Free Tandem by Anna Jarzab

still couldn’t bring myself to accept that possibility.
    “Come on,” he urged. “We have to go.”
    “Prove it,” I said, pushing a few wet strands of hair back from my face.
    “Prove … that we have to go?” Confusion passed over his face, but only for a brief second before it was replaced by the inscrutable expression I was coming to think of as his perpetual look.
    “No,” I said. “Prove that you are who you say you are.” He hesitated, and I kept talking, the words spilling out of my mouth before my brain had any time to filter them. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but you obviously need me or you wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble to bring me here—wherever here is. I get that you’re a big tough guy, and you can threaten me all you want, but you’re not going to hurt me—if you were, you already would’ve done it. I don’t have to make things easy, and I don’t plan on it, unless I get some answers.”
    Thomas pressed his lips together and drew a deep breath in through his nose. He appeared to be considering my proposal. Finally, I thought. I was starting to feel a little bit better, too, which was an encouraging sign. If I was sick, I couldn’t run.
    Wordlessly, Thomas turned and left the bathroom. I followed him out on wobbly legs and leaned against a wall while he dug in the pockets of a jacket that hung on the back of a chair.
    “Here.” He thrust a piece of hard, folded leather into my hands.
    At first I thought it was a wallet, but when I flipped it open I saw that it was a badge—gold, shaped like a shield and crested with a golden sun. The badge read:
    KING’S ELITE SERVICE
    SECURITY DEPARTMENT
    DIVISION OF DEFENSE
    I was about to hand it back and tell him that some little prop badge wasn’t going to convince me of anything when I noticed that the other half of the fold held a small, rectangular certificate sheathed in plastic.
    UNITED COMMONWEALTH OF COLUMBIA
    KING’S ELITE SERVICE
    AGENT: THOMAS W. MAYHEW
    AGENT CLASS: SECURITY (S)
    AGENT ID: UCC-KES-1321345589
    The picture in the upper left-hand corner was Grant’s.
    I handed the credentials back, trying not to betray how unsettled they made me. “Fake.”
    “They’re not fake,” he insisted. “Look here, at the holographic imprint. You can’t counterfeit that.”
    “The United Commonwealth of Columbia? The King’s Elite Service? Those things don’t even exist, Grant!”
    “Not in your world, they don’t. But I told you—we’re not in your world anymore. In this one the UCC and the KES are very, very real.” He stepped forward. “Now, for the last time: my name is Thomas Mayhew. You can call me Agent Mayhew, or you can call me Thomas, but I really don’t care whether or not you believe me. We’re leaving. Now.”
    I swallowed hard. “Where are you taking me?”
    “Where you need to be,” he said, flipping up the hood of his sweatshirt. “Fillmore, get rid of that.” He gestured to my dress, which was dangerously close to the puddle of vomit. “And clean up. We’re going.”
    “She needs to cover her face,” Fillmore warned. “People will recognize her.”
    “Put your hood up,” Thomas instructed.
    “Okay, okay,” I said, following orders. I slipped my arms through the straps of the backpack and walked toward Thomas and the door. “Why would people recognize me? I thought you said we weren’t in my world anymore.”
    “In Aurora, your face is a little bit more … familiar to the average person,” Thomas said.
    “What does that mean?”
    “Exactly what he said,” Fillmore responded. Thomas shook his head and Fillmore backed down, once again in deference to Thomas’s rank. “Good luck, my boy.” Fillmore offered his hand for Thomas to shake, and Thomas took it. In spite of all their bickering, there seemed to be some genuine affection—or, at the very least, respect—deep down.
    It sank in then, as I watched the two of them part ways. Thomas wasn’t lying, and he