"After a year, the last thing I want to do is leave you be, Claire."
I froze as the firm familiar voice cut through the cold air.
It was impossible; it had to be a trick or a daydream born out of my constant insomnia. I shook my head, closing my eyes as my heart begged me to look. That it knew it was her voice and it was real. "It's just a dream." I whispered it to the air around me. I had watched her die in front of me on that operating room. Erich confirmed it. Then I watched the explosion claim the both of them, leaving only tiny flecks of their DNA for us to mourn. There was no possible way she was alive. It was just my imagination begging me to feel something again.
The crunching footsteps came to a halt right next to me. I could see out the corner of my eye, tall brown boots with dark blue jeans tucked in the tops. A far cry from the usual baggy ones Davidek had taken to wearing lately as he adopted his farmhand fashion style.
"I'm not a dream. I'm real, Claire, I'm alive." That voice, her voice choked at my heart. Making me take in a short gasp of air. I had missed the sound of my name coming from her mouth. The way it sounded when it was just the two of us in the morning. So full of love.
"Look at me, Claire, please." I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head. I stood up to walk away from whatever my tired broken brain was hallucinating. When a hand fell to my arm, gripping me gently and pulling me to open my eyes. I resisted until her warm hand fell across my cheek. Too warm to be a dream, too soft to be Davidek's or anyone else’s. It was her hand, the same one I dreamt about a hundred times over the last year. Holding my cheek like it was now, or clutching at my stomach as we slept, or holding my hand tightly as we walked or just sat next to each other reading.
Leaning into it out of habit, I started to cry as I opened my eyes to look right in her hazel ones that were very much alive and sparkling as she looked at me. Tears falling down her face as she grinned so wide, the dimples appeared, choking my heart.
I covered my mouth with my hand, trying to hold back the sob. I dropped my hand, breathing hard as I uttered her name for the first time in a year, "Kit."
She nodded, "Yes?"
I fell apart, letting the sobs out and falling into her strong arms as I buried my face in her chest. Pressing my ear against her heart. Listening to it beat like only hers did when I was this close. I sobbed, wrapping my arms around her waist and holding her close. She was real, alive. I didn't know how it was possible, but in this minute I didn't care. Kit was finally back in my arms. The rest could wait a few more minutes.
Chapter 32
"Claire..."
Hearing her soft whisper threw me back into reality. Panic replaced the consuming joy that I initially reacted on. Panic that always followed when I thought of one name.
Halston.
This could be Halston, upping her disguises. It had to be Halston. Kit couldn't be alive. This was all a morbid ruse to drop my guard and then attack.
I took a few hard steps back, pushing her arms out of the way so I could continue to back up and away from Kit or this perfect Kit disguise. Shaking my head, wiping away the tears, "It's a trick." I jammed a hand into my pocket for the small key chain Davidek had given me the second day at the farmhouse. I could press the small unlock button on the non-descript set of car keys and set off a panic alarm. Sending half of the Russian mafia down on us in seconds. "Why can't you leave me be, Meredith?" I wanted to look away, but the fact that it looked so much like the woman I missed every day, it was hard. My heart and eyes didn't want to go anywhere but closer to her.
Kit held her hand up, not reaching for me but asking for me to calm down, "No, Claire. It's not a trick. I'm not Halston or anyone else." She motioned with a nod back to the house. "Davey, he knows it's me. We can ask him together." She stepped closer, a smile on even as her brow furrowed in sadness.
I held the panic button in my palm, my thumb hovering over the padlock symbol, still shaking my head, "I watched you die. The surgery failed…the explosion." I choked off my own words, looking away from Kit. I couldn't bear to look at this woman in this elaborate disguise any longer. Bear to look at the woman I loved and lost being used again by a woman who was a master of disguise and knew every little aspect of my life, inside and out. I couldn't trust anyone or anything, including what my heart was begging me to believe.
