Page 83 of Tag
Aponi didn’t follow.
She walked straight past the others and into the ops room.
I followed her.
The second the door closed behind us, she spread the list on the table, her fingers tracing the names like each one was a landmine.
Four crossed out. Hers circled. Mine just below it.
“What does this mean?” I asked, stepping beside her.
“It’s a kill list,” she said quietly. “But not just any list. This is a target roster forChimera’s cleanup unit. The ones they can’t control, they erase.”
I clenched my fists. “Then we find them first.”
Her hand stopped on the seventh name.
Classified.
I stared at it. “Any guesses?”
She shook her head. “Could be someone we haven’t met yet. Could be someonewe already knowand don’t realize they’re involved.”
The implication sat heavy between us.
“Someone inside?” I asked. “Feeding them intel?”
Aponi hesitated—then nodded. “Graves knew too much. Chimera knew about our mission plans. Our movements. My real name. Either they’ve got someone inside law enforcement… or someone nearus.”
Silence.
I hated the thought. But we couldn’t ignore it.
“Then we smoke them out,” I said.
Aponi looked up at me, fire in her eyes. “And we end this list beforeanyone elsegets crossed off. And when this is over we find an Island and swim in the ocean where no one is.”
I nodded. “I agree, sweetheart. Just you and me. But first we finish this. We start with the crossed-out names. If we can figure out who they were, maybe we’ll understand the pattern.”
Faron stepped in right then, holding a file. “I’ve got your pattern.”
He dropped the file on the table. “Two of the four crossed-out names? Former CIA assets. The third was an investigative journalist who vanished six months ago after chasing leads on a child trafficking ring. The fourth?” He looked at Aponi. “FBI. Went missing two years ago. Off the grid.”
Aponi frowned. “What do they have in common?”
“They all tried to expose Chimera.”
I looked down at the list again.
“So what’s the connection between them and us?”
Faron flipped a second sheet. “They all reached out to a single alias in the last year:SilverEye82.”
My pulse thudded. “The woman with the tattoo?”
“Could be,” Faron said. “We’re trying to trace it, but it’s bouncing off encrypted servers like nothing we’ve ever seen.”
Aponi pressed her palms to the table, her voice steel. “Then we dig deeper.”
