Second Thoughts and Last Chances
By
Latikia
Edited by
The Old Fart
Copyright © 2007,
2008
Chapter 12
With my sister’s warning ringing in my ears, and the CIA rent-a-cop’s pistol barrel pointing at my heart, I stood unmoving behind the Visitor’s Desk counter; the head rent-a-cop in one hand and a gaping lack of anything remotely like an offensive weapon in the other.
The world around me slowed down like a bug trapped in tree sap. I saw that the man with the pistol was left handed; something I hadn’t noticed before and which was excruciatingly unimportant…but I saw and made note of it none the less.
I saw that the bluing on his pistol’s trigger guard had worn away and that sliver of silver steel was reflecting the overhead lights into my eyes. And I could see the tendon in his left forefinger tighten and turn white as he applied more and more pressure to the trigger mechanism behind it.
He was going to pull the trigger and I couldn’t think of a thing to do that would stop him or the bullet that was shortly going to be coming at me.
A single thought burst out across my mind.
I was off the path again. For years I’d thought I was doing pretty well, only to discover that I’d fucked it all up, and hadn’t even been aware I was doing it.
Done feeling sorry for yourself?
You know, I really thought we’d gotten past this self pity shit.
Screw you! We’ll be past it when I say we’re past it, not you!
And I’m not feeling sorry for myself…exactly.
It won’t matter one way or the other, unless you do something about
Bozo the Cop and his pop-gun.
What’s the worst he
can do…kill me?
Well, yeah!
Death is nothing. Dying’s the hard
part, and if Sparky over there is just marginally good with his pistol even
that shouldn’t be too bad.
You think your death is going to solve anything?
Won’t it?
Short term, perhaps. But try using your head for something other
than a place to hang a hat and start thinking long term for once why don’cha? He kills
you…then what happens?
I’m dead. No insanity, no destroying the world.
And…?
I blinked one time. It felt like it took a year.
…and the girls die
with me…
Yeah.
I’m not going to die.
You sure about that?
Pretty
sure.
And if you’re wrong?
What happens to the
kids?
Do you have a will?
Wouldn’t matter…they
aren’t legally mine.
Do the girls?
I don’t know…
Do you even care what happens to your children?
Of course I care. Dad…
…might get custody of Belle, but the other three, they probably end up
wards of the state. Busted up and put
into foster homes…
No.
…they might never see each other again.
It’ll be really hard on AJ you know…no telling how he’ll react to being
separated from his sisters.
No.
And you’ve seen and heard the horror stories of young girls who go thru
foster homes. Remember what it did to
Peggy? Tragic, just
tragic.
No!
What are you worried about?
You’ve given up, right? You don’t
give a damn about anything but your own little piss-ant problems. What do you care if four little kids who
depend on you to protect them have to endure a childhood marred by abandonment,
guilt, loneliness, and unremitting anguish?
You won’t have to watch it, right?
“No!” I rasped thru a tightened throat, glaring with unconcealed contempt at the face on the other side of the pistol barrel.
I linked and hammered him with the full force of my mounting rage at the exact same instant his finger finished its backward motion. The projectile left the gun barrel just as his entire body burst apart into several hundred thousand tiny bits of flaming organic detritus.
His agony was brief; death for him took a mere fraction of a second. It felt infinitely longer to me. And then the bullet hit me.
He’d been a good shot. A very good shot.
The bullet struck my chest, at a point that would have bisected a line drawn between my nipples, with the force of a sledgehammer on an area the diameter of my little fingertip.
Isabeau screamed briefly and threw her hands and arms up to cover her face when the gun wielding guard exploded, so she never saw the bullet hit me. But I could tell she felt its impact. She grunted loudly, pulling her elbows in protectively between her breasts and hugged her arms close to her upper torso.
Oh shit, did it hurt. It hurt a lot.
At first it was nothing more than a high powered punch impacting a very small area, but then the pain spread out to engulf my entire upper body, spreading quickly to my shoulders, arms and down into my belly.
I had to take two steps back in order to stay upright and ended up crushing the young guard Germain between me and the wall behind us.
I stood there for several seconds leaning against Germain and the wall, waiting for the pain to dull down enough so that I could resume breathing.
While I waited for my lungs to start working again I scanned the area outside the Visitor’s Desk, hoping I wouldn’t see any other potential heroes.
Isabeau was crouched over, bent at the waist and holding her hands pressed between her breasts, but valiantly trying to make her way over to the counter. Her complexion was as pale as I’d ever seen on anyone who wasn’t me. She was obviously in a great deal of pain, and if I hadn’t been hurting so much myself right then I probably would have been able to sense it.
Just as she reached the counter and leaned heavily against it my lungs opened up for business once again and cold cool air rushed in. I started gasping and sucking air like bellows.
“Shit!” I groaned after my third or forth lungful. I linked with my sister, leeched all her pain into me and poured it out into those few people in the lobby who were beginning to rise up to their feet. They all screeched like sea birds and flopped back down into the sloppy mess that was the lobby floor and thrashed about like landed fish.
Using Germain like a springboard,
I pushed away from him and hauled
“Are you okay honey?” I rasped.
Isabeau was trembling as she uncurled and stood up, lifted her head and looked at me. Her eyes fixed on my chest and grew wide.
“He shot you!” she whispered.
I nodded my head very slowly, trying not to aggravate the painful throbbing in my chest.
“Yeah, he sure did.” I agreed.
Her eyes flicked up to mine and then back down to the frayed hole in my shirt.
“There’s no blood.” she pointed out in amazement.
“I sure as hell hope not.”
She reached out, put the palm of her hand over the hole and pressed against my chest.
“I can’t feel your heart beating.” Her voice was breathy, husky, low and rough. Her eyes were glassy and dilated, and the skin of her face was damp with sweat.
She was in shock. She pulled her hand away, staring at me with undisguised awe.
I put the hand with my badge in it on the counter and
vaulted over, dragging
“Everything’s gonna be okay. I’m fine, really. Sore, but otherwise unharmed.”
She tightened her arms around my ribs with an unbelievable amount of strength and pain lanced thru the both of us, but she didn’t let up for an instant.
“How did you do that?” she wondered.
“Magic.” I replied softly, hugging her close and kissing her forehead. I released my hold on her and took a step to one side. I leaned over the counter with my free arm, snagged a visitor’s badge and clipped it to Izzy’s coat lapel.
“We still have a meeting to crash and things are going to get ugly again. Are you ready?” I asked.
