—a beam of light. It's something else coming out," she'd said.

I had corrected her. "It's not 'something else.' It just has different qualities. It's still light…but light slowed down. And bent." Of course I'd been a stickler for the official story. But all the while I was thinking: It's also a rainbow. And that's different.

I mentally file away Mrs. Cope's instructions—about the escape hatches, about when and where to look for message drops, about the decoding protocols we should expect.

I shake my head, trying to clear away the brightness and the colors crowding my thinking. I can smell the musty paper in the safe deposit box and see the green of Mrs. Cope's polyester pant suit reflected in the chrome surfaces of the desk supplies.

I sit down.

I lift my eyes to look at Edward's face, and a strange thing happens. Out of nowhere, I see what he might look like when he's fully grown. It has nothing to do with his bone structure or that mop of hair; it's his eyes that look right through me. I see the man he wants to be. I mean I actually let myself see it this time, or he lets it show, and it shocks me. It shocks me how much it matters to me. His eyes hold so much.

I see a dozen versions of him I've never consciously imagined before. In my mind's eye, I see him laughing, carefree; I see him letting his gaze wander down the front of my blouse, his brow furrowing, jaw going slack; I see him solemn and passionate and intent on his work. Work he chooses. He's free. And so am I.

Now he's smiling at me, eyebrows raised. I realize Mrs. Cope is asking us if we're on board. I'm so unaccustomed to being given a choice; it's disorienting, really. It almost makes me laugh.

Edward stares at me, serious as can be, asking, "Partners?"

"Yes," I say, looking at Edward.

"Yes," he whispers. And it's done.

Everything changes.

She tosses us the remote that blocks our SatComs, cautioning us to use it sparingly, and hands over the first of our coded messages. "Don't open it now. You'll know when it's time," she says. "And you will—listen to me. You will succeed."

An intercom announces that the Evergreen van, just released from its tune-up at the garage, is here for Mrs. Cope. As she sinks back into her disguise of stooped posture and distraction, I see her eyes fill with tears. She blinks them away just as quickly. We walk her out, bundle her into the van, and say goodbye.

+x+x+x+x+x+

Back in the car, everything seems brighter and so airy. It rained while we were in the bank, and everything sparkles with little wet drops, and the sun is at that spot in the sky where it shines through everything at a slant, golden. A toddler being pushed in a stroller kicks his fat little leg out to brush the dewy long grass. He giggles, and it matches how I feel. We get as far as Volunteer Park before Edward pulls over and parks on a side street. He releases his seatbelt.

I reach for the SatCom OverRyde device, but he stops me. He leans in close and speaks in his lower-than-breath voice. "No. Save it."

I begin to rear back so I can see his face, but he's holding me so fast and tight. I feel his lips on my skin. It's different. Insistent and brazen. The way he clutches me to him—it's the way you hold a thing you don't expect to let go of. He's never held me this way before.

I feel a sort of frenzy building, and it's coming from me. I kiss him back. I do. I taste him. I breathe him in. I match him pull for pull and grasp for grasp. I climb across the console and settle myself in his lap, sweaty and noisy.

"Bella. Oh, God," he says, panting, breathless. "I knew it. I knew it."

I should be embarrassed by the noises I'm making, but I can't bring myself to care. I just keep searching for some way—any way—to let everything I'm feeling come out. It's a lot.

He thumbs wetness away from the corners of my eyes. "I know," he says. "It's okay." I can hear giddiness in his voice, and instead of feeling guilty, I feel my heart puff up. I glow.

Eventually, I tire him out, or he tires me out. He pushes damp, sweaty strands of hair out of my face. "You and me…we're going to…," he says. "We're going to be, um…"

"Shh." I giggle into his shoulder. "I know." A pedestrian strolls past the car, pointedly not gawking at us. My cell phone buzzes with a text that I know is from Charlie, wondering why I'm late for dinner. Edward grins and trails his fingers along my limbs as I retreat back into the passenger seat.

Edward pulls back out onto Broadway and checks his watch. "I guess we can manage whatever this is, right?" He reaches into his bag and tosses me the Mylar pack he's been toting around. "I mean, considering."

I work my fingers under the seal and pester Edward to keep his eyes on the road. "Safety first."

"You're still wearing her pearls. They look good on you."

"Oh!" I lift my hand to feel the strand, foreign against my skin. "I forgot. She'll be missing these." I remember her telling me just an hour ago how a girl should always have a strand of pearls—how different that person seems now, how ridiculous that statement sounds. If I'm still wearing mine, she's probably still wearing hers.

"Go on. Let's get this done with." Edward stops at a red light.

I absently press the cool necklace between my lips while I drag the paperwork out of our assignment pack. It's a hit. We're supposed to use chemicals to induce a heart attack. If the person is in a hospital setting already, we can use an existing IV port. Then the only concern is suppressing the code red and obstructing security cameras.

I look back at Edward. A stranger's life will end, and I hate it, but it doesn't seem so wretchedly bad now because there is an end in sight. There's a plan in place. I know we'll succeed. We have to. Edward grins and glances at the stack of papers, eager to see the rest of the details.

I spit the pearls out, frowning. I can feel a chalky residue on my lips. "These are made of paste. Shelly might not need to keep them locked up in a bank vault."

I flip to the second page of our brief, and the bitter taste in my mouth registers.

It's not paste these are made of. It's poison. A suicide device. One or two pearls would be enough.

The face of our target stares up at me from the brief. This isn't a stranger we've been commanded to kill. It's Mrs. Cope.

I clutch the pearls with one hand and the door handle with the other as Edward spins us into a tight U-turn, away from Charlie now and toward Evergreen, which is close enough for us to hear a siren wailing, and still too far away.

+x+x+x+x+x+

AN: So, yeah. This took an extremely long time to write, so sorry about that! If you're still hanging in there, thanks for reading! Grammar and clarity management brought to you courtesy of happymelt, midsouthmama, and faireyfan. I also tend to mine their favorites lists whenever I need something to read. Until next time!