Page 13 of A Spy is Born
I clench my jaw to keep it from trembling, seeking to cloak my shaking consciousness with sass. "I'll call the press."
He smiles, a glorious flash of white in a face so hard its relation to stone could be verified in a lab. "You’re stubborn. That's good. And..." He takes a moment to think, and I watch his eyes, hoping to catch some hint at his next words. "And brave. You're going to do well."
"I am doing well," I remind him. My gut shakes at the lie. Standing in a dead man's kitchen with his blood rimming my nails, wearing a pair of borrowed scrubs, could hardly be considered doing well.
Temperance nods slowly. "What do you want?"
The question throws me off; I wasn't thinking about what I wanted, just about protecting myself. About not getting sucked into a vortex. "I—" Swallowing, I keep talking just to avoid creating a silence that exposes my confusion. “I want to understand more clearly what you're offering. I don't want to follow you into the darkness."
He cocks his head. "That's dramatic."
I cock a hip and raise one brow. "I'm an actor."
He lets out a sharp laugh. Real or fake? I can’t tell. "Let me drive you home."
"Is that me agreeing to work with you?"
"This is done," he tells me. "You're going to work for me. For your country. Because we need you. Consider yourself drafted. But I don't want our relationship to be adversarial. You'll see that I can be very helpful to you. This loss…it will be temporary. I'll get you plenty of work." A grin slips across his face at the scent of his own power. "I'm going to make you a star."
I jut my chin up, holding Archie tighter. "I am a star."
He grins. "Thatta girl."
I shake my head. "You condescending prick. I want a lawyer. Where is my phone?” I'll call Mary. She must have someone for things just like this. I am not the first actor to end up in legal trouble. One of Mary’s other clients recently got on the expressway going the wrong direction, andshe'snot in jail. I turn around, scanning the kitchen, trying to remember where I last saw my bag. The patio.
"You can't call anyone." Temperance’s voice remains even.
"Am I your prisoner? If so, I get a phone call."
"That's not how this works." I look back over at him. He's standing very still, that chest just going and going. Nothing to stop it. "Your country needs you."
"For what, exactly? I don't understand what you're offering. It's like you want me to take a role without reading the script. How do I know there isn't full frontal on page sixty-two?"
He lets out a short laugh. "I can't promise what the future holds. What did Jack promise you?"
"I knew who he was. I had read the script and I knew the role. I have no idea who you are; you won't even tell me who you work for. And I have no idea what you expect me to do.”
"Jack lied about who he was. I won't lie to you." The oath sounds real, but I know how to make anything sound real.His words mean nothing.
"I have no reason to believe you."
"You have no choice." The first stirrings of anger edge his voice.
A smile crosses my face that is not my own—my sassy character has taken over. I don't even need to think about her now. She is me—I am gone.
"There is always a choice." My accent has even gone a little Southern. I back away from him, heading around the table, toward the swinging door that leads into the dining room. From there I can get back to the patio, grab my bag, and call Mary.
Temperance does not try to stop me. Cold tile chills my bare feet, but I move calmly, slowly, like what Beyoncé proclaimed is real…I move as if girls run the world.
Pushing through the swinging door, I run right into a uniformed officer. He's shorter than Temperance but still a lot bigger than me. "Excuse me," I say, going to move around him, but he steps with me, blocking my path.
"Sorry, I can't let you leave."
I raise my chin, that old fallback.I'm not afraid of you. Let me pass."I want my phone call."
He shakes his head. "You'll have to talk to the detective about that," he says. "We are still working in here."
"Fine," I nod. "I'll wait." Turning around, I return to the kitchen. Temperance is where I left him.
