“Nice to meet you,” she replied as he went behind the desk.
“I’m sorry for the wait. I was with another patient who took much longer than I’d expected. I would have scheduled you for later if I had known,” he lied. Sawyer knew it was a lie. He was fidgeting with a pen; his breathing had changed from comfortable to uncomfortable. He’d over-compensated in information, like he was making an effort to cover up any holes in the story that could lead to questions later.
It had been a long time since she’d met a liar that bad. She wasn’t the best at catching the signs of a lie, but he’d been so obvious. Not even Quinn was that bad at lying, though he rarely lied at all and they were all tiny white lies that people told to protect their own privacy.
“It’s no trouble,” she promised him.
“I had some time yesterday to look over your mental health record and the case you were recently on.” Dr. Staub began, looking away from her quickly, down to some papers he’d carried in. “I’ll cut to the chase. You are a victim of abuse-”
“I’m a survivor of abuse,” Sawyer corrected. She wasn’t a victim anymore. She survived. She won. She lived. “Get it right.”
“F-f-forgive me,” he mumbled. She had obviously thrown him with that. “Survivor. Do you feel that the trauma you experienced changed anything you did in Texas from what you would have normally done?”
“I’m not sure,” she answered honestly. “I’ve been molded by my life and my own resilience, moral code, and beliefs. I’m not sure how I would react differently because there was never a situation like it before I was…Shadow.” She said it carefully.
“You became Shadow at sixteen, according to records.” Dr. Staub wrote something down as he said that. “Eight years ago. Long time to be an assassin.”
“Shadow didn’t exist when I was sixteen. I killed my first person at eighteen. Shadow came after that.” Sawyer took a deep breath. “I stopped being Shadow at twenty. So, two, maybe close to three years, of being an assassin. Not the last eight.”
“Then why do records say that trauma began at sixteen?” Dr. Staub frowned at her.
“Have you watched the tape?” she asked, frowning back. She had no idea what her paper record said. She didn’t even know who made it. The team would have never let anything wrong get into it, that was certain, so it had to have been an outsider.
“What tape?” he asked back.
“Ah.” Sawyer rolled her eyes and kicked her legs out, getting more comfortable. She slouched back in her seat and stared at the doctor for a long time before offering more information. “I did a video ‘interview’ for the IMPO and the WMC about my time with Axel. It explained everything. At sixteen, I was only Axel’s thief and his…girlfriend.” She wanted to choke on the word, but it was the right word. “He tortured and blackmailed me into being his assassin when I was eighteen. He used my animal bond and then a child.”
“The scars and missing finger,” Dr. Staub noted.
“That’s right.”
“Do you feel like you ever want to hurt yourself or others?” Dr. Staub asked.
She wanted to be insulted by the question, but it was standard fare. “No,” she told him. She didn’t say anything else. That was a question that did not need elaborating on. She was also a better liar than Dr. Staub. She had moments where she most definitely wanted to hurt other people.
The questions went on as Dr. Staub tried to find something wrong with her. She dodged and evaded most of them, giving him half-truths or plain denials. It was why she didn’t want Jasper to get her a therapist for her nightmares. She would only lie to them. She didn’t share her life with strangers. She didn’t have panic attacks. She didn’t have flashbacks. She didn’t have moments of crippling pain or unbridled rage that led her to hurt people for hurting others.
“You have nightmares,” Dr. Staub pointed out eventually. “A small note in the report from the case. The killer said he dream walked and saw that you had some fairly vicious nightmares.”
Sawyer narrowed her eyes on him, the first time she’d given him anything except a blank face. “Yes. I have nightmares.”
“Do you sleep through most nights?”
“I’ve never needed much sleep,” she countered.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Dr. Staub mumbled.
She held back a rush of anger. This wasn’t his business. This was hers and hers alone.
