“I’m sorry. So sorry.” My voice is tiny in the large space. There’s another long silence.
“I’ve never seen you get to that place before,” Caitlin says, finally.
My mouth opens again to explain something I have no words for. But I don’t want to admit that I fell so far out of myself that I lost sight of her being my teammate, my friend. If I tell her that, how would she be able to trust me ever again?
“I guess I got wrapped up in it,” I say, trying to salvage things. “You had me cornered and I had to push hard to get back in the fight. . . .”
I keep talking about the training, calmly, like I’m the same old Jessie she knows. It’s awkward and strange, but by the time we make it to the showers, things are mostly back to normal between us. We don’t mention it again. That “place.” That rage. That brute instinct. But now I know I have all of those. Now I know I can use them. I’m not the same. What happened in Mumbai changed me. After I came back from India, Kit told me that I have to remember who I am and stay true to those values. But I don’t care what she thinks. All I know now is that I have to make it up to Riya. I have to do better by the women and girls we’ve pledged to help. And I’m not playing by the same rules anymore.
Acknowledgments
The antics of Jessie and the Athena team left me needing to find out a lot of detail about things I had no experience in.
A heartfelt thank-you to my friend Dr. Sarah Caddick, who put me in touch with a couple of experts to think through my virus theories and triggers. Anirvan Ghosh put in so much time in thinking through my ideas and reading drafts of the relevant sections. Thanks also to Massimo Scanziani, who helped our brainstorming early on.
Thanks to Edward Cadogan, who introduced me to Colonel Laurence Williams for help with bomb disposal notes, though I probably still took a bit too much license with them.
Peter Hui gave me feedback on cardiac triggers that never made it into the final version of this book, but for which I am grateful.
And Susan Coll introduced me to seasoned pilot T. J. Johnson to look over my stealth copter and missile sections.
Finally, such gratitude and appreciation to my wife, Hanan. For giving me a writing cabin in the garden (and plenty of time to use it) and for reading every page of every draft, even if the shifting of her red pen over the pages makes me want to weep at the time.
About the Author
Photo by Marte L Rekaa
SHAMIM SARIF is a novelist, screenwriter, and director. The Athena Protocol was her first novel for teens.
Her debut novel, The World Unseen, won a Betty Trask Award and the Pendleton May First Novel Award. She is also the author of Despite the Falling Snow and I Can’t Think Straight. She has adapted and directed award-winning films of all three of these novels.
Shamim lives in London with her wife, Hanan, and their two sons.
Visit her online at www.shamimsarif.com.
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Books by Shamim Sarif
The Athena Protocol
The Shadow Mission
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Copyright
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE SHADOW MISSION. Copyright © 2020 by Shamim Sarif. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art and design © 2020 by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design
Digital Edition OCTOBER 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-284965-6
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-284963-2
2021222324PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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