She took a deep breath and stood up straight, adjusting the hang of her fashionable business suit. She gave me a half smile and a wink. “Ready.”
I lifted
“Isn’t she the most beautiful woman you’ve ever laid eyes on in your whole sad pathetic life?” I asked him, using the man as my personal ventriloquist’s dummy.
“You and your bitch’ll be dead before lunchtime!” he promised. I tightened my grip on the back of his neck until I heard vertebrae start to pop and saw the man’s eyes bug out of his head. He gagged out something unintelligible in response.
“I asked you a simple yes or no question, but you just had to go off on an irrelevant and insulting tangent.” I shook him like a rag doll and then let him hang limply.
“Now, let’s try it one more time; isn’t she the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen in your worthless excuse for a life?”
“Yes,” the man gasped, “…most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
I offered him a quick smile, turned to my sister and blew her a kiss, returned my eyes to the man at the end of my arm, raised my free hand and held up a split fingered peace sign in front of his face.
“Try not to forget.” I said coldly, planted a kiss on his forehead and then jammed my two extended fingers into his wide open and unbelieving eyes…all the way to the third knuckle, stopping only when I felt my fingernails scrape raw bone.
Spreading my hand over his face, I held the man’s skull like a bowling ball, my thumb latched beneath his jaw, shutting off his ear splitting shrieks. I allowed the weight of his body to pull my arm down to hip level then turned to Isabeau, holding out my clean hand to her.
“Come on sweetie. Let’s go crash a meeting.”
We navigated our way thru the viscous slop and the bodies, some of whom were beginning to move again like grunion on damp sand, and reached the elevators without incident.
As we stood there waiting for the doors to open I did a
quick search of
The three of us rode the car up to the executive level and exited into the shallow hall that led to what I liked to think of as the steno area, where the five or six mid-level agents who’d been marked for administrative greatness were kept busy at computers tracking the day to day operations of the Agency for the Director and his chosen Deputies.
There were four men busy at their desks when my sister, Walker (who had resumed dragging along beside me at the end of my arm) and I exited the hall and emerged into the low level lighting.
I have no idea why Agency policy insisted on keeping it so dark up there. Maybe they thought it enhanced their self-image of skulking along thru the shadowy corners of the world. Maybe they were just cheap. I didn’t get invited up to that level very often, so I’d never gotten much insight into how their minds worked.
One thing I did know for certain. They were traditional, hidebound and
predictable, rarely deviating from established routine. You’d think people in charge of spying on the
world would have learned that routinely doing anything made you easy to spot and easier to fool. How the hell had we managed to outlast the
One of the steno agents looked up, saw the three of us coming towards him and panicked. He jumped up from behind his desk and reached for the pistol on his belt. His three cronies turned to look at him, irritation on their faces. His antics were distracting them from their world saving work and they weren’t pleased. The look on the man’s face must have triggered some ingrained response though, because they all turned to see what had set him off, and then they were all reaching for holstered pistols.
With the hand that wasn’t holding
“Put your weapons on your desks and step back.” I ordered them in a conversational tone. “Anyone who hasn’t complied in three seconds dies here and now. One…two…th…”
I suppose they’d heard about me. I wasn’t much of a secret within upper levels
of the CIA, and it wasn’t as if there were many other people in the building
who could have been mistaken for me. If only
I nodded slightly. “Very good gentlemen. Never did much like people getting in my way when I’m working. Now, if you’ll be so kind…into the janitor’s closet. Move!” I snapped, waving the Glock in the direction of the closet door behind me and to my left, near the large tinted windows.
They scurried over with all the professional dignity they could muster and opened the closet door.
It was a tight fit. The closet wasn’t all that large to begin with, and it was well stocked with cleaning supplies and equipment, so there wasn’t much room, but they managed to squeeze in and Isabeau slammed it shut behind them. I picked up one of the uncomfortable institutional chairs they used in the waiting area, jammed it beneath the door handle and with a quick kick wedged it into the carpet.
I rested one shoulder against the door and raised my voice slightly.
“If I any one of you sticks his head outside of this closet anytime during the next hour I’ll put a ten millimeter slug thru your face.”
I tucked the Glock back into its holster and started walking towards the main conference room. Isabeau hurried to catch up with me, reaching my side as I shoved thru the heavy double glass doors engraved with the CIA seal. Behind the glass doors were the offices of the Director, the Assistant Director, three of his top section deputies and the main conference room. We headed down the row of office doors to the heavy oaken door at the far end.
No security on the conference room door. That was interesting, but as I rarely ever came up here, and had never been invited to the weekly staff meeting of deputies, I couldn’t say whether or not it was standard procedure.
Just meant there were fewer people to intimidate or kill. And that suited me fine.
I rapped three times on the dark wood, twisted the handle
and flung the door open wide. It slammed
loudly against the wall and remained open.
I strode in, dragging
Standing there in the doorway, with every eye focused on me, I was suddenly reminded of a bumper sticker I’d seen a few weeks before: Politics – from poly meaning many, and ticks, as in small, blood-sucking parasites.
I don’t know…the thought just seemed appropriate to the moment. I smiled warmly at the amassed brainpower of the Central Intelligence Agency.
These were the hands that held the tiller of the
My smile grew predatory as I fought to damp down the more primitive emotions that threatened to turn my little boardroom visit into a bloodbath of biblical proportions.
“Good morning gentlemen, so sorry we’re late. I hope we haven’t missed anything important.” One of the Glocks reappeared in my hand almost as if by magic and I held it up near my shoulder. “Please, don’t get up. Unless you think this is a good day to die.”
I looked around at the eight men seated at the conference table, shook my head and smiled. The biggies were all there; the Director, the Deputy Director, the Executive Director, Operations, Intelligence, Support, General Counsel, and the Inspector General. The only groups not represented were Science and Technology, Military and Public Affairs and The Center for the Study of Intelligence. Dr. Wills once refered to the CSI as ‘the Community College of the CIA’.
No one moved.
I mentally shrugged. Maybe they weren’t as stupid as I’d thought.
I shifted my weight, planting my back leg, rolling my shoulder and tightened my bicep while increasing the grip of my fingers and thumb in and over Captain Walker’s face. Then I lifted and tossed his limp body up and out, letting loose of his chin and eye sockets in time to watch his gracefully sailing body arch out and then land with a soggy THUMP in the middle of the large rectangular table.
