Soul and Blade

by Tara Brown

  “Then he went to my place and took all his stuff.” I glance down, hating myself. “The sad thing is, I never even really learned anything. Other than that good Rory ended when he started the mind running. He was clean before that.”

  She sighs. “I know.” Her gray-blue eyes look riddled with guilt. “I never should have pushed him forward. Dash asked me not to and I didn’t listen. I said he was choosing the girl and I was choosing the guy and that was that. I trained the girls and he chose who to promote from the pile. Well, all that was left at the end of the pile was ya. So his choice was easy. For me Rory was the one because we had been carrying on. I saw him as a troubled young man and a brilliant agent. I never saw insane.”

  “Did you have an affair during the testing?”

  She nods, more shame filling her eyes. “Aye, we did. We’d had an affair from the very start. Second day in, we were hiding in the office supply room.”

  The room little Rory had showed me.

  “Did you regret it while dating or only after we discovered he was actually evil?”

  “Only when we discovered his hidden agenda. He’d been placed on special duty with the CIA and FBI, outside the operation we were running. His absences were fully explained. He never had an issue with his double life. I think he was the very example of what we were trying to avoid. He’s the sort of man who takes on the personalities of the people he’s inside.” Her eyes are like staring out at the sea on a gray day.

  “I’m sorry, Angie. I wish I’d known too. But I agree, I never saw anything that might have made me think he was doing what he was.”

  She shrugs. “He’ll be in jail the rest of his life now. And batshit crazy to go along with it.”

  I furrow my brow. “What?”

  “Oh aye, the president has deemed him no longer a person of use and has decided he will be dealt with in the military courts instead, totally sealed from the press and public. He will be placed in solitary and spend the rest of his days in the brig, I imagine. He never died from the coma, which would have been lucky for him.”

  I almost wince and I almost feel bad for not just killing him. But he would have killed me, we both know that. “That’s a terrible fate, sitting in a cell going crazy.”

  “Not one he didn’t bring upon himself.” She looks like she might be sick just talking about it. “The girls in those cells earned him this fate.”

  “Yup.” I don’t want to talk about it. I get up and drop cash on the table. “Well, I have the rest of my debriefing to endure still, with the ever-lovely El Presidente. He is making me go through even the smallest of details.”

  “Disturbing and yet thorough, I like it.” She gets up, leaving her coffee completely full. She hasn’t been the same since Rory was arrested, she might never be, but at least she’s amazing at faking it. “When is your last day?”

  “The moment I am freed from the debriefing. They will have me on standby, in case new things come up. But I am being allowed to either return to active duty or retire and come back to the program on contractor status. I will be part of the mind-running training as a teacher. I can come and go as I please, based on contracts I’ll have to renew every two months. In case it’s too much.”

  “Wow! They never even offered me that.”

  I crack a grin. “You left crying and cussing everyone out.”

  She snorts. “Aye, I did. Damned project from hell.”

  “How’s the new one going for you?”

  “Dull as balls, but I can do the same sort of schedule as a contractor. Come and go, and work when I need to. It’s all research at this level; they don’t have any trials up and running yet. They don’t even believe it’s one hundred percent possible.” That makes her laugh. Me too.

  I wrap my arms around her and breathe her in. “Message me when you get back to Scotland.”

  “Come and visit me.”

  I nod, actually contemplating that as a possibility. I haven’t been in ages and the idea of relaxing for a couple of weeks while pub-crawling with Angie is enticing.

  She pulls away and I catch a glimpse of the tears on her cheeks. “Kiss that bugger of a cat.”

  “I will.” I wave, but she doesn’t see me. She’s out the door before I can really get my hand up. I almost don’t trust the quickness of her pace—faster than she normally moves. I can’t help but question everything. How do I know that I’m really out of the run?

  Dash left. That’s how.

  It makes perfect sense. I prove his reasons for leaving every couple of minutes. Here I am standing in a coffeehouse wondering if what I saw my friend do was real or not.

  I fear that this will be the entirety of my life.

  I stroll out, moving slowly on purpose to see how it feels. People passing me on the street give me a weird look.

  I love the real world.

  When I get home that night, I am spent. I have gone over every second of my time spent in Rory’s head, including the forced blow job and the way I was excited about seeing the nuns from my childhood.

  It’s all surreal and confusing—there’s no way I can catch up.

  But the moment I get inside the house, the little pitter-patter of a fat cat’s feet lift the corners of my lips. I drop to my knees and drag him into my arms. I know he wanted to rub against me, but I need to smell him and feel him against my cheek. I hold him tight until he stiffens and I know I’m about to be bitten. I place him down gently and run my hand along his back.

  “I missed you too.”

  He purrs and arches, rubbing his body against my hand, until there’s a knock at the door. Then he runs off, peeking around the corners.

  I get up and open it, surprised to see Mrs. Starling. “How was the trip?” Her grin flickers, but rebounds as if to convince me that she’s cool with the danger of my job.