Kit stepped closer to me, her hazel eyes glinting in the afternoon light. They were brown, not the torturous dead blue of Halston and the others. It could be contacts, a transplant surgery, I couldn't trust anything about Halston other than the fact she was insane enough to do literally everything extreme to get as close as possible to me. "Claire, it's me. I promise you, it's me. Kit." She dropped her hand and stopped moving, her eyes never leaving mine even as I refused to look at them. "I can prove it to you."
I chuckled morbidly, "I am sure you can, you have followed me since I was a teenager. You know everything about me, my family, my experiences at college and all of my relationships." I clenched my jaw as the anger began to rise, "What the fuck do you have to tell me that I don't already know or can prove to me that you are the woman I watched die by my hand and then get swallowed up by an explosion. Am I supposed to believe that some grand miracle saved you and brought you back to me?"
I shook my head, holding up the panic button, "Either do what you came here to do." I pressed the panic button sending the silent alarm off, "Or die in the snow at the hands of fifty very overprotective large Russian men."
Kit looked over her shoulder as the sound of large trucks rolling up at the end of the long driveway, with a lone set of steps running towards us in the snow. She looked back at me, her eyes full of conviction, "That day in the car on the way back to the Malibu house from the zoo event, I told you a story about my grandpa and his love for Johnny Cash. You remember?" Kit took a step closer to me, raising her eyebrows as my throat tightened. "We kissed for the third time in the car and from that moment on, I knew you were my June. That I would never able to live without you or want to live without you, Claire."
She let out a gradual breath, "I came back to you as fast as I could."
I felt my breath hitch, hearing the things only my Kit would know. There was no one else in the car or my bedroom during the moments she just spoke of.
Kit kept moving closer to me, smiling weakly hoping I would accept the small bits she was handing out as evidence that it was not a disguise. Just a pure unexplainable miracle standing before me. I couldn't move. My heart telling me one thing while my gut and mind were hesitant to believe anything. The last year and a half had been proof of that.
Kit swung her head around just as Davidek came over the small hill, panting with his gun out. He looked up at me, "Claire! Are you okay? What's going on?"
I held up my hand with the panic button still pressed deeply into my palm, "She says she is Kit...but..."
I took a step back, so overpowered by the million different emotions, I fell silent. Davidek came to a stop next to Kit, looking between her and I. He sighed profoundly, "Kit, go in the house. W’ll meet you in the kitchen a minute." He returned to meet my eyes, "I canceled the boys."
Kit hesitated, looking at me with a painful but understanding look, she nodded turning to go back to the farmhouse. "Tell her Davey, please." She smiled tightly one more time before turning around and walking over the hill and back to the house.
When she was out of my sight, I let out a breath. My hands shook as I covered my face, trying to maintain some composure when Davidek's feet crunched closer in the snow. "Claire, it's Kit." His hand clasped around my elbow to prevent me from walking away. He looked at me with bright copper eyes. Eyes that had not been that bright in a long time, "I know it's confusing, shocking and unbelievable, but, trust me. It's her."
Davidek moved his arm to sit under mine, steadying me, "Let's go back in the house before you turn into an ice cube. There's a lot all of us have to talk about." He tried to smile for my benefit.
I dropped my eyes to the snow, "If
this is real, and she is real, why didn't she come back sooner?" I took a slow, shaky breath in through my nose, "What if I don't know what to feel for her anymore?" I looked in his eyes with complete brutal honesty. There was another fifty or so questions swirling in my head, it had been a year. A long painful year where I slowly died every day she was gone. All because of what she had accomplished, we had accomplished in the short time we were together.
Kit had opened my heart up like no one ever had before. Peeling back the layers of thick skin I had been born with and never could find anyone who penetrated it. Then I lost her, and my world stopped. My heart curled up deeper in my chest begging me to shut down with it so we could both stop feeling everything. From the immense love Kit and I found, to the debilitating pain of losing the one true love of my life.
Davidek leaned into me, wedging his hand into mine, "You will know the answer better than any of us, Claire." He glanced at me as we walked closer to the farmhouse, "Just know, Kit is real and she has been brought back to us." He turned back to the look ahead.