All but one of the men jerked back in their swivel chairs
when
Tyrone ‘Tye’ Donner. He’d been a field agent in the early seventies, an embassy ‘chief of station’ in the eighties and a regional director during the early nineties. He’d seen his share of brutalized human bodies over the years…had probably done a bit of brutalizing himself, at one time or another.
“I believe this belongs to one of you.” I said, gesturing with my bloody fingers at the shaking body on the table.
Donner leaned forward and rolled
“Why?” he asked coldly, his voice reminded me of David Jones’ with its harshness.
I let the smile fade from my lips.
“Perhaps you should ask the Director of Support that question.”
All eyes focused on the man sitting on the Director’s left hand side. For someone who’d worked so hard to get so high up in government service, he sure didn’t seem to enjoy being center stage very much.
The Director decided to try and resume control of events.
“Dr. Blacktower, whatever Mr. Quinlan may or may not have done, it in no way excuses you from breaking in on a highly classified meeting, or from wantonly assaulting one of our security personnel. Rest assured that I will be reporting to the House and Senate Intelligence oversight committees about your disgraceful and unprofessional behavior.”
A short bark of laughter escaped from my throat. “Director Timmons, you pompous, pretentious sack of shit; if you’d take your head out of your ass long enough to look at the world around you, you’d find that my behavior is neither disgraceful nor unprofessional. This,” I said pointing a goo covered finger at Captain Walker’s moaning body “is what I get paid to do. By definition that makes me a professional. As for disgraceful; I didn’t get my job by kissing some lying, adulterous politician’s ass. Can you look me in the eye and say the same?”
The blood that had suffused Timmons’ face at my jibes and insults drained away quickly at the reminder of who’d gotten him his current position. Political hacks hate to be reminded that they are, when it’s all said and done, nothing more than political hacks.
I walked slowly up towards where Quinlan was seated.
“I don’t require an excuse or invitation to come to this meeting. You might recall, if you try real hard, that my mandate…my Presidential mandate…authorizes me unlimited access to any and all data passing thru this organization.” I stepped up behind Quinlan and wiped the blood and eye tissue that coated my fingers on his several thousand dollar hand tailored Italian suit jacket. The man cringed and then squawked when I clamped my hand down on his shoulder.
“But we’ll get back to your personal leadership failures in a bit. Let’s shift our attention back to the question Mr. Donner originally asked. ‘Why?’ was the question, in case you’ve forgotten.” The looks they gave me as I mimicked Donner’s gruff and rasping voice were priceless, but I didn’t take the time to enjoy them.
“Who among you is responsible for building and ground security? Who hired the current security chief? Who approves the hiring of all security personnel? Who’s responsible for administration of the security database and all its attendant computer systems and software?”
I tightened my grip on Quinlan’s shoulder. He groaned.
“Who was it that granted Captain Walker uncontrolled access to the data base, along with permission to add and remove data at his own discretion…including mine?” I knelt down behind Quinlan’s chair and rested my chin on the top of his head. “Feel free to speak up any time Thomas.” I said softly.
“You allowed a low level rent-a-cop access to our security database?” Donner snarled.
Quinlan whimpered almost as loudly as Walker, who was still lying motionless on the table.
“It gets better.” I assured the men around the table. I got up and released my grip on Quinlan’s shoulder, and resumed pacing around the table, counter clockwise.
“Not only did Captain Walker have access and regularly make alterations to the database, but he received orders late last night to completely remove all of my files. Pay, security access, medical and dental, the whole lot. He was also told that when I arrived this morning I was to be refused entry and if there were even the slightest fuss made about it…well, Captain Walker was given permission to use deadly force to ensure I didn’t get back in.”
Even the Director looked taken aback by this information. It didn’t take much imagination on their part for them to see that Quinlan could have used his private little army to stage a quasi coup if the mood had hit him. I knew that had probably not been his intention, but just the idea that such a thing was possible added a little extra weight to my side of the scales.
Quinlan sputtered for a moment or two, but when he saw the glares coming from nearly every one of the faces at the table he choked back whatever it had been he was going to say and sank deeper into his chair.
I continued making my way around the table.
“Now before anyone develops a sanctimonious streak and decides to proclaim Mr. Quinlan doomed to the deepest pits of Intel-Hell, let me point out how badly the rest of you’ve been doing lately.”
I’d reached the end of the conference table once again and was discreetly watching my sister watch me at work. Her beautiful face had regained its usual olive complexion, with just a tiny extra touch of blush in the cheeks and along her lovely neck.
I pulled out one of the chairs farthest from any of the men already present and gestured for her to take a seat. Isabeau stepped over and I helped her out of her overcoat. She sat gracefully as I draped her coat over the back of the chair next to her then removed Walker’s pistol from my coat pocket and set it on the table in front of her.
“If any of these gentlemen even appear to be reaching for a weapon, put a bullet in his head.” I told her.
She nodded and picked up the pistol, released the manual safety and eased back the slide to be sure a round was in the chamber.
Director Timmons chose that moment to put both hands flat on the table as if to raise himself up out of his seat.
“Blacktower…”
Isabeau raised her arm in one fluid motion, drew back the
pistol’s hammer to full cock and aimed the barrel over and across
All movement around the table stopped immediately.
“I wouldn’t tempt her if I were you. She’s already seen me get shot once this morning, and I don’t imagine she’s all that interested in seeing if I can survive a second round in the chest.”
“Who shot you?
Timmons took the opportunity to slowly ease himself back into his seat, keeping his hands flat on the table as he sat down. Isabeau lowered the pistol and sat back in her chair.
“
The man under discussion whimpered softly and mumbled ‘boom’ under his breath just loud enough to be heard, then started sobbing weakly.
“Who shot me is irrelevant at the moment, because I’m still alive. What does matter is that this tin pot little tyrant has been jerking me around on and off for more than five months, and with the exception of Quinlan, not one of you had any idea what was going on. Why do you suppose that is? I’ve been hunting spies here for eight years now…why don’t the people who work Security in this building know who I am and what I do? And whose fault is it that they don’t? Mine?”
I strode back up the length of the table to stand behind the Director’s chair.
“Maybe a little. But I’m the company spy hunter, not the goddamn Welcome Wagon. So then, whose fault is it that the head clerk wasn’t told that the tall guy with the white hair is the one person in the entire Agency that he should never-ever fuck with?!” I thundered loud enough to make all of them, except Donner, flinch.
I leaned down over Timmons’ head and rapped one knuckle against his balding head.
