by Scott, Kylie
“Not my purposes. Your purposes. I was trying to give you the relationship you wanted. Something safe. Normal.”
“Give me your gun.” I hold out my hand. “I’m going to shoot you.”
“Betty—”
“Give me your gun.”
“I’m not going to let you shoot me. Calm down.”
“I don’t want to calm down.” So. Much. Rage. “Not only was the relationship fake, but you deliberately gave me bad sex! You’re a monster.”
He gives me a side glance. “I was trying to keep things realistic, believable. I was trying to meet what I thought were your expectations.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, expect to be smothered if you ever try to sleep next to me again.” I straighten in the seat, staring out the windshield. “I can’t even…there’s a special level of hell for you, buddy.”
“I gave you what you wanted. You said that’s what you wanted.”
“What?” I felt like my head was about to explode. “When? When did I ever say to you that I would prefer the worst sex possible?”
“Not to me. To Jen. Before our first date. You said to her that you were sick of pining for Prince Charming. That something safe and good and comfortable would do.”
“You were tapping my phone? Listening to my private conversations?”
“I needed to know you weren’t going to be a security risk.”
There are no words. I just glare at him.
“I tried to be a good boyfriend to you. A good fiancé.”
“No, you didn’t. You did the least amount of work possible to keep me pacified. Big difference, Thom. Big. Huge.” I will not cry. I refuse to show weakness. At least I didn’t expect the truth to actually fix anything. Yay me for being less naive. “Thank God.”
“What?”
“Thank God I raised my expectations high enough to realize I deserve better.”
To this, he apparently again has nothing to say. Just as well.
“For so long, I thought it was me. That I wasn’t pretty enough or smart enough or…just enough for you in general.”
“Betty.” His mouth opens, then closes again. “That’s crazy.”
Heart sore, I shake my head. “Just drive.”
We drive north for hours. Thom is basically a machine. Like some killer robot sent from the future to fuck up my love life. Clearly the world would have been doomed if I orgasmed more than once a month, so the fate of humanity depended on this machine coming back and not getting the job done. Asshat.
His gaze is constantly moving between the road, the rearview mirror, me, and cars approaching on the driver’s side. Guess he’s watching to see if we’re being followed. Also he may be slightly concerned I’m going to throw myself out of the moving vehicle in an attempt to get away from him. And I would; I’m angry enough. But it probably wouldn’t end well for me personally. After being thrown about by yesterday’s explosion, I hurt enough without adding further injuries. So instead, I ignore him with all the pent-up rage I have in me and mostly nap.
We drive until refilling the tank necessitates a stop that afternoon somewhere in northern California. It’s a small, desolate, off-the-highway gas station. Junk food, come to me. I haven’t eaten in forever. We did stop about an hour back so I could pee behind a tree, since Thom’s gone well beyond cautious and is sliding straight into outright paranoid territory when it comes to his concerns about people seeing us. Along with keeping up the constant vigilance, he swapped out the SIM card in his cell, crushing the old beneath his boot heel. Apparently his cell also has a program to check for trackers so he’s sure the SUV is safe. And I know he’s packing all sorts of weaponry beneath his clothes.
“Thank God; I’m starving.” I move to open my car door, but before I can, Thom grabs my arm. “What?”
“Please stay in the car. I’ll get you whatever you want.”
“Why? There’s no one else here but you, me, and the woman behind the counter. I highly doubt she’s the least bit interested in us.”
“Because even a dump like this is going to have security cameras that can be hacked and used to find us.”
As much as I’d like to get out and stretch my legs, he’s making sense again. Dammit. So I slump back against the seat. “Fine. Get me one of everything.”
“Will do.”
Thom grabs a baseball cap out of the back of the car and puts it on before stepping out. Head down, he avoids giving anyone or any camera a clear visual of his face. He skulks, yet makes it seem normal somehow. Just a man going about his business, nothing to see here. Inside, he fills up a basket before heading up to the counter to pay the bored-looking middle-aged lady at the register. Even then, he moves with an easy everyday swagger, behaving in as uninteresting a fashion as possible. It’s quite the performance. The slouch in his back reducing his height and the slump of his shoulders declaring him another harmless slacker passing through.
No wonder he had me fooled for so long. This man is a veritable wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“You’re a natural,” I say as he climbs back in the car, handing over my bag of junk food.
“Hmm?”
“The way you move and behave and everything. So sneaky.”
He turns on the engine, reaching over to grab the bag of Swedish Fish.
“Where did you learn it?”
His glances at me. “I’m not supposed to talk about that, Betty.”
“Yeah, but I figure if you’re right about us being stuck together for the foreseeable future—”
“Which, unless you’d prefer being dead, I am.”
“Let me finish talking,” I say. “Once we get through this, if we survive, I’m sure you can figure out a way to pacify your bosses while ensuring we spend as little time in each other’s company as possible. You’re a clever and cunning dude. It comes with the job territory, right? So we get your organization off our backs and live separate lives. See other people. Have our emotional and sexual needs met elsewhere.”
