The Archer

by Abigail Roux

  whimper.

  Shawn got to his feet slowly with much more dignity than a man who had

  just been tossed across the room should have possessed, and he turned to glare at Mikhail. “Happy?” he asked in a choked voice, and he threw the bloody knife to the ground in disgust.

  “That was very touching,” Mikhail said sarcastically as he pointed his gun

  warningly at the others, who were growling at Shawn mutinously and practically

  vibrating. “Now, let’s get going before Thierry has another panic and calls in the real cavalry.”

  “You bastard,” Gray growled as he looked up at Shawn. His hands were

  covered in blood and he was crying silently. Marissa was a little shocked to see that they all were.

  “Look, the only ones I care about bringing home at this point are these two,

  so if the rest of you want to make a bloody mess of this, then be my guest!” Mikhail shouted as he gestured to Shawn and Thiago and trained his gun on the others.

  “Mess?” Carl asked in a voice laced with ice and death. He stepped forward

  and picked up the knife Shawn had thrown down. He squared off against the five men now facing him, two of them men he had called his only friends. That seemed like a lifetime ago. “You’ve never seen a mess, mate. Not yet.”

  A hand on his calf stopped whatever he was about to do, and he turned to

  look down at Wally, who was holding something up and showing it to him, grinning

  like a kid who’d just dug up a pile of dog shit in a sandbox.

  Carl calmly reached down and took the grenade from him. He looked at it,

  then at the knife in his hand. He frowned as he rubbed his hand over the handle of the weapon. After long seconds, he looked up at the others with an evil grin.

  “Carl,” Thiago said warningly.

  “You’re a fucking turncoat, Zed,” Carl said angrily. “You’ll play for

  whichever team’s winning, and when the chips are down, you simply change sides.”

  Shawn put out a calming hand, but the blood all over it didn’t seem to have the right effect on the enraged man. “And you,” Carl said through gritted teeth, “have killed a much better man than you could ever hope to be. You’d better never fucking show

  your face topside again.”

  Without another word, Carl pulled the pin from the grenade and dropped it at

  his feet.

  There was a moment of utter stillness as realization of what he had just done

  hit everyone. Then there was a scramble of movement.

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  The three men with weapons ducked out the way they had come with shouts

  of anger and frustration. Wally gathered Remy’s body in his arms and easily followed Carl toward the opposite door of the car as Shawn’s eyes followed their forms sadly.

  As soon as they had disappeared, he walked slowly backward and then calmly turned to follow Mikhail and the other two men. Nikolaus pulled Marissa with him hastily, but she couldn’t seem to tear her eyes off Thiago and Gray, who stood watching each other over the live grenade Carl had dropped on the ground.

  “Come on, Thi,” Gray whispered desperately as he held out his hand. Thiago

  stared at it sadly. “Thiago, please,” Gray begged as his voice broke. “If you ever loved me, Thi, please come with us,” he pleaded.

  “Get out of here, Gray, before it blows us both to Hell,” Thiago responded in

  a flat voice as he turned and walked calmly out of the dining car after Shawn.

  Gray’s hand dropped lifelessly to his side and Nikolaus pushed Marissa to

  the doorway.

  “Come on!” he growled as he ran to Gray and grabbed him by the arm,

  pulling him with him as they fled.

  LXXVI.

  SIR JOHN MCTIERNAN sat in a comfortable leather office chair, looking across the

  large glass table at two of the Organization’s top Class One agents. He wrinkled his nose primly and cocked his head.

  “You two certainly don’t look like the highly trained assets we sent out six

  months ago,” he observed after nearly five full minutes of complete and utter silence.

  Shawn stared at him balefully and Thiago blinked disinterestedly. “Would you care for a shower or something to eat before we begin? Or perhaps a shower?” John

  offered pleasantly as he looked them over and sniffed.

  “Been a while since you smelled blood and smoke, has it, Mac?” Shawn

  asked in a low voice.

  “As a matter of fact, it has,” John responded with another sniff. “There was a

  shower aboard the jet, you could have availed yourself the luxury of soap. You were on it for more than twenty-four hours, after all.”

  “We found that sleep was more important,” Shawn answered coolly. “You

  could have waited to do this until tomorrow if you’re so offended,” he added in a growl.

  John examined him closely. Shawn’s hands were still stained with the blood

  of his latest victim, and both he and Thiago were smudged and tattered from the

  explosion that rocked the train after the grenade dropped.

  John had been filled in on all the details of the massive fuck up that occurred

  back in the States. He looked back into Shawn’s flashing green eyes and smiled

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  winningly at him. At least the ordeal hadn’t completely exterminated the will to fight from his former protégé. That would have made the whole thing quite tragic.

  “How are you, Shawn?” John asked pleasantly. The question was sincere,

  though the tone was not. John had always thought of Shawn as a son, in his own

  twisted way. “Not hurt, I hope?”

  “No,” Shawn answered coldly. “Not hurt.”

