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Kayla pulled images of the catacombs in Paris off the internet to serve as a background while I read out Xero’s answers to the fan questions. They were creepy as hell, and the thought of being so close to death makes every fine hair on the back of my neckstiffen.
“Are there really catacombs running beneath the cemetery?” I ask.
“Come on. I’ll explain.”
He takes me through a tunnel he and his colleagues from the firm built nearly a decade ago after they bought the safe house. Motion sensor lights illuminate the way as he explains how they excavated the space in secret and reinforced the walls with concrete and steel ribs.
I try to imagine a younger version of Xero, tunneling through the earth with comrades by his side, but all I can muster are scenes fromThe Great Escape.
“How many passageway did you dig?” I ask.
“We have three running from safe houses into the cemetery. Multiple others stretch across the city.”
“You excavated those, too?”
He shakes his head. “The catacombs extend several miles and connect to sewers, subways, utility passages, interconnecting basements, and underground parking lots.”
“Are you saying you can get from one end of the city to another without ever setting a foot above ground?”
“More or less,” he replies with a dark chuckle.
As we venture deeper, away from Mrs. Baker’s crawlspace, the temperature drops. I lean closer into his side for safety and suppress a shiver. “You never did get to finish your life story.”
He hums. “It’s ongoing. We’re still looking for my father, as well as the facility where he keeps the child assassins.”
“Do you think it’s still running?”
“The last boy I poached from the graduation run said he’d come from the facility. That was last year. He told me he’d been recruited at the age of eight?—”
“Eight?” I say with a gasp, my voice echoing.
“You see why he needs to be stopped?” he snarls. “The boy also said that none of his younger classmates had joined the academy, which could mean anything, since my father was ousted from the firm.”
“And you think he’s still alive?”
“I have no doubt. The man is an opportunist and a cockroachwho’s probably found another use for the children too old to perform as child assassins.”
I bow my head, my breath shallowing. “If you have such an important mission, why are you wasting all this time on me?”
He pauses to look me full in the face, his eyes burning through mine with an intensity that makes my heart flip. I swallow hard, expecting him to launch into a speech about ghosting and revenge, but he cups my cheek.
“I spent seven months incarcerated. Longer, if you count the length of my trial. You can’t imagine Death Row. I was surrounded by the shit stains of society, and I’m not talking about the inmates. You were the purest thing in my world.”
“Even though I murdered someone?”
“It was a righteous killing.” He leans down, our lips nearly touching. “You saved countless little girls from abuse, which makes you the highest form of heroine.”
The air sizzles, and my heart pounds so hard that its vibrations reach the outer layers of my skin. No one ever saw me as special. I had that moment at the book fair, but all those people saw in me was my connection to Xero.
My lips tingle in anticipation of a kiss. I lean in, letting my eyes flutter shut, but Xero draws back.
“Come, little ghost. No rest for the wicked.”
“But I thought you said?—”
“Three things can be right at once. First, you’re a conniving little ghost. Second, I know you’re using me for protection and online fame. And third, I love you, without reservation, restraint, or reason, but that doesn’t mean I won’t crush your spirit.”
My jaw drops, and my stomach tumbles to the tunnel’s concrete floor. His words are a knife to the gut, each one twisting deeper. How can he love me and want to destroy me at the same time?