I stared at the side of his head, not knowing if he was right. What if I didn't know the answer?
I stood in the large kitchen of the farmhouse. Arms folded and pacing nervously. I wanted to throw up, cry, rip a car apart with my bare hands, anything to channel out all of the anxious energy swimming in my veins. Another downside of my new state. I was always full of energy and my see sawing emotions increased the amount of energy I felt. When I was happy I felt like I was floating, angry I felt like I could tear down solid steel walls. I had almost ruined Erich's old truck a handful of times when I grew frustrated with my inability to move my legs faster than a weak hobble.
The look in Claire's eyes stung, the confusion and distrust. I couldn't blame her, especially after the hell Halston had put her through. Threatening everyone who came close to her and killing the two people she felt the most for. I wanted to grab her again when she backed off, hold her against my chest and stay like that. I hoped the things I told her to get her to believe it was me, would sink in and take hold in the woman, but there was so much hurt and distrust, that I wasn't sure if it would be enough.
I backed off against my will, when Davey asked me to go inside. I had to, I couldn't stand to see Claire confused and hurt, but I also couldn't stand that she was afraid of me.
I huffed pacing past the large wooden kitchen table with the remnants of breakfast spread out. A crinkled Russian newspaper, a plate dotted with bits of dried egg and a lone toast crust. The still steaming cup of coffee in a black mug with Stalin's face wearing 3D glasses on it. I could smell everything clearly, down to the kind of coffee beans used to make the coffee. I scrunched my face up, my stomach rolling at the sudden pangs of hunger. I had skipped dinner and breakfast to get to Claire and now I was paying for it.
I went to reach for the sad last bite of toast, and was interrupted by the sound of the back door creaking open. I could hear Davey's loud steps followed by softer ones. I sucked in a breath, halted my pacing to try and smile. Davey smiled at me as he set his gun down on the white granite countertop next to the sink, "Coffee?" He motioned to the empty plate, "I can make us some breakfast if you two are interested."
I nodded, "Coffee would be great." I caught Claire's eyes when she came in the door. She looked at me quickly then dropped her head down. "Breakfast sounds even better, Davey. I haven't eaten since yesterday afternoon when I left Erich's cabin."
Claire's eyes flicked back up when she heard his name, forcing her to stop pulling off the thick grey coat, "Erich is alive too?"
I smiled a little more, "He is, yes. Back in Geneva on the outside edges of the city. Ivan can confirm it as well." I took the hot mug of coffee from Davey, wrapping my chilled hands around the warming ceramic.
Claire stood motionless, her eyes crinkling at the edges as she looked away and took off her coat fully. Turning to the small coat rack next to the door, she went to hang it up. That's when I took notice of how different Claire looked.
She was dressed in her usual V-neck t-shirt with an old blue button open cardigan hanging open. Claire was thinner, much thinner than I had ever seen her. She had always been lean and athletic, now she looked almost frail even though she was still the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, Claire looked unwell. Her collarbones poking out prominently as she went to pull her hair back in a ponytail. Even her perfectly fitted jeans seemed to drape off her hips. I had to suck in a slow breath to prevent from gasping or saying anything. Davey was right when he said she had changed. It dug at my heart and gut that I had not tried harder to get back to her, instead leaving her to suffer and fade away.
Claire looked up at me, her blue green eyes sad. Long gone was the sparkle, replaced by a dullness of barely living. For a second we stared at each other. I waited, waited to see even the tiniest flicker of the old Claire.
She looked away before anything appeared when Davey asked her if she would like some tea. "I don't need anything, Davidek." She folded her arms and moved to the opposite side of the table, keeping her head down; Claire leaned against a small table full of plates and cups. "If you are Kit, how did you survive, how did Erich survive?" She flicked her eyes up to me, "And how do I know for certain you are who you say you are?"
Her tone was full of the Senator. Another hard fact that she was still hesitant to believe I was standing in the same room with her and not hiding under a mask. I set the coffee down on the table and walked to my coat, Claire watched me, followed me with her eyes, so I moved slowly. As I reached into the front pocket for the small notebook Erich had sent me here, and spoke, "My survival was a combination of a miracle and science."
