Page 43 of Lovely Darkness

No. My love for her.

Maybe Wendy wasn’t the girl I dreamed up—if I dreamed of a girl at all, that is. I never pictured myself with a Company assassin. But she’s the girl I got. And she’s been my best friend—my only friend—for a lot of years now.

I don’t know what life looks like without Wendy.

I don’t want to know what life looks like without Wendy.

“I like her just fine, Wen. She’s a nice girl.”

Wendy snorts. “Ha. That’s funny. ‘Nice’ is not even in the top thousand words I’d ever use to describe Indie Anna Accorsi.”

I laugh too. “I’m being polite.” Then I hold the screen door open for her to prove it.

Wendy shoots me a grin. A real grin, too. Because it’s a little bit sad.

We walk into the kitchen and find the plate of soggy pancakes. Wendy isn’t a complicated girl. She really isn’t. If I hand her one of these pancakes, she will eat it. And she will be fine with it.

But I’m not feeding her cold, soggy pancakes.

I pick up the plate, lift the little glass dome, and let them slide into the trashcan.

“I thought we were eating those?” Wendy asks.

I just smile at her and open the fridge. “Eggs?”

“Sure.”

“Bacon?”

“Yum.”

“Toast?”

“Better be careful, Mr. Tate. I might come to expect a homecooked breakfast every morning.”

I place the eggs, bacon, and butter on the granite countertop next to the industrial stainless-steel stove and turn back to Wendy. “Once we leave here, Mrs. Tate, we will spend the rest of our lives waking up in the same bed together and I will be feeding you a homecooked breakfast every single morning.”

She sighs, then slips her ass onto one of the counter stools. “Eggs and bacon with you every morning is like a dream come true.”

It really is.

Funny. Because it’s such a simple thing. But our lives have never been simple. Simple things, to us, are the ultimate prize. A life where we’re not wondering about killing, death, clones, and crazy conspiracy theories about eternal life. A quiet morning. An uneventful night. Days, and months, and maybe—if we’re really lucky—whole years of just existing in this world instead of directing its path forward.

But we’re not there yet. Close. Very close, but just not there yet. And there are gaps in Wendy’s whereabouts this morning.

This is unacceptable at this stage in the game.

“So tell me. What did you, Indie and Nate do while I was in here planning your perfect breakfast?”

“We went to the woods. They showed me their tree house. Then we just came back and lounged around on that swing.”

“What’d you guys talk about? Did you catch up?”

Wendy pauses to think. She’s never been much of a liar. She lies on the job when she has to. But I never caught her lying to Chek. And if she tells me a lie it’s a little one meant to spare feelings.

Here’s the catch—Wendy doesn’t tell the truth because she sees herself as some kind of moral compass. It’s because she typically has no motive to lie. She just doesn’t give a fuck what people think about her truth.

“We talked about sex.”