I heard the door click shut harder than usual. My eyes flicked up from the half-done homework on my desk.
“We need to talk.”
That phrase. That cursed, nuclear-armed phrase. My chest tightened before my brain even caught up.
Angella—my Angella—stood with her back against my door, her face pale, her breaths shallow. She looked like she’d just seen a ghost… or become one.
“You okay?” I asked, standing slowly. But something about her body language told me this wasn’t about a fight, or a breakup. This was deeper. Darker.
“I have something very important to tell you,” she said. “And you can't say anything. To anyone. Not your parents. Not your friends. No one.”
My jaw tightened. “You’re scaring me.”
She nodded. “Good. You should be scared.”
Then she said it. Like it cost her everything.
“My name’s not Angella. It’s Neeka. I’m not who you think I am. My family isn’t really my family. We’re spies. For hire. Our job—was our job—was to steal a top secret weapon from your government. But we want out. We’ve had enough. But someone’s on to us. Someone dangerous.”
I stared at her. Silence folded the room in half. I waited for the punchline.
None came.
“You’re joking,” I said, smiling weakly. “That’s... a hell of a prank, Angella.”
“Neeka,” she corrected quietly. “And it’s not a prank.”
Her voice was cracked porcelain. Her hands trembled. Her eyes—those same eyes I memorized like a song—were bloodshot with panic.
I shook my head. “No. No, this doesn’t make sense. You’re just a girl I met in physics lab. You like raspberry iced tea. You hate horror movies. You’re obsessed with penguins. That’s who you are.”
She gave a sad, fleeting smile. “That’s who I wanted to be.”
I backed up. My legs hit the edge of my bed.
“I didn’t plan for this,” she said. “Not you. I didn’t mean to fall in love with someone who could destroy us.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I need you,” she said. “I need your help. We don’t know who’s tracking us. But we know they’re close. We can’t run much longer. You’re the only one I trust. The only person who can help me disappear.”
I laughed bitterly. “You want me to commit treason for a girl who’s been lying to me for two years?”
“No,” she said. “I want you to save both of us.”
I stared at her. At the girl who once spent all night helping me through my finals. The one who kissed me like she meant it. The one who sat on my porch and made up stories about the stars.
All of it, lies? All of it, real?
Or both?
My heart screamed no. My gut whispered yes.
Then I saw it. A flash of red through the window across the street.
A sniper dot?
No.
A drone.
Too high-tech. Too precise.
I pulled the curtain shut. My brain raced ahead of me. Something was off. Even if she was lying, even if this was a test, someone was watching.
And if they were watching her… they were watching me.
I stepped forward. “Tell me everything. Right now. If I’m going to help you vanish, I need every classified, twisted, government-stained truth.”
She looked like she might collapse from relief. She nodded once.
“Okay,” she said. “But if you change your mind, there’s no going back.”
I already knew.
There was no going back the second she opened that door.
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