Bulletproof (Unknown Identities #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

vibrated against the wooden table.
    Bernie would want to check one more time that she was safe. He’d apparently made it home in record time. Reaching out to pick up the damned phone zapped the last of her energy. Amelia was spent.
    She checked the name and number on the screen.
    Not Bernie.
    Anticipation made her tremble.
    John Noble .
    * * *
    Saturday December 21, 12:59 a.m.
    John sat in the dark, the one place in his existence that afforded some level of comfort. The tabletop felt gritty beneath his bare forearms, the tiny flecks of dust cutting into his sensitive flesh as if it were shattered glass. His work boots and clothes lay on the floor where he’d discarded them as soon as he’d walked through the door.
    They’d sold him on the idea of being stronger, better equipped, for the harsh missions he’d be assigned without giving him any idea what the flipside of that new strength would be.
    Because they hadn’t known.
    The essence of Messenger’s arrival lingered in his nostrils, on his clothes and his skin despite the long, hot shower he’d taken.
    Messenger. As codenames went, he didn’t like it any better than Bulletproof, but that’s how the program worked and John’s opinion meant little to the people calling the shots.
    It had been so tempting to use the man’s given name right there in the bar, to break rule one and to hell with the consequences. It might even have been worth getting roughed up by Gabriel’s guard dogs.
    John stretched his neck right and left as he worked to block the stimuli, refusing to acknowledge the reactions simmering deep in his gut. He closed out the images, the thoughts, and stared at the nothingness. The thick black nothingness that cocooned him in this twelve by fifteen room had served him well enough for a couple of years now.
    The ragged couch was his bed, when he bothered to sleep. The table was a battered veteran he’d reclaimed from the sidewalk where it had been abandoned by a previous owner. A stack of shirts and a change of jeans leaned haphazardly on a shelf next to the bathroom door – the only other space in this rented room. There was no food in the cupboards. Nothing but a couple of beers and a mostly empty bottle of tequila in the fridge. He’d never once turned on the microwave or stove. There were no photos from his past. No mementoes of his history.
    This was his sentence. The walls and the meager furnishings changed, as did the city. A new location and name were the only variables. But this meaningless existence remained the same. Day after day adding up to weeks, then months, and now what felt dangerously close to countless years. Even time seemed to repeat itself, moving past the same array of numbers over and over in a vicious, endless cycle.
    The effects of the tequila had faded, leaving him to face this new, unexpected reality more sober than he would have preferred. He could get up, snag a beer from the fridge, or down the last of the tequila.
    Fear kept him seated in the rickety mismatched chair.
    No, not fear. Terror.
    The resurrection of hope evoked sheer terror, taking root deep in his chest and ballooning outward.
    Resisting the weakness, he focused on her, on what he’d learned of her so far.
    “Amelia Bennett.”
    He licked his lips, tasted her name. A sharp tang infused with a wild sweetness.
    Strange. When they had spoken by phone her voice wasn’t what he’d expected. This Amelia Bennett – his assignment. He’d anticipated weakness, vulnerability, perhaps some level of innocence. He’d heard strength, determination and an underlying distrust, but not the slightest inkling of weakness and surprisingly little innocence. And something else he couldn’t name.
    That something called to him, piquing his curiosity.
    John pushed back his chair, the scrape of metal on wood shattering the heavy silence. He walked naked to the window and opened the blinds. The stars remained hidden by the dense cloud cover but the moon managed a feeble