“You’re planning on cheating on me?”
I shrug. “Is it really cheating, though?”
The look he gives me is flat and unfriendly.
“Or,” I continue, “you can start talking.”
“Me talking is going to fix things?”
“Not even remotely.” My laughter is completely without humor. “But here and now, we could maybe get along just enough to almost be friendly.”
“Remind me: What’s in this for me again?”
“Are you actually telling me you want to resurrect our relationship in some form?” I cock my head. “Seriously?”
The smallest of shrugs.
“That’s honestly the best you can manage? And you wonder why I was leaving you, with such stellar communication skills as that. Wow.”
“C’mon, Betty—”
“You know, you’re the one who dragged me into this mess,” I say, well and truly cranky now. “Basically, you talking would be a start toward attaining a little forgiveness and building some small level of trust between us…assuming you’re interested in that sort of thing.”
Nothing from Thom. Perhaps he’ll get sick of me and kill me himself. After all, what do I know about this man really?
“Isn’t it nice, having me all compliant and agreeable?” I ask.
“Isn’t it nice, riding in comfort instead of being bound and gagged in the trunk of the car?”
What an utter and absolute douche-canoe. And this is about when I see it. “Holy shit. A man is robbing the gas station.”
“Is he?” Thom doesn’t even turn to look. “Car’s bulletproof. We’re fine.”
“Yes, but the woman behind the counter isn’t. Oh my God, do something!”
He cocks his head. “Betty, we’re trying to stay under the radar. Crimes like this happen all the time. She’s handing over the money. He’s not going to shoot her.”
“You can’t know that for sure.”
“What I do know is, if I go in there and spook him, odds a
re someone gets hurt.”
Inside the station, the woman is pushing the cash and packets of cigarettes across the counter. She’s crying and shaking. The robber stuffs all of the assorted loot into the pockets of his sweatpants and hoodie.
“Oh, this is horrible.”
“See, he’s leaving without a shot being fired.”
“That poor woman. She might lose her job. I wonder if she even has medical insurance. You’d have to get post-traumatic stress disorder from something like this, right?”
The heaviest of sighs comes from the man in the driver’s seat. “Put your seat belt on,” he orders. “Now.”
I do as told.
Thom swears under his breath. His eyes are locked on mine, but suddenly the SUV jumps forward, tires screeching as he suddenly slams on the brake.
We don’t hit the robber. Or at least, I didn’t think we did, but he is on the ground screaming, so obviously something happened.
The driver’s side door is flung open, hitting something with a dull thud. I think it was the gunman’s head. Then Thom steps out, grabs the pistol out of the bad guy’s hand, before settling himself back into the car.
“Is he dead?”
“No,” says Thom. “I just ran over his foot and knocked him out. Couple of broken bones and a concussion. The lady at the counter is already calling the cops. She’ll get the cash back, and he’ll be fine. It’ll be educational for him.”
Huh.
With more squealing of wheels, we take off. Guess Thom wants as much distance between us and the gas station as possible.
“A couple of broken bones and a concussion?” My stomach turns queasily at the thought. “That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“Ouch,” I say. “Still, thank you for not being a complete sociopath.”
“You’re welcome. But we can’t save everyone, okay?”
“Okay.”
In all honesty, I’m kind of stunned. He did a nice thing, sort of. Used his powers for good instead of evil. Maybe he’s not too far removed from the basically kind and ethically moral person I thought he was. Only, there’re still all the lies and bad sex to be considered. His willingness to waste my life on a fake relationship to keep his cover intact. So yeah, not very deep down, I kind of still hate his guts and want to shoot him.
“Like I told you, I came up in the foster system,” he says, tossing a Swedish Fish into his mouth and chewing. “Spent most of my time running wild, getting into and out of trouble. Eventually they’d get sick of me and pass me on to the next foster home. No one really cared what I did.”
I always figured this aspect of his background accounted for his being somewhat emotionally stunted. A loveless childhood is bound to leave its mark. And I hate thinking of him being alone. My family has its foibles, though there’s affection there too. We care about each other. I tried to give this to Thom, but he proved remarkably resistant to any and all exchange of feelings. At least now I know why. Not only did his childhood suck, but he was probably trained to go without. I can only imagine that forging bonds, having actual feelings about people, makes it harder to disappear when the job is done. Had to make it harder to kill.
“Enlisted in the army first chance I got, turned out I was good at something after all. Kept myself out of trouble and worked hard,” he continues. “Worked my way up to Ranger before I got tapped for this. Thought I was trying out for Delta, but it was not.”
“You’re not in the military anymore?”
“Nope. This is closer to what you’d call private-sector work. No government oversight. Private funding.”
“What’d they do to you?”
“Put me through the damn wringer. Made the training I’d had up until then look like a joke.”
I nod, turning all of the information over inside my head. “But you’re the good guys, right? You’re trying to make things better?”
“Yes, Betty. Trying.”
“In what ways?”