“I think you might have some PTSD from your past, whether you admit it or not.” Dr. Staub sighed. “I wonder if this sort of job is healthy for you. Nightmares can progress to flashbacks and render you unable to make the best decisions while working in sensitive situations. Since it’s been so long, you probably haven’t received the appropriate care. Are you seeing anyone about the nightmares?”
Fuck.
“Yes.” Sawyer answered. This was a corner and she was backed in. She hadn’t thought that they would talk to Cory about her. That kid had lived a fucked-up life, and he’d seen some fucked-up things in her head. She still didn’t want to know why he was there or what he thought about them. She had enough nightmare fuel.
“Who?”
“My teammate, Special Agent Jasper Williams. He can dream walk and has been entering during my nightmares and helping me reshape them, change them. He’s talked to several experts anonymously about my situation and has a detailed care plan created.”
The door clicked open.
“I was hoping you would get something out of her. Thank you, Dr. Staub. You may go,” a feminine voice called out. “I can handle it from here.”
“Of course.” Dr. Staub stood up and smiled kindly down at Sawyer. “We’ll make sure you get the help you need.” He began walking to the door and Sawyer heard him whisper, “She’s all yours, Councilwoman.”
Sawyer didn’t react, but it didn’t stop her anxiety from sky-rocketing.
“I’m an empath,” the Councilwoman whispered after she closed the door. “You have reason to be worried.”
Sawyer turned slowly to see the woman at the door. Silver hair, younger face. Councilwoman D’Angelo from the bar.
“Do you know who I am?” she asked.
“Do you know who I am?” Sawyer asked back.
“That’s a yes, then.” Councilwoman D’Angelo strolled behind the desk and sank into the chair elegantly. She leaned back, and Sawyer could swear the woman probably crossed her legs. She wasn’t going to get back up until the conversation was over. “Shadow.”
“D’Angelo.”
“Councilwoman, to you.”
“Then call me by my fucking name,” Sawyer snapped. “I have one. It’s Sawyer.”
“Sawyer. I’m Dina.”
Sawyer scoffed and then burst out laughing. She tossed her head back, her shoulder shaking from the hilarity of it. “Dina, angel of learning, D’Angelo. Oh, your parents had a fucked sense of humor.” She continued to laugh after she said it.
“My parents, Michael D’Angelo and Charmeine D’Angelo?” The Councilwoman didn’t sound amused, but those names made Sawyer laugh more.
“Christ,” she huffed out, trying to breath. “Talk about ego. Angels, the family of Angels. Love it. I thought Axel had a self-image issue, but that shit takes the cake.”
“Are you making fun of my family to get on my good side, piss me off, or just because you can’t control yourself?”
“I’m making fun of them because it’s easy and I couldn’t fucking care about your family,” Sawyer answered. “Pissing you off is an added bonus.” She knew better than to say that, but she was already in for a penny on the nightmares. Why not go for a pound on the Councilwoman?
“I knew I wouldn’t like you,” Dina snapped. “I told them you probably had a general lack of respect for authority and you wouldn’t come to heel.”
“I think I’ve come to heel fairly well,” Sawyer replied. “But you’re right. I don’t respect most authority, especially when they decide I should die before they even let me open my eyes.”
“The WMC doesn’t need me to tarnish its reputation. You are all very good at doing that without my help,” Sawyer reminded her. “The WMC has always had rumors of corruption from the general populace. I know a bit more than that. I know Axel used to have people embedded into the offices of several Councilors, on payroll to push agendas that suited his purposes. I killed one of them when they went rogue on him and tried to get out.” Sawyer sneered at Dina. “Don’t talk to me about protecting your reputation. You didn’t even think I deserved a fair trial. You don’t think it’s a right we, as Magi, deserve. You would have sent an executioner to my hospital room and taken my head off. You only protect the reputation of the WMC when it suits you.”
Dina was paler than she had been, and that pleased Sawyer. She wasn’t going to take the bitch’s self-righteous, moral high ground bullshit. Ruin their reputation? They didn’t have one to stand on.
