Witness Protection: Moving Target

by Jet MacLeod

  “If it was, there wouldn’t be any food. I can survive of nuts and berries, even leaves if I have to. I know ways of hunting and tracking. I would be able to maintain us. But, you don’t. You would be totally at my mercy and the camps. If I didn’t want you to eat, then you wouldn’t. Out here nature controls the outcome, Princess, not you.”

  “I know that,” Angie replied.

  “Do you? Because this isn’t the City, and there is no one here to help you but me. Think of it this way: this isn’t a joke. Neither is my job protecting you. If I thought that we would be safer hiding the in the Pacific Northwest like nomads, living off the land, and camping, we would. It would be easy for me. But eventually, the need for creature comforts would drive you in, back to the city. You can’t deny that. This is a mini-vacation for me and I plan on enjoying it.”

  “You’re punishing me for what I said to you back at the diner, aren’t you?”

  “If I were punishing you, Angie, you’d know. But, we are here because of your small display, yes. You promised me that you would listen. You promised me that you would obey me because you realized that it meant your life if you didn’t. What changed so much between Tahoe and now? Did I do something? Did I say something? I don’t get it,” Del stated.

  “You stopped caring…”

  Del sat on the camp chair and stared at Angie. She didn’t know what to say. Angie has said enough. She realized then that Angie was pushing her to get a reaction. Del had pulled back into herself because she felt safe there. She did it and she knew it. She just hadn’t realized what it had been doing to Angie.

  “I never stopped caring, Angie,” she finally said.

  “Yes, you did. I get it. I really do. Hell, I even understand why you stopped, but you promised me that you would stop caring. I figured that if you could break your word to me, that it wouldn’t matter if I did it to you,” Angie replied.

  “Angie…”

  “No, Del, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to tell me that you never stopped caring and pretend that nothing happened between us. Things changed in Tahoe. I know it. You know it. We can’t deny that. I won’t deny that. I am very thankful for your particular skill set. It saved my life. I don’t know what happened to you while we in Napa, but something did. You can try to tell me that nothing happened, but I know that is when you changed,” Angie told her.

  Del reached down and picked up a stick. She poked at the fire as she stared into the orange flames. She knew that she was scared and it was Angie that scared her beyond belief. She knew that she would willingly burn herself than deal with emotional confrontations, but she also knew that Angie wasn’t going to let it go. The more she thought about it, the more she leaned towards the fire. It was the most natural thing for her. But something wasn’t letting her fall. Then she turned and looked into Angie’s beautiful sapphire eyes and her heart almost broke.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Wha-what?” Angie asked, clearly surprised that Del even answered.

  “I do love you, Angie, more than I probably should. I don’t know how to deal with this feeling. You were right when you said that I had the emotional maturity of a thirteen year old. I am trying to deal with this. I really am, but I really don’t know how.”

  “Let me in,” Angie told her.

  Del just stared back at the fire. She didn’t know what to say. She felt bad, but at the same time she didn’t. She was conflicted. She cared for Angie, possibly even loved her more than she thought she did, but she knew that nothing good would come from it. They couldn’t make a real life with Angie without one of them giving up too much. She didn’t want Angie to give up her life in New York and she couldn’t live there. She tried to understand what Angie wanted. She tried to be what she wanted, but she knew that in less than six months she wouldn’t be what Angie needed.

  “You are going to leave me,” Del said quietly, as she stood up and left the campsite.

  Angie sat there in silence. Del was so worried about getting hurt that she was shutting down and Angie could see every painful aspect of it. She needed to make Del understand, but she didn’t know how. Del hadn’t had good teachers when it came to emotion and love. She only had experience and her experiences were bad. Everyone that she loved hurt her in the end. So, Angie understood the thinking. She was trying to preemptively stop the pain by causing Angie to hurt.

  This only made Angie more resolute. She needed to make Del feel her love in a way that she had never felt it before, completely. She didn’t know how to do that because she hadn’t ever been destroyed like Del had. She had loved and lost and felt her share of pain, but nothing compared to the betrayal and abuse that Del had suffered. She needed to make Del feel what she had felt from her parents, the few people that she had dated before politics became more important, and friends and other family members. She needed to make Del feel important in the lives of others.

  Angie dug around her stuff until she found the phone. She knew which numbers were to the FBI and Marshalls. She also recognized 9-1-1. She scrolled down through the numbers until she landed on Cole’s. She knew that Cole was the only other person in the world that could help Angie make Del see what she was pushing away. He was the only person that loved her and he had proven it to Del in many ways without her knowing. He was the only other person that Del would talk to and listen to. Maybe if she talked to him, he would talk to Liv.

  She dialed the number and waited for Cole to pick up. He didn’t. The number just rang and rang. She stared at the numbers on her phone and wondered if she had dialed the correct number. Had she even called Cole or was it someone else? The cell phone only had so many numbers in it. If it wasn’t Cole, then it would have been Sanchez. If it wasn’t either of them, the only other number was that of Del’s burner cell. Had she dialed Del by mistake? She stared at the number and let her mind wander for a few minutes.

