Page 91 of The Blonde Identity

Maybe she was knocked unconscious by the fall. Or maybe she just slept. Zoe didn’t know—didn’t exactly care. All she knew was that she dreamed. She must have. Because there were voices all around, floating through her mind like ghosts as she remembered—

Alex standing on the mountain, shouting,This isn’t one of your books, Zoe!

A man in a surgical mask and cartoon-covered scrubs covering her mouth.Can you count backward from one hundred for me?

A woman with green eyes saying,No, sweetheart, you’re not strong enough to go with Alex. But look, I brought you a new book.

Her mind was a blur of faces and places, but the words were almost always the same.

Don’t run, Zoe.

Be careful, Zoe.

You’re too weak.

You’re too fragile.

You’re too frail.

Then a deeper, colder voice was in her head, saying,I told you I could get her to trust me.

The words cut through the fog in Zoe’s brain and pulled her from the dream, and she lay in the dark for a long time, certain of two things.

One: She had been born with a bad heart.

And two: That was the first time it had ever been broken.

The snow was cold and soft beneath her, and she waited for a surge of memory—a flash of recognition. But her whole life felt likea dream she couldn’t quite hang on to—scenes and lines and memories that were floating away on the wind.

She could remember hospitals and libraries and watching other children play. She recalled kind smiles and the sound of distant laughter. But mostly she just lay there, exposed and unprotected, wishing she could forget the past few days, just wipe them from her mind completely. But she wasn’t going to be that lucky ever again, it seemed. Because even though her memory was still a vast, gaping void, there were some things that she just knew—like the fact that she was lying in a snowbank... again. And she had no idea what she was supposed to do... again. And, most of all, she was alone... She was alone and she was going to stay that way. Again.

She’d come so far since Paris, but somehow Zoe had ended up right back where she’d started. Only worse. Because this time there would be no Sawyer. And the worst part was realizing that, in a way, there never had been.

It shouldn’t have felt like such a loss, losing one person. But Sawyer had been her only person. So she laid there, looking up at the stars, thinking about how some of them were so far away they were already dead before their light even reached earth.

Sawyer was like that.

He’d been lost for days—weeks. Forever. Long before his light even reached her, it was already out. And just because he’d been standing in front of her—kissing her, holding her—a few hours before didn’t mean he wasn’t already gone.

***

Well, I Guess It Could Technically Be Worse

A List by Zoe Whatsername

She hadn’t broken any bones.

She hadn’t frozen to death.

She was getting really, really good at falling down mountains at high speed.

She’d probably never have to see Sawyer ever again.

By the time the sun finally broke over the top of the tallest mountain, Zoe had been walking for an hour. Or two. Or twenty. Who was to say at that point? But as she reached a small town teeming with tourists, she had already laid out her thoughts the best way she could, and no matter what order she put them in she always came to one conclusion: Sawyer was a liar.

Which, actually, was a good thing, she decided. Because maybe he’d been lying abouteverything. Maybe it was perfectly safe to go to the US Embassy and explain her broken brain.... Maybe there were a few people who were actually on her side.... Maybe there was someone she could trust....

Really, the more Zoe thought about it, the more it made sense. After all, if Sawyer wanted to keep Zoe away from the real CIA, what better way to do that than to convince her they couldn’t be trusted?

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