“Anyone care to venture a guess?” I asked pleasantly. No one spoke up. I whipped the barrel of my Glock around so that it pressed against Quinlan’s right temple. “Anyone at all?” I asked again.
Not so much as a peep.
“Every last one of them.” Isabeau stated icily from the far end of the table.
I could actually hear eyes clicking in their sockets as the men seated around the conference table shifted their attention at the sound of her voice. With the exception of Captain Walker, who could be forgiven…what with his disability and all.
I smiled fondly at my sister and lowered the barrel of my handgun from the side of Quinlan’s head.
“Who are you?” Director Timmons asked in a strained tone of voice.
“One of his wives, no doubt.” Marion Urbanick, head of the Directorate of Intelligence, offered.
“One?” Timmons parroted mindlessly.
“…most beautiful woman…miserable life…”
I stood up and headed back down the length of the table to stand next to Isabeau’s chair.
“Yes. One of my wives. Bravo Mr. Urbanick, kudos to the Chief Analyst. If only you paid that much attention to events occurring outside your directorate. Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Isabeau Blacktower. You’ve never met her because we don’t travel in the same social circles you folks do, and because I’ve tried very hard to keep my work here far away from my family. However, recent events have forced me to alter my thinking somewhat.”
I fought back an increase in the pain in my upper body, took a shallow series of breaths and exhaled slowly.
“We’ll return to the issue of responsibility in a few minutes.” I said ominously. “The main reason I decided to pay a visit to your little coffee klatch today is because a former CIA field agent, Carlos Negron, has attacked my family. I dislike people attacking my family even more than I dislike them attacking me.” I waved absently towards the man in the center of the table. “You can see for yourselves the level of tolerance I employ when responding to personal attacks…can you imagine how much more drastic the response will be to an attack on my wives and children?”
“Carlos Negron. I know that name.” Donner said under his breath.
“He went by Alex Chorney when I met him in 1991.” I offered, ignoring the stab of guilt, remorse and anxiety I received from my sister. I laid my free hand on her shoulder and gave her a comforting pat.
“Right. Chorney, he was the assistant embassy chief
in
“Correct. Now, the reason I’m here today is because I went looking thru the Agency files the other day for information on either identity. Now, assuming that Chorney was his operational identity, and was wiped when he left the Agency, there should still be files on him under his real name. But I came up with a whole lot of nothing!” I stepped away from Isabeau’s side and began walking slowly back up towards Quinlan.
“Redacted files, incomplete files, missing files, files checked out to other government agencies for indeterminate and unspecified periods…Mr. Urbanick, care to apply your powers of deduction to the problem? If you were me, what would you conclude?”
Urbanick leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a second or two. When they reopened they were fixed firmly on the man sitting opposite from him.
“Someone with access to the archival and personnel databases has altered the files. Someone is trying to erase Negron from history.” the fifty-something Deputy Director declared. “The possibility exists that Negron is now in the employ of a foreign government. But I would also suggest the possibility that Negron now works for some powerful group within our own country.”
“Any chance he’s lone-wolfing it?” I asked.
“Not likely.” Donner jumped in. “What little I recall of the man suggests to me that he’s the kind who requires direction. Give him a goal and he’ll move heaven and earth in the most creative and innovative ways to achieve it. But without direction…if he’d been a big picture kind of agent we’d have made him a chief of station or moved him back here and put him in charge of a department. Obviously that didn’t happen.”
Urbanick nodded his head in a quick jerking motion. “I concur.”
A slow smile formed on my lips. “So what you’re saying is that a former agent is now using skills he learned here to either influence or co-opt someone, or several someone’s, within this room?”
“Yes.” Urbanick said as a flash of disgust crossed his lined face.
“Yes.” Donner voiced agreement, his features cold and stony.
I nodded my head and frowned in the direction of Director Timmons. “Sounds to me like we have a spy. Sounds like whoever ordered Captain Walker to keep me out, or take me out, is worried I might be on to them.”
Director Timmons slumped back in his chair. Quinlan stared blankly into space; most of the blood in his face had long since drained away, leaving his features wan and waxy.
Actually, that wasn’t quite how it sounded to me. I knew for a fact that Negron wouldn’t have told Quinlan to have me killed…at least not until I’d taken care of Lucifer; which told me that Quinlan wasn’t privy to Negron’s obsession with Lucifer. What had set Quinlan off? The poking around in the files I’d done, looking for data on a former agent that no longer existed? Afraid that I might make a connection between the two of them? Probably. Good thing for me the NSA was better at records keeping.
I walked back down the table and took a seat next to my sister. I linked with seven of the eight men and began forming rings of adoration and obedience.
“Here’s what’s gonna happen…every one of you is going to go thru your personal files, have your people go thru their personal files, have your people’s people go thru their personal files. I want anything and everything that anyone has on Carlos Negron or Alex Chorney. I don’t give a damn how inconsequential or innocuous the information might appear to them or to you. I want all of it and I want it yesterday! Any contact by Negron with one of you is to be reported to my office no more than fifteen minutes after the contact occurs; and I’ll expect details.”
I finished molding the rings and slipped them into place, one for each of the seven men. They shuddered briefly then sat upright, clear eyed and sharply focused.
“You gentlemen work for me now. Previous allegiances and loyalties are secondary. You will do nothing, say nothing, that might in any way be detrimental or harmful to me or my family. You’ll continue to perform your jobs as honestly and faithfully as humanly possible for as long as you are employed here at the CIA. There will be no further political favors granted, no more leaks to the press, no accepting of gifts from foreign government agents or political lobbyists, and no more fucking around with security! Am I understood?”
“Yes sir!” they all sounded off, like good boots fresh out of basic training.
“Good. Finish up your meeting and then get me my data.” I stood up, touched my sister on the shoulder and held her coat out to her. “Oh, and Mr. Quinlan…?”
“Yes Doctor?” the Director of Support snapped to attention, sitting up straight for the first time since I’d walked in.
“The lobby will require straightening up, one of your security guards is missing in action, and you need a new Chief of Security. See to it.”
“Of course sir.”
“You and I will be having a more in-depth interview later in the week. Keep some time available for me. And make sure Captain Walker is well cared for. He’s had a very bad day.”
And just like that, the CIA was mine.
Isabeau and I walked out into the waiting area; I took the pistol from her hand and helped her back into her coat. I went over to the janitor’s closet and kicked the chair away.
“Count to a hundred slowly and then you guys can come out.” I called over my shoulder as my sister and I headed to the elevator.