Now he’s really frowning. “All sorts of things. Stopping terrorists, dealing with hostage situations, trying to prevent genocides, tracing nukes, obstructing arms trades. Basically cutting the heads off snakes.”
Sounds like he’s fighting the good fight. But I still wish I could read him. I used to think I could, but now I know I don’t have a clue. In this current situation, he has all the power. I’m pretty much along for a ride that might wind up killing me. One that I have no foreseeable way of getting out of. Being so dependent on someone sucks. But then, everything about this pretty much does. “And that’s the truth…what you just told me?”
“Yes, that’s the truth. We’re not always successful, but we try.”
The only thing I can do right now is wait and see. “Okay.”
CHAPTER THREE
“So you’ve been trained in espionage-type stuff?”
“Define stuff,” he says.
“Obviously, you’ve got your Boy Scout badge for lying and manipulating.”
“Obviously,” he agrees. “Though we tend to call it establishing and maintaining cover. Executing surveillance. It sounds nicer that way. More polite.”
“Hmm. What else have you earned badges in?” I ask, turning in the seat again. All the better to see him. Somehow he seems more alive to me now. Just more, in general. Maybe I’m finally dealing with the real Thom as opposed to a weak facsimile of the man.
“Ah, infiltration, identity theft…all of your usual types of trickery and deceit. The skillset is generally labeled combat and counterintelligence skills.”
“And do you have gadgets? Do you carry, like, a bug out bag?”
He gives me side eyes.
“You know what I mean, Thom. What normal people have in case of a zombie apocalypse? Or in your case, being caught doing spy-type activities.”
“Do normal people really prepare for a zombie apocalypse? That’s the question…”
“Reality television says yes.”
He makes a low humming noise. “To answer your question, I have an operational bag. But there are a few things I also always carry on me in case of emergencies.”
“Such as?”
A slightly pained expression crosses his face. Information’s a valued commodity in his world and here I am forcing him to hand it over for no payoff at all. I almost feel sorry for the guy. “A razor blade, handcuff key, bobby pin…stuff like that I’ve pretty much always got on me.”
“Why a bobby pin? Emergency hair malfunction?”
“Sure, it could be used for that. Though I tend to utilize it more for getting out of zip ties.”
“Huh. I know you love your man bag, but I’ve never actually seen you with any of those other things.”
“That’s because they’re hidden in my clothing, the hem of my shirt or pants, tongue of my shoe, in my belt and such. Our operations are called clandestine for a reason.”
I shake my head. “Wow. Your world is weird.”
“I can see how it would seem that way to you. But it’s pretty much all I’ve ever known.”
Interesting. “I guess you can acclimatize to anything given enough time.”
“Guess so.”
Earlier, we stopped and swapped our license plates with some others stored in the back of the SUV, making it a little harder for anyone who heard about the scene at the gas station to trace us. My ass aches from sitting in the vehicle for so long. But at least I’m still in one piece.
Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, we turned off the highway. Now we’re heading into the hills and wilderness and I don’t know what. “Are you going to kill me and dump my body out here among all of this natural splendor?”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“Oh, good. Hang on, do you have any other fiancées or families I should know about?” I frown. Not a nice thought. Things are confusing enough as is. “Do you?”
“Of course not.”
I narrow my eyes on him.
“I’m telling the truth,” he says, sounding mild
ly put out at being questioned. Guess he’s not used to it from me. He takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Anyway, I couldn’t even keep you convinced long term. How the hell would I have managed convincing others too? Relationships, real or otherwise, are apparently not my forte.”
“But you’ve had girlfriends before me, right?”
This time he gives me a long look. Long enough to make me worry about us driving off the road and hitting a tree. But we don’t. For all of his uselessness as a boyfriend, he handles the vehicle with precision.
“No,” he finally answers. “I haven’t.”
“Boyfriends?”
“None of them either.”
My brows rise. I can feel them inching up toward my hairline, about to disappear at any moment.
“Generally, I was doing my best not to get shot, stabbed, or blown up at home and abroad. My priorities were elsewhere,” he says. “Wasn’t in the right head space in high school, I didn’t have time for relationships once I enlisted, and work has kept me busy and on the move since.”
“But you got tired of having no one to come home to.”
He nods. “That’s what I said.”
“Guess we have that in common. It’s amazing, isn’t it? We have this modern world where we’re all so connected and yet we’re all still so lonely.” Social media does not happiness make. I know that much. “Didn’t you want to get real with someone, though? Instead of just going through the motions?”
“I don’t think telling someone you steal, lie, and kill for a living would go over so well on a first date.”
“Yeah, but we were going to get married. That’s a bit beyond first-date territory, Thom.”
He sighs. “I was trying to protect you.”
Outside the window, redwoods flash by. “If you haven’t got honesty in a relationship then what the hell do you have? All of it was nothing more than a lie.”
“A lie that kept you safe.”
“Except it didn’t, did it?”
He rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck.
“I find it hard to believe you’ve never been in any sort of romantic relationship before. Haven’t you at least done the preliminaries? Taken someone on a date?” I ask. “Not as part of your work, but just for company?”