“Zoe . . .”
“You know, for a good spy, you’re a bad liar.” She pushed past him, heading toward town.
“Zoe!”
“Actually,” she called back, “you probably aren’t even a very good spy!”
He threw his arms out wide. “I killed a man with a negligee!”
Zoe didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. She had to get to town. She had to get to Switzerland. She had to find that bank.
And then she had to find her sister.
“Zoe . . .” Sawyer was beside her again, his stupid long legs with their stupid long stride. “Can we talk about this, please? Can we . . . Where are you even going?”
“Oh, me? I’m leaving you. Because I don’t need you, remember?”
“Zoe, wait.”
And for some reason she stopped. She looked up at him. It hurt, but she did it anyway.
“Can we . . .” he started, but she reached for him, arms sliding beneath his jacket and wrapping around his waist, her head against his heart. For just one second, she wanted to savor this—remember this—so she closed her eyes and sank into all his strength and warmth because he was the best thing she had, but, turned out, she’d never had him at all.
“Hey.” His hands were warm on her cold skin as he tilted her face up to his. “I’m—”
She jerked the gun from his waistband—tossed it into the woods and stormed away.
“That’s my second favorite gun!” he called after her.
“Then go get it!” she shouted.
But she didn’t turn around.
She didn’t look back.
And she didn’t even think about slowing down.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Him
Sawyer found the gun, but he didn’t see his sanity anywhere.
She knew. She knew and he didn’t have a time machine, so where did that leave him besides cold and hungry and way more terrified than he wanted to admit?
He should have thrown that card overboard, tossed it into the fire. Because the moment she realized what it was, he knew it would change everything. Either she was going to hate him for lying about the card and the bank; or, worse, she was going to insist on going there herself. And now, Sawyer was pretty sure, it was both.
Oh, how he prayed it wasn’t about to be both.
The plan had seemed so simple in Paris: get her someplace safe, take the card. Come back for her if he needed her. But the part he hadn’t counted on was Zoe herself. And at some point, he’d made the cardinal mistake: he’d started to care. He wasn’t supposed to like her, trust her, need her. Want her.
To make matters worse, he’d lied when he should have told the truth and told the truth when he should have lied, and that’s how he ended up freezing and alone and scared out of his mind.
Because right then, Sawyer wasn’t worried about his mission. Not the drive or the card or even Alex. Sawyer was worried about Zoe and what he was going to say when he found her.
Or, worse, what he was going to do if he didn’t.
Her
By “town” Sawyer clearly had meant “living postcard” or “artisanal reenactment.” It wouldn’t have surprised Zoe to learn that the whole place was fake. It was just too perfect with its cute little shops and frozen waterfalls. Smiling people and delicious-smelling food. But this place wasn’t a dream; it was reality. And Zoe couldn’t help but feel just a wee bit bitter about it.
Because Zoe’s reality was an aching head and aching feet and being shot at and strangled and nearly drowned on a regular basis. Plus, she really needed to find a bathroom. Again.
So Zoe walked on, fueled by half a cup of coffee and the knowledge that, for the first time since she woke up in that snowbank, she knew where she had to go and what she was going to do when she got there.
So she headed across the quaint little street toward the quaint little train station. “When’s the next train?” she asked, but the woman in the quaint little ticket booth looked at her oddly, and Zoe tried to find the words. “Uh . . . Wann f?hrt der n?chste Zug?”
The woman nodded and pointed at the sign. Five minutes. And Zoe held up a finger in the universal sign for one please. But when the woman told Zoe the price, she remembered.
Zoe didn’t have any money. Zoe didn’t have any ID. Zoe didn’t have anything or anyone or . . .
“Willst du auf deinen Mann warten?” She was aware, faintly, of the woman saying something—of the line behind her starting to grow.
“What?” Zoe asked even as her tired brain tried to translate the words: Do you want to wait for your husband?