We exited the car and walked down the long hall to my office. Inside Eric Watson was seated behind his desk in the outer office cleaning his shoes.
“Quite a mess in the lobby, huh?” I said to him, ushering my sister towards my office door ahead of me.
“Yes sir. One of yours?”
“I’m afraid so. Sorry about your shoes.”
He flashed a boyish smile, surprising for a man in his early forties, and shook his head.
“No problem, Doctor. Good morning Mrs. Blacktower. Uh…did you know there’s a bullet hole in your shirt sir?”
I smiled back at him. “Oddly enough, I did notice. I don’t suppose I’ve still got a spare one stashed somewhere around here?”
“I don’t think so. We had to stop stocking them…budgetary cutbacks you know.”
I sighed dramatically. “Remind me to take that up with the subcommittees, along with all our other demands, at the next meeting.”
“I’ll make a note of it sir. Speaking of which, have you finished your presentation? I’ll need it soon if you want it proofed in time.”
I shook my head. “I’ve decided not to give a formal presentation this time.”
Eric’s eyes widened slightly then quickly returned to normal. “Ahhhh…” he exclaimed softly.
“Anything urgent I should know about?”
“A call from Megan Posey at NSA; she said there was no rush on returning her call. And a message from Lilly. She would like you to call home at your earliest convenience.”
“Oh, I’m in big trouble now.” I laughed. Isabeau punched my arm lightly. “We’ll be in the office for the next hour or so, but I’m out to anyone not on the emergency list. Just take names and times and a message if they’re willing to leave one.”
“Yes sir. Can I get either of you anything from the canteen?”
Isabeau leaned against me and I felt her stomach rumble. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“An excellent suggestion Eric. Would you have them send up a pot of peppermint tea and a couple of English muffins?”
“Right away sir.” he said, lifting the phone from its cradle.
“Thank you Mr. Watson.” Isabeau said gratefully over her shoulder as I opened the door to my private office and held it for her.
“My pleasure.” he replied with a smile then returned his attention to the phone.
I shut the door behind us, took my sister’s coat from her hands and hung it on the coat rack next to the door, followed by my own.
“Go ahead and sit behind the desk.” I suggested as she was about to choose one of the two chairs in front of the desk.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Yeah. First I’ll answer any questions you might have about what’s happened so far this morning then I want to ask you a few questions. Then, after we’ve finished our tea and we’re both out of questions, you can write up your letter of resignation. We’ll drop it off at the Academy on the way home.”
She stared at me blankly for a long fifteen seconds.
“You weren’t kidding last night, were you?” she said at last.
“Not even a little bit.” I let out a sigh as I sat down on the edge of the desk. “Look, I know you think I’m doing this to get even.” I shook my head. “If that was what I wanted, having you resign wouldn’t even make my Top Twenty List. This isn’t about revenge or vengeance; it’s about protecting you, Lilly, Peggy and the kids. To a lesser extent it’s even about protecting me.”
Isabeau frowned prettily as she settled into the big leather chair behind the desk. “What do you need protection from?”
“Do you know what I did upstairs a few minutes ago? Do you have any idea what just happened?”
She shook her head. “I felt you doing something, but I don’t know what.”
I leaned back in my chair and let my eyes focus on the
ceiling tiles overhead. “I just stole
the CIA from the
I could feel that she hadn’t made the connection.
“What’s to stop me from doing the same thing with the Congress, or the Supreme Court? Or the Pentagon?”
“Nothing could stop you, if that’s what you wanted to do.” she replied cautiously.
“Can you think of anything that could make me do something I didn’t want to?”
“No…except maybe…”
I pulled my eyes from the ceiling and brought them down to meet my sister’s.
“Except?” I prompted.
“We’ve done a pretty good job of making you do things you didn’t want to, haven’t we?”
“Yes you have.” I agreed, returning my eyes to the ceiling.
“You’d do anything to protect us, wouldn’t you?”
“Anything.”
“You need protection from us.” Her tone was sad and troubled.
“Not from you…for you. Well, maybe a little protection from you wouldn’t be such a bad idea either.”
There was a sharp rapping on the door.
“Come on in Eric!” I called out.
Our tea had arrived.
Eric set the tray loaded with the tea pot, two cups, a bowl of sugar, two spoons, a butter knife and a plate with three English muffins, pats of butter and a small container of jam, down on the desk and hurried back out, closing the door behind him.
I poured the still steaming tea into the cups while Isabeau buttered one half of a muffin. As she took her first bite I set the teapot down, leaned back in my seat and spoke softly but firmly:
“I’m never going to make love to you again.” I said.
She stopped chewing, her arm and hand holding the muffin up to her mouth slid down just fractionally and then stopped. Her pupils dilated and the thin ring of deep sea blue around the edges of those black pupils dimmed and turned glassy. She swallowed the food in her mouth with a loud gulp and lowered her arm, setting the rest of the muffin down on the tray then brushed her fingers quickly across her lips.
“You don’t mean that.” she said uncertainly.
I could feel the panic rising within her, along with fear, trepidation, and even a slight touch of resignation.
“Don’t I?” I asked, offhandedly.
Her eyes narrowed and one hand reached out towards me blindly. I don’t think she was even aware of doing it. And then, just for a moment, a hard look crossed her face. A hard, angry look. And then it passed away, replaced by the kind of confident expression my sister had always worn in the past when dealing with her little brother.
“You don’t mean it. You’re lying.” she said with relief and wonder. “You never lie to me.”
I smiled gently. “Congratulations. And welcome to my world.”
“You were lying…and I could tell.” she said under her breath.
“Yep.” I agreed, leaning forward, picking up the cup in front of me and taking a sip of tea.
“I didn’t just imagine that bullet hitting you?”
I furrowed my brow for an instant and then shrugged. “You might have imagined some of it. Sort of like sympathy pains. But if I had to guess, I’d say that most of what you felt was real enough.”
“It still hurts. Not as bad as at first, but still…”
I nodded and sipped my tea.
“I’ve been doing what I can to keep the pain to myself. It does hurt like a sonofabitch though.”
“Why aren’t you dead? Or at least bleeding?”
I gave her a brief smile, unbuttoned the first three buttons of my shirt and pulled it open, exposing the Kevlar vest beneath.
“This thing is supposedly guaranteed to stop anything smaller than a high-powered rifle. I guess it works.”
She dropped back in the chair and closed her eyes, putting both hands up over her face.
There was silence for several seconds, so I sipped my tea and waited.