“Now, I’m fucked,” Sawyer whispered, leaning forward to brace her arms on her knees. “I know what I’ve done, and I’ll own up to it every fucking day. Because I promised a group of guys, the IMPO, and the WMC that I would try. I’ll pay for what I did, no matter the reason, every day of my fucking life, and I know it. But don’t think I won’t fight for those days just because they will be hard. I might go down, but I’ll go down swinging.”
“I’ll have you in a prison cell eventually,” Dina replied coldly. “I won’t let a monster walk around like a hero.”
“If you think I’m the monster, I would love to know how you consider Axel.”
“You’re both monsters,” Dina said, ending in a hiss. “You sit there, outwardly calm, but I feel the rage inside. You are a bomb waiting to go off, aren’t you? Ready to bite the hand that feeds you, ready to go feral like that Quinn Judge. I’ve been wondering when he’ll pop for years and backfire on the IMPO. He doesn’t even have your background. He’s just unnatural and a threat to the peace and prosperity to the Magi.”
“Don’t,” Sawyer snarled. Quinn was not going to be a punching bag. He wasn’t going to get trash-talked by her. “Don’t fucking talk about him. He has nothing to do with this.”
“Him. Vincent Castello. Elijah Grant.” Dina smiled. “Jasper Williams and Zander Wade. They all have something to do with it. They all proved they would rather help a murderer than help their government. And they are going to go down with you. That I can promise.”
Sawyer took a deep breath and pulled back the anger, pushed it down where it wasn’t visible anymore. She’d given Dina an in. She wanted the guys left alone.
It made Dina laugh. “Hide it away, but I know. You want me dead for threatening them? I knew it. Once a violent monster, always a violent monster.”
“You don’t know a goddamned thing. You don’t know what it’s like to know that if you fail, people will die,” Sawyer growled. “You don’t understand the desperation or the fear. You don’t know what it looks like to see the corpse of a boy at your feet and know that if you had just killed better, faster, then he would be alive. That if you had let a man beat you just a little more, then he would still be alive. I’ll trade anyone for the people I care about. I’ll kill anyone to keep them. If that makes me a monster, then so be it. I’ll keep being a monster. I would rather be a monster than a slimy politician.”
“Where are you going with this?” Dina asked softly.
“The only way you’re keeping me away from my team is over my dead body. You don’t have a reason to execute me that doesn’t go in direct violation of the contract we made. If you try to break the contract, I won’t hesitate in doing whatever I need to do so that my team and I survive. Because that’s what I do. Survive. It’s not about killing people, being an assassin. Every decision I have ever made was one that would lead me to the ultimate goal of surviving. I’m also not some teenager trying to protect a child anymore. This time, I won’t fail.” Sawyer stood up. “Now, if that’s all, I’m going to go back to my team. I have nightmares. You would too if you were beaten and raped on a constant basis, knowing that if you didn’t allow it, innocent people would get hurt. Put that in my fucking review and shove it.”
Sawyer turned on her heel and walked out of the room, leaving the Councilwoman alone.
If she wanted to a pick a fight, Sawyer needed to be ready to fight back. Which meant the team needed to know that a fight was coming their way.
She ignored the guards who watched her. She could only imagine what she looked like, dressed in all black, her uniform, as she went through the halls.
“Excuse me,” one called out. She stopped and saw another guy walking down the hall towards her. Taller than her, in shape. Not a guard, since he had no weapons on him, she guessed absentmindedly. “Are you Sawyer?”
“I am,” she answered cautiously.
He spit in her face. “That’s for the dead that you’re disrespecting by being here,” he told her.
As he turned to walk away, Sawyer saw that everyone was watching. This guy was pulling a stunt. Spit in her face, prove that he was willing to say what no one else was. Then he was going to walk away as if she wasn’t the second most dangerous thing in the building. Ignore that she might have something to say about it. He was either ballsy and stupid or a coward, scared to hear what she might have to say.