  She stood up and walked to the river. She took off her shoes and socks. She held them as she entered the water. She walked along the bank, making sure that she kept their campsite in her line of sight. She was angry and hurt, but she wasn’t stupid. She needed to make sure that if Del came back that she would see it.

  She watched as the water ran over her feet. The cool water was refreshing in the late afternoon warmth, but it wasn’t enough to make her cold. She looked at the water and wondered what kind of fish were in it. She saw a few swimming further out but she wasn’t going to get a closer look. She was happy where she was standing. She had a good view of their campsite and the surrounding wilderness. It also gave her a great view if Del came walking by.

  Further down the river, Del was fishing. She could see the spot where Angie was standing. She wondered if she was missing her blond hair at the moment. She did look different, but she was hiding in plain sight. Her hair was one of the few things that had become a casualty in their quest to keep her protected and safe.

  She needed to relax and calm down. She knew what Angie wanted but she wasn’t sure that she could give it to her. She didn’t know how to love well. Cole was the closest thing to a real friend and a family member that she had. She wished that things could be easy. She liked easy. There was nothing about this mission that was easy any more.

  She’d let her feelings get involved. She knew better. Cole had even warned her back in Anita, but she hadn’t understood what he was saying at the time. He wasn’t warning her off of Angie; he had been pushing her towards Angie realizing that Angie was a good match for her mindset and capabilities. He saw was Del refused to see months ago. They were perfect for each other.

  She caught a couple of fish that would be good for their dinner. She walked back up the river always managing to keep Angie in sight. She stopped a few feet downstream from their campsite. She cleaned the fish there. Once she was done, she dug a small hole and buried the trash. She was making sure that she kept their site clean and left no obvious trail that they were there. She gathered up her cleaned fish and made her way back into the camp.
r />   She started cooking, seasoning the fish liberally. She rooted around in the pack to find something else to go with the fish. She found some potatoes and decided that they would work for tonight. She would go through everything else later to plan for their meals for the rest of the time they were in the woods. She dug around in a bin and found some tin foil. She oiled up the potatoes and wrapped them in foil before throwing them in the coals to cook. She knew that potatoes would take about an hour to cook through. She salted the fish and waited to put them on her warmed skillet.

  As she was waiting, Angie came back to camp. She looked a little more relaxed and a little more amiable. Del wasn’t going to push anything tonight. She would wait until morning. They would talk again and she wasn’t sure that she would ever be ready for it.

  She was trying. She really was, but she didn’t know if the reason that she was shying away from Angie was because of her emotional stunted-ness or because she was just plain afraid of having a relationship with Angie. She didn’t know the answer. She knew that she loved Angie enough to try and that should be enough, but she wasn’t sure how far she was willing to go before she would get hurt. Then she realized that it was the pain of getting hurt in the aftermath of this affair that she was having with Angie that she was most afraid of right now. She wasn’t scared of bullets or death, but she was afraid of Angie leaving her if she gave in to the temptation of having a real romantic relationship with her.

  “Del,” Angie started as she walked back into the camp barefoot.

  “Yes?”

  “Will you talk to me?”

  Del turned up and looked into her beautiful sapphire eyes. She lost her self a little more each time that she looked into them. She could see the depth of love that Angie had for her and she knew that her own eyes reflected the emotion and the fear with it.

  “You know that I’ll tell you anything that I can,” Del said as an automatic reply.

  “I am not talking about your missions, Del. We’ve talked about this before. I don’t know what else to say. I love you. I want to be with you. Why can’t you accept that?” Angie asked her.

  “Because you can’t accept that I can’t go to New York to stay,” Del replied.

  “I never said that I wanted to go to New York to stay. Sure I had a life there once, but I don’t anymore. I am dead to everyone in that town. I am not sure that I want to go back and try to start over from where I left off. That isn’t really my life. Everything that I had is gone. I don’t have a job. My mother is dead. I am not even sure if I still have an apartment, even though I owned it. My life in New York was erased. It’s gone. Why can’t you see that?”

  “Because you still have people there that care for you. They aren’t going to let you go that easily, Angie. They aren’t going to just let you walk out of their lives again once they know that you are alive. Once they have you back, they aren’t going to let you go. I know if that was the case and I was one of them, I wouldn’t let you leave easily,” Del told her.

  “But it isn’t. You don’t know those that I was with. You don’t realize how replaceable I was at my job. There is already someone else filling my shoes. She is just as good as I am at law. She has her flaws and I am sure that my lead detectives broke her in just are hard as they did with me, but that doesn’t mean that I want to go back and practice law for the City.”

  “Why not?”

  “Maybe I’ve grown up a little bit in these last few years,” Angie offered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I am not the same person that I was when I got put into WitSec. I am not the same gung ho assistant district attorney that I was when I started. My political ambitions have changed. I’ve grown and my goals are the same anymore. And, with what I want now, I can get it anywhere,” Angie said.

  “And, what would that be?”

  “A life with someone to share it with, hopefully somewhere safe and with the knowledge that I don’t have to look over my back all the time preparing for the worst,” Angie replied.