She lowered her hands slowly and opened her eyes, those deeply blue and extremely attractive eyes were filled with tears and her face expressed relief.
“For a little while there I actually thought you were bullet proof.”
I grinned.
“Come on now, you’ve seen me with a knife in my ribs twice. And I’ve been shot three times before today. I’m not invulnerable. It’s actually pretty easy to hurt me…if you know how.” I said pointedly.
My sister paled and looked away. “I know.” she whispered.
“I have two questions for you Isabeau, and I want the most honest answers you can give me.”
She nodded, still not looking at me. “Okay.”
“When you think of me, how do you think of me?”
Her eyebrows came together slightly and her lips pouted.
“How do I think of you?”
“Yeah, how do you think of me? You do think of me occasionally, don’t you?” I asked with just a hint of a smile.
She raised one hand as if brushing away a fly. “Now and again.” she replied with a weak grin.
I leaned forward, set the tea cup on the desk and then fell back in the chair, waiting.
It was a long empty silence that followed, as I awaited my answer. Finally, after nearly a full minute, my sister turned her eyes back to me. Those lovely blue eyes, filled with pain and turmoil, echoing the swirl of unpleasant emotions building within her.
“When we were little…when you were little…I thought of you as an annoyance. Mom’s little porcelain baby doll. ‘Keep an eye on the baby Izzy.’ ‘Look after your little brother Izzy.’ Like I didn’t have things I wanted to do, you know?” she said defensively.
I nodded agreeably, projecting gentle waves of understanding.
“When I was twelve...I hated you; you and every male on the planet. Dad, Granddad, Ivan, my teachers, our family’s friends; it didn’t matter who they were, I hated them all, but especially you. Maybe it was because you were always there, chasing after me; trying to hug me and always saying how much you loved me.” Tears started falling unnoticed down her darkly tanned cheeks.
“I didn’t want anyone touching me! I didn’t want to hear your lies!”
“I’ve never lied to you Izzy, not until today.”
“I know that!” she snapped at me, angrily wiping the tears from her cheeks. She looked at the dampness on her fingers and her features relaxed. “I know that now.” she repeated, her voice softer and apologetic. “But that’s how I felt then. I hated you, because you were Mom’s baby doll, and because you were a boy and because all boys are two-faced lying scumbags. It wasn’t much of a stretch, going from feeling to acting. God, I was so mean to you.”
She stopped talking and turned away again, looking out thru the long vertical blinds at the forest beyond the window.
“At first it was kind of fun. I’d make you cry and you’d run away. For a little while I felt strong and in control, but you kept coming back. Maybe you were trying to wear me down, hoping that I’d give in and love you back. Hell, you were just a stupid little baby, you didn’t know any better. I used that hope against you over and over again. Until you wised up and stayed away.”
Yes. I remembered that day very well. The day my childish hope died and pragmatism took its place.
“From then on I had to find you, if I was in the mood for tormenting. With Ivan it was always about being bigger and stronger. Before you were born he used to bully me, until I figured out how to push his buttons. After that he left me alone. Your buttons were so much easier to push, because there was only the one.”
“Love.” I muttered.
“Yeah, love. All you ever wanted from any of us was love. And except for Mom, and Granddad, none of us ever gave it to you. Pretty much everyone you ever met growing up treated you like shit. Dad probably thought you were a negative reflection on him, on his manliness. Ivan…I don’t think Ivan’s ever really loved anyone but himself. He was a natural born bully. Everyone else would take one look at you and figure you were diseased or something. I can’t begin to count the number of times I heard other kids call you a little ‘maggot’. Sometimes it was their parents who did it. I should have been protecting you. Defending you. But I didn’t. I never did. I was worse than any of them. You came to me and I used your love for me as a weapon against you.”
“Izzy, don’t…”
“NO! It’s true and I won’t deny it anymore, not even to myself. I didn’t realize how bad I’d become until Granddad told me and Mom about what happened to you on the hunting trip. Up till then I’d just lumped you in with all the other bastards, all the men, who didn’t understand, who couldn’t feel. At first I didn’t want to believe what Granddad said. Because if it were true that would mean I was worse than any of them. But it was true. You knew what I was feeling. You hurt because I hurt. And to make things even worse, you forgave me. Laying there in your bed, trying to rip your own heart out because mine was breaking. My not so little baby brother forgave me. I didn’t plan on falling in love with you that day Ike, it just happened.”
“I know.”
“My feelings for you just kept growing stronger and stronger. It was like a magnetic attraction and I had a hell of a time resisting it. You were so much younger, and you were my brother. I knew it was wrong, even if you didn’t. What made it even worse was that you didn’t seem to feel the way I did, so I had to do something. College was the perfect excuse and I used it. I ran and tried to forget.”
Izzy stopped for a moment and picked up her tea cup, taking a couple of small sips before continuing.
“You aren’t easy to forget, little brother. I couldn’t do it.” she smiled wistfully.
Little brother. Were we ever going to be able to move beyond our genetic connection?
“When I saw you at Mom’s funeral…you looked so alone. And so different from the young boy I’d left behind. You were…scary. The white hair, the cold empty eyes and you’d gotten so big.” She chuckled briefly. “Ivan told me after you’d left that he wouldn’t want to run into you in a dark alley.”
She took another sip from her cup.
“I suppose you figured you’d lost everyone who ever loved you. Granddad, Carlie, and then Mom.”
“And you. I’d lost you too.” I reminded her.
She nodded. “And me. When that letter from the Army came saying that you were missing, I didn’t know what to do. I was close to giving up. I actually thought about suicide a few times. I missed you so much. And I never stopped loving you. Not a day went by that I didn’t think about you. And when I’d finally given up all hope of ever seeing you again…there you were. Like a knight in a fairy tale, you rode in and destroyed the villain, rescued the damsel…”
“Paddled her ass, bent her over the back of the couch and fucked her till she screamed? I don’t remember that part in any of the fairy tales Mom used to read me. Girls must get a different book.”
Izzy blushed brightly and squirmed in her chair.
“And then at the very first opportunity, you hurt me…again.” She stopped squirming.
“Yeah.” she said faintly. “You nearly killed yourself because of me.”
I brushed off her remark with a wave of my hand. “Hardly. I’m not that easy to kill. But it doesn’t take much to hurt me. I’m sensitive Izzy. You of all people should know that.”
“I do know. I don’t want to hurt you Ike, really I don’t, but I keep doing it just the same.”
