by Lola Feri
I didn't ask Garrett's permission, and he didn't give it to me. Instead, I circled around the pool hall, finally coming to a spot where I could pry the window open and slither in. I move quietly when I want to, and as I made my way through the trashed interior, I listened for any sign of Szlacty. For a brief moment, I thought I had fucked up after all, and that he had moved on faster than I thought he could.
Then I heard a clatter of wood as he tried to move something big above me, and a Romanian curse. I narrowed my eyes and slowed my breathing before making my way up the stairs. He wasn't listening for me so that was an advantage, but I had been on details involving the man before. He was as mean as a snake, and he fought like one when he was cornered.
“There is a team on its way to your location, approaching from the north and south,” Garrett said calmly in my ear. I had never thought handlers could be a comfort in a situation like this, usually they were just a pest to be patted aside as soon as I thought I could get away with it. Instead, I let go of a silent breath of relief.
For a moment, I thought Garrett might tell me to stand down until the team got there, but it was clear he knew the same thing about the houses in this neighborhood. I made my way through the house, strangely comforted by the fact that Garrett was watching everything from my earpiece. He was seeing everything that I was seeing. He had my back.
Before I crested the head of the stairs, I paused to listen to what was happening. I heard Szlacty swear again, shoving something heavy out of his way and causing it to thud to the ground. Then a door opened, and closed, and after a brief peek to make sure he hadn't spotted me and was trying to draw me out, I followed him. There had been old boxes stacked in front of the door, and I worked my way around them, careful not to disturb them again. The windows, plastered over with thick dust, kept the room dim. There was no light coming around the edges of the door, and when I tried it, the latch turned easily enough.
“You're entering the house south of the one you initially found,” Garrett said in my ear. “Backup has been appraised of your appearance and your location.”
Safe, he was trying to keep me safe. Christ, I didn't have time for the way my stomach turned over again. When I cracked open the door just slightly, I was faced with a dusty attic. It was wide, but it was also mostly empty. Across the way, the door had been nailed shut; the only way out of the room otherwise was an equally untouched window and a set of stairs going down. I hesitated for a moment and then I headed for the stairs.
“I'm heading down,” I whispered tersely, and I heard Garrett pull in his breath. For him, it was as good as a plea to be careful. He understood I would need all of my concentration, all of my attention. It was enough knowing he was going to be watching along with me.
A strange thought occurred to me, if I bit it, he was going to have to watch. The idea of my death really didn't bother me all that much, it hadn't for a while, but my heart ached at the idea of it causing Garrett suffering.
The stairway was incredibly dim with a door at the bottom of it. There were lights on beyond the door, and I felt my nerves crank up a bit when I realized there was more than one. I bit my lip. I might be reckless, but I wasn't an idiot. There was no way I could control a room of that size by myself, and as if in answer to the question I hadn't asked, Garrett spoke up again.
“Backup arriving in two minutes. Maintain your position and make sure no one gets by you,” he murmured, and relieved, I nodded.
“Acknowledged.”
I waited behind in the door, my focus narrowed to what I could hear beyond it. The voices were raised in anger and confusion, never a good sign, but there was no panic. Then I heard the distinctive sound of a door being kicked in and then the panicked yells started. The strike force had hit hard, and right away I could tell they had subdued some of the inhabitants of the room. Then there was terribly familiar rat-a-tat-tat and my blood went cold.
Through the earpiece, I heard the surveillance room coming to the same conclusion I had. Someone in that room had something incredibly deadly. Fuck, fuck, fuck, this could go from an opportunity to a slaughter, and without waiting for confirmation from Garrett, I opened the door and dove through it.
I came out to a scene of chaos, the strike team and Szlacty's friends all tangled together. Then something happened and there was a white powder in the air, flying around in mad swirls and obscuring my vision entirely.
Through the powder, drywall? Flour? I made out the man with the goddamn automatic. I had a clear shot, but then someone trying to flee the scene knocked against me. I righted myself immediately, but the white flour had flurried up again. I kept my gun as steady as I could, but I had entirely lost sight of the shooter. I had to get closer. I couldn't…
“Take the shot!”
Garrett's voice in my ear was hard and sharp as steel. Without waiting for a second, without hesitating, I took the shot, my hands doing what they had been trained to do, the only thing I was ever good for. The thing I was made for.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Garrett
The next 24 hours were a blur. Of course there was cleanup, but that wasn't my problem or Ryland's. In the aftermath of the shootout, which miraculously had no deaths on our side, Ryland was collected by the transport team. Although I nearly broke protocol to join him, I stayed at my post for another few hours before I could be removed to the safe house. Once I was there, a place that was being shared with another handful of agents, I felt a rising tide of panic when I realized Ryland was nowhere to be seen.
Another handler looked at me with surprise when I demanded to know where my asset had disappeared to.
“There was a military transfer heading back to the states,” he said, looking at me somewhat nervously. “He hooked up with them, said that he was reporting in early.”
