T-Minus by Shannon Greenland

Author:Shannon Greenland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: young adult; thriller; romance; teen; politics; president; best friend; crush
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Published: 2019-05-28T20:14:43+00:00

CALLIE’S CAMPER

Chevy Chase, Maryland

Saturday, 5:45 p.m.

We’re inside Callie’s Volkswagen camper, which she tends to live in more than she does her own home. Her dad’s a janitor at CIA Headquarters and works nights. As long as she checks in every day, he’s fine with her doing whatever.

That kind of freedom boggles my mind.

Mom was much like Callie when she was younger. Full of wanderlust. The adventurer. The fearless one.

Why then has Mom had such tight reigns on me lately?

“Does she not trust me?” I ask Erik.

“No.” He shakes his head. “Mom trusts you a hell of a lot more than me. Maybe she’s scared.”

“Scared of what?”

He shrugs. “Losing you? I don’t know.”

I scoff.

Our words come back to me now and with them, new insight. I think my brother may have been onto something and he didn’t fully realize it. Because now that I’ve lost him, I would do anything to rewind the clock and do things over.

If Mom were here, she’d feel the same way.

Her path, though, led us to today. Military, college, politics. Her choices mapped out Erik’s life and mine.

Because of her, not me, Erik is dead. That thought prods my brain like a rusty knife. It’s the wrong way to think, but it momentarily takes the weight off my shoulders and puts it onto hers.

The rational side of me knows the terrorist cell is responsible for my brother’s death, but my heart won’t let me accept the logic.

Callie pulls on the vinyl blinds covering the camper’s windows to let in the late afternoon light, and I automatically shrink away from whoever might see inside, since we’re parked within sight of the apartment building.

“Don’t worry, the windows are treated with privacy film. We can see out, but no one can see in.” She takes a small reflector and mounts it in the window. Then she opens her laptop, disengages the lock screen with her print, and keys a few things. “The bad guys will think we’re in Africa.”

She opens a drawer under her seat and pulls out another industrial laptop. Where hers is silver and purple, this one is riddled with flowered stickers. That’s the laptop she used last year. She hands it to Jackson. “There, now get to work.”

He takes it. “I thought you traded this one in for that one.”

She shrugs. “Sentimental, I guess.”

“Flowers,” he grumbles, and she smirks.

She plops down at the tiny table, and he scoots into the seat opposite her, leaving Zeke and me nowhere to sit but the unmade bed. Like everything else in here, it is miniature, and my whole right side brushes his left as we sit down.

We’ve sat beside each other a million times over the years, but never on a bed. I try not to look down at our touching thighs and to hold still and not lean my shoulder farther into his. But he’s a magnet, and I have no control over his pull on me.

He shifts, and my attention moves from our touching thighs up to his dark green eyes.

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