  “I don’t know that I can give you that,” Del said honestly.

  “You don’t know that you can’t either, Del. You don’t even want to try. Why won’t you give me a chance?” Angie questioned.

  “I don’t want to get hurt, again,” Del replied.

  “But that is the gamble with love, Del. No one ever knows if they are going to get hurt, but we go into the relationship anyway. Do you know why?”

  “No,” Del said.

  “Because sometimes the pain is worth the adventure that brought it on. If we didn’t do anything because we are afraid of the outcome, then we wouldn’t do anything. There are no guarantees in life except taxes, change and death. And, to tell you the truth, I would rather spend my time with someone that makes me feel loved and cherished than go it alone,” Angie told her.

  “I would, too.”

  Chapter 50

  They ate in peace. Neither of them trying to disturb the thoughts of the other, but they shared looks of knowing and longing. It was something that Del wasn’t used to and Angie knew it. She was trying to give her time and understanding, but she didn’t know how long she could. She knew that they would continue to talk about what would happen after the trial, but Angie was more worried about Del relapsing into herself and fighting Angie about her own feelings.

  She looked up and saw Del’s questioning chestnut eyes. She smiled at her, trying to make her understand that she was lost in her own thoughts. She watched as Del’s mind quietened a little, but she knew that Del was still trying to analyze everything and put it in the little boxes in her head so that she could do her mission. Sometimes Angie wondered what Del’s brain would do if she didn’t have all the little compartments inside to put everything into. She saw what happened when Del didn’t know how to label something or when something didn’t fit how she wanted it to.

  “Stop thinking too hard, Del. You’ll spoil your dinner by upsetting your stomach. Just let it go for now,” Angie told her.

  Del didn’t have anything to say. She just sat there in quiet reflection. She knew that Angie was right, but she didn’t want Angie to give up anything. She thought about Angie’s words and her arguments. She had valid points and they were points that Del couldn’t really counter.

  Angie decided that she had thought long enough. She took their dishes and walked down to the river. She washed them while Del was still sitting in front of the fire. When she came back up to the campsite and found Del still in the same position, she decided she had to do something drastic. She pulled Del out of the chair and towards the tent.

  Once she was inside the tent, she laid Del down. She lay down beside her after zipping up the door, but before she unzipped a window so they could keep an eye on the fire. She lay back down and stared into Del’s eyes. She could see them softening in what little bit of light the fire was giving them.

  “Angie?”

  “Yes, love?” Angie replied.

  “Do you want to head to Seattle tomorrow?” Del asked.

  Angie could hear the defeat in her voice. She was asking because she wanted Angie to be happy. It didn’t matter that Del needed time to think. It didn’t matter that they had months until they had to be back in New York. All Del could see was Angie and the end. She still wasn’t trying to think outside the boxes that she’d built in her mind. She was still trying to compartmentalize everything. She felt safe that way, but Angie knew that she made Del nervous in ways that she hadn’t been before. She made Del feel and for Del that was dangerous.

  Angie rolled over. She wanted Del to cuddle her. She figured that if Del cuddled her then she would be able to talk to her without Del completely shutting down. In that position, Del wouldn’t be able to see her face. She would be effectively hiding behind Angie while being open. Angie didn’t mind being her shield because it meant that Del would tell her things.

  Del knew what she was doing. She was giving her peace while her head was at war. She was just being close. She knew t
hat Angie was letting her spoon her. She knew that Angie wanted her to hold her because it meant that they were both safe. But safety had become relative. Del didn’t feel safe with her anymore. She feels open and exposed in ways she’d never dreamed of being. Truth be told, it scared the ever loving shit out of her and she didn’t like it.

  “Del, stop thinking,” Angie told her as she burrowed deeper into her front with her own back.

  Del took her body, amazed at how well they fit together. She leaned her head down into the crook of Angie’s neck and sniffed. There was something glorious about the warmth and scent that Angie gave off. It was purely Angie and for some reason, it calmed Del to the core. She inhaled deeply and squeezed Angie tighter around the middle.

  Angie for her part knew that she needed Del calm before they could talk rationally. She needed to make Del stop worrying about a future that was uncertain. She wanted her to think about them being together and living one day at time. She knew that it was a hard concept, especially for someone as rigid as Del, but it was the only way that Angie could live now. Too much had changed in her life to worry about the future. She lived for the day and took what she wanted. Right now she wanted Del, with all of her baggage and hang ups.

  “Do you want to go to Seattle tomorrow?” Del asked her again.

  This time she didn’t sound defeated. There wasn’t the usual confidence that Del gave off in her voice, but she didn’t sound totally broken like before. Angie knew that she was relaxing and now she would answer. She could only hope that Del didn’t freak out on her for it.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, I want to stay here with you for a while. You need the time. You need to clear your head, Del. I think that we didn’t analyze Tahoe enough and you are still hung up on it.”

  “There is nothing to analyze. There was a problem and I fixed it. End of story.”

  “Del, you were shot.”

  “I had on a vest,” Del replied and Angie could hear the deflection in her voice.