Bittersweet

Chapter Eleven: Roasted

"Charlie, really? You had a fight with your boyfriend right before you're about to go on your first dangerous mission?" Luciana asks.

    I turn from my listless studying of ocean and sky, of the chalky pink clouds of sunset, staring at her blankly. "Freddie figured out my secret."

    One thin eyebrow raises.

    I blast out a breath. Admitting this is hard. Admitting important things to Agent Casanova is especially hard. "He didn't react ... optimally."

    She pinches her eyebrows. "That can happen sometimes. It's really easy for people to dismiss people like us."

    I feel my face wriggling, like how a small child's would while explaining that his pet froggy died. I tighten my jaw, weighing down that flyaway balloon of insecurity with a masculine shrug of nonchalance. I take a tee-shirt cannon full of Wylie's Wonders merch and shoot at the drivers of few random speedboats until I'm grinning again.

    We're laying anchor. The captain whistles, the boat flowing in reverse before dalumps rush to inflate staircases and rafts that will bring the naked swimmers onto my boat. Some of the Crisis girls rush to dive into the ocean, but after a few minutes they start screaming. "Ow! Ah! There's so many jellyfish," one is half-laughing, half-crying in drunken shrieks, "They're stinging us!"

    I peer into the ocean. It's a sea of plastic bags, some of which have tentacles. I wave down the first mate and ask if there's a better place to park this thing. Apparently this is one of the better places to be – he points at patches of clear ocean above bleached coral.

    "Charlie?" Freddie's voice beckons behind me. "You have a call. It's about the dalump–"

    "Mr. Tender, please," I whisper, rubbing my hands with condensation off the ship's railing. "No need to be unprofessional."

    His nod is tight, his every feature twitching and quivering. He meets Luciana's eyes, shrinking at her glance. "Come in whenever you're ready." He's broken, dead inside. I hate seeing the way I've hurt him, the way his shoulders slump down even more.

    I watch the door close behind him.

    "That's a rich snob and an idiot," Luciana says. "But I think you should talk to him."

    Mansfield's yacht sends a golden firework into the still-blue sky less than a mile away. I snap my fingers at nearby dalumps. We send up a purple one in return.

    "I have to get ready," I tell her.

    "If you're not talking to him, I will."

    "Whatever," I say. "Do as you will."

    Her eyes sharpen.

    I shrug.

    She tools something out of her apron pocket. It's another bug – this time a dragonfly pin for my ascot. She stabs it into the fabric at my neck. "We have to go over some parameters: Don't blow your cover. No matter if you see a child already down there or already in pain. We're seeing everything you're seeing. We'll get them. If they know who the mole is, you'll be a whole lot of danger, and not just you, but your family, your friends, and your employees. Do you got it?"

    I know she's not exaggerating. Besides Mr. Junji, they'd lost two operatives last year. "I got it."

    "Now," she says, "go get ready for the party. If you need help, the code word is?"

    I tug at my hat. "RazzleDazzle."

    "Right. You've got this."

    "I don't think I've got this."