Illusive Read Free Page B

place for them to park.”
    “Can we pretend our plan worked?”
    “If anyone asks, we made a daring escape.”
    They find an empty bench just inside the station. They’ve got a good twenty minutes to waste, so to pass the time, Ciere says, “I spy…” They have their own version of this game. Instead of spying objects, they look for security. There are two types of deadly agents, and it’s a point of pride that good crooks can tell the two apart.
    “Man lurking near the women’s toilet,” Devon mutters.
    Ciere squints through the crowd. She can just make out the man—he wears a baseball cap. His eyes continually roam over the crowd and there is a slight bulge around his left ankle. “Mobster,” Ciere says firmly.
    Devon nods and gestures to a woman lounging against another wall. She pretends to check her cell phone. She wears business casual, a matching skirt and blazer. Her blouse’s neckline is low enough that Devon looks interested in more than the game. This time the bulge is under her right shoulder. “Fed,” Ciere says.
    “Damn,” Devon says. “Can’t hit on a fed.”
    “Can’t hit on a mobster, either,” Ciere points out.
    The fed eyes the mobster. The mobster grins and touches two fingers to the rim of his baseball cap in a mocking acknowledgment. Eyes narrowing, the fed turns away from the taunt. The feds used to go after organized crime, but that was before the war.
    As she and Devon wait, Ciere digs into her backpack for the Hello Kitty bobblehead she swiped from the Newark bank. She’s not one for sentimental keepsakes, but when she saw it on the teller’s desk, it triggered a rush of memories—the smell of trees, a warm hand in hers, and the scent of lavender. Taking the bobblehead seemed like a harmless way to hold on to those sensations.
    Devon makes a concerned noise. “He’s looking at us,” he says under his breath. “Mob bloke with the hat is giving us the interested eye.”
    Ciere forces herself not to look. It would be an amateurish slip. “He can’t see us—not the real us. My illusion’s still up and he’s not using a camera.”
    Devon’s mouth creases into a thin line. “Still staring.”
    “Stop panicking. Maybe you’re his type.”
    “I’m not panicking, I’m just calmly noting the armed mobster who keeps looking at us. What’s there to be panicky about?”
    Ciere grits her teeth, and says, “Pet the dog—you’ll feel better.”
    Obediently, Devon’s hand rises and falls over the dog’s head. The puppy leans into his touch, tongue lolling as it pants. Ciere lets her eyes wander everywhere but the mobster; she glances at the crowds, at the fed, at the clock announcing that it’s nearly noon on June 26, 2034.
    Although she keeps her gaze forward, the rest of her senses strain toward the mobster. That’s how she notices another man walking toward him. She glances over and takes in both men, quickly absorbing the details before pretending to study the dog on her lap.
    The first man, the mobster with the baseball cap, has sandy brown hair and about a thousand teeth. He bares all of them in a grin. Combine that grin with his six-foot-something height and the way his sleeves strain over thickly muscled arms, and it’s a shudder-worthy sight. The man looks like he wrestles great white sharks for fun and probably wins.
    The second man is less terrifying. His face is lean and tanned, his blond hair bleached by sun. He isn’t an imposing figure—about five and a half feet tall and thin-shouldered. But he has a steady expression.
    Devon makes a disgruntled noise and focuses his gaze on the men, apparently giving up on subterfuge. “What are they saying?” Ciere asks. Devon learned to lip-read a long time ago.(“Mostly to spy on my older sister and her friends,” he once admitted.)
    “Not English. Think it’s, uh, give me a second.” Devon darts a look at the men. “I could be wrong, but I think it’s German.”
    Ciere frowns. “You never learned