  “And you, Thiago? I trust you’re uninjured as well?”

  “Yes,” Thiago responded in barely a whisper.

  “Good, good. We bad pennies always turn up, don’t we?” John drawled with

  a wink.

  Thiago stared at him for several seconds and then offered a weak smile in

  agreement.

  “Cut the shit, Mac, what are we waiting for?” Shawn asked impatiently.

  “Ask your questions and let us get out of here and get cleaned up, for fuck’s sake.”

  John smiled at the two men again and nodded toward the flat screen panel on

  one side of the room. They both turned in their chairs and looked at it curiously. John flicked on the conference phone in the center of the table with a remote, and a man came up on the screen. He sat behind a large, swanky desk and grinned.

  Shawn growled wordlessly and Thiago sighed heavily and let his head fall

  back to rest on the back of his chair.

  “How are you, gentlemen?” Thierry St. John asked pleasantly.

  Shawn merely growled at the screen again.

  Thiago cleared his throat uncomfortably.

  “That glad to see me, eh? Well, no worries, I’m happy enough for the lot of

  us. Never thought we’d see either of you again. Do you have any idea how much

  money it takes to train one of you buggers?”

  “Why do I have the feeling we’re about to get royally fucked?” Shawn

  mumbled as he leaned forward and spoke into Thiago’s ear. Thiago brought his hand up to cover what was probably a grin, and he nodded solemnly as Shawn rested back in his chair once more.

  John narrowed his eyes at the two men. They seemed to be friends.

  Interesting.

  “Who wants to start?” Thierry asked as he leaned his elbows against the

  desk.

  “Start?” Thiago asked tentatively.

  “Yes. Start. Telling us what the hell happened,” Thierry clarified.

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  “It’s pretty clear, is it not?” Shawn asked with a furrowed brow. “The shit hit

  the fan and everyone fucking died. That’s what happened.”

  “I think we’re going to need a bit more detail than that,” Thierry said with a

  scowl.

  “Detail?” Shawn echoed angrily.

  “Shawn, calm down,” John ordered sternly. “The only person who died in all

  this was the one you were sent to kill.”

  “Fuck you, John. And you, too, you rat bastard,” Shawn said as he turned to

  the screen once again. “You sent us out there to die!”

  “That’s not true,” Thierry said as he pointed a finger at the screen, “I sent

  you out there because you were all liabilities. There’s a difference.”

  “Thierry!” Shawn yelled as he slammed his fist down on the table and stood

  and drew his gun. “Get your ass down here so I can kill you!”

  “Uh, no. That would be why I’m staying here,” Thierry said with a cheeky

  grin as he eased back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. He gave them a huge smile and tilted back in the posh leather chair. John closed his eyes and shook his head wearily as Thierry leaned back too far and went toppling over backward.

  Thiago pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed and Shawn rolled his eyes

  as Thierry’s head popped back up behind the desk and he clawed his way to his feet.

  “Sorry… sorry,” Thierry mumbled as pens and classified documents went

  skittering across his desk.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Shawn grumbled as he rubbed his eyes.

  John knew how the man felt. Thierry was difficult to deal with even when

  you weren’t exhausted.

  “Sorry, what was I saying?” Thierry asked as he righted his chair and settled

  himself carefully into it.

  “You were explaining to us your thinking behind this brilliant scheme of

  yours,” John supplied.

  Shawn looked at him sharply and narrowed his eyes, but John kept his eyes

  on the screen. He knew Shawn thought he’d been behind the entire thing, but Thierry had constructed this farce all on his own. John never would have put Shawn in that situation.

  “Uh… oh! Right, right. We had two backups,” Thierry continued. “You two,

  actually. Thiago, we weren’t at all certain of your loyalty any longer, considering that you haven’t been doing a damn thing we’ve told you to–”

  “If you wanted someone to do your bidding you should have taken someone

  from your own fucking ranks,” Thiago growled angrily.

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  “Yes, yes, I believe we’ve had that conversation before,” Thierry said

  flippantly. “Uhh…”

  “For God’s sake, Thi, don’t distract him,” Shawn hissed quietly. “We’ll be

  here all bloody night.”

  John smiled in amusement and cleared his throat to center Thierry’s

  attention. The man was a brilliant tactician, but sometimes he took the idiot bit a mite too far. Sure, the others in power at the Organization underestimated him because of it, but it was just embarrassing for John to be associated with him at times. Like now.

  “And Shawn, for a while there, we thought you’d turned on us as well,”

  Thierry continued reproachfully.

  “Well, that was rather the idea, was it not?” Shawn replied icily. “My orders

  were to take Remy down by any means necessary. It was a field decision to tell him everything and make him think I’d turned on you.”

  Thiago flinched slightly at this admission, but John wasn’t certain what the

  reaction meant, if it meant anything at all.

  “Well, you almost played it too well,” Thierry said angrily. “If Mikhail

  hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, I never would have believed you’d killed the little mongrel.”