“Why do you suppose that is?”
She looked up at me quickly. “You’re the psychologist. You tell me, ‘cause I don’t want to do it anymore.”
I steepled my index fingers and held them up to my lips, elbows planted firmly on the arms of the chair.
“Honey, I could give you all sorts of reasons, and one of them might actually turn out to be the right answer. But only you know for sure what the real reason is. And unless you admit it to yourself, and face up to whatever it is, you’ll keep on repeating the same pattern of behavior. And I don’t know if I can take it anymore. I damn sure don’t want to take it anymore.” I finished gruffly.
I shifted in the chair, stretching my legs out before me. “Getting back to the first question: How do you think of me?”
“You’re my little brother.”
“Yeah, well it’s generally considered socially inappropriate to fuck your little brother. And you sure as hell don’t have his child. Emily Post would not approve.”
“Are you sorry we had Belle?” she asked me.
“No. Not at all. I dearly love our little girl. In her I can see what you must have been like as a little girl, before I came along and spoiled things.”
Izzy flinched, but her eyes held on to mine.
“She’s so lively, and cheerful and open with her feelings. And she’s…she’s not like me. I love that about all my children. They’re each so much like their mothers, and so unlike me. But let’s get back to the question you’ve been avoiding. How do you think about me?”
“I don’t know how to answer your question. I think about you in a lot of ways.”
“So tell me.”
“I think of you as my brother. And my lover, and my husband, and the father of our daughter.” She looked as if she were about to speak again, and then suddenly thought better of it. I could feel the hesitancy and concern building.
“Come on…out with it. Say what’s on your mind.”
“Sometimes I think of you as a goddamned sonofabitch! Cold and heartless and cruel and uncaring! You confuse the hell out of me Ike. You talk about killing like it was no different from doing your taxes. You can be so kind and sweet and compassionate, and then, without even changing your expression, you stick your fingers into a man’s eyes and blind him.”
“What bothers you more, that I blinded the man, or that I don’t feel bad about having done it?”
“You didn’t have to do it!”
“I didn’t have to kill the one who shot me either. I didn’t have to make all those people puke their guts out and I didn’t have to make those men upstairs my devoted fans for the rest of their lives. For that matter, I didn’t have to have four children, didn’t have to agree to spend my life with the three of you, didn’t have to agree to work for the CIA, didn’t have to kill Ricky or any of his thugs, didn’t have to take that damn mission into Iraq…there are a lot of things I didn’t have to do Izzy. But the fact of the matter is that I did them. And in all likelihood, given the same circumstances and options, I’d probably still do the same things in exactly the same way.”
“Heroes aren’t supposed to be so cold-blooded and uncaring.”
I smiled fondly at my lovely sister. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m no hero?”
“You’re my hero.”
“Honey, I don’t want to be your hero. To be perfectly honest, I don’t want to be your brother either. Brother and sister…that’s the way we were born. I want to be your lover and your friend. Lovers are allowed to have flaws, and you love them in spite of those. Friends have flaws and you forgive them or at the very least put up with them, because that’s what friends do.”
I wiped one hand across my forehead and down the length of my face. “Heroes tend to be past tense and posthumous creatures. They’re safer and more reliable that way. Live heroes always manage to let us down. Heroes are supposed to be perfect, and no one is. Not you, not Lilly, not Peggy, and most definitely not me. As soon as people realize that their heroes aren’t perfect, the first thing they want to do is vilify and dethrone them, quickly followed by the second impulse which is to destroy them. Is that what you want for me Izzy? Have I failed to live up to your expectations so often that you want to destroy me?”
I ripped my jacket off and cast it across the room, removed the shoulder harness and set the guns on the desk, stood up and tore off my shirt, unfastened the Kevlar vest from around my chest and tossed them both aside. I pulled one of the Glocks from the holster and walked around the desk. Izzy swiveled the chair around to face me. I knelt down on one knee, put the pistol in her hands and guided the barrel of the gun up to rest over my heart.
My sister stared at me with alarm and incredulity. Her eyes darted from the gun’s barrel, lying over the rapidly spreading bruise on my chest, up to my face and back again.
“Pull the trigger Izzy. I’m not a hero, I’ve never been a hero, and I’ll never be a hero. I’m just a man; a badly flawed man. That’s all I am, and it’s probably all I’ll ever be. But for all of that, I’m also the man who loves you. I love you like no one else ever has or ever will. I love you so much that I’ll hold your hands and look you in the eye while you kill me…right here, right now. So if what you really want is for me to be a hero, pull the trigger. I’ll be heroic this one time and you can put us all out of my misery.”
Are you out of your tiny fuckin’ mind?
Shut up! I know what I’m doing.
Couldn’t prove it by me.
Just watch.
Her eyes snapped back up to mine and her hands clenched beneath mine. She stared hard into my eyes, he lips thinned, her eyelids narrowed, the skin around her cheekbones grew taut as her teeth ground together and the muscles in her jaw bulged from the tension. I could feel her anger and frustration; taste the tang of her fear and the bitterness of her resentment.
Her index finger wormed its way inside the trigger guard and the pad came to rest over the trigger. Her entire body was rigid and trembling with pent up emotion.
“Now, Izzy my sweet, while there’s still time…my second question. Why do you resent me so damn much? What have I ever done to deserve it?” I inquired very softly.
Her lips curled into a sneer and her deep blue eyes turned shallow and unsympathetic.
“You tried to replace my sister!”
I opened my heart and soul, allowing every feeling I was carrying to slide down the link like water down a ditch.
“Do you know why I told you a lie today Izzy? So you’d recognize what one felt like. Now you can tell when I’m lying, the same way I’ve always known when you, or anyone else, lied to me.”
“So what? So fucking what?!” she snarled at me, her finger closing down on the trigger.
“I’ve never tried to replace anyone. I’m sorry your twin died, if only because
losing her has screwed you up so badly.
But I didn’t kill her. And I
never tried to replace her, not in the family and certainly not in your
heart. I was a baby, for
Christ’s-sake! I wanted my own place,
not hers.”
My sister’s face contorted with grief. “Mom forgot about her. She loved you more than she loved her!”
The tragic humor of the situation; the similarity between the conversation I’d had with Belle just days before, and this one with her mother, were not lost on me.
I took my hands from around Izzy’s and placed them against the sides of her face.
