Mitchel Enebeli

Chapter one Ethan “There he is,” the oval faced man whose most noticeable features are the wire framed spectacles around his eye. “Steve was just about to serve my head to a group of hungry lions if you had arrived five later,” “There are no lions here, Jimmy,” I give the middle aged man a friendly pat on the shoulder. “If he wanted to feed you, he’d have you travel a few several miles to Arkansas where we actually have em. I don’t think he’d want to stress himself that much,” I follow his lead. “Well, that didn’t help at all,” he snorts. I shrug. It wasn’t supposed to. Inside the bureaucratic mess that is the Pentagram, the only place I genuinely find solace is the office of my buddy – Stephen Kruse. We took different paths when we were younger, but we both loved the violent life. Blood, triumph and victory. To be honest, it wasn’t as much about helping people as it was about us feeling good about ourselves for being untouchable, but the objectives modified over time. I went into the army, and Kruse started with national intelligence. Three tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq was enough to send me running back to the same national intelligence that I used to mock my friend for entering. “There’s a case he wants you to handle,” Jimmy tells me as we edge closer to the office. I can hear the undertones of his statement. ‘It’s not an idle drink while you both talk about the plagues of the US’s role in curbing anti-sematism or whatever it is you guys talk about,’ We talk a lot. I notice eyes on me…all around me. I’m used to it. Six foot, six inches and a mighty fine scar from my left brow down to my chin is hard to pass a glance. Not many of these men have seen true combat in the fashion that I have. Everyone in this building right now, sitting in front of a desk will never. “Well, no shit, Jimmy. I’ll take you as a field partner this time,” I push past him when the door is in view. “Oh, please, no. I can’t handle a gun if my life was pl –” “I know, man. I was just kidding,” I cut him off more with the opening and closing of Stephen’s office door than with my words. “Hello, fat bastard. How’s sedentary life?” Stephen sits behind his desk with his hands clasped together, staring into nothingness with his icy blue eyes. His hair is a piercing shade of black and his face is still as angularly lead as ever. I just call him ‘fat’ to rile him up. “Mmh. A little here and there. One of these days, I’ll call Sharon over. I could use a handy while I worry about the fate of the common man,” “Proud bastard,” I chuckle and take my seat. He doesn’t have to offer. “So, Jimmy said you got a case for me?” “Uhuh,” he tosses a file across his desk. I catch it without a fumble. “Evelyn Anderson –” “America’s very own child,” I muse about how unashamedly American her name is. “Yup. So American that somehow, a small-time marketing exec in Phil and Tungsten living in some DC suburb, somehow managed to get herself involved knee-deep government secrets,” I snort and begin glancing through the file. “Age – 28, brunette, only child of Matt Anderson – Biophysicist in government funded research and development - has been since 95’,” I shake my head. “The sins of the father, eh?” “Indeed…or, at least, what it looks like,” He clears his throat, “She came running into the office two days ago, hysterical that she’s been followed since she tried investigating her father’s disappearance.” “Is she stupid? Shouldn’t she have reported the incident to the police or something?” “Well, she said she was warned not to…and you don’t have to be crass,” “Oh, and the FBI is the safe one?” at this point, I let out a cackle. The FBI is an investigations bureau. If there’s one thing we’re not good at, it’s rapid responses. Most of the time, we’ll only ever send in an armed troop when it’s been confirmed that a suspect of ours is heavily armed. That’s not to talk about how the entire agency is creeping with bugs and moles under the paycheck of criminals. I mean…what government organization isn’t? Most of them are drug cartels and rich people wanting to do their business away from the eye of the law…which is the daily work of the FBI – Cracking these guys down. Without them, most of us would work remote and get paid in long spaced periods of time, so…we let them…only for as long as we can get paid ourselves. It’s a process I would muddy my head…and integrity trying to explain properly. “Well, she thought us safe…and maybe she was right,” he slaps another file in font of me. Before I even pick it up, the red inscription on its face saying ‘CLASSIFIED’ slaps me in the face. “She said she regrets opening it, but couldn’t stop herself,” I’ve never wanted to open something so much either. I pick it up and open it, briefly glancing through one of the most gruesome experiments seemingly done on a perfectly conscious human being. It’s in such fine print, documented in such precise detail and even with equipment any illegal operation would struggle to accomplish with. “This is government information,” I hide my horror with a tone of indifference. “To test the varying limits of the human body, yes. She says she has reason to believe this is just the least of it,” Stephen lets out a heavy breath. I exhale as well. “Just when you think you’ve seen it all, huh?” I shake my head, “I thought misappropriation of funds and refunneling into weapons of mass destruction for senseless wars over resources we’d probably never need would be the worst those brainless eggheads at the top could come up with,” “Maybe they’re not so brainless after all,” I’m reluctant to admit that, so I just keep quiet. Stephen chuckles. “Just get out of here, man. Call me if you notice anything. Run it through my personal line if you’d want us to have a smoke over it.” The last statement is code for, ‘If it’s anything too wrong for the FBI communications to have access to,’ We don’t need to bid ourselves a goodbye or a nice day. Our friendship runs deeper than that. In fact, if it’s going to be a display of affection, I’d have left after dropping an insult. I leave wordlessly today and head straight for the address in the file. “34, Reckle Ave, Rockville, MD 20966,” I grunt to my car assistant, who immediately plots the direction I’m to go. It takes about an hour to get there, maybe more. I wasn’t counting. But when I get to Rockville, it doesn’t look like the place a person would just…go missing. The streets are clean, the entire neighborhood is pretty serene for a mid-day and the entire air just seems friendly. Finally, I get to Reckle Ave, where the houses are a lot more spaced out…and also a tad bit more expensive looking than the average. “Physicist money pays well, huh, Matt?” I say rhetorically in reply to my car’s “You have arrived at your destination,” I alight from the car and take my time walking to the steps of the rich, brown duplex. The door opens before I even get the chance to knock and, in the flesh, I lay my eyes for the first time, on Evelyn Anderson. “The man in the office said you were coming,” she tells me timidly, before opening the door further, an invitation for me to enter into the house. I nod as I pass her and immediately turn my attention into the house. The living room is standard lower wealth status. Kind of how you’d expect the house of an experienced doctor who has had no ill occurrences and controversy in their career. The living room is spacious. Enough for me to park a few trucks in…if that’s a measure. But it’s sparse. Nothing more than just the chairs – leather from my eye’s depiction, a deep hue of brown to match with the theme of the exterior, which is unironically the same theme as the interior. Brown walls, brown floor…brown furnishing. I hate that I like it so much. Monochrome in a dull color is the classic tell tale that you have more money than the average American. “Man in the office?” I do not take the liberty of walking past five or so steps. “Big office…very bossy…Stiff back…” she expatiates. “Steve doesn’t have a stiff back. He’s recovering from a bullet wound I gave him during one of our shooting practices. Ricochet bullet,” I chuckle internally at the memory. “Oh…I’m sorry,” “It’s fine,” I shrug. “I have a new nickname for him now, at least,” I hear her breathe a laugh. “Ethan Pierce. I already know your name,” She nods. “So…do you guys have any news for me? I’d really love to know where my father is…” she starts her prompt. I let out a breath, “No, Evelyn. We do not have even the slightest clue where your father is. You know why?” “W-why?” she stutters. “He’s a government worker. Depending on the type of government worker he is, he can decide to have himself under surveillance 24/7…or he can decide to transform himself into a ghost,” I lean against a wall. “I believe you know where my money is.” She gives a confused shake of her head and storms past me into the living room. “No, my father didn’t ‘decide’ anything. He’s wherever he is against his own will. I know it,” My lips bend like I did the impression of a sad face, but very quickly. Kind of the equivalent of a shrug, but with just my eyes and lips. “Well, how so? Pray tell. I’ll be here for a while, so…” “Ugh. I already gave the FBI all the info they need. I need answers, not a bodyguard,” she takes a glass of what I assume would be whiskey and takes a sip. “Mmh. The FBI seems to think that the information you have puts you at great risk, so…I’m more of a container than a bodyguard, if you’re looking at it in that sense,” “I don’t care. Just…find whatever information I gave them and use the information to find my father. That’s really all I want,” “Well, the trip to DC is about an hour…if I’m to take it back, which I’ll have to, that’s two hours. You could save me all that by just telling me over again. Come on…I promise to help,” I nod to her, putting on my friendliest face. My definition of ‘friendly face’ is ‘not frowning,’ She takes a deep breath, “Well, it was just about a week ago…” Chapter two Evelyn Something feels off. I don’t know how, but I can definitely feel it. I leave the house, and Dad behind…as almost always. He’s now more available than he used to be when I was younger, but not yet retired. There are still months when he’ll be gone in a stretch and the house would be left to just me. As a marketing executive, my work is pretty much cut out for me from the moment I leave. You have to look like you can do. The optimism is what drives the trade. Hence, it’s not supposed to show on my face when I get to work, that something is wrong. In fact, on my face should be the exact opposite of ‘something wrong’. I should have the smile on my face that would influence not just me, but the attitude of everyone else in my office. Optimism, as well as happiness, is contagious. And if that spreads, well, you guessed it as well - pessimism is also a wild fire. More often than not, we fear the consequences of pessimism more than reveling in the pleasures that being positive brings. Still, even with all that, something still feels off. It makes me realize that apart from my monthly periods, waking up on the wrong side of my bed exists. I power through the day, though. It’s easy to do so, since this isn’t the first time I’ve had to pretend like work excited me. On the drive home, I can’t help but continue the ponder. My mind wanders far into the insensitivity of it, even. How, I have everything I ever wanted, and have no reason now, to just be unhappy, simply because I feel like it. The drive from my work is me scolding myself for ignoring my privileges and making promises to not be so groggy, when I pass by a gray colored Mercedes SUV parked haphazardly by the side of the road with it’s driver’s seat empty. I slow down to make sure I’m not hallucinating. I know at least five people that drive the exact same car as my dad – two in my workplace alone. The Mercedes ML is a really popular car. I take a brief look at the number plate, and my blood runs cold. “Dad’ I gasp as I swerve over to the side of the road. From the Dwight highway to our own little secluded Avenue in Rockville is a stretch of road that you can ride through in ten minutes in full speed. Most of that is because the road is usually empty, because not many enough people live in Reckle Ave to populate the road with cars to the point of a traffic. That’s why I’m able to make the swerve mindlessly and jump out of my car without even turning it off or shutting the doors. “Dad!” I yell louder this time. I rush to the car and inspect it. No signs of damage. When I pull the door, it buckles and opens up for me. My hands immediately begin to tremble in horror as my thoughts become clearer and I realize why today felt off. It wasn’t because I woke up on the wrong side of the bed or whatever…it was because something was off with mu father. Something had been off with him since I had see him for the first time this morning. His smile didn’t really reach his eyes, and he held me tighter today than his normal hugs. It was almost as if he feared something. …or someone. Now, I know. “Dad!” I scream into the fields opposite the parked car and even make the endeavor to run a little way into the fields. Maybe he’s in there somewhere? I realize the stupidity of that. If he was taken, they wouldn’t drag him into the fields they got him to stop by. I begin hyperventilating. If I was asthmatic, I would have passed out by now. Almost immediately, I’m back to blaming myself, now, not for the privileges that I looked down on, but for the signs I ignored. It’s hard to concentrate and… “I get it, I get it,” The man interrupts my narration. “You didn’t see him in the car and you think he was kidnapped. If you blame yourself too much, I’ll be forced to bring you in as a prime suspect,” I give him a look. He shrugs, “What? You’re lucky this isn’t a police investigation. You’d have been the prime suspect in this case. Those detectives lack EQ,” he shakes his head. “I just want him back,” I feel wetness on my cheeks and realize that I had been crying somewhere in my story. “Yes, ma’am. Trust me. I want him back as much as you do. For now, however, we have to make sure that in finding him, we don’t lose you as well,” I agree with that, but only because it feels like common sense. I’d pretty much love to be where my father is right now, even if it’s dangerous. He’s all I have. “Well, what are we going to do?” He spreads his arms, “It’s why I’m here, love. Mind if I do a little exploring?” “Sure, knock yourself out. It’s a nice condo,” I turn around to catch his face before he moves off. The scar on his face. It’s darker than his milky skin, but not all the way black. It runs from his brow to the bottom of his chin and adds a very interesting dynamic to his looks and facial expressions. “Mmmh,” He takes his precious time checking the apartment out, and I take my precious time checking him out. Of course, the perfect cover is the trust issues that every homeowner would have with letting a stranger roam unsupervised. In reality, though, I’m admiring his sleek, spring frame. He doesn’t look like he has any muscle on him, wearing a wife beater and matching colored ebony pants. That’s until he has to lift something. Opening a door or shifting a chair – a mundane act, if you ask me, has his arms straining, allowing me to see the delicious twines of bulging tendons, both from the straining biceps concealed under the fabric, but only by skin and not by shape, and the exposed forearms where I can see the veins. ‘Healthy and strong,’ I think to myself for some reason, like it should matter. But maybe it should. Maybe my eyes now on his crotch, searching for any sign of his interest in me is a little overboard, but when I notice the fabric around that area become taught, though, not nearly enough, my mind wanders. I shake my head off the dirty thoughts. Too early. “Hey, while you’re here, would you like me to get you anything?” I ask. The conversation takes away the awkward silence of me following him around like a motherless lamb. “I suppose not,” he shrugs. “There will be a team of specialists that would come in any time from now to make certain security installations. Cameras, microphones…defense systems…” “Defense systems?” He turns to me and smirks. I need to move closer to him to find out what color his eyes are. They look really pretty. “I don’t suppose Matt kept a semi-automatic rifle within reach at any point in the house, now, did he?” “No, I uh-” the question took me a little off guard. Has it really gotten to that? “Would that be necessary?” I indeed cannot find it within myself to control the urge of staying far away, and take a couple of steps closer. Maybe it’s for comfort, or maybe I’m just too used to the company of my father, that I starve of male attention. His eyes are a shade I haven’t exactly come across except in movies – Gray. It cold be an unusual shade of green, but I’m all for it, nonetheless. His aloofness also brings out parts of me that want to know more about him, just for the fun of it. The air of mystery around these big defense guys somehow makes my head want to cave in on itself. There’s more to his silky overgrown blonde hair than meets the eyes. More beneath his pointy nose and calloused lips…his sharp jaw that I’d give myself a paper cut if I touched…all that is a façade of something more gruesome, and I’m unsure of whether that fact should scare me or draw me closer. “Electronic locks, a stronger, more reinforced door and a laser system for the driveway,” he clarifies. “The only gun installation in here is me with a pistol,” Why did that sound so frigging hot?! Chapter three Ethan “So, you’re really going to be staying here, huh?” I look over at her from where I lie on the couch. She doesn’t seem to have moved one inch, watching me all this while. I find it only mildly discomfiting, so, I can ignore it. When she talks, however…that velvety voice coming from such a soft looking woman? Perfectly executed, now that I think about it. “I really don’t have to,” “Okay,” she drags that word a little bit, making my mind play games on me. This is where her stares would become uncomfortable. “So, when are you leaving? I want to go to bed.” “I’ll leave whenever you decide you’re coming with me,” I tell her. I should have been more direct and told her I couldn’t particularly leave, but I dragging out conversations is second nature to me at this juncture. “I don’t understand,” “I’m stuck with you, Evelyn. We don’t have to stay in this house, but wherever I go, you have to come,” “But…I don’t need a bodyguard…” she whines. “Yes, you don’t,” I heave myself from my back and sit up straight, cracking my neck to relieve the stiffness that would have come from laying in that position for too long. “Exactly,” “So, where exactly did you see one?” “Oh,” Now, she gets it. I’m not a bodyguard and while the benefit of me being here is that, to some extent, I would offer her some sort of protection, I’m here to find out what happened to Matt Anderson and above all, what the hell that video was and who was behind it. “I’ll sleep here for now. Tomorrow, we’d both look into your father’s library and see what I can find there that would be useful to the investigation. Goodnight, Evelyn,” I watch her stand up, just to be sure that she leaves me and goes upstairs. It’d be a bit weird if she watches me sleep, no matter how curious she is. She stops at the foot of the stairs and turns back to me. “We have a guest room that I can get ready for you in five minutes instead of the couch. Would that be okay?” “Honestly, you don’t have to. I’ve slept on a pile of rocks for three months straight, so, this is luxury, believe it or not,” I chuckle. “Let me give you something more luxurious, then,” she insists and leaves for what I would judge to be way more than five minutes. When I hear the shuffling of feet down the stairs again, it comes with an overpowering floral scent. I crane my neck to witness Evelyn Anderson in a light pink bathrobe that stops a good number of inches above her knees. My eyes take the trail up her glistening legs right to where the fabric cuts them off from my sight and I’m left with free roaming till I get to her cleavage. There, the fabric parts again, but doesn’t reveal too much. Just soft swells of supple flesh that makes me swallow…hard. “I’m sorry I took a while. I had to get ready for bed myself,” she bats apologetic eyes at me. I grunt in response and stand to follow her, prompting her to begin moving. I shouldn’t let my guard down so easily. I know I don’t have a ‘woman’ problem. The first thing I’d notice about a woman usually isn’t the allure of her physical features. I’d notice her face first. Internalize it. That’s the most important thing for me, because the more I know a person’s facial features, the more difficult it would be for the person to get away with a disguise. Other secondary things like body type, gait and way of talking also comes in first. And so, when I saw Evelyn, I noticed her face first. Beautiful, soft features that have taken years to come to maturity. She’s no longer a growing woman, but one who’s oval face is an identity of the person she has beein aiming to be since her youth. Her brown eyes hold a lot of her beauty, being almond shaped, but more oblong than rounded, giving her a distinct Asian look. I’d look into her genealogy later. Perhaps her mother was Asian. When it comes to body type, Evelyn is slender, but goodness! The curves hit just right. I hate to objectify but screw it! I won’t deny that at some point, I fantasized holding her closer than a handshake. Am I proud of that? Not now, no. When morality isn’t concerned, though, Evelyn is physically everything I want in a woman. Just when I think it’s over, her voice drawls above me, as she leads me up the stairs, further tormenting me, “The guest room has an ensuite bathroom, and I equipped it with enough supplies as you’d need…to my knowledge, but if there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to let me know,” ‘Sure, I’ll let you know when I need to press my body against yours and satisfy my erotic cravings,’ I mumble within myself. Of course, the words that come out of my mouth are a simple “Thank you,” “I’m in the second room to the right opposite yours,” I can swear I heard an invitation, rather than her plainly telling me where I could find her if I ‘needed anything’. Because, what the hell would I need? The night passes uneventfully, and save for the painful erection that I had to still before I slept, I fought no other battles. This is a good thing, because investigations begin the next day. As usual, sleep is a synchronous blend between my PTSDs, nightmares and the urge to bury myself in the flowery scent of my principal. Out of bed the next morning, my entire crotch feels grotesquely sore. I find it a little incomprehensive to fathom that I went through the entire night with an erection for more than half the time. Luckily for me, when I see Evelyn next, she doesn’t look like she wants me to back her up against a wall with my face buried between her legs. A smart dress shirt and office slacks paired with a pair of classy heels, all black in color makes me blink multiple times before accepting that a person can look this approving in real life. “Bonjour, Madmoiselle,” I greet her almost comically. I didn’t have to do much since I don’t have my things here. Essentially, the clothes I wore yesterday, are all I have to wear now. “Hey, uhh. I was just about to head for work,” she tells me as she takes a sip out of the cup in her hand. The rich smell of espresso that mixes with her floral scent tells me what’s inside the cup. “If you’re passing by the route where you said you saw your father’s car, I guess it would benefit me to tag along?” She nods, “I guess so, yes,” “Hmm,” I idle in the living room for the duration of her preparation, mostly just watching her effortlessly swing her elegant curves around in what I would relate to the morning pre-work hassle. Once she’s done, the both of us take her car and head over in the direction of Washington DC. We don’t drive far when she begins to slow down. “That’s the car?” I ask intuitively, when we stop just behind the Mercedes ML 350. “Yes. The DMV is pretty lazy in this area. They’ll probably never show until someone calls it in,” she shakes her head and we both step out of the car. “Perfect,” When I notice her discomfort, I add, “For the investigation,” I walk towards the car and try to put myself in the light of the driver. What would make me stop in the middle of almost nowhere? Where would I have gone if I wasn’t kidnapped? I tug at the handle and sure enough, the car buckles open. That’s the first and most obvious sign of unwilling abandonment. Whatever happens, no one would want to leave a $50k+ vehicle unlocked. I pull out a pair of black gloves from a pack in my back pocket and bend into the car to do an inspection. “What have we got here?” I take out my mini torch and shine it around. “Files?” I stretch over to the back seat and run my hands into the pouches behind the driver and front passenger seats. There are indeed some files there, but before I even get to opening them, I notice something else. One thing that solidifies the claims about him being forced out of the car. “Hey, did you check the car when you opened it the time you checked?” I call out to her from the inside of the car. “Yes, but just that time. I haven’t really stopped to check since I discovered he wasn’t there. I wanted to leave that to…well, to you,” “Hmm. He was kidnapped alright,” I huff, taking the bag I had just seen, and making my way out of the car. “Is this his work bag?” Her eyes widen, “That he always takes to work, yes. Yes, that’s it!” “I thought as much. If they didn’t take this, it would mean that his kidnappers are likely not concerned with his work. But it also doesn’t seem to be a ransom kidnapping either,” I muse. “Right. That would have been a lot more violent. Plus, they’d have contacted me by now,” I scoff, “Violent? How much more violent do you think a kidnapping should be?” I point over to the trail behind the car. She didn’t notice the tire marks on the ground, but I did. “See those? He was forced to stop as well,” I play how it must have happened, looking at the ground, and sure enough, seeing the tire marks of the other car stopping just in front of the Benz. “They also searched the car. There’s a lot of holes where there shouldn’t be, and whether they found what they were looking for or not is up to us to find out,” I conclude, placing the bag back into the car. And heading over to mine. “But…what could they possibly want that my father has? It doesn’t make sense!” “Oh, it does, darling. Your father works for the government. If there’s anything he has, like you discovered, it’s secrets,” I clarify. “If there’s anything you can guarantee he’ll be sought after for, it’s that, we don’t have to…” A deafening sound interrupts my speech. One so loud, it scrambles my senses. Not only that, it lifts me off the ground as well. It takes only milliseconds for me to comprehend that we’re somehow about to survive a massive explosion. Somehow, all I can think of is ‘Evelyn!’ Chapter four Evelyn “Evelyn!” I hear my name like it’s some kind of distant call. My throat hurts. And my back…and ears… “Evelyn!” it comes again, and I’m able to process it as Ethan’s voice. Why’s he shouting my name? What happened? “Evelyn…” his voice is more of a desperate whisper now, as I hear it so close to my ears. “Hello? I need medics here now,” he growls. Medics? I try and open my eyes, to see him so close over my face. I don’t need to reach out to touch him. I’m sure if I perk my head up a little bit, my lips will touch his. He’s a giant, and I’d be looking up at him anyways, but I’m not sure the clouds would be directly above him. “Hey,” I reach out with my hands nonetheless, and touch his face. They tremble – my hands. Again, I have no idea why. “You’re gonna be okay, okay? I’ll check for wounds now,” he says hurriedly and begins inspecting me like he said. I feel his hands roam my body, and in some strange sense, it eases the pain I feel. Or, rather, it relieves the numbness. Save for the persistent ringing in my ear, every other thing feels trivial. “What happened?” I finally muster the courage to speak in spite of my hurting throat. “An explosion,” he states simply. “What?” I try to stand in confusion. “What explosion?” Looking over to where my father’s car once was, I see char and the still burning frame of what used to be his car. Maybe this was it – the breaking point. I can’t hold it anymore, and so, after a few minutes of trying, up until the point where it practically feels like I’m about to burst with all the bottled-up emotion, I let it out. First, it’s just tears, then, when it feels like the tears are an expression of a trap, I sob. I let out the bursts of sobs, trying my best to purge my system out of all the harshness that I have put it through. I most certainly haven’t been fair to myself, bottling everything within and keeping it that way. In my darkest hour, I feel truly alone. Mom…gone. Dad…well, it’s his car burning in front of me, isn’t it? “Hey…hey…” his voice permeates my grief. It’s deep and sultry baritone is commanding of my attention, and I listen to it. “We’re going to find your father. Okay? You and I,” he takes my clenched fists and opens it up with his fingers, weaving each of his individual digits through mine and clenching when my fingers are wrapped around his. His palm is crusty from the dirt, but I don’t mind. I’d give any discomfort to feel the company of someone helping me through this time. The only thing I can manage is to nod and sink myself into his chest, crying until I hear the whiring of helicopter blades. In the next five minutes, the medics that come run a routine check on me and ascertain that, save from a bruised forearm from the fall after I got pushed from the force field of the explosion, I had no concerning injuries. I didn’t even need a plaster. I watch Ethan talk emphatically with the stiff-backed man that I had been directed to talk to when I first came into the FBI. The bot of them exchange ideas, not with heavy demonstrations and loud speech, but with their eyes. A lot of words fly between the two, words that I can’t hear from where I am, but it’s fine. I don’t think I’d want to hear the possibility of me being in tat car when it happened and how soon an attack like this is going to occur. As soon as all is said and done, Steve comes over to me and gives a warm greeting before taking his leave. When all of them leave, I feel somewhat safer with only Ethan around. “They’ll commence installing the defense and security systems in your house today. We could find somewhere to perch while they do all that,” “No,” I shake my head. “Let’s go back and begin looking for stuff that’ll lead me to my father. That’s the most important thing right now,” I tell him. He shrugs and leads me to his car, opening the door and helping me in, even though I’m sure I’m pretty capable of doing those things on my own. I’m still trepid from the entire thing, so I get why he’s being so gentle. By the time we arrive home, I’m fit to open the door myself and even do so before he rounds the car and does it for me. I immediately sprint to the library with him hot on my heels and throw the doors open to my father’s archive. “Knock yourself out…kinda like me earlier,” I joke, but don’t hear him laugh. Okay, that wasn’t so funny… “There’s a lot here to unpack. You think you can lead me to the materials you think he frequently uses for work?” “Mmhh, sure,” I walk over to a desk in the far left. “This is his computer,” I run my hands along the ultra-modern desktop PC on the electronic height adjusting table he uses for whenever he feels like he doesn’t want to sit while working. “I’m guessing every material around this table would be the most used…or at least, his most recent. I tried looking through. I didn’t see anything…anything I understood, at least,” It’s funny how being around my father for the better part of my growing up, I was never really exposed to the things he did. It made me feel, for a long time, that he didn’t really like me as much. Guiltily now, I find myself admitting that he probably cut a clear line between his work and family to protect me. It still doesn’t change the fact that I felt lonely…and badly so. When I was younger than much of my conscious self can make sense of, mom decided that heaven was a better place to be than with her husband and daughter. What did she do? Well, a shot to her brain from her mouth…in front of her three year old daughter. I still remember that moment as clear as day. It never really used to mean much to me…not until I was 17, at least and I would wake up in a cold sweat, almost practically reliving the entire thing over and again, especially after understanding the gravity of what she did. I was three! I could have picked the gun and done the same thing! It’s a miracle that the loudness of the gun just generally made me stay away from it, even as it fell from her bloody hands. I just wanted her to make food for me. That’s why I was crying. Growing up, even though dad tried his best to hammer it into me that I wasn’t the one responsible for the death of mom, I couldn’t…and still can’t help myself from thinking – ‘What if I just…didn’t cry?’ Sure, it was a long standing case of post-natal depression, but what if that persistent 30 minute cry was what pushed her over the edge? Dammit, it was. And there’s a special place of hate in my heart, reserved for myself for doing it, no matter how young I was. “Hold on,” his voice jolts me out of my mental chasm, “Do you really know who your father works for?” “Yes,” I frown, “He works for the government, doesn’t he?” “I know, but…I work for the government, yeah? But I work for the FBI. Do you know exactly what part of the government you father works for?” I shake my head. “I never really gave it much thought. I just thought since he was into R&D, then he’d work directly under some government funded project,” “Uh-uh, a government funded project, alright,” he hums, looking into the file like the light just suddenly went dimmer. “Calgary,” “Huh?” “Your father is working for Calgary…not that you’ll know exactly why it’s important, but…I’ll be back,” With that, he turns and makes a hurried beeline out of the room. “Wait, you’re just going to leave?” I run after him. “There are men running installations over the house. I doubt they’ll be done by the time I’m back. You’ll be safe by then.” “Wait! It’s not about…” the library door shuts in my face, “…being safe…” I sigh and talk to the closed door, “You said you’ll stay…” Chapter five Ethan I do my best to leave the house as fast as possible, just so that I don’t feel guilty for leaving her at such a critical moment, but I don’t remember the last time I had a rush like this. Before I got assigned this case, I was running a covert operation. I managed to upturn every drug dealer involved. Yet, at no point in that mission, did I get as much of an adrenaline pump, as the journey right now to the office to report my discovery to Stephen. Oh, he’d be really delighted to hear this one. That, I’m sure of. The office is as busy as every other day, but this time, I bump into Steve outside of his office. He wasn’t expecting me, obviously. We had just finished speaking not up to an hour ago, when he came with aid for the vehicle explosion. “Hey, baby. News for me?” he blows a kiss in my direction. “You’re gonna love it. Your office?” He waves me off, “Nah, give it to me here and hot. If I have to go into that office, I won’t come back out,” Lazy bitch. I hand him the file and look him dead in his ocean eyes as he peruses quietly. His face goes from “stressed but lively” to “pale and sickly” “My office?” he looks up to me and gulps. “My office?” I mimic him to remind him that I told him so, but he slaps me on the waist, pushing me in the direction of the secluded room. “Now, are you sure you saw this in his house?” he asks as soon as the glass door to his office is shut. The only transparent part of the office is the door. The other parts that are made with glass are translucent. When we move away from the door, we’re away from prying eyes, and from any potential moles. “Dude. I’ve only been to her house since I was at your office yesterday,” I roll my eyes after a quick rethink, “Okay…I mean, I made a stop at Dunkin’s first, but that shouldn’t count!” “I know, I know…I was just asking because I’m legally required to,” he shushes me. “Calgary. Freaking Calgary!” I whistle. “Drugs, arms…and what not? But…for the government,” Steve stares into nothing. “What do we do?” I ask. There’s a saying that man’s biggest fear is of the unknown. While I’m sure I fear really small snakes more, I kind of get the point. Ever since I joined the FBI, there’s one organization we’ve never attempted a bust on. Calgary. We don’t know enough about them, but we can only guess. One time, there was an elaborate drug deal that was about to go down. We were on it, and it was going well. Everything was prepped and we were going to move in. About two hours before we were to move in, a man we had never seen before entered our warehouse. He walked so confidently, even though we hadn’t seen him before, we let him be, until he came to where we were prepping ourselves. “Calgary would take it from here. Drop it. Today is not the day you will die, gentlemen.” He told us. Immediately, Stephen dismissed everyone. He never told me who that man was. I never asked. There are somethings that are best left the way they are, no questions asked. This is one of them. “What do we do?” Steve repeats my question rhetorically. “We back the hell out, is what we will do.” To that, I shake my head. “I won’t leave Evelyn in this,” I tell him. “Before you get back to that house, there might not even be an Evelyn to go back to,” he says with a serious face. That I know, and I tell him so. “When it comes to the physicality of it, I think I’ve seen a lot,” “Heh. I thought you’d say that. Your ego is too big for you to accept defeat so easily,” “I mean,” I crane my neck in disappointment, “There’s the fact that Evelyn is too innocent to be caught in something like this and she needs the help of someone more experienced, but…yup. My ego!” I pump my biceps comically. “Oh, please. Get out of my office before Calgary comes and has both our heads on a platter. It’d be easy for me to deny any allegations when I’m not seeing your face,” I chuckle and nod, before snatching the file from him and taking my leave. “Ethan?” he calls me just before I cross the threshold. “Be careful. We know very little of who these guys are and what they can do.” I nod, understanding the seriousness on his bid, “If it’s ‘not dying’, I’ll be fine,” I tell him. “Good. And make sure Evelyn knows as little about her father’s dirty secrets as they relate to Calvary as possible. The less she knows, the safer she’ll be,” That, I agree with. I make a quick detour to my own apartment and get as little of my things can fit into a single suitcase. I should be prepared to live with her for as long as this case is open. When I get back to Rockville, the men installing the security systems are just wrapping up, and Evelyn is seated on the steps of the front porch with her hands resting on her knees and her face resting on her hands. When she sees my car, her head perks up. She stands fully when I get out of the car. “Hey…” she walks quickly towards me, but stops awkwardly when she gets to me. I can tell she misses the comfort her father used to give her, enough that if I was her dad right now, she’d be in my arms. I do the only logical thing to do for a woman who needs comfort. I spread my arms. She’s hesitant at first, but she eventually steps into me and even wraps her arms around me tightly. I’m not a hug guy. Never was. Expressing feelings has always been a weird concept to men like me, considering backgrounds and experiences. Nevertheless, I hold her as emotionally as I can. “Everything’s gonna be fine,” I tell her with my mouth, as my body lacks the ability to express my feelings in that light. My mama used to be able to do that. I remember how, with just a caress of my cheek, or a hug…or even a kiss, she could convey to me, the words I needed to hear for whatever ailed me. If I knew she was going to be diagnosed with stage four cancer some 6 months after I left for Afghanistan, I would never have gone. I would have willingly thrown away .y entire career and the life that I have now, just to see the smile on her face one more time. Evelyn says nothing, for the longest of time and even the men installing the cameras and laser systems are looking at us weird, making me blush a little. Even more than that, is thee fact that my body is pressed and squished against Evelyn’s. Since I met her, I wanted to feel that suppleness. Now, I have it, and it’s every bit as heavenly as she looks. The flesh on her chest rubbing against my belly weakens all my manly defenses, and it takes everything within me to stifle the satisfied exhale that threatens to spill from my chest. Even more difficult, is the urge to swell. Within my boxers, is a monster groaning, begging to be unleashed, and it feels so wrong. This is not the scenario to be aroused by the body of Evelyn. I should be providing her comfort…not taking pleasure. We enter into the house and as soon as the door closes, the questions start. “So, what about Calgary?” “What about em?” “Oh, come on? What do you know about Calgary?” she presses. “You seemed to be in a hurry when you left. Like you knew exactly where to go.” I tell her the truth. “I did leave to find answers to Calgary, but…I didn’t come back with more than I already know,” That answer forces the breath of frustration out of her and she takes the sigh personally. “It just feels like we’re going in circles,” she plops on to a couch and buries her face between her hands, letting out a long groan of frustration. “We’re going to have to do this on our own. Even the FBI knows so little about this organization,” I tell her, but internally, I know I’m going to be doing a lot without her. No one messes with Calgary. In fact, she should be dead for having heard that name, and by telling her, I’m mandated to keep her safe, or be laden with guilt if she were to come to harm from the knowledge. Either way, I as knee-deep in this mess as she now is. The rest of the day, I somehow am able to encourage her to rest. Having been through the trauma of the explosion, that alone should put her down for a week. But Evelyn is determined, driven by the need to see her father once again…making me envious. I can only but wish I had a fighting chance to see my mother again. I would fight tooth and nail for that bestowment, and anyone that would try to stop me from actualizing it any quicker would be my enemy. While we eat dinner, she asks me, “So, how did you get into the FBI?” Typical bonding question. Chapter six Evelyn I know that Ethan is hiding something from me, even if it’s something trivial. And I want him to tell me. But I must start from somewhere. “Well, I was coming home from school when I saw these little boys getting beat up by some older guys. I had to be about sixteen at the time. I fought the older guys, then, six in number, unaware that there was a scout around. He came to me and offered a me a job in the FBI. I took it without hesitation,” he narrates rather blandly. “I have a hard time believing that,” I scrunch my face. “Six men?” “Of course I’m kidding,” he chuckles, but without a smile on his face. Ha, ha, Ethan. Very funny. “I was in the army for a while. That’s where I started,” he turns the pasta in his plate in a fiddly manner, “That’s where I got this,” he points to the scar on his face. I think that’s his singular most attractive feature. The fact that he has a scar from a battle. That’s a sign that he went up against something that had the ability to kill him…and he conquered. Besides, a scar that runs from the brow to the chin is every badass protagonist dream. I dig it. “Before then, I knew Steve, so…after two tours in Afghanistan, and one in Iraq, I decided to retire. The FBI was my nursing home,” he shrugs conclusively. “You consider the FBI some form of rest?” I laugh. “I mean…it’s pretty tame compared to life in the army. Can you blame me?” I know nothing about the two, so, I take his word for it. “It’s an easy life you have compared to what you used to experience, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy altogether,” I tell him before forking my last portion of pasta into my mouth. I stand up and head to the kitchen with my mouth still full before he makes any more replies. His life is something precious. A man in the military that considers investigating high-level criminals a retirement job? There have been so many times that he should have died, but he’s still with us today, and I respect that a lot. The night comes, and I take my rest, dreaming about what my life would look like if I was a soldier making tours in Afghanistan. Obviously, most of the dream makes absolutely no sense because I know zilch of what it means to be a soldier. On one hand, it’s an actual tour, with me and other soldiers in a tour bus, spectating the war-stricken desert looking land. On the other hand, it’s brutal, bloody nerf gun fights. Here, our blood is fruit punch and the bullets are really strong skittles. I know because I caught one with my mouth and chewed on it. Upon waking up from such a meaningless dream, my head is full of questions. The first of them being, of course, Calgary. I no longer want to be stylish about getting the information from Ethan. He’s going to have no choice but to tell me, because I’ll press it out of him. “I told you,” he tells me for the hundredth time, as he busies himself stirring pancake barter, “I have zero clue what Calgary is!” He actually offered to make breakfast today, and in order to show proper appreciation, I make his morning a living hell, with every second that passes when he doesn’t tell me whay I want to hear. What I need to know. “But you knew Calgary, Ethan. Don’t lie to me. Merely seeing the name gave you cold feet,” I poke him in the temple, “It made you scurry out of the house like a scared little boy,” “I wasn’t scared,” he says a little more pointedly. He’s getting annoyed. Good. “Oh, really? Then, what made you run?” “I didn’t run, Evelyn,” he grits thought clenched teeth. “You’re the only one that saw me leave the library and you can’t say I ran,” “I class that level of hurry as ‘running’,” I shrug nonchalantly, not a single concern in the world as to whether or not I might be hurting his feelings. I notice his eyes darken, but I keep the tease on. “Scared little baby, doesn’t want to tell me what Calgary is, because his daddy Stevie told him not to,” “Oh, you’re just a ruse now, aren’t you?” he growls. “I don’t know. Are you going to tell me?” “Are you going to shut up?” his growl is harsher this time, and it actually makes me to back off. Silence prevails in the room for a while, my bruised ego and hurt feelings singing the loudest. “Hey, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t…” he tries to apologize, but you can’t glue back the pieces of shattered glass with tape. “It’s fine,” I cut him off. Obviously, it is all but fine. I just don’t want to deal with the talk right now. I leave the kitchen, and don’t come out not even when I’m sure breakfast would have been ready. Or even lunch. When my stomach threatens to cave in and I finally give into the call of hunger, it’s evening. I swear to myself that I would never hurt myself this badly to prove myself to anyone while heading downstairs, clutching my stomach. It’s 6 pm and I haven’t had anything eat since the morn. I find a note from him pasted on the refrigerator, stating that in case I came out when he was away, he simply went to get groceries. How thoughtful. Now, I’m thinking I’m the one that should apologize as I heat up my pancakes in the microwave. I eat in silence and loneliness as opposed to eating with him, again, making me further regret my actions. I haven’t taken three bites out of my food then I see a humanoid figure pass by the window I’m facing. My blood runs cold, and I immediately jerk to my feet. My fist instinct is to call out and see if it’s actually someone, but there’s no need for that. The humanoid figure comes back to the window and stands there. There’s a curtain preventing me from seeing the person, but I can tell he’s either facing me, or away from me. I can’t tell which is scarier. But then, it could be Ethan, right? The conclusion should’ve been a logical one to make, and I would have gone with it if the window didn’t shatter from the force of the man’s punch. I don’t even scream. That’s for amateurs. Instead, I turn around and sprint for my room without hesitation, trying to make as little noise as possible, so that at least, they wouldn’t know where I went so quickly. As soon as I get to my room, I crawl under my bed and begin calling Ethan. “Hello?” “Get here now, there’s men in the house!” I whisper-yell and hang up almost immediately. I don’t want the sounds from my phone to, in any way influence and aid the search of these men. “Miss Anderson? Come on out,” I hear one of the men calling from downstairs, “We only one to talk, I can assure you that,” I can’t hear as much as a footstep, and it terrifies me. If they wanted to ‘just talk’, they would have used the front door. Come to think of it, how quickly would my life have been over if they had simply used the front door? And why didn’t any of Ethan’s security systems deter them? I remain silent and try as much as possible to control my breathing. For one, the more controlled I can get my breathing now, the longer I would last holding my breath when they come into the room. Because if they are going to search the whole house, they will eventually get here and I need to be as still as a doll when they come in order to maintain the lifelessness of the room. Also, I need enough energy in my body to spring up and run if they find me here. Let’s face it. Under the bed was not a very smart option, but you can’t blame me. I’m not a hide and seek expert. “See, we’re from the FBI, just…not the one you’re used to, and we have information about your father,” the man speaks carefully, almost as if he’s trying to cajole a little child into accepting poisoned candy. That’s what this is…poisoned candy, because, no shit, they have information about my father. They were the ones who took him! My chest can’t help putting itself into a lock when the door to my room swings open. Because I covered the sides of the bed with my comforter to further hide myself, I can’t exactly tell what the man is doing, but the swishes I hear would mean, he’s exerting himself more than is normal for someone who just wants to talk. Before I can even do anything, a hand grabs my ankles. Terror blinds my vision for a split second before I’m yanked from under the bed like a ragdoll. Of course, I scream. When I’m pulled fully from under the bed, the lights in my room assaults my vision and I get to see the face of my assailant. A man much too handsome to be a killer…but then again, Ethan has probably killed more men than this guy…and he’s drop dead gorgeous. “What do you want from me?” I yell. That’s when I notice another man enter the room. This one, maybe slightly less attractive, but I’d still crush on him if he wasn’t trying to kill me. I have a special place in my heart reserved for redheads. “Oh, nothing much. We just want you,” he grins, before throwing a bag over my head. I scream again, but at this point, I’m probably aware that screaming does nothing and I just begin struggling instead. I kick, and punch and roll, but nothing works…and this usually works! Not to brag or anything, but, I did jujitsu and Karate for six years. I’m supposed to be able to wiggle my way out of this situation, but I guess the lack of visibility, palpitating fear, and the fact that his back up has a gun all got to me. He’s still able to tie my hands behind my back and my legs together. That’s it. I’m going to be kidnapped as well. On the bright side, they might take me to where my father is. Worst case scenario, they have me dig my own grave where they kill me. The guy never picks me up. In fact, I hear several loud retorts before a thud on the ground. Now is when the real quivering starts. The bag over my head is taken off, and I’m met y my savior’s handsome face. Worse still, is the guy that he had just killed. To save me, the men had to be killed. There are dead men in my bedroom. I scream. Chapter seven Ethan “You’re going to need defense classes,” is the first thing I say to her once I remove the bag over her head. She ignores me and screams instead – a very tame reaction, considering there is a dead man with an arm around her hips, still bleeding from the hole I put on his head. “Oh, my goodness!” she wiggles like a worm away from the man and repeats the same phrase over and again, screaming at every chance she gets. I have to do a mini chase to get her calm enough to where I can untie her. She immediately jumps into my arms and sobs. I hold her as delicately as I can, not minding the fact that her bloodstained clothes would probably ruin mine. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pressured you. You wouldn’t have left without me…and we wouldn’t be in this mess!” I pull her back from me, “You don’t have to blame yourself for everything, you know?” “No, no…this is glaring! I was such an asshole…unnecessarily too. I’m so…” “Hey…stop. Okay? Couples fight all the time, you and…” “Couples?” she interrupts me, still shaking from the experience. Oof! I wasn’t supposed to say that. “Yeah…Couples. Like…me and you together in this room…are a couple…of people,” I try to redeem myself, but it doesn’t work. There’s a light smile on her face, probably finding the humor to deal with the trauma that she had just experienced and for me, there’s this tingling in my neck. I hate it. “I get it,” she reclines into the wall, still with an edgy smile on her face, “Thanks for saving my life,” “If I didn’t do it, I’d have lost my life too, so…” I shrug. “It doesn’t make it irrelevant,” “I know,” There’s silence for a while, but the metallic scent in the room, slowly turning stale starts to get a little discomfiting. “Hey, get yourself cleaned up. I’ll get the bureau to come over and clean this mess,” I tell her, standing up to do the same to myself. I hate the smell of blood. It’s always a trigger for the traumatic stress of war, but each time I smell it, I challenge myself not to react. To conquer that smell and victoriously come out on top means a lot to me, because it’s a step in a direction a vast majority of veterans never fully recover from. In the bathroom, I take a look at myself. With my shirt off, I’m reminded more of the monster tat I really am. Majority of the scars are hidden within inked walls, but it’s my body. I can see right through those walls. All the years of laying on those bamboo floored towers, on hills, in buildings, from planes… All the times I had to join the boys on the ground and fight. Every man I killed left a scar on my body. If they couldn’t physically, they did so with their eyes, burning a wound so deep in my soul, I don’t think it would ever heal. I still feel the scorching every time I shoot a man. I still feel the eyes of the dead seer me when I put my hands on another and strangle the life out him. It’s a feeling that I’ve had to deal with since I took my first life. Now, the roughness of my skin reminds me about it. Each time I rub my hands against my chest and feel the contour from my bullet wounds in 2017, I remember that the man I gave similar wounds to, didn’t make it. It’s not a pleasant feeling. I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I’ve never been a mentor to a complete novice before, but somehow, I’m going to make it work. I’m very sure of that. I’m going to teach the Evelyn to be sufficient enough not to hide under a bed when monsters like me come for her. She’s going to learn to defend herself. **The next day** I slap my palms against my face. “I’m not doing this,” she refuses to pick herself from the ground. “You said you were going to teach me how to defend myself. What does running have to do with self-defense?” I look towards the house and check our distance meter. “Well, good job. Now, if someone is ever chasing you, you’re only going to run about four hundred meters before you get caught,” She shakes her head, “That’s a laboratory result. I’ll let my adrenaline do the running when someone is actually chasing me. Besides, you said defense,” she argues. “Heh. The best form of defense is running,” “I thought it was offense,” I laugh. “That’s why a lot of civilians die,” I help her up to her feet when she finally stretches her and to be helped up. “Let me ask you. If ten men come over to me, heck…four men…If they come over to me. Skilled fighters. About my combat IQ or greater. What do you think I would do?” She stays quiet when she realizes. “See, life isn’t always the way we plan it. One time, it’ll be one man. Other times, it’ll be three. But more often than not, when it’s your time to die, it’s either going to be one man with a gun, or seven with knives. If it’s a gun, fight. If it’s knives or even fists…run,” “Really?” “No questions asked,” I nod. “There’s no man pulling off a one versus seven, unless those seven are twelfth graders. Even then, it’s…” The rest of the day, we work on our aim. That is even worse than her running. “If this were a real gun, it’ll work much better, don’t you think?” she argues defensively after missing her fifth shot from a measly fifty-meter range. “Nope. This is more stable and has more grip. You’re just a shitty shot,” “Well, that did a lot for my confidence, thank you very much,” she exhales. I put an arm around her shoulder to show I mean no harm with my words. “Again…” We practice that for a while and once it’s certain that she’ll at least need to start from point blank, we stop. “At least, I know you can scream a little bit. I’ll be able to hear you when you’re in trouble.” “I can fight,” she states blandly. No emotion to it. She doesn’t particularly seem angry or trying to defend herself. It’s more like she’s just stating a casual fact. I stand up, ready to put even that notion to sleep. “Come at me, then,” I tell her. I didn’t expect to actually stand up and come at me, much less the lying kick that meets me straight in the chest, pushing me back at least five steps. While Evelyn is smaller than me, she’s not necessarily a petit woman. That being said, she’s at least 5’8 and weighs enough to make me cough on impact. “Oh, my…I’m so sorry! I thought you would deflect it,” she comes over to me and places her hands on my shoulder as I double over. “No, no…it’s fine. I can…come at me again,” I straighten up with a bruised ego and an even stronger resolve. “Are you sure?” she steps back. I nod. We’re on grass, so, I’m not going to mind getting grounded in this fight, but hopefully, that wouldn’t be necessary. Hopefully, I’ll be much stronger. Nope! When she comes at me again, it’s not a kick. It’s a lock. One that I’m almost very powerless to. “Come, on, baby. Don’t fight it…” she coos me as my knees begin to buckle. I don’t even know where she’s holding me. My pride cannot be damaged like this, that’s for sure, and so, with all my might, I break free from the entanglement she has me in. Seconds later, the both of us are rolling on the ground and she still has a very strong hold on me. “Well, that was unexpected,” I huff as her hands around my neck remains steadfastly strong. “Six years of karate and jiu-jitsu, yup. I’m making daddy proud!” she lets out with a lot of strain. She’s under me with her back to the ground, so, to break free, I have to reverse the positions. It doesn’t go as I planned and it turns out she’s a much better grappler than I thought. Instead of my freedom, I’m still on top her, only this time, my face is pressed against hers. Head for head, nose for nose. Our breaths are warm, and they collide first before our lips do, faster than our brains can think about it. Her grip on me loosens, but I don’t get up. If anything, I press deeper into the sweet lips of Evelyn, reveling in the warmth of her mouth’s embrace. This is so wrong. Chapter eight Evelyn It’s been more than six hours since whatever the heck happened in the front lawn and I haven’t left my room. How can I? If I should come out and come face to face with him right now, what would I say? Hi? After practically gouging at is mouth with mine? I shudder thinking about meeting him again. Our experience was bliss. That’s the only way I can properly explain what all that was without seeming too excited. I loved his taste, and I wouldn’t want to taste him again. Heck, if there was a way I could make it last longer than the few seconds it lasted, I would have loved that. Every good thing comes to an end, though, and the worst part about the kiss that I shared with Ethan is that now, I’m still not kissing him, and I don’t know what the hell to do when I see him again. Hunger drives me out of my room, though and my rumbling stomach causes me to face the reality of what I would have loved to disappear forever from. Then I see him. He’s simply seated on the living room couch doing something on his phone while the television plays a rom-com. I try my best to sneak past him to the kitchen to fix myself a snack heavy enough to serve as my dinner, but I can only try. He catches me before I even make it into the kitchen. “Oh, I uhh…I cooked dinner,” he calls rather nonchalantly. Well, someone’s able to deal with embarrassment! “Th-Thank you!” I yell back, maybe louder than usual, trying to maintain the same energy. I end up slapping my hand over my mouth and continuing my tiptoe into the kitchen and sure enough, the food he left there. I would have continued on my way up the stairs if the movie didn’t look interesting. Hence, I stop at the bottom of the stairs and ogle at the screen. I could have continued to my room and just watched the entire thing in the TV there, but there’s just something about this movie. It feels like a crime to look away for just one second, because each frame carries as much tension as the last. Eventually, one lazy step after the other, I find myself seated in a chair beside the one Ethan is seated and for the next forty-five minutes, I’m hooked. Most of my attention is to the television, but I can’t help the side glances every once a while that goes to Ethan, especially when a very interesting scene is up. Before the movie itself ends, Ethan seems even more invested in it than me. He even laughs at a scene, cooling the atmosphere and somewhat easing the tension. “Well, I didn’t think you’d be the romantic movie type of guy,” I laugh as the end credits for the film rolls. “I didn’t think you’d be the type that disappears after a kiss,” Shots fired! “I didn’t disappear,” I feel steam rise up to my cheeks as I lie profusely, even though I know I have no way to defend myself. “Uh-huh, I won’t judge you. Got a little blushy after it. I get it. It happens,” he says. He stands up and heads to me, taking the finished bowl from my hands. Instead of doing just that, he leans into me faster than I can even blink, causing me to suck in a heavy breath. His warmth caresses my face gently, but I feel a harsh tug of sensual panic grip my insides. He moves from my face to my cheeks and his hot breath follows as well. I eyeball that dangerous scar on his face as he moves closer to me. “Tomorrow’s training, is going to be much harder. I hope you’re ready for it,” he whispers into my ears. When I feel the shiver running down my spine, I need no one to tell me how deep in trouble I really am. I’m falling faster for Ethan than I think I should be…and it’s a scary ride all the way down. The next day, indeed, just like he had said, the training is hard. I might be a karate black belter, and have a better understanding of jujitsu than Ethan, but he’s not stupid. In fact, with his training in the FBI and military combined, he’s the most fearful man without a gun I’ve ever had to defend myself from. I’m just lucky that the one man I’ve met that I’m sure can kill me with his bare hands doesn’t actually want to kill me. In fact, as soon as I’m able to get him to the ground, it’s the exact opposite of kill. He brings butterflies to my stomach so effortlessly, I have to wiggle to shake them off. One thing about jujitsu is that the sport requires you to use every part of your body to you r advantage. This would mean that at varying points in the fight, we would be stuck in compromising positions. One of them is now. My legs are wrapped around his waist and I have his head in a lock, that I eventually have to release because…I guess, for this round, I’ve won. However, even when he’s up, he’ll have to stand up for my legs to find a way to unwrap, because, now, the knot has moved to his knees and his upper thighs pin them there. “Wow, this is payback, huh?” I chuckle in victory, trying to free myself from his grasp, but not seriously. I didn’t realize that he was loving being stuck with me until he presses back into me. His hand is free, so it moves slowly through my side and stops at my hip. “I could technically do a lot of things that would make you beg me,” he growls into my ear. Oouh! “I doubt it,” I tease, knowing fully well that I’m the one at the disadvantage here. He really could do a lot of things to make me cry, pain and otherwise. I have all my money on the ‘otherwise’, more because I feel a promising hardness press against my belly. That organ, I’m sure causes a lot more pleasure than it does pain. At least, that’s what I imagine it’d do to me. His hand moves again, but thit time, they don’t have to travel as far as before. It just moves around and gropes my flesh. He squeezes. “Oh,” I huff, feeling a high that I haven’t experienced for a long time. The last ime I was touched like this by a man was six months ago in a birthday party of one of my colleagues. Her younger brother was an exciting lad, but that was that. One night of bliss and no more. Very little else can happen when you’re hundreds of miles apart. “Ready to beg yet?” he murmurs, but that only leads me to chuckle. “You’re going to have to do a lot more than that to make me sing, soldier,” I defy him. Never have I been physically manipulated so fast in all my years of existence. First off, it’s how fast I’m hoisted into the air. We were almost in a complete lock! Apparently, physics is for civilians to abide by. He moves too fast for me to even let out a scream, but by the time I can vocalize, I’m placed against his car. He doesn’t park in the garage because he moves out too often, but the house is protected by a bushy fence around it, so, unless someone comes in through the front, from where we are, they won’t be able to see us. That’s the part I like. The part where we begin kissing each other ferociously without caution, embarrassment and fear. I kiss him passionately, fueled by his own desire for me. I can’t even remember the last time someone actually wanted me this much. My past relationships…well…they’re past, but one was just casual teenage fiasco, and the other was a four-year commitment that ended the day I watched my ‘boyfriend’ tie the knot with another woman on an altar. I couldn’t even speak against it, because he looked so happy. This kiss? Well, it could be nature giving me another chance to try again, or it could just be another bus-stop in my partial journey to love. Honestly, I don’t even care. Is he single? Seeing someone? Married? None of that is my business, for now. He’s with me, and that’s all that matters. If we were ever to delve into something more serious, rest assured, I’ll make my candid research. “I don’t want the neighbors to know how lovely your voice sounds,” he groans after a temporary break from my lips. “Your bed or mine?” “The living room,” I rasp. I personally don’t think we can make it up any level of stairs. He picks me up from the car, but a loud bang makes him drop me instantly. All my senses perk up almost instantly. “What’s that?” “Get back…” he puts his hands in front of me to keep me from going in front of him. It’s split seconds, really, that I see the flames erupt from inside the house. It comes at us with light speed and we have just enough time to dive to the ground, away from the glass that flies at us. ‘Not again,’ I scream internally as my ears become filled with a loud sound, replaced by pain, numbness, and finally…darkness. Chapter nine Ethan Not again! The explosion rocked the entire house, and likely my world as well, because for a few seconds, I can’t make sense of anything. I’m very sure of the fact that the explosion would do very little to hurt us, since we were quite far from the house. The Anderson’s residence is the type of house that has generous expanse of land around it. Not too much, but enough for me to stand up without the fear of injury to my person. Benefits of suburbia, I guess. “Ethan!” I hear her screams, relieving me for a bit. I remember covering her with my person, though, so, as long as I’m fine, I guess she would be as well. Through a lack of coordination, senseless bearings, and falling ash and soot, I make my way to her, not far off. She’s also having a hard time with the discombobulation. Me being more used to things like this, guide her to my car. I know it’s really safe in here because if it was as much as opened without my permission, an alarm would go off, too loud to shake off, and would keep blaring until I turn it off. “We have to get out of here,” I huff and run to the other side of the car to zoom out. “What the hell was that?” she asks after coughing a few. I don’t turn the AC on immediately. Instead, all the windows of the car are down and remain so till we’re a favorable distance from the burning house. “Calgary,” I growl. How do I know? I don’t. No one, however, would have enough resources to bypass FBI security and plant a device strong enough to decimate an entire duplex. She doesn’t say much at this point and I can almost read what’s going through her mind. She’s tired…and I can feel it too. That tiredness. That feeling of complete and utter fatigue. I’ve seen a lot of men die in the battlefield, but what isn’t talked about much is just how many men take the pistol, assault rifle or whatever, point it at their temples, and pull the trigger. It’s the tiredness…the fatigue. The realization that you’re going to die anyways and would much rather do it at your own terms. Heck, I feel it even right now – going against an enemy that is so much greater than you, you know past a certain point, that it’s just a waiting game. That’s what it usually always is. One time, you’ll stop running. Your bones would be weak, your muscles would be limp. What would you do then? Now, for me, it’s different. I have a purpose and that’s the only thing that can save from a time like this. The only objective I have is to make sure that whatever Evelyn endeavors to do, she’ll come out alive. As long as she’s alive, I’m in no position to attempt ending my misery. Kissing her made me more emotionally invested in that purpose that I have ever been in anything since the fights in Afghanistan, where my purpose was to come back and see my mom again. I failed in that purpose, and now, this one, I won’t fail. Not until I take my last breath, at least. There’s only one place for us to go after such an incident. Washington DC. The Pentagram. “There’s no way you’re alive right now,” Steve regards me with wide eyes when I step into the building. “I mean…is that the best you can do to try and kill me?” Evelyn, who is beside me tugs my arm harshly, “He was the one that blew up the house?” Her urgency and fear are cartoonish, but Steve’s laughter seems to ease her. “No. Steve is a friend,” I grunt, “So close a friend, in fact, that I could be missing a leg right now, and he’d be making jokes,” I hiss. “Oh, no, no…I’m so sorry, dear,” Steve further apologizes. “It’s a coping mechanism for whe he actually dies,” The room goes dead silent, and even I don’t say anything. It’s the truth. Our eyes communicate that much, as well as the hope that I don’t die so soon. “What happened?” his tone finally assumes seriousness. “You tell me. Don’t you guys have arial surveillance on us?” He shakes his head. “The cameras should have been enough. We were on our way when they broke in the first time, but you handled them so efficiently, all we had to do was cleanup. Jimmy is suspecting that was when the bomb was planted. “That makes too much sense to argue with,” I agree. “The only sense to be resonated with, more like,” he wipes his brow with a towel before slapping the fabric back on the table. “Listen. The two of you here…you guys are now dangerous to the FBI,” “What?” I bark. “Don’t take this personal, buddy. You know how it is. Business, right?” his eyes plead with me. I see him give a wink before darts hit me in the neck. I slap my hands over and pull out the pin. “What the fuck, Stephen?” I grunt and stand up to fight whoever is going to come for me, but my limbs are already weak. Actual anesthetics, like sedatives take time to put a person to sleep. During sleep, however, the body still moves, so operations may be hindered by a sleeping patient. That’s why there’s another agent in those chemicals. The one responsible for muscle relaxation. Those ones work much faster than sedatives, since it’s easier to chemically deaden the nerves than to stably put the entire body to sleep. I casually hear Steve say something along the lines of – “Get these pigs out of here and do the needful. I hope Calgary won’t come for our asses anymore after this,” Fucking Stephen! I wake up to a dark, starless sky. It’s mid-April, though, so, I’m not particularly surprised. What I’m surprised about is that I’m surrounded by vegetation. I’m not alien to this type of environment. I just didn’t expect to find myself so out of touch with civilization so soon. “Oh, good. You’re awake,” a familiar voice perks beside me. It’s Jimmy. I notice the curvature of his bald head before any other thing. “You’re too heavy to carry, so I just had to wait the sedative out. I told those sods not to use two,” “Where the fuck am I?” I growl and try to get up, but my muscles give in quickly. “Woah, woah! Language! And slow down. You’re not going to get anywhere fast. You already know this,” he hisses. “Steve arranged the place. If there’s a mole in the FBI, they have to think you’ll no longer be a threat to Calgary,” All the anger from my friend’s ‘betrayal’ vanishes. That was why he winked. Crazy lad. “Yeah? And where are we now?” “Mount Airy. There’s a car I’ll leave for you to get in and out, but for the most part, you guys have to stay hidden till we can either figure out this mole thing, or figure out Calgary altogether. Capisce?” “Yeah…capisce,” I grunt and pick myself from the dirt. Thankfully, my limbs respond this time, and merely turning my neck, I see what looks like a cabin well lit, with Evelyn doing some work in what looks to be the kitchen. I look back at Jimmy. He shrugs with a frown, “What? Go on. You think I’m going to shoot you in the head when your back is turned? I’d rather conquer you in combat. It’s shameful to stab a man in the back,” I chuckle, “See you around, Jim,” “Yeah, yeah. Lucky guy. In the forest alone with a girl that’s head over hills for you. Literally every agent’s dream," he complains bitterly as his voice gets further and further. I walk into the house and take a long breath. Just then, Evelyn comes out from the kitchen. She’s no longer wearing the gym clothes she was wearing before the explosion, and her skin isn’t dotted with ash and grime. She’s clean, with milky skin and a short peach dress. I look like an ogre compared to her. “I guess this puts a pause on the investigation, huh?” I let out a breath when I remember that. “Oh, shit, yeah. The library…all those journals. All of those things are gone.” I run my hands across my face. “Well, if they wanted us dead, they would’ve just done it with us inside the house, right?” She’s on to something, there. “So…they probably just wanted to destroy all the evidence that we could have used against them?” She nods. “Very likely,” I almost take a seat, but she stops me with a brief yell. “No! Go take a shower. Now!” “Okay, okay, ma’am,” I huff and move in a random direction. “Bathroom’s that way,” she points opposite me. As I pass her, she taps me playfully on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re still alive, soldier,” I walk backwards and return the smile. That’s not a small compliment. Chapter Ten Evelyn Well, it’s three days in since we started living here…and so far, I think I might not want to go back. I mean, civilization is great, Phil & Tungsten is probably wondering where the hell I am, but overall, I think I value the peace here a lot more. “It starts to wear on you after a while, though,” Ethan tells me when I air my views to him. “How so?” “In every way possible,” he laughs. “First, it’ll be the birds. They sound nice and all, until it’s 6 am and you just need that extra hour’s sleep. Or until you’re just tired of hearing them.” We’re in the cabin’s porch taking in the evening breeze. There’s a black bear practically chilling just a few hundred yards from us, and I was terrified the first time I came across it. However, Ethan told me that as long as I respect it’s space, it’ll respect mine. It hasn’t come closer than a few hundred yards since. It's disappointing, though, that I can’t wander as far as I want to because of the danger that I don’t know, but if even Ethan is hesitant about exploration, it’d be stupid of me to be stubborn. “Well, just the birds?” I smirk, raising a pair of my earbuds. “I’m very sure I can cope,” “First…” he gives me a pointed look. “First, it’s the birds. Then, it’s that bear. He’ll get curious one day…or a family…and he’ll need more space. Not that it’s going to get more dangerous, but it’s going to be a lot more effort to keep him off your person,” “Oh,” I drop the earbuds. It’s strange for me to be in a situation I don’t have a quick fix to. Being in the forest, it turns out, has a lot of those issues and Ethan lists them out. The more he lists, the more I want to leave as soon as possible. “But don’t worry. Most of it would just be minor inconveniences for a long time before it starts to get unbearable,” he adds the icing on the cake, like thsys supposed to invalidate all the horrid things he has just said. “I’m not going to suck away my own poop that’s been living in the ground for over a year!” I hurl in disgust. “No, you won’t, dear. The FBI would. I doubt we’d be here that long, though,” he clarifies. After a little silence, I ask, “How long do you think we’ll be here?” He shrugs, “Beats me. A week, three…” “Oh,” “…months…it depends. Let’s not think about it until we’re in our second month,” he waves. The discussion from here, panders around my own life as well, when he gets to learn about my trauma with my mom as well as my growing up. It's easy to describe it because I was too young to feel anything when it happened. A therapist I went to see once, fearing that I was a psychopath, explained to me that usually, PTSD comes when people relive the moment that caused their trauma. So, in order for PTSD to actually take place, I have to actually have been traumatized. It’s more of the feeling around the incident, than the event itself. That’s why I’m curious enough to ask him this next question. “What was war like?” He pauses for a few seconds. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think before I asked that question…” He waves me off, but never really looks at me. It’s almost like he’s trying to remember things. “I don’t know, Evelyn. I really want to describe this to you…but, like…it’s a lot, really. Want me to try?” “You don’t have to if you don’t want…” “Okay, fine. I’ll try,” He preps himself up and again, gets lost in space. He stares forward, maybe at the window or something…and doesn’t blink once. Just an intense focusing. Just when I’m about to tell him again to stop, the first words from him about the war leaves his mouth. “Hell,” he sighs. “It’s…it’s hell. The first thing that just…gets to you, is the smell. Pungent chemicals from explosives mixed with burning flesh…and dust...” I see him hitch his breath. “Ethan…” “Then…there’s the fact that no one really knows what they’re doing. No amount of directives would prepare you for what you would face. I had the long end of the stick as a sniper. I was always away from most of the blood…but most times, after the first target, is shot and the fight breaks, everything is just…a mess…” “Ethan…I’m sorry, I can’t…” I move over to him and throw an arm over his shoulder, trying to shake him of whatever trance he was in. It doesn’t work. “My best friend beside me just put the pistol to his skull and pulled the trigger because he wasn’t going to make it anyways. The last missile blew both his legs off. He already stopped bleeding and infection was starting to set in…I couldn’t see shit…it’s hard to breathe, so, I hold my breath most of the time…” I climb his giant frame and wrap my body around him, squeezing tight. Maybe that’ll get him to stop talking. It does. He stops and holds me back. The both of us stay in that position for a while, giving each other healing essence. There’s no way I’m pulling from this hug without something more. That’s why I kiss him. He responds without hesitation, gripping me lower than my back. Finally, that same sensual touch from yesterday… It brings back the promises that he made, promises that I remember very categorically. I want to beg him. I want him to make me want to… All these, I don’t need to remind him either. He kisses me with intent, and I can feel it. It’s more than the casual make out. His hands begin peeling the shirt from off my body, making me feel in anticipation. My body becomes a little extra perspiring because of how nervous I am. But extra fluid means less friction, which I find out, once he takes his own shirt off, is good. Our bodies glide across each other’s with unreal ease, enabling him to reach places our locked bodies and size difference might not have allowed. “How loud is your voice?” he moans as he fingers my underwear to the side. My throbbing core responds first by pulsing, but I realize that it can’t be heard, so I tell him, “I don’t know,” What am I supposed to say? 27 decibels? “Hmm. We’re going to find out today,” he growls. Before all my clothes are off…before even his trousers are off…his fingers are already on me. He teases me softly, drawing nothing more than sensual moans. The electricity of the pleasure zings through my brain, zapping me every time he strokes my sensitive skin. The more he strokes, the wetter it gets. The wetter it gets, the less friction there is. The less friction there is, the more I squirm. The more I squirm…the more he strokes. It’s a relatively simple cycle that produces a rather complex feeling of ecstasy. I run my hands through this tatted skin, and then, my mouth. It’s hard to keep kissing him from all the sounds his making me make with his fingers. I notice that his skin is a little coarse on some parts l, but now is not the time to ask questions…especially when I’m able to guess the answer ninety percent of the way. In fact, my word fantasy begins to creep in, and I imagine how this part of his skin would feel against my core. Fuck! That would be a kinky heaven. “Ah!” He just entered me with his fingers. I feel like he just took my virginity again! It’s been ages. “So tight...” He purrs. “I know. Wanna make it wider?” I moan, digging my own vocal grave. “Bet,” he chuckles and begins pumping me. I didn’t expect him to be so accurate with finding my spot, but I’m singing all chords on the piano and out by the time he’s done. He screws me senseless with his fingers so good, that I wonder what his member would do. He doesn’t allow that hypothetical to sit in my head for too long. Once his fingers bring me to my first convulsing orgasm, he helps me up and places me on the chair, before disappearing into the room. He's back about thirty seconds later, completely naked, with a condom over his eye widening member. “Ready to sing, baby?” he smirks, strolling leisurely to where I am on the couch. “Teach me to, soldier,” I moan and spread myself shamelessly for him to have an easy access. Entering me isn’t a task, since I’m already practically dripping with fluids, but his member still stretches me beyond belief. I close my eyes to savor the feeling of being so full. I believe there are parts of me that are, right now occupied by his intrusive length and girth, that none if my previous lovers have ever been. I’m only ever doing soldiers from now on! When he begins moving, I open my eyes, just so I can witness what pleases me so. He starts slow, massaging my breasts that are still inside the bra and trying to expose them as much as possible. I love how gently he climbs up the intensity ladder. More than ever, he makes sure I’m comfortable through it. Once we’re done with missionary, he switches positions and throws me on my stomach, entering me from behind and this time, with a rougher approach. He’s showed me the beauty, and now, he’s acquainting me to the beast. The beast merciless, riding me to abandon, screwing me till drool begins falling from my mouth and unto the leather couch. Most importantly, he tests my vocal strength and quality. Three times, in three different orgasms through the night. This…this is war. Chapter eleven Ethan “Again,” I growl. I can tell she’s getting more frustrated. She fires the shot and misses her target by a mile. There’s a long silence between the both of us and I’m sure she expects me to yell again, but I don’t. “Again,” I tell her simply. “It’s out,” she replies. “Reload,” “You never taught me that,” “I taught you how to reload an airsoft, didn’t I?” Silence again prevails as she gets to work, loading the pistol the exact same way I taught her. If there’s one thing I’ll give her flowers for, it’s that when it comes to the matters of the hands, she learns fast. I adore that trait. All she has to do is to make sure she gets her aim straight. I reckon it shouldn’t be so hard, right? Especially since we started from point blank and are now back at the fifty yards she was struggling with. The next shot she takes finds the metal target and the satisfying retort of the metal is music to my ears. Still, I say, “Again,” “What?!” “You heard me,” “I just hit the target!” she whines. “I didn’t say you missed. Well done,” I nod, “Again,” She huffs and points the pistol at the target again and fires. No sound. No tink. Not even a dull thump to show where the bullet hit, maybe a nearby tree or something. She’d alternatively just point the gun at the damn sky and it’ll be the same goddamn thing! “Looks like you’ll be on fifty yards for a while,” I shake my head and walk towards a log where I’ll take my seat. “I’m not in a hurry. We’re not leaving here until you place three consecutive shots on that bitch, all within five seconds,” “Now, you’re just looking for a way to piss me off!” she takes off the sound mufflers on her ear and throws them on the floor. “Evelyn, pick those mufflers up,” I command with a stern glare. I expected her to argue. Frankly, she would’ve defied me, and all I would have done would have been to watch her sexy ass strut into the house with a boner. She doesn’t do that, though, None of those tantrums or whatever. Instead, she picks up the ear mufflers with a little more than a whine, and cleans them before putting them back on. “You can’t just tell me what to do,” she murmurs louder than what I would term as a whisper. I would have loved to clap back, but I don’t want to push my luck too much, so I leave her be. “When you look at what you’re shooting, you have to want to shoot it,” I tell her. “That target is your enemy, and it’s going to kill you if you don’t kill it first. Every shot you miss, represents every shot your enemy has not to miss. Always remember that,” She looks at me for a brief moment. No hate or admiration. Just understanding. She understood the message. It takes her a few tries, but we make more progress in the next thirty minutes than we did the whole afternoon. By the time we’re done with the entire training, I’m sure I’m more fatigued than she is. Still, I have something important to do. I have to check up with the bureau. We have been without communication for three days since we got here and it’s not healthy. Being cut off from civilization means information is very critical. More critical in fact, than if we were living in the very society itself. It’s what would guarantee our easy assimilation back into society without seeming like complete cave people and is also what would help us on our periodic trips out. If we’re going to get supplies, I need to be updated on prices. And at the end of it all, I have the right to know when we are going to be free to get out. All those things would’ve been possible if I had my cell phone with me. I curse Steve everyday under my breath for taking that thing from me when he staged my kidnap. “What are you doing?” Evelyn asks me when she sees me ransacking through certain nonsense in the attic. “Looking for communication equipment,” I reply. “We’re going to keep in touch with the outside if we want to survive on the inside,” She remains silent as I comb through the attic before jumping down when I find nothing. “This wooden house isn’t supposed to have an attic unless you’re going to put something important like weapons in em,” I complain bitterly. “Shouldn’t we just wait for them to contact us?” she asks. “I mean, there are no phones and all, but they left us here, didn’t they, so they’d know when we’re out of supplies and come back for more, wouldn’t they?” I shrug, continuing my search, nonetheless, “Perhaps…but that’s just sitting ducks. I don’t want to do that,” “Fair,” she finally agrees. “And you’re sure there’s communication equipment in here…” “Every FBI safehouse should have one by default. If they don’t, I’ll be convinced they brought us here to let us die…and then, when I get out, I’ll hang Stephen Kruse by the balls,” “Huh,” she stops walking, but I continue, trying to keep my eyes peeled for any signs. Any openings that would suggest hidden equipment. “I could have sworn this label reads ‘comms’,” I hear her voice from way behind and I trace my way back there. She’s right. Just where the ladder drops from the useless attic, on the wall to the right, is a drawer labelled ‘comms’. How on earth did I miss that? “Why, thank you, mademoiselle,” I purr before opening the latch holding it closed. Sure enough, there’s a phone and some wires connected to another device. An encryptor. “You’re welcome,” she smiles cheekily as I pull out the devices. I hasten over to the living room and set it up. One wire goes into the machine and it’s connected to the phone via the USB connection for charging. I select the ‘use as wired hotspot’ option and boom. Just like that, anything I send through this phone to another phone wirelessly, would only require a decrypting device…or another machine like this to decode it. “All set,” I grunt and once the phone is set, I call Steve’s number. “It’s too early to call,” Steve grunts when the line connects. “And you didn’t have to encrypt. They won’t be watching,” “How are you sure?” I ask. “You’re right. I’m not. How’re you holding up?” “I’m going to do as well as I can to survive this, so that I can break your nose when I return,” I quip. He chuckles, “That’s fair. How’s Evelyn?” I look over at the woman he’s asking after. Tired…no, exhausted from training, skin red in spots, probably from random insect bites and other allergies here and there, as well as the look of impending doom on her face. “She’s hopeful,” I reply with all the information I gathered from looking at her. “Anything?” “Well, I said it all in the beginning of the call, didn’t I?” I let out an exhale. “I might need to come out with Evelyn…experience civilization for a while. You think that would be okay?” “I don’t think they’d trace wherever you’re hiding to a forest in Ohio, so, yeah. Maybe. Just keep the look out for anything off,” “It’s a government organization, man. Even the fucking pigeons are off,” I hear him exhale on his end. It’s a stressful situation on him as it is for me. I only bear the physical brunt. For him, it’s everything. The higher ups are going to be asking questions and he’s going to have to answer. What if there’s someone in that higher circle that is in on this whole Calgary schematics? Heck, I’m sure there are. How he’s going to manage information like that beats me. I’m a survivalist, probably the sharpest shooter in the east coast right now, and quite a genius myself, but one thing I know I’m not, is a politician. That’s what separates me from Steve and that’s why he’s above me in the bureau…apart from his experience, of course. He’s just really good with words. He knows how to ‘de-escalate’ situations. I have watched this man talk the president twice, out of starting a nuclear war and I have never been any less impressed each time. But that’s where the pressure lies, and that’s why he doesn’t want me to leave the forest just yet. “I don’t know, man. Just hang in there for a while. Alright? And wait for my call,” he warns. “Alright, man. Living off dried food isn’t a big deal for me, so…take all the time you want. It’s just the lady I’m wo…” I’m not able to complete my statement because there’s a sudden shift in frequency. It’s barely noticeable, but paying attention to it, it’s there. Steve is quiet as well because the frequency change would also be detectable from his end. “Fuck!” I grunt and throw the phone unto the ground, smashing it into bits in seconds. “What the fuck are you doing?!” Evelyn runs and tries to get me to stop, but I don’t. I keep stomping on the thing with my legs until I’m sure no engineer can get it to work. “We were being tapped,” I breathe erratically. “What? How would you know?!” she yells. “This was our only source of communication and you just butchered it!” “It doesn’t matter, Evelyn. If whoever is taping us is on the line long enough, they might be able to get our location. These are things that we have to look out for!” I try to emphasize. “Nobody was taping us, Ethan!” She yells. “Oh, yeah? And how would you know?” “Isn’t that an encryptor? They’re not getting anything,” she insists. “Nope. Nothing of our conversation, but everything about our location. Now, leave me to do my damn job!” “Your damn job is about to get us killed, Ethan! This isn’t war!” That shuts me up. “This isn’t the time for you to manifest those emotions and have it all over the place. It wont help our case,” she tries to sympathize with me by coming closer, but I take steps back. “What do you mean ‘this isn’t war’? Are you trying to paint me as some unstable freak tat doesn’t know what he’s doing?” She shakes her head, “That’s not what I said, and you know it,” “That’s what you implied,” I guess I was right, because she has no defense to that. Well, I fell for that trap. I should have known that she was going to use my trauma against me. Everyone I tell, does. Chapter twelve Evelyn While it might have been true that Ethan was acting on false presumptions, I guess it was off-putting of me to tell him out right, that his PTSD was to blame. I’m only able to admit that to myself, though. I don’t tell him anything. Not when I begrudgingly get him for breakfast…not when he wakes me up from a peaceful nap for training. I just kinda stick out and hope the entire thing would blow over. That comes at a price, though – me feeling like absolute garbage. I’d usually not let my ego get in the way of things like this, but maybe that’s the part of him that is starting to rub on me. Having too big of an ego to apologize is cool until you no longer have the person to apologize to. “Training?” I ask him in response to the light taps he gives me. “Uh-huh. Get your glock. Today, we’re working on movements while shooting, so, grab an energy bar if you have to. I think you’ll need to,” he doesn’t even wait for me to comprehend my bearings before disappearing. Knowing that I’ll meet him in the front of the house, sitting on the stump of that tree that he fell with an axe, I do everything at a sluggish pace. Just before I’m done dressing – the whole bullet proof vest and all – I hear a low whining. It’s almost like when a speaker malfunctions. Weird. I never thought we had any of those. I don’t pay attention to any of that, no matter how many times it happens, but when I leave my room, I’m startled by Ethan in the living room, tense and fixated on the television. “What’s going on?” I frown. “Someone’s here,” I panic, but nonetheless, draw out my gun. Ethan’s hands raise to stop me. I pause and slide it back into the holster. “Not physically,” he points to the TV. That makes sense. “Smart boy…” a deep rumbling sends my feet off the ground. “Oh, my goodness!” “Well, whoever the fuck you are, come and face me like a man…or men. We don’t need to play mind games,” Ethan roars in the direction of the sound, which, unironically, is the TV. There are speaker systems surrounding it, so, I guess that’s how the sound is so rich and baritone. And so creepy. “Mind games are superior to physical brawls, Pierce. What is this? The 1700s?” the voice croons again. It’s an unnatural level of deep, one that I guess was artificially modified by one of those machines. It would have been more comical if whoever was talking after inhaling helium. Sadly, organizations like this care more about looking badass than even doing whatever atrocities it is that the do. That’s why they’d go for handsome men as their assassins, and if they’re going to be masked, I bet they’ll only do skulls and ‘Michael Meyer’ masks. Lame. “Besides, it’s funny that you still consider this a game,” “Oh, really? Because I could have sworn that if this was a game, you would have had us dead before now,” he growls. I look between him and the black screen…assuming that is where this entity is speaking from. “How were they able to contact us?” I ask with a trembling voice. “Oh, come on, darling. You would put that past us? We have your exact location right now, and you’re worried about how I’m able to contact you with a device connected to the internet?” he doesn’t laugh, but that’s the general scope of his statement. He taunts me and my sub-par tech knowledge. I don’t even complain about it. “Where’s my father?” “Your father is…” the voice pauses a bit. It’s a more complete silence than when the speaker just keeps quiet. In fact, when he wants to start speaking again, I hear a beep. “Your father would have wanted you to leave the cabin in Ohio,-, -88,753532,” There’s silence in the room for a while and when I turn to Ethan, his jaws are clenched so hard, they just might burst out of his mouth. “Recognize those numbers, now, don’t you, Ethan?” “Fuck you,” This time, the voice actually chuckles, and I do not like it. “Now, we’re going to play a game, Ethan. Since games are what you like. I’m going to launch a missile. In…say…five minutes, the coordinates that I just called would be leveled. And you have but that time to leave the cabin,” Ethan doesn’t move. It’s probably now, my most terrifying time with him. He’s completely locked in a stare with the blank TV, as if he’s trying to decipher whatever the heck is going on. “Ethan, a missile is going to hit in five minutes we have to leave now,” I try to pull his hands. Perhaps a big mistake on my part. Instead of me pulling him, he keeps me in place. Not only am I not able to pull him, I’m now, not able to get away from him. “Oh, you have to be kidding me. Ethan!” I screech. “Cry, baby girl. Do everything you can to get him out, or get you out,” the voice laughs. “You’re not going to do shit,” Ethan growls. A reminder that he’s still conscious nd present in the moment, but even scarier, because with a clear mind, he shouldn’t be thinking like this. “Ethan, go…now…” I urge him, but he shakes his head. He releases my hand, making me jerk backwards, but he doesn’t move himself. Is this some kind of sick joke? “Ethan. I can’t leave you here!” “Nothing is going to happen, baby. But if you want to leave, you can leave. If you don’t have that faith…it’s fine,” I can’t believe my ears, but nonetheless, I rush to my room and pack whatever valuable things I have. They’re not much. I’ve had my entire wardrobe changed since the explosion in my house, so clothes offer no material consolation for me. The rest of my weapons arsenal, my phone…the new one that the FBI bought for me, that is, my earbuds, and my best two pairs of running clothes. I throw them into a bag and bolt back out to see Ethan still fixated on the screen. “You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you?” the voice chuckles. “Ethan Pierce. Your resolve in the army was one of steel. It’s a shame you didn’t stay long enough to die a hero like your friends,” “Are you done taunting me? You know, I could have sworn the Calgary had better things to do than hurl missiles at cottages,” “Oh, I have the time, sadly. Things have been a little linear nowadays. I think I like the kick this part of the job gives my life,” “You’re sad,” “The FBI is about to be very…very sad, that’s for sure,” he chuckles cruelly. I reach out to him again. “Listen, Ethan. I know you think this guy is bluffing, but I really believe we shouldn’t test it,” Ethan turns to me, his gray eyes thick in resolve. “Nothing is going to happen,” “And if something happens?” “Then it happens. We die,” I take a large gulp. “That’s the game,” he maintains. “One minute, Pierce,” the voice interrupts us again. “Let’s see if you money is where your mouth is,” I watch with terror oozing out of my pores as slowly, but surely, our timer runs out. I literally count down from sixty and at ten seconds, I feel all the hairs on my body rise from expectation. At least, it would be a quick death. I close my eyes…and wait. Ten to one, nothing happens. ‘Maybe it’s just my overall miscalculation and time errors,’ I think to myself. ‘Anytime now,’ It never comes. I open my eyes to ensure that it’s not just the fact that I have died too fast for me to reckon and sure enough, Ethan is standing, staring at the television, unfazed. “What the fuck was that?!” it takes everything in me not to lunge and him and slap sense into the egotistical head of his. “The game,” he replies without skipping a beat. He doesn’t even look relieved. “This wasn’t a fucking game, Ethan. This is our life!” “Yeah, but our life is a game. If we don’t die now, we’re going to die later. I can guarantee you that from the moment you discovered your father was missing, fate already doomed you to die. I’m here to hold your hands through the process, prolong it, and maybe die with you. The sooner you realize that, the harder it would be for the people above to manipulate you,” I look into his eyes, and I see a man of his words. A man ready to die, right here, and right now. Never has the concept of losing my life sounded so appealing. “Well, what do we do now?” He looks around the house and takes trips everywhere. I guess he’s looking for what part of the house the infiltration could have come from, but I wold have assumed we already found it in the television. I don’t question him, though. I know less than half of what he knows about spy stuff and government conspiracies, anyways. When he comes out again, there’s a sense of urgency in his steps, kinda like how I would have loved it a few minutes ago. “We have to leave this place now,” he rushes into the room to grab his things. I roll my eyes and hold out the bag I packed for him, waiting for him to come back out. “Yeah? No shit,” I curse. He comes back and snatches the bag from me before rushing to the storage unit. I make an ‘O’ sound with my mouth when I realize I forgot to pack food. He does to the best of his ability and the capacity of his bag in less than a minute and storms back out. “Why are you in such a hurry now?” “They’re coming,” he replies. He doesn’t make eye contact with me, but that’s not because he’s mad or anything. He’s just really pensive, making me feel the gravity of the situation even more. “Well, then, we don’t need the food, do we? We could always buy from a store when we drive out of here, right?” He stops, looks outside and then, back at me, “We’re not driving,” What?! Chapter thirteen Ethan Just as we’re about to leave the house, Evelyn grabs me by the hand, stopping me dead in my tracks. “What?” “I just wanted to say that I was sorry…for yesterday. I blamed your actions on something personal out of my own selfish interest, and it was wrong of me,” she says looking down in condescension. Oh, that phone incident? I even forgot about it. Right now, is not the time to be mad. Now is the time to move. “Oh, well, you were right. I might have been acting out of post traumatic gumptions, so…” I flick my brows and turn to move. She follows. “Are you sure we shouldn’t take the car?” I don’t get a chance to reply when the roaring of engines coming from the west side of the trail sends us into panic. “Fuck, get down!” I whisper-yell and tug her with me into a slope. We slide deeper down the slope as the sound of the vehicle gets louder. No words are said between us once we stop and watch as the house is bombarded with machine gun fire, even before the men enter into the house. They look far more ready than we would ever have been. Needless to say, it wouldn’t have been worthwhile to challenge them there. Now, that’s what I call a game well played. We would live to see another day. ** “Oh my goodness,” Evelyn gasps beside me as, right before our very eyes, the entire cabin is thrown into flames. “They’re going to be looking for us,” I huff, still making very micro movements. If these guys are as trained as I estimate them to be – which is on my level, maybe more -, any small movement would catch their eye. “What the fuck is that?” one of them yells. He and the other men respond to what he’s pointing at with machine gun fire. Our cue to leave. I grab Evelyn by the hand and tug her away from the smokey fog that is slowly beginning to spread through the entire area. “That could have been the bear,” she notes as we jog lightly through the woods. It would be madness to sprint in this terrain, anyways. “Or worse – Us,” I spit. “Right,” We keep the pace for a