I gritted my teeth and then worked to try to make my expression a little more pleasant. The agents around me looked as if at any moment, I might turn around and tear their throats out. If I were being honest, that was how I felt. Of course Ryland had gotten rid of the earpiece. It wasn't like I could just speak up like the angel on his shoulder anymore.
I waited for a full 24. hours before arranging transport back to the states. The fact that I could find any information on Ryland at all throughout that time period was a testament to my skills and my connections. I found out when he had landed in the states. I learned that he had been debriefed by Farris himself. Those things were comforting after a fashion. They told me that Ryland had made it back, and that he was alive. That should have been all I needed. Even before the agency, Ryland wasn't helpless.
No, what was eating at me was the sense that he was beyond my grasp, that he had avoided me after the conclusion of the mission. There was something in me that was remorselessly searching for him, hunting for him. More than needing to know he was all right, I needed him beside me. I couldn't deal with being apart from him. One might call it romantic if they couldn't feel the desperate need that seemed to ratchet higher with every hour that I couldn't account for him.
The other agents stayed out of my way, only offering me congratulations on the finish of the op, and I offered them thin smiles and nods, because otherwise I would be shouting at them. Finally, I was on my way back home to the states. I slept a little on the plane, but my dreams woke me up. At least this time I didn't wake up shouting and disturbing the other passengers. They were all about me chasing Ryland, searching for him in the alleys of some city that I didn’t recognize.
I woke with a start just as dawn was pinking the sky outside the window.
“Subtle,” I muttered to myself.
***
I wasn't surprised to touch down and find a direct order to report to Farris. I shaved and showered at a hotel room at the airport before making my way to agency headquarters. Some part of me didn't want to go home without knowing that Ryland was there. His things were there, there was no reason to think he wasn't, but something inside me
told me if I went home, I wouldn't find him there.
Farris went through the bare bones of my report, all the way until the end. It was what he was driving at the whole time, and I stayed composed as he looked at me steadily.
“And then you told Cortez to take the shot.”
“Yes, sir. I had good angles on the other surveillance cameras and I knew that if he took it, he would drop the primary shooter.”
“Did he know that you recognized the shooter?”
“No, sir. I gave him no indication that I did.”
Farris gazed at me for another long moment, but I simply looked back. I wasn't some greenhorn he could rattle at will.
“Stunning coincidence isn't it, that your newest asset would be the one to take out one of the men responsible for the loss of your previous team.”
“It is,” I said, because it had been. When I had seen the man in front of me, one of those who had gotten away and had taken everything that mattered from me, I felt as if I had been thrown high in the air. I felt as if I was in some kind of space without time as I made sure that Ryland's shot was lined up, and when he took it, I could almost feel my finger on the trigger over his.
“Does Ryland know?”
“No, sir.”
Another pause. When Farris spoke again, his tone was clipped and perfunctory.
“Special Agent Cortez has performed in an exemplary fashion, showing that he can work with a team and work with his handler. He has been removed from probationary status, officially, but of course we will expect his handler, you and whoever comes after, to maintain detailed reports for his progress.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, letting out a breath that I wasn't even aware that I had been holding.
I left his office, and after a pause to keep myself from shaking, I headed to my work station. I hadn't actually been in my office all that much lately since starting to work with Ryland, and as I walked in, I felt a faint bit of distaste. I had been on desk duty for so long after my disaster that I couldn't help feel a certain amount of antipathy.
I pulled up Ryland's file and scowled.
The words next to his status were bland and uncommunicative: “conditional leave.”
He was gone, but he could be recalled as necessary. The length of absence was set for two weeks. I could wait it out. That would be the proper thing to do. It would be respectful.
I sat with that decision for about half a minute before I decided to disregard it. Instead, I set my own status and went downstairs to find an intel guy who owed me a favor.
There were probably thousands of more pleasant and kinder ways to put it, but at the end of the day, Ryland was mine, and if he thought he could get away from me, he was dead wrong.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ryland
What the fuck was I doing in Miami? I hated the heat, I hated the humidity, and even if I liked the ocean, I sure as hell wasn't going to get close to it with the tourist horde in full swing. It was the first plane ticket I could easily get. The minute Farris sprung me, I was out of the agency and moving fast.
I didn't have a plan, not even the start of one. All I wanted--all I needed—was to get away from everything for a little while, just to sort out my head. I've never had any problems with the ops that I've been on. I am not one of the guys who has to go off and have an emotional crisis every time he does a good job. I'm pretty sure I know what evil looks like, and I'm pretty sure that the agency is mostly on the side of good.
Instead, as I paced in the cruddy hotel room with the turquoise walls, it was Garrett I couldn't get out of my head. I was beginning to long for the days where I just fell asleep in the room across the hall from him, thinking about what it would be like to suck him off or to fuck him. That had been simple, easy.