“Mom never forgot about her. Never. Dad told me that she was devastated when your sister died. She blamed herself for that till the day she died. He said that my birth was a kind of vindication and validation for her. Just like Rosie and AJ are for Lilly. Their births prove, in her mind anyway, that she’s not a failure as a woman. That’s what I was for Mom. And Mom loved me because I was her baby, and because she was a loving person. She didn’t stop loving you or Ivan or Dad, and she didn’t stop loving or grieving for your sister simply because I showed up. And wasn’t it you who wanted Lilly, Peggy and I to fill in for her so you wouldn’t feel so lost and alone?
“So stop blaming me for something that isn’t my fault!” I growled deep down in my chest. Izzy jerked back, and for an instant I thought she might accidentally pull the trigger.
“Either that, or shoot me. I don’t deserve what you’ve been putting me thru all these years, Izzy. I want it to stop…one way or the other. And at this point I don’t much care which option you choose.”
Izzy stared at me, wide eyed and unblinking. “I’m not going to shoot you.” she said finally.
I nodded. “Glad to hear it.” I took my hands from her face and retrieved the pistol, prying her fingers from around the grip. I set the gun down on the desk top then gathered my sister into my arms and kissed her cheek.
“You should call home. Let Peggy and Lilly know you’re alright and that I haven’t been painting the walls with blood.”
“Alright.” She squeezed me for a second, pushed back and patted my chest gently then wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Would you really have let me shoot you?”
I smiled and lifted one eyebrow. “What do you think?”
Izzy shuddered. “There are times when I just don’t understand you.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed that. Look, it’s not complicated. I’m not complicated. Confusing maybe, but not complicated. I love you. I love Peggy and Lilly. I love my children. All I want is for the people I love to love me. Pretty simple really.”
I stood up and stepped back.
“But I am who and what I am, not what you’d like me to be. I’ll never be the boy you fell in love with…he’s gone and there’s no bringing him back. I’ll never be the hero you think I was, because that person never really existed. The real me is a cold, calculating and vindictive bastard. The past eight years have been a pathetic effort on my part to be two completely different people. You said the other night that you preferred me the way I was before the girls were born. But when I’m like that you bitch and moan about how cold and unfeeling I am. The three of you keep nudging me towards being the guy I pretended to be, but you don’t want him either. I can’t win, no matter what I do.”
I turned around and started picking up the clothes I’d tossed aside.
“I wish I could be as cold and ruthless as you.”
I shrugged. “I wish I had your skin color. I’d even settle for Peggy’s skin color. I don’t think there are very many people who don’t wish they could change something about themselves. Ultimately we have to learn to live with who and what we are. Wishing we were something else is a pointless waste of time.”
“Thank you for saving my life the other day.”
I smiled faintly. “You’re welcome.” I strapped on the Kevlar vest, and put on my torn shirt.
“I’m glad you saved my life, but…”
“I have power and you don’t. And I keep rubbing your nose in it.” I shrugged into the shoulder holster rig and settled it into position.
She nodded. “Something like that I guess.”
“If I could give you my talent I would.”
She looked up and frowned. “You’re lying again.”
I smiled at her fondly. “Yeah, I am. Izzy, you’ve always thought of my talent as a good thing. I generally don’t. To me it’s always been more of a curse than a blessing. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone…you least of all. It hurts, Izzy. It hurts a lot, and it’s getting worse all the time.”
“But even so, when the time comes to do something, you just jump out there and do it. Even if it’s something you don’t know that you can do. Even if you know it’s going to hurt you.”
I shrugged. “That’s just the way I am, I guess.”
“And I resent that about you. Because I’m not like that, and I wish I was. Every time you do it just reminds me how weak and pathetic I am.”
“See now why I don’t want to be a hero? So I save you every now and again. Big deal. How many times have you saved me? Hell, just this morning you saved me again. You jumped right in, with no abilities and no defenses and pulled me back from the edge. That took a lot more guts than anything I’ve ever done for you.”
Her brow furrowed briefly.
“It was so…weird. It felt like you were slipping away from me. Kind of like that day at Mom’s funeral. I could feel the love in you fading away. So much despair and sorrow…and hope, your hope was dying.” she whispered.
I nodded. “Izzy, when I saw you and Alex come out of that hotel together, I came this close,” I held up my thumb and forefinger, the two so close together that I could barely see a sliver of light between them, “to going back to the way I was after Carlie was killed.” I dropped my hand.
“That close to shutting off all my feelings. I can’t begin to tell you how much it hurt. I can show you, if you really want to know.” She shivered and shook her head quickly. “It hurt worse than being shot, or stabbed or hit by a car. Almost worse than dying. It hurt so badly that I didn’t want to feel anything ever again.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“But I couldn’t keep it shut off. Not for long anyway. When all the emotions built up and exploded
out I remembered everything I’d been
trying for years to ignore. Every-thing.”
“I was leaving, Izzy. I know I threatened to do it before, but this time I was actually going to do it. Just admit defeat and walk away. But I couldn’t. I wanted to, but I just couldn’t. So I came back. I let Lilly pound on me, let Lilly and Peggy vent their fear and anger at me, even though I knew what they’d done. Do you understand what I’m saying Izzy? I knew…I knew that the only one in that house who had any reason to be angry was me. I groveled and apologized for walking out and asked them to forgive me. I saved your life. I drained years of anger and hatred from you, and I did something to the three of you that I swore I would never do. Why do you suppose I put myself thru all of that?”
She wouldn’t look at me.
“Why Izzy?”
“Love.”
“Yeah. Love. For me, without love there’s no hope.”
Something went click in my head, as a couple of disparate memories banged into one another. “I’ve been getting more and more sensitive since the kids were born. I used to have to link with people before I could tell what they were feeling. During the past six years or so it’s like everyone around me is broadcasting and I’ve turned into some kind of hyper-sensitive receiver. Coming to this place, day after day, has been a kind of slow torture. I think that the ‘Alpha’ behavior Evan was telling me about may be an outgrowth of that. I think it might be some kind of defensive mechanism, or a reflexive response on my part to counter all the crap I’m picking up from everyone else. But without love, why bother?”
I rolled my head around to relieve some of the tension that had built up in my neck and shoulders.
“Without love and hope, I don’t think I can keep what little sanity I have left. What you felt this morning was me losing that grip.”
Izzy stood up, put her hands on my arms and guided me into the large chair she’d just vacated. I sat down and then my sister sat on my lap and put her head on my shoulder.
“We have one ugly little co-dependency going, don’t we?”
I wrapped my arms around her and held on for all I was worth.