while, until I know she’s going to collapse any second now, even though she doesn’t show it. Her face is all red and her eyes are puffy. That’s not mentioning the raggedy breathing. We definitely should have trained more cardio. “Hey, I think we’re in the clear,” I finally slow down and can’t help feeling like a little bit of an asshole at how relieved she is, genuinely looking like she’s about to give me a hug. Oh, wait. She actually does. Her arms fly around my neck and she throws almost all her wight on me. It’s about a few seconds before she remembers that I’m also a human being thet needs oxygen to survive, but in those ticks, all her trust…all her worries were cast on me. In those two or more seconds, she genuinely felt that I was safe enough to leave her everything. That felt as nice as it was heavy…especially as, being much taller than her meant that her arms around my neck was actually doing everything humanly possible to pull me down. “Okay…we’re safe. Now what?” “Oh, hoho…don’t you make that mistake. We aren’t in anyway safe,” I warn her. “They came to the woods with men armed with machine guns and off road vehicles. I’d love to doubt that torching a house is the best use of all that artillery,” “Gotta be kidding me,” she mutters under a breath of exhaustion. “But, don’t worry. We seem to have taken a path that hasn’t been really explored. A.K.A, the longest way out of here,” I pat her on the shoulder. “Deeper into the woods than out,” she interprets. “Uh-huh,” I huff, “Say…do you know how to hunt?” She might well have collapsed on the ground, but I’m by her side, so she does that on me instead. “Don’t worry. Hopefully, we don’t have to do m…get down!” I pull her down into the dive with me. “What the f…” she damn nearly almost screams, but a quick strong…not so gentle palm wraps around her mouth. I need her quiet, and I need her quiet fast. The whiring noise becomes louder and luckily, there’s a cove I manage to pull her into with me. By this time, she’s not questioning me anymore. Or, she is, but not the type that would annoy me. “Wha…” “Drones,” I reply before she can finish her question. We really shouldn’t have gotten ourselves as deep into this whole thing as we already are. If there was a way I could go back in time, the only objective would be to dissuade her from these investigations as fast as possible, before any of this damage is done. I can see she doesn’t like any of this. I can see in her eyes, every twist and turn, the regret she faces. Her father? Let’s face it. Matt Anderson is probably long dead by now. If he wasn’t, they wouldn’t want to kill his daughter as well. After the whirring noise dies down, I get this look from her, urging to keep going, but I lay completely still, maybe taking a few deep breaths here and there. Here face morphs from urging to frustration. She actually tries to stand up, but I pull her back down…again, just in the nick of time. The whirring starts again. We wait until it passes before I stand up. “If it goes somewhere, it has to come back, doesn’t it?” I shrug. “It’d surprise you to know how many targets are discovered this way. There’s even more emphasis placed on the return trip,” “So, that means we’re in the clear now?” her voice emits hope that I can’t even guarantee yet. “Nope. It means they probably found us, and are headed this way, so we have to move as soon as far away from here as possible,” We don’t run this time. It’s unnecessary. We already have a good enough head start, and since the drone isn’t following us, they wouldn’t know where we would be going next. That’s if they saw us in the first place. I just wanted to be safe on every metric conceivable. Still, our steps aren’t slow. We move with a march, a sense of urgency, constantly looking over our shoulders and cautiously in front of us. This is the forest. The amount of creatures that could easily end our lives are a lot more than the way we walk describes. However, the danger behind is a more pressing one. Sure enough, we begin hearing distant hollers, and one that scares me a lot. Barks… I take Evelyn by the hand and we resume our jog again. “If that dog should catch even a trace scent on us, we’re as good as found,” I warn and we begin moving. The straightest line possible is my biggest bet, to get as far away from the dog as possible. So, at least, when it finds our scent, it’ll run for miles before it can get to us. Then comes our salvation. A big body of water. I could have cried in relief, because for the most part, I didn’t know what to do al this while. The dogs had found us, and I could hear the barks getting closer and closer every passing second. What was left for us to do would have been to wait for the dogs to get closer enough and kill them, but that would have given away our position. Evelyn is too tired to run, and we aren’t going to outrun bullets, anyways. It would have been the end. “Tell me you can swim,” I huff. She rolls her eyes and jumps into the water before I can give her further instruction. Thank heavens. Chapter fourteen Evelyn I gasp for air when I finally surface at the other side of the river. The river’s flow carried us at least a mile parallel from the other side we entered, and even with my confidence, I won’t deny the panic that set in when I started moving in the direction that I didn’t want to go. That’s why every step of the way, I’m grateful for the protector I have by my side. He held my hand through the entire river journey, never letting go till we were finally at the other side. It’s only when we get to the other side, that we realize a grave danger. The weight on my back draws me to the backpack that we carried with us. I check mine, and she checks hers. Sure enough, the water ruined a lot of the food that wasn’t in airtight packaging. The bread in Ziploc bags and crackers are now completely soggy and inedible. The rest, though are okay enough to still be eaten, mostly because they’re in cans. Canned fruit, chili and granola bars are all safe. Special thanks to the chili being safe. “How long do you think we would be out here?” I ask. He looks around the forest with a compass in his hands before shrugging, “Beats me,” My shoulders sag in despair as I realize the possibility of us running out of food at some point. With proper rationing, this should take us about two days to be done with. Less, if we get hungrier. “If we keep heading north, we should be out of here soon enough, though. East is where the river curves back, and west or south is facing Calgary,” he points to where we had just come from with his thumb. “So, north,” I exhale. “You know for sure where it goes?” “I know for sure, that it leads out of here. Everywhere leads out of here. It’s just the safest route that I’m concerned about,” “And for some reason, it has to be the longest,” “That…I don’t know,” he huffs, stroking his blonde beard. It grows a little darker on his chin than on his head, but that contrast in itself is beauty. I would love to stroke it a little, but now isn’t the time for miniature romance. Besides, I can’t be quite sure that he still isn’t mad at me from yesterday, when I called him out on his erratic behavior…which he turns out to have been right after all. Oh, gosh…that! The next fifteen minutes of our journey is me just pondering on a thousand scenarios where I shouldn’t have said that, and regretting every single one where I did. We walk, long and far. Up to a point, each step feels even more hopeless than the last and I can’t really believe that we’re this deep in some woods. We’re supposed to have come across some road we can flag down a vehicle or something. To my dismay, even Ethan is as despaired as I am, and that doesn’t make me feel any better. Just before nightfall, we come across a clearing in the woods, where it has become a lot less dense. It looks artificial, which if I’m being honest, gives me the creeps even more. “Someone has been here?” Ethan nods, “And they no longer are…I hope. We set camp here. Tomorrow, we try to cover as much ground as possible without the fear of being chased,” he collapses on the ground. It’s open sky, meaning we’re not going to have the best of comfort, but I have a jacket that would keep me warm, at least. My bag can be my pillow, and if we nest close to the giant tree by our left, we should have a fair amount of shade. We’ll be fine. The clear sky offers little heat, but we don’t need it. There’s enough heat in this part of the earth to annoy me and make me wish it was at least autumn. But then, by that time, the night would be freezing. Like animals we lay, with one eye open, we sleep. Our comfort is found in the arms of each other, and it is so till the next morning. Waking up has never felt as magical as it did just now. I though the cabin in the woods was the height of it. Opening my eyes and seeing the lush mixture of vegetation and the brown backbone of it swarming with relatively harmless wildlife…that’s something I never thought I would experience. “Wakey, wakey,” a handsomely gruff voice perks from a small distance. I turn in my lying position to follow the sound of Ethan’s voice and I see him crouched in front of a bunch of rocks and wood. “Making a fire? I wish I joined the scouts,” I chuckle. “It’s easier than the scouts make it seem,” he lights the fire and in seconds, it shines brightly, even though the daylight makes it seem a little dull. “It’s pretty much the only thing you learn to do in the scouts – Make fire and tents,” “That’s an exaggeration,” “But not far off from the truth,” he smiles. “Chili for breakfast?” he takes the container and hangs it over the fire. “I mean…do we have a choice?” “It’s either that or starve,” he taps his belly, “I’m not planning on starving and quite frankly…I think it’s time this guy reunited with an old friend,” After our very basic, but very filling meal, we begin our trek in earnest, hoping to have covered the necessary distance that the food in our belly can carry us. Well, yet another one of those things that I was wrong about. Where the forest gets scantier and scantier, the sun’s rays penetrates through the canopy of leaves and seers us in inescapable heat. Enough for us to need more of those damn chili. Enough for us to finish all six cans by the time the sun finally sets. And yet, looking miles ahead of us, from a vantage point, all I see is green. “We’re going to die before we get out of here,” I settle within and out. “You would have died if I wasn’t here, that’s for sure,” Ethan chuckles. We found another clearing where we hole up for the night. This time, it’s a dead tree, so large, that a hollow livable space has been carved into it. Human or not, it doesn’t matter. “You’re such an arrogant prick,” I groan in annoyance, but still somewhat relieved by his confidence. He knows something that I don’t, something that would help us survive this jungle and as I fall asleep again in his arms, that is my comfort. His cocky arrogance. **The next day** I hate his cocky arrogance. “Come on, Evelyn. All your training. Everything you have learned has prepped you for this day,” he tells me. “I swear to you right now, Ethan,” I gulp. “I can’t do it?” “But you were doing shooting practice just the other day. Who were you planning to kill?” “I was planning on defending myself,” I counter back. “Defending yourself would come at the price of a life if the attack is unrelenting. Who were you planning to kill?” “Anyone that attacked me,” “So…another human?” “That attacked me!” I grit through the teeth, “Not a rabbit that has done no harm to me whatsoever,” Call me whatever, but this feels like straight up murder. The white fluff in the distance hops around happily, with its family. No harm done to me, not even one planning to do. If I were to come out into the clear, their first and consistent reaction would be to bolt. So, why are they my food? “I’ll tell you the harm that that rabbit has done. You see, here you are, minding your business. And ‘grrrr’,” “What’s ‘grrr’?” “Your stomach,” he tells me. It growls in hunger, demanding sate. There’s a long way to go and we don’t even know when we’ll get out of this green prison. And there’s only one way to survive. Eat…or be eaten,” “But the rabbit won’t eat me,” I argue. “I mean…not directly…but it will eventually. See, when you die from hunger, your body would decay here and the nutrients from your corpse would serve as manure for the crops. Those crops would grow out of the strength of those nutrients and become nourishment to that very rabbit,” Now that he says it like that, it makes too much sense to ignore. “Now, close one eye, cadet…and take that shot!” he whisper-yells into my ears. I do exactly as he says. “Sorry, bunny,” I wince, then, close both eyes and pull the trigger. I hear a cacophony of whimpers and when I open my eyes, white is stained red. No questions on how I made that shot with my eyes closed. “You’re cooking it,” I huff. “Sure. We’re by the river, so there’s a lotta smooth rock…and I packed a bottle of peanut oil. Heh. I knew we would need it,” He moves around gathering some herbs and nuts that I didn’t know were edible. Some of them he had been casually picking on the journey, but I never knew what for until now. RIP to that rabbit, but this had to be the best meal I’ve had in a long time. Partly because my ‘long time’ consisted of a lot of running from people trying to kill me and I never got the chance to eat anything as well prepared. I hate to say that I would have loved to eat more, because that would mean having to end the life of another poor rabbit. That’s why, on our next walk, after about fifteen of those minutes, the sight of asphalt and sounds of roaring engines is music to my ears. Freedom! Chapter fifteen Ethan “Yes, Evelyn. If I had known the road was fifteen minutes away from our position that time, we wouldn’t have eaten the rabbit,” I console her. She still feels like a monster nonetheless. I still feel we would have needed that meal, though. After nearly twenty minutes of standing, not a single soul stops to give us a ride. It doesn’t help that since we’re in the middle of nowhere, there’s quite a shortage of passing vehicles. That doesn’t particularly mean getting one is impossible. It’s just hard. Hard enough for her to finally confess that we needed ‘Doodles’. She named the thing that’s already halfway through her digestive tract. Finally, when my thumb is already getting sore from being put up, a delivery driver stops. “You know the most interesting part about hitchhiking? Ya don’t have to do it,” the lady driving the truck offers us a welcoming smile, despite the satire in her words. “I agree with you, ma’am,” I return the good-natured advice. “If I could, I’d have much preferred not to be lost in the woods as well,” “Oh, my!” she realizes her mistake. In that same instant, she pushes a button that unlocks the door. “You’re lucky I found you guys on time. Word is that there’s men in these woods with guns and dogs, searching for god knows what. You could have found yourself in the middle of an alien invasion or whatever the government is hiding from us,” I huff, “Alien invasion? That explains the smoke,” I refer to our burning cabin from two days back. “Maybe…a crashed UFO?” I let out what should be laughter, but is just a hybrid between an exhale and fangled nonsense, “Beats me, I wouldn’t love to check it out,” “Well, that’s why I’m here,” she steps on the gas and begins forward. “Where to?” “Well, we’re in Ohio, right?” “Virginia,” she snorts. “Oh, thank Goodness!” both Evelyn and I chorus at the same time. “Well, you’ve been in the woods long enough, huh…” “You have no idea,” Evelyn talks this time. All this while, she has been trying to save up on energy by doing as little as possible. However, more of the reason we’re grateful for our position, is its relative proximity to DC. We could have burst out towards Indiana or Kentucky, but of which would have required way more steps to get to Washington. I wasn’t ready to travel so far in such conditions, and I’m guessing neither is Evelyn. I steal a side glance and truly get the scope of how she looks and compared to the delivery driver, I see just how out of contact with civilization we have been. She looks nothing like the Evelyn I met. None of those cute brown eyes. In its place is experienced fox tired eyes, dark brown and half closed. Her skin, white and creamy is now oily with streaks of dirt around the sides of her face and from her brow. “Ya know, I have a son…got lost in the woods once,” the delivery driver starts talking again. “Sent out a search party and everything. It was a day or two before someone found em. Had to hitchhike his way down to WV,” Ah, of course, that’s why she helps people that hitchhike. Most people would’ve thought we’re robbers. “You don’t know what you’ve done for us, ma’am,” Evelyn scoffs tiredly. “Yvonne, darling. Better than ma’am,” the lady chuckles. “Oh, it’s fine. Besides, I’mma drop you off only as far as my delivery goes. Can’t have the company clocking me for deviating from my route, so…” “Oh, no, it’s fine. As far towards DC as you get, the better for us,” I put in. “You bet ya,” The rest of the journey is silent. I didn’t get the best seat, but that’s because I wanted Evelyn to have the one closest to the window where she can have better structural support. Still, I get some rest. The military has conditioned me not to sleep deep, so, I know every turn the vehicle makes, every time the car decelerates and every time the gas pedal is hit. Needless to say, the virtual assistant’s ‘You have arrived at your destination’ does more than wake me. I open my eyes with a jump, but it’s just a mild shake. Nothing too irate. “Well, guys. This is as far as I can go towards DC, I guess,” she puts the car in park and opens her side of the door. “You’re the best, Yvonne,” I begin the task of squeezing out of the vehicle without waking Evelyn up too forcefully. Once I’m down, I pry her gently. Her eyes flutter, and there, I see the softness again. Fatigued? Maybe. Beautiful? Even when she was shooting that bunny. “Hey, beautiful,” “Hi, handsome,” she mutters weakly. It takes everything in me not to blush, and I still do. She doesn’t really think I’m handsome with this big ass scar on my face, does she? “Sleep well?” “Well enough, you?” I shrug, “More than I need, honestly,” “Great. Are we ready to go, soldier?” “Aye,” We get off after bidding Yvonne enough goodbyes to annoy her and take the next bus to DC. Or, that’s what I thought. When the bus branches off Dwight highway and straight towards Rockville, I throw Evelyn a look. She doesn’t look at me. Since she’s on the window side, she looks straight at the Maryland twilight. Somehow, the bus stops us right at where all this began. Just about three hundred steps away from the bus stop, is the partly demolished three bedroom duplex of Matt Anderson and his daughter. Everything is cordoned off with yellow police tapes, but I doubt any investigations would be going on anymore. Since the case is now with the FBI…or Calgary, as it may seem, I doubt any one goes past these tapes for anything akin to information seeking. Soon, it would become another playground for content creators and ghosthunters, who would probably claim that there were children in here as of the time the building set ablaze and their ghosts might still be lurking around. What I don’t understand is why we’re here, and not on our way to DC. “I get that you’ve grown to love the outback, Eva, but…I mean…” I don’t even know what to say, so I just let my breath complete my words. “Well, it did grow on me a bit, but that’s not the point,” she replies, taking a stroll towards the house, again, confusing me. Isn’t this the point where we collapse on the ground and gaze at the stars till we fall asleep? “My father had a few tricks up his sleeve in times of emergency…most of the emergencies being when he needed to get away from me,” she chuckles. That’s sad. “One of them, was with this,” she fishes what looks like a chain from her pocket. “What’s that?” I scrunch my face in confusion, still not following her until she moves without hesitation, into the charred remains of her home. Something’s up. “Wait for it,” She navigates her way past what used to be the living room. I can still see the frame and the various layers of the television. She moves for what would have been a few steps, but is now a couple of hundred, dodging debris and moving them out of the way before continuing and finally stopping at what used to be the library. “If Calgary is out looking for us, this is the last place they’d expect us to be,” she says. “I just hope this thing still works,” She slots the ornament of the chain into what I know as the remains of a bookshelf, the char not completely disfiguring the overall shape. I’m surprised when it rolls, and a cleaner, almost brand new looking bookshelf slides from the ground. She gives me a look before placing her hand on a glowing pad, and having the entire ground she’s standing on, sliding to reveal a stairwell. “No fucking way,” I gasp. “Nobody knows about this place,” she begins descending the stairs. I follow after. It gives off this claustrophobic vibe initially, because of how compact the entrance is, but once you’re in, it’s a grand thing. Heck, it’s almost like an extension of the living area of the house when it was still standing. Now, it’s like a portal to another world. “Even I only knew about three years ago, when I caught him entering. It’s his sanctuary,” “It looks like a lab,” I reply gruffly, taking a look at my surroundings. Well it and ultramodern, but there’s way too much of the facilities here that remind me of the names ‘Matt’ and ‘Anderson’. “Of course, it’s a lab, silly. What did you want to be here? Play stations and Snooker tables?” she chuckles, “My father is a chemical engineer, among many things,” I nod, “You get a lot of money, you build a nice house, but with a badass lair underneath it. Got it,” “At least, there’s a shower down here,” I hear her voice echoing pulling me from the visual adornment I have been giving the house and looking to trace the source of her voice. It’s in a corner of the spacious room, and she’s already undressed, as water pours unto her skin from what looks to be six outlets. “That’s a nice shower,” I say, but ogle at her body instead. I watch intently as the water peels off the layers of grime and dirt, revealing a little of that creamy goodness that turns my head into mush. She perks her head away from the spray and spits some of the water away from her face. “Well, don’t just stand there, soldier. Let’s get clean,” she winks at me. “You don’t have to tell me twice,” Chapter sixteen Evelyn Maybe there’s a certain amount of unmatched pleasure that comes with deprivation with an eventuality. Nope…there in fact is. That’s why edging leads to more pleasurable sexual outcomes. Ethan tested that out with me in that cabin in the woods. I know this for a fact now, because, here I am, in a bed, after not having one in about two days. Just two days! I never thought I’d ever grow to miss something as trivial as where I’d lay my head to sleep. Now I understand that it’s because I never lacked it. When the value of a thing is unknown, abuse is inevitable. That’s for sure, and I humbly confessed that I might have negated the value of a cushion underneath my back, when I’m unconscious. During and after the shower, Ethan and I couldn’t do more than the bare minimum. At least, I couldn’t. If he could, he sure didn’t act like it. All we did was scrub the grime off each other, consistently enough till we had gotten the scent of earthly grease off our bodies. I also know he was completely fagged out by how he collapsed on the bed with me, falling asleep in mere minutes. Waking up, I’m surprised to see him still asleep beside me. There’s a first time for everything and in this my time, I take it to explore his body with my eyes. Of course, the both of us have no clothes. The ones in our bags are far too dirty and weathered, and the ones on our bodies through this entire ordeal have to be burnt within the shortest possible notice. They’re that horrid. I work my way from his face, the intricately carved scar that lines from his brows all the way to his chin. My favorite part of his face, only because of its uniqueness. It’s what would set him apart from the thousands of men I walk past every day. Maybe I would still have fallen in love with him if he wasn’t an agent designated for my safety and if I had simply met him at a Walmart shopping for monthly supplies. But the thing is, would he love me? Would he have stopped to give me a second thought? I trace the golden locks from his head to where it darkens off into a brownish red at his chin. From there, the only darkness that continues is ink. Not too much, but definitely noticeable. The one from his neck and unto his chest is drawn so perfectly to resemble intricate cracks on his skin that look realistic enough if you look at them from a distance or at an angle. Pretty badass. Those cracks on his chest transform into leaves at his sleeves and that’s the one I see all the time. The leaves and roses. That’s the part he wants me to see…not the cracked, nearly breaking person that he is on the inside. Everything about him is a make-up that I don’t believe I deserve. Maybe I’m being harsh on myself, but come on. FBI agent? Military veteran with the scars to show for it? Still, somehow, he manages to balance his aggression with gentility. Never once hostile towards me, meaning he knows how to keep his emotions in check. Then, there’s just me. A marketing exec who simply lost her daddy. I can’t resist the temptation anymore and run my hands though his soft, well-toned chest. It’s a gesture that I predict would be ill received because he’s probably just trying to sleep, but on the contrary, when he twitches and I remove my hands, he catches them and brings them back. He wants me to keep stroking him. I would be doubting whether or not he’s sleeping or awake if his rod of pleasure didn’t begin to swell. “Good morning, soldier,” my face reddens at the embarrassment of being caught. “Morning, baby,” his deep morning baritones almost throw me off the bed. Christ, I wish I were in him mouth when he said that! “Sleep well?” “Mmmh. Better than I thought I would,” “Let’s get out of bed and do something reasonable before we end up staying all day here,” he chuckles. “I love the massage and all, but bad guys are trying to kill us, so…” “You’re right,” I laugh along with him, a little disappointed that I don’t get to be the reason his member shrinks back down this time, but it’s something I can cope with. I can cope with the edge that