Instead, now I was left with the command in his voice when he told me to take the shot, and how I had obeyed him without a moment's hesitation. Not one. The agency would tell you that that’s the way it was supposed to be, but I knew better. At the end of the day, I was on my own in that firefight. Garrett was safe in the surveillance room. That made all the difference. The way I had done his work without question, like I really was just a gun in his hand, freaked me out.
At the moment, I was an agent in good standing with the agency. I wasn't at any risk of getting bounced to prison, I had a fat paycheck in my account, and I could do what I liked. It pissed me off even more that the only thing I wanted to do was crawl back into Garrett's house, which I began thinking of as my house, and just sleep for a million years.
“All right, Cortez,” I said out loud. “Stop being such a goddamn sad sack of garbage.”
I locked the door behind me and descended down to street level. The sun had set, but I could still feel the heat of the sun radiating off the pavement, ready to burn. I hadn't chosen a room in a nice area. I grinned, ready to have some fun. If I had to make myself have fun, I would.
I hit one place and danced with a cute girl until her boyfriend showed up. Then at another place, I let a big guy paw me a little on the dance floor before letting him drag me to the back where he could paw me some more.
Just what I was looking for, I thought to myself, but that felt echoingly empty. The guy was big, broad and bulky, and he had the neat looks that screamed slumming white-collar asshole. There was a time not all that long ago where I would have blown him on principle and then sent the pictures to his wife, but that left me empty.
He snagged the waistband of my jeans in one finger, dragging me hard against him. I noted it the way I would a spent casing on the ground. Then he fumbled with my fly, trying to get his hands on me.
A wave of disgust hit me so hard that I nearly fell over, and then I pushed him back easily. He blinked at me stupidly as I did up my pants and turned to leave. I was only a little surprised when his heavy hand landed on my shoulder.
“Hey, you can't leave yet...”
His tone was wheedling, but I knew it would go to nasty fast if I let it. I grabbed his pinkie and turned around at the same time. He made a thin whistling noise through compressed hips, eyes bulging as he sagged to the ground.
“I can leave whenever I want,” I said, and I dropped him.
I took a cab back to my room. I was suddenly exhausted. All I wanted was to sleep and maybe when I woke up, I'd be a whole new me; someone who was capable of getting is goddamn act together.
My hand was on the doorknob when I realized I could hear someone stirring from inside the door. Of course, I had left my firearm in there. Of course I had.
I tensed, ready to back away and take cover before I turned around to figure out what was really going on, but then the door opened and my jaw dropped.
“Garrett?”
He looked like hell, frankly. He had gotten a change of clothes somewhere between Bucharest and getting back to the states, but there was a wild look in his eye and more stubble than I had ever seen on his face. It was the eyes that got me though. His eyes were almost wild for a moment, but the minute he figured out it was me, something in him eased back.
“Get the hell in here,” he growled, and not waiting for my answer, he wrapped his hand around my arm and pulled me. I would have killed just about anyone else for pulling that kind of shit, but it was Garrett, and I just let him do it, staring at him shocked.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him, seeing something furious and dangerous flash through his eyes.
“What the… Where did you go, Ryland? I make it to the safe house, and I find that you've gone ahead with a military transport. I get back stateside, and I find that you've taken leave.”
“Hey, I did what I was supposed to do,” I said stiffly. “Signed all the forms, debriefed, all that good shit. What more do you want from me?”
For a second, I thought he really was going to smack me, but instead, moving quicker than I thought he could, he dragged me to him and crushed his mouth against mine.
God, but it
felt so good. I had only been without him for a few days, but it was like my body was suffering a drought, and he was the water. The kiss was hard and punishing, showing me how much he wanted me and how angry he was for me leaving. I kissed him back just as hard, my hands scrabbling at his jacket and shirt. I was suddenly desperate to get his skin next to mine and to just make all of the fear and pain I'd held in my head for what felt like my entire life go away.
He clung to me for a minute, and when he felt my hands struggling with his belt, he pushed me back.
“What are you doing?” he asked as if he was genuinely baffled, and now I was staring at him.
“I assumed it was obvious.”
He shook his head, stepping back from me and shoving a distracted hand through his hair.
“No, we're... we're not doing that. Not until we talk about what the hell happened. Why you ran.”
I could feel my hackles rise at that. I wished he was still close enough so I could give him a shove, and then my eyes darted to the cane leaning against the corner, feeling guilty. Of course it only pissed me off more that I cared at all.
“I didn't do anything wrong,” I snapped. “I did the job, I did what you told me. I'm off probation, and I took some goddamn leave. What the hell is it to you?”
“What it is to me is that you deliberately kept me out of the loop,” he said through gritted teeth. “You chose to avoid me in Bucharest. You made sure you were long gone by the time I made it back. Why?”
“Because I was fucking sick and tired of you,” I said. It wasn't true. It was the opposite of true, but I didn't have to believe it.
“Really.”