I pulled out the small notebook, looking up to meet her eyes, "Erich saved my life, yes, but it was you, Claire who truly saved it. Saved it in so many ways." I stopped as my voice began to waver; I had to stay strong until I had proved enough to Claire. "In the back cover are the DNA profiles that will prove it's me. We had Ivan run my blood yesterday before I left so I had hard proof that it was me, Caitriona Witmer, not Halston or another one of her bees. He also pulled my DNA profile from my old sealed Secret Service personnel file, my bloodwork from my doctor. It's all there." I waved the notebook in my hand. "The hard science evidence along with the things I would only know about you, Claire."
I set the notebook on the table, pushing it towards her with two fingers, "But, yes. I did die. Clinically dead as I lay on that table and my body gave up faster than the new organs could handle. Erich tells me I was dead for approximately twenty minutes until the explosion." I watched Claire for any reaction.
There was none, she stood still, eyes locked on the notebook. Davey moved to sit in the chair next to me. He was visibly trying to hold back from crying as I continued on. "The explosion that separated us, saved us. Erich was thrown back into the cooler with me in his arms. When a large piece of concrete fell on us, he used and sacrificed his arm to keep it from falling on me. The cooler where you kept the extra serums toppled over and acted as a shield. While Erich tried to free his arm, some of the concentrated serum needles landed into my back. When Erich finally removed his arm, he fell on my body, effectively pushing the plungers on the needles."
I paused, raising my hands to grip the back of the chair in front of me, "The mix of the two serums. The one in the needles and the one you created specifically for me, combined to create a super serum and gave my body the extra kick to bring it back to life long enough for the new organs to live."
I looked over at Davey, who was chewing on his bottom lip and running a hand over his thick, but neatly trimmed beard. He smiled tightly, looking over at Claire who still had yet to make a move. Only continuing to stare at the black leather cover of the notebook.
I let out a soft breath, "Erich carried me out of the Centre through a second escape tunnel. He was able to drive us to one his private cabin on the far outskirts of the town, where he spent six months taking care of me while I slept and the weaker serums he harvested d
id their job." I clenched my jaw to fend off the tears, "I woke up and couldn't walk, my body had changed, healed, and morphed into something completely different. It took me until two months ago to walk and control my body in this new state."
I let go of the chair, motioning to the notebook, "It's all in there Claire. Erich kept a detailed journal of my progress." I looked up at her, silently begging she would finally look up at me or say something. "You did it, Claire. All of your life's work has come to fruition and I am standing in front of you as proof."
"Proof of what." Claire's voice was barely above a whisper.
I smiled weakly at the sound of her voice. I walked around the table to stand closer, "It's all in the notes, Claire, but I am proof that you are able to create the perfect human. The two serums unlocked my DNA and recoded it all as you dreamt of." I reached back, grabbing the notebook to hand over to Claire. I was a few inches away from her, "When I woke up, you were the first person I thought of. I wanted to come to you..."
"Then why didn't you." Claire cut me off with a harsh voice, she drew her eyes up to me. Glassy with a single tear rolling free from each one. The look she gave me was dripping with pain and anger.
I took another slow breath in, "I couldn't. We didn't know where you were. Erich couldn't find you without a large Russian threatening to break his nose off. Then we heard about Halston raiding the townhouse and the Malibu house. He and I were afraid that if she and everyone else knew we were alive and what I had become, it would be worse for you." I went to reach for her, "I had to wait until I could walk and heal completely to even think about searching you out. It wasn't safe."
Claire laughed, shaking her head, "And so you decided to let me suffer and die instead?" She dropped her arms, turning away from me, "It wasn't safe? You were my fucking bodyguard Kit." She gave me a hard broken look, "Your whole mission in life was to keep me safe, no matter what the threat." I saw her swallow hard as she looked away, "I died that day with you, Kit." Claire choked the words out before covering her mouth to hide the sobs from me as she rushed out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
Redemptio Animae Page 88