soon…and very soon, I will be the one to do it. I get the laundry going and in no time, we have relatively clean clothes. I’m in the gray pair of sweats I packed from the woods with a beige tank top. A rather uncanny fashion combination, but I have nothing else to work with. Ethan sports black combat shorts and a gray tank. Badass, as always. The both of us dive into the business of the day. Why would my father have an underground lab if there weren’t secrets in them? And so, we search. Before he came, I used to do these searches on my own, and to be frank, I still would love to do them by myself, but the fundamental problem still remains. And that problem is – I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I don’t know what buttons to press, I don’t know what houses something, and what doesn’t, in fact, right now, Ethan has [ushed more buttons and maneuvered more controls right now, than I ever did since he first time I came down here. I’ve always been so paranoid of activating some sort of self-destruct sequence that would somehow inevitably trap me in the lab and incinerate me along with decades worth of work and research. Ethan laughs when I explain that skepticism. “Well, if there were a self-destruct sequence, I would want to believe that your father would love to keep it hidden, and/or protected under a pass key,” “True, that…but, you know those sci-fi movies where the man’s only daughter is the password to something very dangerous?” He laughs again, “Sci-fi movies have to be your version of horror movies,” I shrug. Quite frankly, unless it was a movie about space and shot around the extra terrestrial setting, sci-fi movies terrified me. “Hey, I got something,” he alerts me just moments after. “What’s that?” “I would guess it’s a message, but it looks like it was scratched unto the surface,” he tells me. I look up from the scrutiny of whatever bubbling chemical in an airtight container I was looking at, and face Ethan who’s peering directly into the hardware of my father’s computer. I think it’s a computer, at least. This thing is freaking huge. “It’s instructions,” her runs his fingers through the in fact, finely scratched print, “Press the button with the belt. What button with a belt?” he asks. I don’t answer. Instead, my mind races as I try to locate the button. Where is it, where is it?! I remember when he first left, and I came down here, the button with the little karate belt was the one I feared the most. It just seemed really bad ass. I just never thought of the fight that it could be for me. I just have to remember which one, because some time back, not up to ten minutes ago, I slipped that belt off. Thought I’d keep it as a souvenir. “Aha!” I hop in triumph, over to the button I now recognize as the only bigger green one amongst the set of uniformly sized all black buttons around it. I smash it without hesitation, and just like that, the screen in the middle of my father’s computer environment lights up and I see his face for the first time in nearly two weeks. “Hello, my baby girl…” Tears fall from my eyes without hesitation. “By the time you see this message, it might have taken you a while and I’m sorry I had to make it tough to get. I didn’t want anyone else to have access to it. I might be dead…or will die soon, depending on when you will see this message, but don’t worry aout me. Worry about yourself,” His voice is the softest, most comforting caress my soul has every received. “I worry about you, and that’s why I built this place to withstand earthquakes of up to 9.5 magnitude…if that should ever happen, and more. Bomb blasts, grenades, even fires and storms above. So, you can come down here to be safe. If you need more than that, there’s an arsenal I have at the left part of the room. Mess around with the buttons and see which is which. I’m sorry it had to be this way, my love,” I could swear I saw tears fall from his eyes, and it breaks me. “Matt said he had an arsenal?” Ethan spits when the video is done playing. I’m sure that’s the only part he remembers watching. Chapter seventeen Ethan This is by far the most random easter egg I would say I have come across in my job so far. “You know, when you said ‘Arsenal’, I still had this picture of a drawer with a desert eagle and a semi,” I break the silence, because even she is too stunned to speak. This is proper military grade hardware. The assault rifles are America’s very own M4s and there’s more than one. There are shotguns, snipers…grenades…and grenade launchers. “There’s enough heat in here to turn this place into a vat,” I whistle. I take a stroll around the well-lit shelve that was secluded just a few minutes ago, and behind it is live ammunition, to fuel just about any of these weapons for rounds upon rounds. “It kinda makes me wonder why this place didn’t blow up when Calgary set it ablaze the first time,” I continue expressing my shock. “Well, if you have listened properly, you would have heard my father say something about two feet of solid concrete all round. This place is practically impenetrable,” she replies. “That makes sense,” I huff and pick up a strap of 5.56 mm magazines. “I would have loved to have fun with this,” “And you might,” A voice booms through what seems to be the same speaker system that Matt’s voice was coming from. “What the…” “It’s the intercom,” Evelyn rushes to the computer console to fiddle with some of the buttons. “Dad said something about there being a link…There,” she smashes some keys, and after a few clicks, the screen displays Steve, Jimmy and some other men in suits. “I wonder how they knew we were here,” she huffs. “I have a tracer planted in me,” I shrug. Her eyes widen, “What? And we were in the wilderness the entire time?” “Well, they did say they weren’t going to interfere,” “Ugh,” she goes up to the entrance and opens it. Moments later, Steve comes down the stairs. “Nice bunker you got there, buddy,” he greets me. “Not me, man. Thank Matt,” I nod over at him. We would, on normal circumstances have hugged it out, but we’re boys. We have to look tough, at least, for the people. “Believe me, if I could, I would,” he coughs. “I heard that!” Evelyn interjects from the flight of concrete stairs she descends, and Steve has to comport himself like a sixth grader who just got caught swearing. I chuckle. “He’ll ask you for help, Eve. When he wants to stand up and his back gives in, and you’ll laugh. Wait for the karma,” I tell her as she enters fully into the room and comes to stand by me. The entire room erupts into a laughter that is soon deadened by murderous glare that Steve throws at everyone. The only people that laugh longer are Eve and me. “Whatever. We’re here to get you both out of the country,” Steve sneers. “Figured since Calgary wants to kill you so bad, we could just fake one accident to end it all and ship you out. Ethan, you’ll still be with the FBI, but as an international operative, stationed to keep the principal – Evelyn Anderson, safe,” I nod. I had seen this coming as soon as they arrived. I knew that they are as tired of this thing as we are. Maybe even more. However, one thing I do know is… “No,” Evelyn states boldly. There’s pin drop silence for a while before Steve breaks into a laugh. “I’m sorry, I thought for a second, my mind was playing tricks on me. I mis-heard someone say…” “No,” she interrupts him clearly this time, making her intentions known. “I’m not leaving this country without my father,” He doesn’t reply her directly and instead, he looks to me. Like I’m the one that knows what to say. “I’m the mindless drone here, guys,” I raise defensive arms and step out of the circle. “Just the bodyguard,” “No, not necessarily. You have a choice. You could technically drop the case now, and she would no longer be under the FBI’s protection, free to pursue her father,” Steve places me right at the source of the heat. There’s no way I’m opting out though, and it’s not even a hard choice for me to make. Hence, with a shrug, I plant my feet beside Evelyn. “I suppose we’re both going to die, huh,” I say more to her than to Steve, but it’s Steve who replies. “I’m afraid so, yes,” he exhales. “The Calgary is…I dunno, man. That’s all I can really say, because I really have no fucking clue. We’re trying to get the FBI clean, but I doubt it’ll be possible soon,” “I understand, ma. You do what you got to do,” I offer a handshake and he takes it. It turns into a hug, with which he takes the opportunity to whisper into my ears. “You know, you have to smash before you die, at least, right?” “Way ahead of ya,” I smile when we pull back from the hug. “That, Ethan, is why we’re friends. You’re stupid…but you get it done,” he chuckles as he backs up back into the entrance of the bunker and through it. I shake my head nostalgically at the exit. “You should have left,” Evelyn hums behind me. “You should have as well,” I reply, taking steps closer to her. “I’m not leaving without my father,” she says. “I’m not leaving without you,” Our mouths meet even before our bodies do, and I warp my hands around her and pull her as close to me as possible, to get the ultimate feel. I want to feel every inch of her defiant body on mine. I want to hold her as close to me as she would want me to hold her before Calgary eventually finds us here, because, perhaps, that is what would eventually happen. We might be able to hold forte here, but for how long? A few hours? Minutes? A simple pack of C4 thrown or set in the right places could do some heavy damage and if more people than we need are able to get through that entrance, it’s a kill box. I know this, she probably hasn’t thought it through. I don’t care. “You love me,” she chuckles when we break apart from the kiss. “Nah...uh-uh…Now, now, aren’t we getting a little carried away?” She looks up at me with cute puppy dog brown eyes, “It’s okay, really. I love you as well,” That… Now, that really softens me. I don’t know what to say. No mature retort or comeback. No wise saying. Pathetic me can’t even give an ‘I love you back,’ because I feel like it would sound a little disingenuous, considering the fact that she had to point it out to me. All I can settle for is kissing her again, this time, a lot more gently and a lot more passionately, communicating with my lips, what my tongue failed to say. It’s difficult knowing whether or not her lips can read the meaning behind the kiss I’m trying to pass, it’s pointless hoping. But if the words of my mouth cannot express how much this girl means to me, then, my life on the line to help her get her father back would. That’s not something I would do for a girl I don’t worship, even on times when I was in active duty. The both of us make out for as long enough as it takes for us to notice that we’ve been standing for quite a while, before we go into the business of the day. Finding Matt. The most grueling part of the labor is the fruitlessness. I hate how more often than not, we would find a lead that would seem to be taking us somewhere, but at the end of the day, just drop us off at something we know anyways. It’s either that, or something we didn’t know, but it’s too inconsequential to the search, that it almost makes me want to cry. “He had veneers recently, so fucking what?” I hiss and toss the paper file away. I don’t know why most of the documents before 2015 were printed and saved. Having to oscillate full attention between paper and screen when I want to fact check things is crazy. It’s the middle of the night already, and Evelyn is asleep. With just me and the lab of a missing person awake and running, you can imagine my senses tingling when I hear rumbling coming from way upstairs. It’s far enough to ignore it if you want to, but with the threats to our life, I’m not going to let a spy slide. Sure enough, when I open the cams, there’s a man sifting through the rubble, but very casually with his feet. I take one good look at a sleeping Evelyn, and I immediately realize what I must do. The door opens from the bunker to the real world and my gun comes out first. It’s aimed straight at him, before I come out, but he doesn’t seem fazed by that fact. I don’t get the outlines of his face clearly, but when he comes closer, I make out enough under the midnight sky to identify him in broad daylight. Skin as whitewashed as a ghost’s, with slender facial features to complete the Halloween costume. Dark, maliciously corporate styled hair, and an eye color I don’t care to memorize. “You can drop the gun down, Ethan. Calgary doesn’t care for all that,” he speaks. Chapter eighteen Evelyn I wake up to Ethan the same way I left him to sleep and that is mildly unsettling. He should be sleeping now, assuming he slept at least, an hour after I did, which I very well know he did not. I woke up several times in the night and the bed was empty. We stopped sleeping separately since that night in the cabin. “No sleep?” I ask instead of the regular ‘good morning.’ “Uhh, pfff,” he exhales and runs his hands through his face. “I was just stressing about how I would decrypt the code to a bunch of these files. I have foundational knowledge in cyber security but…I dunno…foundational knowledge doesn’t seem to cut this one,” He seems a little angsty. I mean, it would make sense if you’re trying to crack a code and run some decryption, but not this anxious, if I know Ethan well enough. It takes more than mere annoyance to show on his face, more than a bored look. His brows are physically, almost purposefully furrowed. “Hey, is something wrong?” He remains silent, and there, I have my answer. Something indeed, is wrong. “Ethan, you know you can talk to me about anything, right?” He nods, “That’s not the dispute, babe. It’s just. What I have to say is kind of a lot to even process myself, let alone tell it to you,” he looks up at me from the computer. His eyes shine silver with exhaustion. I wish, for his sake, that he had just slept, instead of being awake all night, digging into information that had the potential to cause difficulties for him. “I don’t really care, Ethan. I’m tough…you know that,” He smiles, not looking me in the eye, but I pay it no mind. “While you were asleep,” he starts after taking in a big breath, “I was working on –” he waves his hands over the computer screen, “– that, when I heard a sound from upstairs. I check the cams and see that it’s a man. When I go upstairs, he tells me he’s from Calgary,” I stare at him for a few, trying to decide whether or not he’s pulling my legs. If he isn’t, then I’ll start to get really concerned. “Oh yeah? And what did he say?” “See, you have this tone like you don’t believe me, but it’s all in the CCTV. If you check it, it may be too dark to make out, but I’m sure you’ll at least see the outline of the man I was talking to,” I let out all the air of disbelief in one sweep and address the tone of my question. “What did he say, Ethan? I’m sorry,” “He said your father is alive and well,” “Oh, did he?” “And that he’s with them…willingly,” Of course, he is. I hold back a scoff. “You don’t believe me,” he breathes into his hands. “Yeah, no shit. My father’s car was found on the road in a compromised position and you’re telling me he’s there by his own will? Don’t you think he would have just driven there if that was the case?” He shakes his head, “It’s a lot more complicated than that, Evelyn,” “Really? Then explain it to me,” I can feel my voice perking up a few notched. Why would he even assume that my father would want to be way from me and cause me so much pain willingly. That’s an audacious strike at me and everything I’ve fought for so far. “It’s not that easy, Eva. What do you think? I’m not working for Calgary!” he snaps. “Oh, but someone that was working for them came to you and didn’t try to kill you. Didn’t try to get you to stop what we’re doing. Didn’t try to break into this place…nothing! The only thing they told you was that my father is with them on his own volition, and here you are, vomiting those same words without even a thought,” He jerks back like he had been slapped. He damn right would have been if I had a violent one in me. “Listen, if you want out, just say you want out. I’d open these doors and you can go. It’ll hurt…I’ll cry…but at the end of it all, I’ll do this. I might die, but it doesn’t matter to me,” I tell him one final time. The next time, I’ll have to convince him, I’ll just run this whole operation Solo. “Covert Agency for Limitless Advanced Gamma research and Yields,” he mutters. “What the fuck is even that?!” I yell. I’m fuming, now. The more I talk, the angrier I get. I realize that, and there’s no turning back now. He started this by trying to make me think my father is just as bad as the people trying to kill me. “Calgary, Evelyn,” his voice remains flat. “The word is an acronym for some sort of secret government research organization. Everything they do is almost usually completely unethical. They’re hiding technology from us far beyond our scope of reasoning, and genetic engineering has gone a lot further than we think,” I stay silent for a while, having misjudged the situation badly enough. “We talked about those too,” “You should have said those first,” I huff. “I know,” he smiles up at me. “I was just pulling your legs…see how angry I can get you,” “You’re mean,” I slap him on the shoulder hard enough to hurt him – heck, my hands sting now – but he doesn’t even flinch. Perhaps he’s secretly one of the genetically modified beings, even. That would explain a lot. He chuckles, before standing up and pulling me close to him. I don’t wait for him to make the move. My lips, like the opposing pole of a magnet, are instantly attracted to his and I revel in his taste. I skip the lip dance and thrust my tongue in first, capturing the savory flavor. How easy is it to ignore the redness of a flag when you’re in love with a person. I throw all cares to the wind. He might be an undercover Calgary agent right now, stationed to strategically deviate me from receiving the proper information and I would be here swimming in blissful ignorance. When we pull away, mostly unwillingly from my end, his gray eyes caress me and tell me with warmth and a strong promise, even before his mouth utters it. “I love you, Evelyn,” he mutters against my lips. I don’t kiss him, and he doesn’t kiss me. We just hover over each other’s lips, breathing each other’s air. Biologically dangerous, but emotionally, I’ve never felt so alive. “I would have thought the time for me to be saying this is too short, but it’s crazy how adversity brings people closer together than they ever thought,” he chuckles. I lift my hand to his cheek and caress the right side of his face where his scar runs. It interferes with the smooth blend between hair and skin and I like it. I like feeling a face aand knowing that it’s him without having to open my eyes. Without having to retain a mental image of what he looks like, I have a recollection of how he feels like, distinct to everyone else I’ve touched. “I love you too, Ethan,” I hum…and I say it over and again, as he also repeats it to me. I can’t see myself with any other person right now, even though all my senses scream at me, the possibility of this being mere infatuation. I don’t care. I don’t care that the only reason we’re kissing right now is because there’s a highly corrupt government agency that wants to kill us and he might never have looked my way but for that. If anything, I thank the cosmos for aligning things like this in my favor. “Well, that should be wrap, then. Shouldn’t it?” A horrifying, yet familiar baritone booms through speakers, interrupting our safe space. It’s the guy from the cabin. At least, the same people, considering the baritone voice is artificial. “What the fuck,” Ethan whisper-scoffs. “I know, I know. I shouldn’t have interrupted. Forgive me. I only have limited access. You’re lucky I didn’t come in when you guys were doing…you know…I would have had to interrupt that,” “Shut the fuck up and tell us what you want!” Ethan barks. His fists are clenched so tight, if he had a class cup in them, I’m sure they would have shattered. “Oh, oh…nothing…nothing much. It’s just…I hear we sent an agent to you and you turned his offer down. Ten million dollars, Ethan. Really?” I gasp. He did what? For me? “I fought in wars where my life was the compromise. You think money moves men like me?” Ethan snarls at the computer console, where the sound is coming from. “Oh, well. Did he tell you the alternative offer from Calgary?” The line starts to break and small cracks start distorting his audio. “Take whatever you have and shove it so far up your ass, you have to begin digesting it again,” he growls. “Death, Ethan,” the voice becomes even more distorted than before from all the white noise from signal loss. “You chose death,” The voice finally goes dead as white noise of signal loss takes over, allowing us to brood on his words. We chose death. Chapter Nineteen Ethan I don’t miss the harrowing expression on her face. It’s one where someone points a gun to your face and you’re weaponless. I feel it too. Very much so, unfortunately, because that is our case. The humor in this for me is that I’ve faced this scenario before. Where you are put against an indomitable force, unrivaled in strength, especially when compared to you or your team. We were a squad of about thirty-five infantry men, and we walked into an ambush of perhaps the entire camp of insurgents, while they were going hot in preparation for what would have been the best of us. It was, to the thirty-five of us, what it was about to be for those men some few hours later. To cut the long story short, only seven of us came out alive, and I got my infamous facial scar. The fact that we survived was a miracle, and that was on the testament that we were fleeing these men. Not particularly trying to vanquish them. If there were any men we killed, it was because they stood in our way to freedom. I was lucky that day. The stars aligned perfectly, and the sun smiled beautifully on me and the seven other men that made it out. We might not be lucky like that today. In fact, there’s a smaller chance of us making it out alive than there is for Matt to show up on the entrance to this bunker right now. However, if we are to go, we will do so valiantly…and I will hold her hand through it all. “We need to prepare for them,” I sigh and head over to the control panel to unlock the weapons shelf. “Are you sure? How about just leaving like we did before?” she follows me to the computer as I navigate the room’s settings. “It’s too dangerous. It’s the city. Their turf. There are no CCTVs in the woods,” I tell her as the room beeps and the part of the room where the weapons are begin unfolding. The way the make-believe shelf almost sort of reanimates itself to reveal the weapons would always get to me. It reminds me that we’re dealing with a force more knowledgeable than we are, especially in the area of tech. “Well, they could just send a missile here. This time, they won’t be kidding,” she reasons. I scoff at that. “And become a national risk to itself? I doubt it. How would they explain a missile to the media? How would they cover it up? It’s why I didn’t believe that bullshit in the woods in the first place,” I grunt. I move deftly and with urgency. I have no idea when they would come. How close are they? These are things I don’t know. It's scary how much in the dark we are. They are literally able to hack into our systems and talk to us. Best believe, they’re able to hear our conversations as well, if there’s any microphone connected to the internet here. Despite all the encryption devices and signal scramblers I put in place. They have skill on their side. Employable skill. We have just us. I un-rack the assault rifle. “This is military standard M4,” I hand one of it over to her. “We’ve done AR training, so, you should be pretty used to the reload mechanisms. M4 has one of the best recoils in the business, so, you should be fine.” I look around the arsenal closet. I’m more worried about suiting her up because, I don’t know how good she is with shooting, but I know for a fact, that she’s going to be terrible avoiding shots. I’m more than ten years experienced in combat, and even I have a little over a few bullet holes to show off. One of them on my right thigh is recent enough to prove that she’ll be a bullet magnet in an operation like this. “I just need this and a shitton of bullets,” she chuckles egotistically. I give her one look and a smirk. “What? I need more than this?” “You need to be kept in a titanium bunker, if you ask me,” I chuckle. “These guys. If they’re who they claim to be, then…we’ll most likely die,” I let out. I didn’t think I’d have to tell her this so soon. It feels like I’m breaking the promise of keeping her safe. Well…to be fair, the only promise I made was that I’d be with her. Nothing about her safety or us making it out alive. Hence, if she’s going to die, she’d do so on my own probably fresh corpse. That feels like such a bleak promise to make, but to be fair, it’s rhe only human promise to make. Any other outcome is a pleasant surprise. “Are you scared of that?” her soft voice pierces my thoughts. “Huh?” “Death. Are you scared of death?” she repeats the question. I shake my head. “No, baby girl. I’m more scared of the way I’d die than actual death itself,” I say. “Death…death is bliss. An end to all the madness here on earth…and repose in whatever awaits us in the great beyond? Heaven or hell…I’m going to take my chances. It sounds fair,” I pick up a rocket launcher that I didn’t notice before. “It’s all bliss till you realize that to get there, you’re going to have your legs blown out of your body and you’ll bleed out in excruciating pain for about five minutes. More, if you’re buddies are insistent on keeping you alive, even if they all know it’s futile,” She’s quiet after that, letting what I said sink in and letting the bleakness of our situation permeate into her brain. We’re so screwed, death itself seems a fair endgame. “Here, hold this,” I drop the launcher on her open arms. “I need to find its ammo,” “You think we’ll need it?” “I hope we won’t,” I reply honestly. Let’s face it. Against Calgary? We probably would. I haven’t seen any sign of ammunition for the launcher. None of the grenades are with the simple frag grenades. Only after a little bit of fiddling with the shelves do I discover that they also spin to reveal more than what’s on the front. Herein lies the real stuff. Of course, the propelling grenades are here, but more than that is weapons that I would have doubted their practicality. “This looks like a flame thrower,” Evelyn is suddenly beside me, picking up a contraction that in fact, does look like a flamethrower, but I know for a fact that is not. “Uh…I wouldn’t mess with that if I were you,” I tell her. Most of these weapons don’t look loaded. It would be irresponsible to store loaded. However, I’m not taking the risk. “Why? You’re scared of a little fire?” she giggles and swishes the thing around. Not in my face, but enough to make me uncomfortable. “It’s really funny until you mistakenly pull the trigger and blow my face off…and no, it’s not a flamethrower,” I roll my eyes. I think the first part got to her because she immediately puts it down, handling the device with a lot more respect. “Well, what is it, then?” I shrug. “Beats me. I do know it’s not a fire-breather, and that’s enough to avoid it. For now, at least. We don’t have time for field experiments,” “Oh. All this and I’d still be disappointed to hear that it shoots bullets later,” she huffs. “I’d hope it does,” I bring my hand to the body of the contraption, running my fingers along what look like linearly positioned windows on the body, up to eight of them parallel to each other. “See these things? I’m willing to bet they indicate charge,” I tell her. “Anything that needs charge to shoot doesn’t need ammunition. At least, none that you’ll need to keep replacing, and so, it’s more likely to be pre-stored. Also…this tech was abandoned in 2021. They should’ve left it alone.” She nods in agreement, “Hands off, then,” “Now, let’s prep the most important thing for you,” I say with a smile, because at the flip of the shelf along with other things, are sets of armored vests. “Are you sure I’ll need this?” she huffs as I pull the vest over her. “It feels like a life vest,” “It is technically a life vest,” I wince as I run through the final zipper. “This is level IV armor. Strong enough to with -” “Wait, wait,” she bursts out into a chuckle. “Did you just say IV?” I give her a bland look. “And?” “I mean…four is one syllable,” her soft shoulders bob as she chuckles, “IV…that’s like…two. And very unnecessary,” “IV is not the fourth level of armor strength. It’s the seventh,” “Oh,” the laughter does when she understands. “Still, this thing feels like it’d open and a parachute would pop out,” she snorts. Low-key, I agree, especially since there’s a version that is much lighter and would aid movement better but offers about the same level of protection. The only difference is the distribution of impact. The more compact level IV would sting like a bitch if you’re struck in the belly. The one over Evelyn right now is practically a cushion. I fish out also, a level III military helmet and place on her head, slapping her wrists away as she winces and tries to fiddle with the knots. “You don’t need to know all about hardware this complicated,” I grunt, doing the strap. “Hopefully, this would be the last time you’d ever have to wear one.” “Hopefully,” she scoffs. “Yeah. Now-” I tap the seals of every one of the armor fasting, “We have a death strategy to plan,” Chapter twenty Evelyn I remember when my father was giving me contingency plans against criminals. ‘It’s better to die on the spot than to e kidnapped. More often than not, if the reason they’re kidnapping you involves you being alive, if you resist hard enough, you just might…just might leave you alone. If not, a quick shot to the head or multiple stab wounds are better than what the creative human mind can come up with when it has time,’ That’s the first and foremost warning. I don’t think I’ve ever feared ‘man’ as a species before until he told me that. ‘The human mind is creative when it has time.’ That’s not something I expected to hear again, but If I was to do so, coming from Ethan would have made it very likely. He gives off the same mentorship vibes as my father. He choses his words carefully, making sure everything that comes out of them is deliberate. Reminding me much of someone I know. Yup…Matt. My father. “That said, fight. When it comes down to it, never drop your weapon. Even if you’re outnumbered. They’ll end you out of fear that you’ll do harm to them, and you’d underestimate how much of a blessing a quick death is,” he continues advising me. Essentially, his death plans don’t involve us beating them in anyway. Most of them are how we can hold our own till they decide it’s too heated to continue exchanging gun fire. “Once a fight breaks out like this, the cops are going to be involved. If Calgary shuts them up, it’ll only be a while before neighborhood media takes it up. They know that can’t sustain a long fire exchange, so, that reduces the chances of them wanting us alive,” I hate how he’s talking about death so casually, but at the same time, the concept is starting to warm up to me. If we’re going to go, we will. It’s better to do so, than to continue living in this condition, anyways. Not being able to move around freely has impacted on my mental health more than I would care to admit, and not in a good way. “How long do you think the whole thing would last?” I ask, just to get a broader view of what we might be facing. Just so that I can know what point to start feeling hopeless if I’m still alive. He shrugs, stroking his dirt-colored beard, “I don’t know. A minute? Five? Thirty? It’s not going to matter,” That’s not an answer that helps much. “Well, at least, we’ll be together. That’s the important thing,” I remind myself, but in reality, I’m making sure he hears it to, in case he thinks it’s a good idea to duck and roll to some other part of the room, leaving me to face fire on my own. I would quite literally burst into tears…and I know that is very much a possibility. Being a more experienced fighter, he would need a positional leverage that I might not see, and might not have the balls to follow him to. One that might determine whether we live or die. Overall, I hold on to the hope of us making it alive with a very nihilistic air. Even if we make it out, would it even matter? Aren’t we going to just go back to the life of hiding, only that then, the place would reek of bodies and gun powder? Is that what I want to fight to survive to, even? Maybe if I hate my life so much, I might just get to keep it. I’ve seen movies where it happens like that, where all the protagonist wants to do is die, but it seems death is the one running, and instead, a miserable life takes its place, presenting a fate worse than the peaceful repose of passing away and making us want the protagonist to die. It’s a very interesting frame of reference to see life from. Where life is the fear and death is the repose…the reward…and you actually look forward to it. When I look over at Ethan shrugging on a much thinner body armor than mine, I get that exact same feeling. Repose. To him, death isn’t something to fear. It’s something, if anything, to look forward to. I don’t know whether that helps our cause – surviving. It doesn’t. He checks his gun and mine, making sure we had enough munition to ‘hold off a small tankless infantry,’ and then, we get to building a barrier at the far corners of the room. Thankfully, the room isn’t just one large rectangle. There’s a corridor that leads to a storage unit, what looks to be a really specialized lab, and the bathroom and living area where we have the bed that we sleep. Our kill box is in the main lab, because, then, if we’re forced to retreat, we have the benefit of space to move. We also make the living area our storage unit, so most of the weapons are there, in case we ever needed them. I hope we don’t. We make our barricade out of the table where the computer was placed. Ethan takes his pocket-knife and scratches the table multiple times in multiple places and discovered it was made out of titanium. How he knew that goes beyond my comprehension, but if he says it’s titanium, and my life depended on it, then, it’s titanium. It’s not like there’s any other thing to use to shield ourselves, anyway. We build and lay behind our contraption, and Ethan preps everything we would need for rapid response. It terrifies me that he thinks one of the things we would need is the RPG but he sets it down gently beside himself. Each second that pulls closer to the attack, makes me a little more hypertensive than the last. If he’s scared, his eyes don’t betray him. I’ve never seen someone with so much focus at any given point in recent memory. He channels all his energy at the only entrance in the room, and like some kind of focus trance, he lays there…unmoving…until we hear the first sounds. “Okay, baby,” he huffs, and the thumping becomes increasing. Not louder, just more of them, indicating more people. “Remember, don’t look above the table, until you hear no shots coming. The goal is to hold them off, not kill them, so, if you can, avoid doing that,” His voice is as soothing as it terrifies me. “Hai,” “What?” “That’s ‘okay’ but in Japanese. I need to bring you up to speed with anime once we’re done with this,” I grunt. That’s my subtle way of telling him that we’ll survive this. We will. “Think they know the entrance?” I peak from the shade of our barricade. The door to the only entrance and exit is propelled down with such force and smoke, answering my question for me. It also accompanies a deafening noise and I immediately shrink back into my spot. Every part of my body dilates with something I can’t explain. It’s one very large part terror and another feeling. It’s a rush… My gaze immediately flies to Ethan, who looks frozen in time. His eyes never leave that entrance, not for one second. I don’t believe he took them away when the explosion happened and the door got kicked down. “Grenades,” he says a little too simply for my liking…like someone just threw a pair of apples our way, when in reality, I hear the metal balls rolling and getting closer to us. Ethan ducks, submerging himself behind the wall of metal, and I press my hands against my ears to muffle as much of the sounds as possible. Then, the explosion rocks. From here on out, I’m lost. Completely and utterly. Contrary to how I had envisioned it, Ethan and I don’t stay as close together as I thought. Heck, we’re not even withing range to hold hands without effortfully stretching. That’s the closest we can be, especially if I want to be useful. The both of us need the free range of motion to duck fast and perk up, to throw guns and pick up others… Hence, I’m not able to feel him for most of the horror. He’s miles more efficient than I am, and for the most part, I follow his footsteps, peeking only when he does, and crashing back into the ground before him All through this time, I have absolutely zero idea what I’m doing. For one, the gunfire is so loud, everything becomes white noise. Yells of command, instructions…all of them muddy up into one singular sound, like towering waves crashing down on me. I feel drowned the entire moment…and he was right about one thing. I have no idea how much time passes by. All I see is smoke. Most of the lights are go off as electricity components are interrupted by explosives. Ethan peeks up and shoots as often as the rhythm between the warring teams are sustained. One side takes cover, the other side runs cover fire. “Grenades,” he calls again and ducks behind the wall as the sound rocks again. “We’ve given our position. It’s only a matter of time before they throw one on my fucking lap,” he chuckles. Hold up. We’re about to die…and somehow, this man chuckles? “Fuck this,” I grunt and scurry over to his end, snatching the RPG from where he placed it. “Cover fire,” I prompt him. He gives me an unsure look. “The lab…that’s going to do a lotta damage,” “To them as well. That’s the point,” I reply and ask again, “Cover fire?” “I’m glad you were my student,” he huffs and turns around to face the advancing team. For the last time, I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. I haven’t seen the men since they entered here. That’s how scrambled my senses are. I can see the light from their flashlight equipped guns, though, and I know where the entrance is. That’s where I’ll shoot. Since their light is on our location, it’s easy for them to spot me when I perk up on my knees, confident head above the barricade, with the propellant on my shoulder. “RPG!” I hear the men scream in terror. I need more than a scream. I pull the trigger, the propellant recoils heavily, but the rocket doesn’t miss its mark. Right at the entrance the men are trying to get away from… Boom! Silence. Chapter twenty-one Ethan I fall back to the ground once the rocket makes contact and…well…kaboom! The adrenaline rushed part of me wants this to keep going on. I want to keep peeking and shooting. I want to kill or be killed. It’s what I was for more than five years. A stone cold killer. Today, those instincts are at their peak and right now, I’m stuck between burning my head in the ground and charging at the men. But the shooting has stopped. The explosion was the last rancor I heard. I look at Evelyn, who still has the empty launcher in her shoulder, aimed at the door. I’m guessing she’s taking her time to recover. That’s typical. Hopefully, she didn’t kill anyone. The guilt would be much worse. The silence from the entire space is deafening. Did they all just fall to the ground somewhere? From the distance, the sound of a chopper becomes increasingly louder. Still silence. Evelyn docks and fits another grenade on the RPG, but doesn’t stand for the shot. Instead, she places it carefully on the ground and picks up her gun. She reloads and crouches behind the wall of pierced metal. Her head turning over to look at me throws her brown hair to the side, almost in slow motion. The entire montage from when she fired that rocket launcher till now, still feels like a movie. This girl still feels unrealistically hot. How did she go from soft beautiful and delicate to ruthless in weeks? It’s still a mystery to my brain at how such a woman…so versatile…so advanced in intelligence and dexterity…still effortlessly beautiful…took one look at scar-face and said “Yeah. That’s the one I want,” I mean, I could argue that she had no other choice but me. It was either me or…well…me… I don’t care. As long as it lasts, I’ll worship the very ground she walks on. Her eyes morph from the tension of the situation…from the focus on not getting killed, to a much bigger terror, it seems. It doesn’t help when that terror looks like it’s on me. “Ethan, you’re bleeding!” she gasps and immediately abandons everything, crawling back to me. “You know, if I were commander, I’ll never have couples on the same squad,” I chuckle. “You just exposed the entire defense to vulnerability by leaving your post,” “I’m leaving my post, Soldier. I’m not leaving you to die,” she huffs, running her hands through to locate the source of the bleeding. Even I don’t know yet. The pain hasn’t kicked in and I’m still running off my adrenaline high, so I’m unable to use my body positioning sense. Ouh! There it is! The steering pain in my side. How I got nicked in the side doesn’t surprise me because there are holes poking everywhere in the bedframe I used for part of my shield. That one was made out of aluminum. In the meantime, my ear is still tuned into the approaching chopper that I’m sure is actually headed here. It’s clear enough when I begin hearing shouts, that the chopper is the retreat vehicle of Calgary. “I think you got one of em, soldier,” I bump Evelyn on the shoulder as she applies pressure on my side. “Should’ve put another one in for good measure. Who knows? I might have ended all of em,” she shrugs. She’s more attentive to the wound on my person than the excavating chopper just a few feet above us. It’s very likely that one or more of them were hurt from Evelyn’s RPG assault and they needed an airlift so bad. Nice work, Evelyn. I have officially come to realize that I am neck deep in love with you, after seeing you almost expertly fire an RPG. By the time the chopper takes off again, Evelyn has found my wound. It’s not a big deal. There’s no bullet lodged in, even. Just good old open flesh, bleeding and pain. Hella pain…especially when she puts her hand over it and presses down. It takes everything in me not to scream. A little bit of ego and a little bit of the will to not scare her about the situation does the trick. The sleeves that I bite into also help. “It hurts?” she looks at me when I tense. “Oh, stupid me. It does hurt,” she huffs. “We have to call your guy. Steve?” I nod, not wanting to open my mouth and have a pained below come out instead. “Okay…okay…I’ll get my phone. I think I still have iOS number,” she sprints out of my line of sight towards the living area and returns not up to thirty seconds later. She puts Steve on the dial, and the phone on loudspeaker. Steve doesn’t even wait for a ‘hello’. “We’re on our way, Evelyn. Thank goodness you’re okay. How about Ethan?” “He’s been shot,” she doesn’t hesitate to say. Steve is silent for a few seconds, prompting her to say more, “He’s still alive, though,” I hear the audible exhale over the loud speaker. “Step on it, Gabby. Our boy breathes!” he yells to who I assume would be the driver. Wait. Did he really think I was dead? When he arrives, the entire crew is in complete pandemonium. There’s people trying to put as much to order, ones looking for clues and there’s the guys that help me. “Squeeze on the wound to stop the bleeding. It’s the only way,” Steve tells a paramedic as I’m wheeled into an ambulance. “No, no!” Evelyn comes bounding from the check-up she’s being given. “There’s no more bleeding. That would just cause pain,” I smile at her innocent concern. “That’s just Stevie being sadistic. He’s getting back at me for causing him to get shot the other day during training,” I chuckle, seeing the malicious intent flash in my friend’s eye. “Oh,” she drops her tensed shoulders in relief and begins backing up to the medics that were on the verge of chasing after her. He runs his hand through his platinum hair and accidentally rubs a tint of red into it. “My blood is on your hands…and head,” I shoot at him. When he realizes, he just shrugs. He was the first person to get to me as soon as their car stopped. I’ve never seen anyone sprint so fast, even with his backache. While he was inspecting me before the paramedics came, some of the blood had already gotten on his hands. “You’re lucky the meds arrived on time. My bloodlust was starting to kick in,” he licks his lips. “Jokes on you, most of my blood is on the floor,” I laugh. “We play too much about serious things,” Steve smiles sadly. There’s concern written all over his face. His furrowed black brows – a testament to the fact that the white on his hair isn’t natural, the crumpled skin on his forehead, his hands akimbo, the constant pacing… He's stressed and worried…and he can’t even hide it. “Oi. I’ll be fine,” I tell him when we lock eyes again. He scoffs, “Yeah. Eventually. What do you think death is? Eternal torture? It’s the pain you’re going through now that worries me,” We both have that philosophy that death is the blissful opposite of what everyone else makes it out to be. That’s why we do what we do without regret. “Well, don’t be. You’re gonna get a heart attack if you know what I plan next,” I smirk. He looks at me like I’ve just gone insane. Maybe I have. **A week later** “I love what you did with the place, Ethan,” Clover tells me. That’s his name. The man from Calgary that visited me before the disaster. He's here again. “Well, most of it was to fix the damage your team caused, but thanks, I guess. I wouldn’t have known we needed a new paint job,” I shrug and find a spot to perch. The bullet wound still hurts if I run it against the wrong surface, which is every time I move. I’m used to pain, but it doesn’t mean I would refuse relief if there’s the chance of one. “Mmh. My boys met resistance, but they’ll be back soon,” “And you don’t think that draws national attention?” “We control the media, man. A few shadow bans and talking to the right people, and the whole thing would be nothing more than a conspiracy theory,” he looks way too confident about it to be bluffing. I do everything but care. “We would find Matt…and we would take you down,” I growl. Of course not. A government funded organization against a soldier and his aggrieved lover? It’s suicide. Maybe…just maybe the FBI would back us up. Even then, all that has to happen is for one confident man to walk into the building and tell everyone to drop the case. They’d all drop the case, and I won’t blame them. I’d be angry if they didn’t, even. “You know, you’re special, Ethan. You have no one. No mother, no father…no family. You’re all alone. You’re a drifter, but one with a purpose. Calgary could show you to your full potential.” “Trust me when I say, even I don’t want to know what I can really do,” I huff. He stands up and takes strides towards me. One punch. I didn’t anticipate it, so I do nothing against his hard fist connecting with my jaw. The next series of seconds, are blows on blows. I return an uppercut without even waiting for my vision to recover. “Come on, Eth. Show me what you can do!” he seethes and rushes towards me again. Our fists dance along each other, none really connecting from this point because now, we anticipate the attacks. He offers jabs towards my face that I duck my stepping to the side and deflecting. I return punches that he completely bends over to miss. Finally, he grapples. Goodness, for a man that looks at most half my size he’s pretty strong. Strong enough in fact, that he actually plucks my feet off from the ground. “Fuck!” I cough when my back hits the floor. “I thought you were a diplomat,” He stands up from me, “I am. This is just what you stand to be when you come to Calgary. You can be more than what you are now. You just don’t see it,” He begins walking away but not without a closing speech. “The world functions a lot more complicated than we see it, Ethan. If every human was exposed to that fact, it would be chaos. That’s why Calgary exists. That’s why Calgary would kill you if you try to stop it,” I couldn’t give a fuck about the throes of political correctness. I just want to help Evelyn find her father. And I think the spar with Clover just showed me how. Chapter twenty-two Evelyn The attack on my father’s lab only did one thing. That was confirm the strength of the entire place. The bunker was built with structural integrity and ability to withstand trauma as it’s main purpose, if you ask me. The entrance to which I fired that rocket was dented and damaged, but in replacing the door, they had very little to do. Also, the door the FBI replaced it with, as well as the hinges and other security features have been theoretically upgraded. That’s what Steve said, at least and I believe him. For one, it’s made of metal, and I can’t even hear an echo when I knock on it. “The renovation on the lab itself was minimal. What we needed the most, the computer and the living area was mostly okay, save for a few bullet holes here and there, especially when the console is concerned, but as I’m sitting in front of it now, ironically watching a movie, I don’t think anything in the computer was affected. The FBI checked just to make sure as well. “It worked,” Ethan says as he jumps down the flight of stairs rather than walking down like a normal person. “Must you always try to kill yourself?” I grunt before hearing what he has to say. “Perhaps. It familiarizes me with the concept of conquering death,” his voice is smooth behind me as he approaches. I let it go. “What worked?” “So, remember there’s this guy I told you I met some time ago from Calgary?” “Oh,” I cock my head to the side to look at him, “You mean the guy you saw when you were in some form of psychosis?” “Yup. That guy,” he ignores the shade I threw at him. “I met him again,” I’m tempted to make a joke about him needing meds, but I’m more curious to hear what worked so good, that he needed to tell me. “Well, did you guys make out?” “Even better,” My ears perk up and the movie on the screen disappears from my view. I turn fully to him. “We fought,” he smirks. He quickly drops the smirk, “I mean, he beat me…practically. Tackled me to the ground and made it look easy too…but that’s not the point,” He nears the computer, “Can I?” “Of course,” I give him the leeway to turn off the movie and begin doing stuff I don’t understand. He plugs what looks like a flash drive into the computer system and opens the prompt that pops up. “You know how Calgary was able to find us? Both in the woods and here?” “The mole?” I reply. He clicks open a few tabs and begins writing a short line of code. How the hell does he know what to do? “Erh…perhaps, but the main thing is – location tracer,” he paces his head back and forth, “A good way the FBI keeps track of its agents is by fitting them surgically, with a permanent tracker. “Oh?” “I have one,” he reveals and peels the neckline of his shirt a little lower, enough for me to see a patch of scarred skin hovering over an inked layer. Of course, he has to point it out before it even looks reasonably decipherable. “This can be hacked,” Oh, my. I can already spot the breakthrough, even before he says it. “Let me guess, your guy had one on him,” I ask. He finally opens a command prompt and stops touching the computer, “An encrypt,” he says. “The virus is decrypting and hacking, but I don’t know how long it would take. The program might encounter resistance, but, meh. It’ll run,” I watch as new code seems to be written from scratch and much faster than my eyes can comfortably follow. It takes a while of the both of us staring at the screen before I realize that this is going to take more than a few seconds. “How soon before the code is cracked?” I ask him. “It all depends on the complexity. They’re a high the organization, so I doubt they’d be using out of date tech. Let’s see what comes up after an hour,” Huh… “So, what do we do now?” “I don’t know,” he grabs me by the waist and spins me around, “We have perhaps today to spend if this code works, before we’d have to go after him. Let’s spend it well,” I place a kiss on his nose and pull back, smiling sheepishly at him. I agree. If we’re going to walk into our own deaths, despite having narrowly escaped one a few days back, we might as well enjoy some work free hours. And that is exactly what we do. Dates are out of the question, so, we spend the time in the bunker. Most of it is just the both of us completely idling about. There’s nothing else to do than to revel in each other’s presence, and to be frank, he’s enough for me. I’ve had so much chaos in such a short time, that at this point, I prioritize anything that doesn’t seek to stress me out and overload my senses. That’s how much peace I