  Shawn’s jaw clinched angrily and he opened his mouth, then closed it again

  and sighed.

  “What about the others?” John asked as Thiago examined his hands intently

  and Shawn glared up at the screen.

  “What about them?” Shawn finally asked as he turned his chair back to face

  John.

  “You let them get away,” John said pointedly.

  “I didn’t let them do anything,” Shawn responded tightly. “They dropped a fucking grenade on us.”

  “And?” Thierry prodded.

  “And I’m only speaking for myself here, but I didn’t feel like getting blown

  up at that particular point in time!” Shawn yelled.

  “Shawn,” Thiago said in a soft voice. Shawn immediately calmed and sat

  back in his chair once more. “Escuche, Thierry, we’re both exhausted,” Thiago continued in a mild voice. “We’ve been playing mind games for six fucking months

  and we both smell like death. Why don’t we do this later?”

  Before Thierry could respond, John stood gracefully and nodded.

  “That’s a wonderful idea, my boy,” he said kindly. Shawn glared up at him

  suspiciously, but Thiago looked at him gratefully and stood as well. “We’ve arranged

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  for quarters for both of you on the top floor until we can move you out to the Estate for a spell, I’m sure you’ll find them satisfactory,” John said smoothly.

  Thiago acknowledged this with another weak smile. He looked up at the

  screen and nodded to Thierry, then down at Shawn briefly before turning and exiting the room quietly.

  Shawn remained where he was for several long moments, studying John and

  watching suspiciously as John turned the screen off before Thierry could say another word.

  “Don’t try to play me, John,” Shawn finally said quietly as he stood and

  faced John across the glass expanse. “Whatever you think you have with me changed years ago. I don’t trust you one fucking bit, and no amount of handling us with kid gloves is going to change that.”

  “You’re home, Shawn,” John responded softly. “Get some rest. You’ve

  earned it.”

  LXXVII.

  THE slowest week in the history of the world followed their meeting with John and Thierry. Shawn and Thiago were kept apart and each forced to have four more

  meetings to relate what happened during their time with the Six, as the group was now officially called.

  After John and Thierry were both satisfied with what they told them, they

  transferred Shawn and Thiago from the Facility, which was nothing more than a

  military bunker in the wilds of New Zealand, to what was simply called the Estate.

  They had only been there for three days, and Thiago already found himself going

  slowly crazy.

  The Estate was a huge, ostentatious place the French locals thought belonged

  to a wealthy oil baron. It was luxury at its finest, and Thiago was beginning to hate every inch of it. The Organization used it for all kinds of different things; meetings, missions, training, and spying on its own spies. Thiago wasn’t stupid, he knew John sent them here under the guise of giving them a well-earned rest, only to be able to keep them under a watchful eye for that much longer.

  Thiago sighed miserably and opened his eyes. He sat on the great stone

  veranda, looking out over the vast expanse of green that led to the well-tended forest beyond, and drank every ounce of alcohol he’d been able to scavenge.

  After six months of having at least one companion, he was growing

  heartbreakingly lonely. He kept the hell away from Shawn for obvious reasons, and Shawn was the only other human there. They sent all the se
rvants away by asking,

  sweet-talking, and threatening them all in turn, and they were left to their own

  devices. The entire house was bugged and wired and probably had cameras every two feet, anyway, so what did it matter if they were there all by themselves?

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  Thiago was angry with himself for entirely too many reasons. Shawn had

  fooled him. Completely and utterly fooled him, and Thiago mourned Remy’s death

  just as he mourned the loss of his lover and his five only friends. If he had had any inkling of Shawn’s deception, he might have been able to save Remy. And if he had any brains or self-control, he wouldn’t have said the things he had said to Gray in their last minutes together. He would have told him he loved him. He would have

  gone with him when Gray asked him to.

  His was going to be a lonely existence from here on out, if he lived much

  longer. Not that he didn’t deserve what he was getting; not by any means did Thiago think his fate unfair. It still sucked, though.

  A shadow fell across his lap as he sat feeling sorry for himself, and he

  looked down at it in confusion for several long seconds before squinting up at the source.

  “Christ, Thiago, how long have you been out here?” Shawn asked in

  exasperation.

  “Long enough that I think I may have pissed myself,” Thiago answered as

  Shawn knelt beside him. “Twice.”

  “You’ve drunk all our liquor,” Shawn said disapprovingly.

  “That I have,” Thiago agreed readily as he shifted away from Shawn. He

  searched his inebriated brain for something to say to the other man. “Have you been down to the wine cellar?” he finally asked desperately. “This place has its own

  fucking vineyard,” he said in an impressed voice. Being drunk helped to alleviate the sense of unease Shawn caused, now that Thiago knew of his treachery.

  Shawn sighed heavily and leaned his elbows on Thiago’s thigh. “Are you too

  drunk to ride a horse?” he asked sadly.

  “A what?” Thiago asked in surprise.

  “A horse, Thi. Surely you’ve been to the stables on your drunken forays?”