Chapter 22 · The Girl in His File

"You were assigned to me."

Cade doesn't look up from the screen. His hand's still on the edge of the console, knuckles white. The file's open now, all of it, every page Nix dragged out of whatever black hole Cade kept it buried in.

"That's what it says," he says.

I move closer. The projection flickers between us, pale blue text bleeding into the dust floating through the server room. My face is in the file. Younger. Thinner. Hair shorter. Same scar on my jaw, though, which means this wasn't some other girl with my name.

"Assigned," I say. "Like a job."

"Yeah."

"What kind of job?"

He still won't look at me. "Retrieval."

The word drops like a stone. I feel it land somewhere behind my ribs.

"Retrieval," I repeat. "You mean you were supposed to drag me back to someone."

"That's the short version."

"Then give me the long one."

Cade finally turns. His face is blank, the same way it went blank when he took that hit for me two resets ago and didn't remember why. But his eyes aren't blank. They're sharp and tired and something else I can't name.

"You were flagged," he says.