She decided what she thought.
Coward.
She was about to fuck up. On purpose.
She grabbed his arm and stopped him from leaving. He looked down at her hand and she didn’t give him anymore time to think about what was going to happen. She turned him back to her, grabbed his collar and slammed him into the wall. He tried to push her off, glaring, but she kept the hold. He pushed himself off the wall a few inches and she just shoved him back into it.
“The dead?” she asked softly. “You mean the people I killed? They were all criminals too. Did you know that?” She kept her voice low. “They were all dirty. They were cut down because they betrayed Axel. I was just the blade.”
“No.” He was breathing hard. She wondered if he was scared yet. “The IMPO team that was blown to hell because of you.”
“The IMPO team that wanted to get me out,” she whispered. “That one? The first? I went to them with everything I had on Axel, so they could stop him. Axel was one step ahead of all of us. That team knew what they were getting into. So did I. We thought we could do it.”
“And Jon Aguirre’s team?”
“He played a game and lost,” Sawyer explained. “He wanted to bait Axel out. Axel doesn’t get baited. He embedded his Doppler whore into the team and then tried to blow up not just that team, but Vincent’s too. Missy always did like explosions.” Sawyer released a slow breath. “I won’t hold on to the death of people who made their own decisions. I won’t carry those around anymore.”
“Heartless bitch,” he snarled at her.
She pulled him off the wall and slammed him back into it, letting the back of his head knock hard enough to make a crack. “You know nothing about my heart,” she hissed.
“Sawyer,” James called out. “Let him go.”
She side-eyed her handler and released the guy, pushing him away for good measure. “He spit on me,” she explained, her lips pulling back in another snarl. She was hanging out with Quinn too much.
“I heard, so I came running.” James was breathing pretty hard, she realized. She would guess he didn’t get enough cardio anymore. “Cayden, go back to your team. Don’t fuck with mine again.”
“I can’t believe you would want to protect her,” Cayden groaned. She committed that name to memory.
“What’s he mean?” Sawyer asked, ignoring Cayden’s glare.
“I was the handler for the team that died. Four and a half years ago. It’s why I made Vincent’s team.” James explained it quickly and professionally. C
urt. She realized her humorous handler was being curt.
She also hadn’t liked his answer, but that wasn’t a conversation for the public. She wished she had known that sooner. “Later,” she told him.
“Yes, later. Now, you can’t just kick the shit out of anyone who spits in your face,” James gently reminded her, a smile taking over.
“I didn’t kick the shit out of him,” Sawyer retorted. They were both ignoring everyone now. “If I had, he’d be in the fucking hospital like that fucking sheriff from Texas. Come on. I just made sure he couldn’t spit in my face and walk away without explaining. Cowards do shit like that. I was making sure he couldn’t be one. Can’t have cowards working for the IMPO and upholding Magi Law.”
“Smart-ass,” James snorted. “Let’s go before someone tries to arrest you.”
“Don’t I have immunity as a Special Agent to some things?”
“You’re a Probationary Agent,” James reminded. “And those immunities don’t apply when you attack another member of the organization.”
Sawyer groaned and followed him to a small hallway. It was where she’d been heading originally. The team was somewhere back here in a room as they all waited for their own appointments and meetings.
“In here,” James ordered her.
“Going,” she mumbled, feeling somewhat like her dad had caught her fighting with kids in the schoolyard. It was an odd sensation. She’d never experienced it before. Not even Charlie treated her like that. He just let her do whatever the fuck she wanted.
She pushed into the room and saw the rest of the team waiting there.
“How was it?” Vincent asked her immediately, standing up from the long table in the middle of the room.
“Awful. Councilwoman D’Angelo came in and fucked with me,” she answered without pause. “She’s trying to pull the entire team down.”
“Excuse me?” James shut them in the room. “You were supposed to only be meeting Dr. Staub.”
The Redemption Saga Box Set Page 78