want. “Ethan?” I call him. I thought he’d have fallen asleep, because we’ve spent the last three hours on each other’s lap, binging a movie on the television in the living area. The FBI gave us another bed in replacement for the one we used as a shield. This new one is much bigger and better designed to suit two people. It just beats me how they found out that we share beds. There are three separate beds in the living area. “Yes, baby?” “You’re tattoos. What do they mean?” “Which one of them?” I trace my hands across his torso, where those intricate cracks are. I haven’t had the time to ask him about stuff like this since I began to properly notice them, because, compared to what we faced, it would have been considered mundane. “The cracks? Well, they won’t be complete without mentioning where they lead to,” he replies. “Here, they trail to the leaves and roses, while to my back, they trail to thorns,” “…and roses,” I add. On his back, are thorns and roses. “If I’m being honest, I just saw them in the tattoo parlor catalogue and they looked cool enough when I was drunk, so…” That makes me laugh. “But it looks like it carries a lot of meaning,” I insist. “Uh-huh,” he nods in agreement. “When I got it, during my sober, lucid moments, I used to ponder on what they could mean. It’s too cliché if I said, ‘It meant I was broken inside,’. I really am not,” I don’t know if that’s him stating what he knows to be his fact, or he’s being affirmative. Either way, I love his resolve to move past his trauma. “The military and everything I saw in it was…a lot less impressing as it was portrayed, especially since I survived it. I got this when I came back to join the FBI. I guess it would them symbolize how most of my life isn’t as rosy or as peachy…but we can’t deny the fact that f we want to see the roses, we would. If we want to feel the thorns, we would. Without both, life would be an empty parched land, barren and completely useless,” “That’s a boring meaning,” I chuckle. I was expecting him to say something badass about a battle he fought on parched ground or whatever. “Better get used to it,” he replies with a hint of smile on his face. “You wanna know something crazy?” I nod. “Before you, I don’t think I’ve ever fallen in love with anyone,” he confesses and my eyes automatically widen. What?! “I mean, there was the teenage infatuation I had over this girl named Jenny…and my third-grade teacher when I was 9…once I went into the military, that was it. I never sought to take a position in the life of anyone that had a 70% chance of being empty in less than a year,” “Wow,” I huff, keeping my eyes on him. This man…this beautiful specimen…had his ‘love virginity’ broken by me. I stroke his face and rum my finger over his lips. I was the first woman he kissed passionately with these lips. “Tell me Steve doesn’t know,” He chuckles. That guy won’t let him hear the last of it. “I would like to believe he does. We just never talk about it. What about you? How many people have you fallen in love with?” “it’s a long story. Wanna hear it?” “By the time we’re done, the hacking would have been done, so…by all means,” he indulges me. And so, it is for the next hour or so, me dissecting my uncomplicated but broad love life, and Ethan asking as many questions as he needs to understand it. Almost as if he’s a prophet, by the time I’m done with my love story and we go to check on the computer, it has stopped generating code. Ethan taps no more than two keys and another line prints a set of numbers. I recognize that alignment. “His coordinates?” I guess. “Yup,” Ethan opens another interface on the computer. “He’s moving, but not much. Not fast. Maybe walking, at best,” A map pops up and we can see very clearly the bright red crosshairs marking our target. Still, the crosshairs are too zoomed into the map, and we have little to no reference as to where he actually is. Ethan uses the mouse to scroll out, more and more, until it’s clear what part of the country he’s in. “Nevada,” I sigh. “Area 51,” Ethan deadpans. “Clover is in Area 51,” Chapter twenty-three Ethan “Area 51,” Evelyn finally drops to the chair beside us, defeated. “What the fuck would my father have done to have ended him in America’s most prohibited place?” her voice breaks as the hopelessness of it all begins to weigh down in her. The battles that we have fought, the pains that we have endured. This can’t be the end of everything, right? “We can go there,” She looks at me like I’ve just gone mad. “Ethan. Area 51,” she tells me, maybe just in case I wasn’t the one that read out the coordinates. “Yup,” I throw back casually, “It shouldn’t be too hard, and if we’re lucky, when they find us, they won’t kill us immediately,” “Immediately…but eventually?” she asks. “Oh, that’s more likely certain death or life incarceration, but we could stage an escape,” I tell her. “It’s going to be lit,” Her almond eyes caress mine, rummaging and unpacking, trying to decipher the sarcasm in my voice by my facial expression, but there’s none. I mean it when I say we can go to Nevada. True, coming back out is going to be a lot harder than going in, but there hasn’t been a difficulty we haven’t been able to crack. We’ve survived the first wave of attacks, so I doubt we wouldn’t do damage wherever we go. The only thing I recognize is that this one is going to be a lot more than the last time. See, Calgary can kill us anytime they want. I’m very well aware of that fact. They have every available resource to carry out this act. We’re just two…they’re an entire army. If they wanted to, we would have turned up dead after the RPG assault from Evelyn. However, one thing is clear. They want to make as little noise as possible. They don’t want to cause a scene. As much as Clover bragged about being able to manipulate the media, it’s still much easier to just…not give them something to talk about. That’s the leverage we have used so far to hold them off. That’s why they couldn’t send a missile to our cabin in the woods. That’s why at the first explosion, they had to back off, realizing that we were ready to exchange explosive fire, which would be more media attracting than gun fire. Going to Nevada completely eliminates those restrictions and gives them the leeway to go as hot on us as they possibly can. “You’re doing too much for me,” she gasps. “We can come up with something. We can tell the FBI. You don’t have to go with me. I don’t think I pose a threat to them alone. We can…” “Everyone in Calgary probably has a montage of you holding that rocket launcher in your hands and pulling the trigger,” I inform her. I don’t think she understands just how much guts it takes for a civilian to pull a stunt like that. That’s if they think she’s a civilian at this point. I won’t be surprised if they’re trying to dig into er history to find evidence of her belonging to a faction of National intelligence. She scoffs in despair. “I want to see my father, Ethan. That’s all I want, even if it kills me. I just want to know that he’s dead…and that it was quick. If he’s alive, I want to die trying to rescue him. I can’t ask that of you,” “I know. I’m volunteering. If I could give anything to see my mother again, just for a brief second before she went to heaven…I would. I didn’t see her. I have to help you see your father,” Her body rises from the despair it was originally set in and she stands to walk into me and I accept her with open arms. “Thank you,” she shivers as we hug. I can tell she was terrified saying the things she said. I could tell she didn’t want to go alone even though she knew she would have to if she wanted her father. There are two types of people in this world as regarding the resolution of issues. Those that would let the sleeping dogs lie. Those that something bad would happen to, and they would accept it. Nothing else can be done, because the situation looks bleak. Nothing else should be done. Then, there’s Evelyn. A berserker. As long as she can move, as long as she breathes, she would keep fighting. Despite her unlikely frame. Despite the fact that there have been very few encounters that she has had with violence…she’s still ready for as much smoke as the world is ready to throw at her. And I’m ready to be by her side, taking it all. “What do you think we would need?” she asks me. “The barest minimum,” I reply. A gun, maybe…to get in. I would’ve said nothing at all, but I have to plan for contingencies. They won’t allow you in if you’re unarmed and blind, talk less of if you have anything on you that is not an extension of your body or clothes. One thing is certain, though. We would need help. ** “No,” Steve stands his ground. “Oh, come on, Stevie. This is the last time you would see or hear from us again. Just do us this one last favor,” I beg my friend. “That’s why I’m not going to help you. It’s almost absolute fucking suicide!” he berates me like a small child. “Don’t you know when to give something up? When you’re chasing shadows? Aha! You do, but you’re too in love to see it. You’re letting her immature resolve bring you down!” He turns to Evelyn. “No offense, dear. You know I think it’s stupid to go against Calgary, right?” “Oh, I know I’m stupid for going up to them, alright. Everything I’ve done so far have been products of stupid, immature decisions,” she agrees wholeheartedly with Steve. I do as well, but it’s our stupid decision. We should have the right to walk into a furnace…technically. I tell him that and he seethes. “It’s selfish of you, you know that, right?” he huffs as he dials a number. “You’re a very important asset to the FBI and you’re throwing it away for what?” I shrug. Love? Satisfaction? Peace of mind? “Redemption,” I mouth. “I’m doing this for my redemption,” “Oh, God,” he slaps his forehead. “Hello...Yes, I need a two flight tickets to Nevada…no? What? I need it now…fuck…” he turns to us, “Think you’re up for a drive? We can make a car available sooner than a plane. The freest one is in Turkey right now, and since we officially dropped the case weeks ago, they’re going to suspect due to the funding it would take to pull the plane out of Turkey and back,” “Heck, we’d take bikes, man. Anything is good enough,” “Alright. Thanks for being useless, Tom, I’ll make sure the time on this call is taken out of your pay, for just how much of a waste of time you were,” he slams the phone on the table. “Replacing me already?” I raise a brow. I know when he’s that mean to someone, then, it means he’s closer than cordial with them. “Of course, and I already have a replacement for Tom as well. I have to plan for contingencies. Blame me?” he laughs humorlessly. Bitterly, he leads us out of the office to the parking lot where there are a number of cars. “I would have said to take mine, but…my wife really loves that thing,” he snorts. “You can have the one on the right,” he points to an off-road Mercedes SUV. “We just used it in a mission where they would have expected major damage, enough to destroy the vehicle, so, in the inventory, it’s marked as volatile,” “I don’t know how to thank you, Steve,” I tell him, as I take the keys from his hand. “You can and never will be able to thank me,” he grunts. “This is a favor of immeasurable value, on that your thanks are incapable of expressing,” The frown on his face doesn’t give away any sarcasm. “Just…come back alive. That’s the only thanks you have to give me,” his voice sounds tired and defeated. We’ve known each other from childhood and the entire premise of our friendship began around pretending that we don’t care for each other. Fast-forward to nearly twenty years later, and here we are, holding back tears. “I love you, man,” “Don’t you fucking…” he turns to leave us in the parking lot. “I’ll punch you in the nose if I should ever find your dead body, Ethan,” I swallow the tears on the thought that this might be the last time that I would see my best friend before getting into the car with Evelyn. “Are you okay?” she asks when I don’t start the car for a while. I’m still watching Steve’s slouched figure retreat into the building. “I’ll be…We’ll be. Now,” I turn the ignition, “Let’s get out of here,” It takes us three whole days to get to Nevada. Obviously. It’s on the other side of the country. We try our best to conserve energy, but that just also means eating a lot and making different stops at hotels along the way, transforming our dinners into dates and making me fall deeper than I thought was possible for her. She’s so not like ‘other girls’. Evelyn wants two things. Love and daddy. She would have moved on if she didn’t and that’s a lot more than I can say for the few women I’ve encountered. Call it immature, call it selfish. When we reach the area 51 strip, I stop just before we get to the final mile. “Hey, on the off chance that we make it out alive, you know I’m going to marry you, right?” I ask her. “I mean…” she stutters, completely taken off guard by the question, “Yes, that…yes…yes, I will marry you to,” She bursts out laughing. “You’re so weird,” “Just checking,” I smile to myself and hit the gas. Chapter twenty-four Evelyn For the last mile to our doom, I’m Ethan’s fiancée. I don’t know how to feel about that, but it’s far from sad. It's more like, I expect the day I would get say yes to a man, would be walks on the beach and beautiful sunsets, along with flower petals scattered all around. Situation changes everything, doesn’t it. Firstly, I must say, this is a badass proposal. It’s disappointing in experience, but if we survive, it’s something that would make my children’s mouths drop in shock when we tell them. If we don’t survive, well, that’s the plot. That’s why this proposal exists, to bind us to each other, even in death. It's on this last mile that I really feel how relatively fast the G63 is. It eats the road like a snack. Either that or my anxiety just got the better of me and time is moving at twice it’s normal speed. Yup. That’s the reason everything feels fast. It’s because my heart itself is pumping blood at twice the speed. I remember everything that happened nights ago, when Calgary wanted to end us. I remember the feeling, not the details. It all seemed to take forever, and still be over in a second. That’s what I feel now. A rush. An inescapable rush. “We’re just going to drive through the front gate?” I ask him when we approach the gate about a quarter mile away. “That’s the only way I see is not being killed,” my fiancé shrugs. That felt good, thinking of him as my husband to be. How would our children look like. Beautiful. Really beautiful, because of him. I want them to have his silvery eyes. It’s just such a unique standout feature. When we reach the quarter mile, an alarm is blasted, telling us to turn back. Ethan doesn’t stop. “Turn around now! This is a restricted zone!” the voice on the alarm blares. We keep going. I hold on to the grab handles for support and take a deep breath. Here we go. “Turn around or you will be shot! This is your final warning!” the voice blares again. Just at the front gate, Ethan slams the breaks and we come to a screeching, peeling stop. I have never come face to face with men in camo on duty. They all look inhuman. Every part of their bodies are clad in such a way that they aren’t particularly wearing masks, but you still can’t see any part of their body. Not even their eyes that are hidden behind high tech goggles. Each and every single one of them have their guns aimed straight at us and their hands on the trigger. Their stance is offensive and their approach is deadly. I feel as hot as I am defenseless. We should have come with guns. “Step out of the vehicle!” one of the men yells at us. Because they’re all excessively clad, it’s almost impossible to tell which one is talking. “We’re at their mercy from now on,” Ethan unbuckles his seat belt. “Do what they say. Leave the talking-to me,” He opens the door and immediately throws his hands up. I do the same. “Fellas! No need for all this! It’s take your kid to work day, isn’t it?” “On the ground, now!” the man ordering us yells again. “Come on! You can help us out. Matt Anderson? Handsome guy. Looks like my wife over there,” My stomach flutters despite the crippling fear as I mirror his actions of turning back and placing both hands on his head. He just called me his wife! If I wasn’t going to be shot in the skull, I’d have turned to one of the soldiers and screamed my head off in delight. They approach more rapidly now that our backs are turned and as the footsteps get closer, Ethan’s shouts get more pressing. “Matt Anderson, man. I have faith in you! We have to find Matt. Calgary took him from us. We just need to see him and make sure he’s okay, man. We heard he works for Calgary!” he throws words everywhere. I watch in horror as a soldier knocks him down with ye butt of his gun. Before I can scream, I’m enveloped in blackness. I thought I was knocked out, but somehow, I’m still able to let our the scream, even though it’s muffled. Soon, I pass out myself, after smelling something funky from the bag that is placed over my head. When I wake up, I feel my butt on a surface and pressure taken off my legs. I’m seated. “Oh, my God…Ethan! Ethan?!” I yell. “Ethan is fine, honey. He’s an FBI agent with military experience. They had to keep him in a completely separate room, asleep and under surveillance,” I hear a voice that stops my world. “Dad?” I whisper. Maybe it was a fragment of my unconsciousness. My most pressing desires making their way from my subconscious to the conscious mind. I knew it! I knew I would go insane one day. I just didn’t know it would be this soon. Would Ethan be able to deal with a schizophrenic? The bag is slowly lifted off my head, and the whiteness of the entire room blinds me first Christ! Does it have to be this bright? What are they trying to see? The future? That’s when his face comes into focus. My father. The man that I have gone through hell on earth to find. Matt Anderson…in the flesh. He's unbound, hale and hearty. There are no signs of bruising or injury on him. He even looks well-groomed. “Dad!” I scream. “Baby, I’m so sorry! I was going to come back as soon as they let me. I’m just…I fucked up, okay?” The person that took off my bounds also takes off the zip tie that is used to hold me in place to the chair and as soon as that is free, I fly into his arms, breaking down completely. He's here. He’s alive and he’s with me. “You’re alive,” I sob. “You’re really alive!” “Yes, baby. Unfortunately,” he wraps his arms around me and comforts my trembling body with his warmth. “Unfortunately?” I pull back. “Do they have you here against your will?” He gives me a look, but neither nods nor shakes his head. He just looks at me in a sad, conflicted way, and I know the answer to it. I turn around to observe the surroundings and there, I see behind me, is one strong looking soldier. There’s more by the door. Escape is impossible. “You have to leave here,” I try to lower my voice as much as possible, but he shakes his head. “Come on,” he stands up from the chair and takes me by the arm. When we get to the door, the soldier in the room rushes to block the entrance. “Sir, you know the rules regarding people from the outside. This is as far as they should be able to see,” “Oh, shush, Rick. This is my daughter. She has the right to know what her father is working on,” dad pushes the soldier out of the way. It's not a heavy push and the man is twice as big as him, so I know the soldier gave way on purpose. Either he’s letting it pass, or my father holds a lot more power here than I think. “I studies applied physics in and thought all I could ever do with that course was to become another college professor, or work in standard R&D. Nothing would have ever prepared me for the engineering role that Calgary offered me. Apparently, my brain was one of a kind, and I was…just that good,” he leads me to a hall. It’s entire space is bigger than at least four of our house. How do I know? In the middle, there’s a machine that I’m lost on its application. I can’t even guess what it’s for by its form. You know how you’d be able to identify…say a vehicle. You’d automatically know which one drives and which one flies? Yup. On this machine, I’m in the dark. “What is it?” I ask in marvel. “That is what I can’t tell you,” he tells me. “I’ve been working on it since I joined Calgary, you know. I’m a crucial part of the project. That’s why when I decided I would no longer be part of it due to some disagreement with my colleagues, Calgary had to remind me that this wasn’t just any employment,” “Dad,” I look at him with desperation. “This is slavery!” “We’re all slaves to whatever we give ourselves slave to, honey. You were a slave to your marketing firm. Even though you can technically leave anytime, why didn’t you?” he asks me. “Well, I can if I want,” I argue. “Not without a month’s in lieu of notice,” he corrects me. “It’s just a month. That’s the contract.” He sighs “The contract here is that we can only tender a resignation when all open projects are completed,” “Well, when is this one going to be complete?” He looks up at he rig. There are sparks flying from it as welders that are on top work diligently to build this ultra weird super device. “Not in my lifetime, Evelyn,” I gasp. “Listen to me,” he turns to me and takes both of my hands. “I love you with all of my existence. But I’ve made mistakes that now haunt me. I have to pay with my life, but that’s because I don’t want you to suffer similar fate. The longer you’re around here, the longer you search for me, the more Calgary would want to have you around,” “Dad, please,” tears stream down my face as I know where he’s headed. He places a flash drive in my hand. “This is my financial information. Take it. Liquidate all my assets and cash out on all the money I’ve saved, and get away from this country if you can. Live the life that I couldn’t, while I stay here keeping them away from you and your husband,” he smiles. “He…he…” “He asked for my blessing,” dad tells me. “I love you so much, Evelyn. You were the only thing that ever happened to me that made my life worth surviving till this day,” tear drops fall from his eyes as he pulls me into himself. I don’t want to let go. I never want to let go. Epilogue Evelyn **A year later** “I guess I’ll talk to you when I get home, Agent Pierce,” Ethan winks at me seductively. Low-key, I think I prefer being called Agent Pierce to my first name. The sheer confusion it causes when the name is shouted to get the attention of one of us is always a golden moment. I’ve also used it to my advantage, taking assumptions for assignments and benefits that I know aren’t for me. “No problem,” I blow a kiss at him as he exits the office. While the FBI isn’t particularly operable in Finland, there are certain US citizens and operations here that we need to protect. It’s not really a laisse with the Finnish government, but we did need their permission to operate on their soil. I don’t work in the field like my husband does and it terrifies me every day. Every time he leaves the office or house without me, and I know he’s going to do something that has the possibility of getting him in the line of gun fire, I panic a little. That’s why I take my job in intelligence a little too seriously. I have stake in the flawless success of every mission that most of the others don’t. Also, I stay in the office longer than he does, most of the time, except days when the field mission takes more time than it’s supposed to, or certain complexities make it that before he comes back, I’d have closed from my work shift. Both of these times, we would wait for each other and leave together. Today is only an exception because it’s our anniversary and he planned to cook up something special. Little does he know I have something special cooking as well. It takes me about thirty minutes to file off all logs and close my computer for the day, before driving home. He left the car for me and took the bus. From my inheritance from my father, we can buy more than one car…and in fact, we do. But when do we ever need a Lamborghini Huracan? Worst joint purchasing decision from the both of us and the best loved. When I get home, the lights from the duplex beam where I want them to. In the kitchen, I can see Ethan’s silhouette that slowly becomes clearer the closer into the house I am. He blows me a kiss before I enter into the house. “Hello, baby,” he grins once I enter the kitchen, “You’re supposed to be sitting down while I make the meal, come on, shoo,” he yells gently. Believe me, it’s possible to yell gently. “I would, I would. But first, there’s something I have to tell you,” I walk over to him and wrap my hands around his neck, kissing him softly on the lips. The kiss was supposed to be brief, but instead, my mouth finds his tongue and like a dose of cocaine, I’m hooked. I pull back and look around. Nothing is on the stove, meaning there’s no urgent cooking need that needs to be satisfied. He raises a brow. “Yes, baby,” I lean into him and kiss him again, burying myself deeper into his heart. He throws the loosely tied apron over himself, and around my waist, before taking off the top buttons of my dress shirt. Somehow, he’s able to maneuver my bra out of the way and leave the shirt around my bare waist. While he fastens the knot of the apron around his own waist to restrict our movement while we make feverish kinky love, I take that time to slip out the pregnancy test strip. I hand it to him, and his eyes widen even before he even takes it from me. “No,” he gasps. “Yes,” I correct him. “No!” he insists, but the cheshire grin on his face that stretches his scar says otherwise. “Yes!” “Yes! Yes! Yes!” I find myself floating in the air the next second. “I’m going to be a dad!” He calms down. “I’m going to be a dad!” his face is more terror than pleasure now, and I understand. “Hey…hey…” I take his large face in both my hands. “You’re going to be the best dad for Liam. Okay? No one would come close,” He eyes me in confusion, “Liam,” “That’s the name of our baby, silly,” I giggle. “No, no, no. You’re assuming that it’s going to be a boy. It’ll be a girl,” he smirks. “Well, we can argue about the sex later,” I stretch my hands below me and wrap my fingers around the hardened bulge in his briefs. “Right now, I want this off,” “Pregnancy craving?” he places a peck on my forehead. “Oh, not yet, baby…not yet…” The lights in the kitchen should be off as we make love to each other, but I don’t think it matters. Anyone that passes and sees him hammering into me would only see our silhouettes from that distance. And if you ask me, the thought of someone seeing us consummate our love turns me the fuck on!