  “Great.” Fucking horrible is what I want to say, but she’s old and she never swears around me. And I cuss way too much.

  “Dash came by. He gave me the key and asked if I could watch his royal highness, Sir Binxy Bears.”

  “Thank you. I meant to stop in the other day and say that, but I got busy.”

  She waves a hand. “There’s a fresh lasagna in the freezer, and I popped a chicken Parm in the fridge today. I had a bit of a week of cooking to avoid the sadness over a death in the family, a cousin of mine.”

  “I’m so sorry.” To my ears, my sorries always lack the genuine touch an emotional person might have.

  “No. He was old. His time came, as will all of ours. I was just sad because it felt like I was facing my own mortality a bit.” She offers a quick wave and nod. “Tell Dash I hope he enjoys London. It’s beautiful this time of year.”

  She turns and walks back to her own house. I hate that she is alone and old. I close the door and stare at my cat.

  “Fuck.”

  I realize then that I am going to have the same fate. I am going to be a quirky old lady with cats and no one to love me. I will be old and alone. It won’t be today or tomorrow, but one day I will be her. But worse. She had love. She had a marriage. She had a man.

  I had one for a minute, but I lost him. I lose everyone.

  Being a hero is a lonely job.

  I wish I could have been a girl in a sundress and a wide-brimmed hat at a polo match, laughing like the rest of them.

  I sigh and think about walking to the bathroom to run a bath.

  The two days of debriefing have at least created a distraction. Now in my little townhouse, silence occupies most of the space. And then there’s me. Me, and the bed I have made—lonely and uncomfortable and not the bed I might have wanted now that I have it.

  I force myself up, force myself to the kitchen, and force myself to heat up food I will force down my throat. I can bathe afterward. It’ll make me feel better.

  At every turn I expect him. Every m
oment I think I hear him. The hot chicken Parm, my favorite food, and the cat rubbing against my ankles used to be enough.

  It all used to be enough.

  But now I am here and Dash is gone and this is not enough.

  I could settle and be fine with it. I could force myself to live with it. I could make my bed every day and sleep every night. I am a survivor. It’s about the worst thing a person can be.

  And I don’t want to be that.

  Dash is the first thing I want. I don’t remember wanting a single thing the way I want him. Even Binx, who just showed up one day as a tiny, starving baby kitten in need of love. He foolishly showed up here, where love had never lived.

  But I loved him in my best possible way. Sometimes it’s more like a serial stalker sort of love, the kind where I obsess over him. Maybe it’s not healthy, but I don’t know any other kind.

  Dash is the same.

  He showed up and he saw the bed I slept in, the one I made myself. It was built by blocking everything out and pretending I was fine. And he didn’t judge my bed and he didn’t care that I was emotionally stunted.

  He accepted.

  And when he told me there was one thing I couldn’t do, I shouldn’t do, I did it anyway. Knowing he believed it would ruin our relationship. It would ruin me.

  The mind run was a stupid gamble, but it did work out. I am freed.

  I get up, grabbing Binx and hauling him to his carrier, the worst torture I can ever inflict upon him. He ate the cloth one Dash had bought him, so I got him a plastic one. I pick up my cell phone and dial the one man I can always count on to help me through everything, Antoine.

  “Hello, Miss Jane. How art thou?” Antoine asks in the annoying tone he uses when he’s gaming and I’m interrupting. That happens a lot, since he is usually gaming and waiting for me or one of his other agents to call in with a crazy request that has seconds to be solved.

  “I need you to tell me where Dash lives. Where his big house is, the one he wants me to move to.” I had literally forced him to keep it separate from me and refused to go to his fancy houses since I discovered they existed.

  “Why do you want his address?” He chuckles into the phone. “Have you fucked that one up already, Spears?”

  “You know it.”

  “I do. As heartbreaking as this is for me, I actually predicted you would blow this brutally. He is rich and fancy on a good day, and you are—you. How did it end?” he asks, but his mind is still midgame. He is talking and gaming, the very worst sin as far as phone etiquette goes.

  “I went back into Rory’s mind to end it, to find closure and see the end of the line.” How does he not know this? Being part of the team, he should have known I was back in Rory’s mind.

  He pauses and his tone changes. “What?” He’s alert and has paused the game. “I didn’t hear you were doing that. How come no one told me? What did you find in there?” He sounds worried or angry.

  “My family.”

  “Oh shit. Rory showed you them? How? I didn’t think he could.”

  My stomach tightens. “Yup, he did.” Wait. What? Didn’t think he could? What does he mean by that? I want to ask, but he might clam up if thinks I don’t know what I am pretending to know. He’s big on need to know.

  “And you want to go to Dash, even after all that?” He sounds worried.

  “Yup. I need to talk to him.” What the hell is he talking about?

  “Are you going to kill him?”

  I sigh. “No. Jeez. I want to ask him questions. It’s going to be civil, I swear.”

  He returns my sigh. “The last time you said the word civil, I ended up bombing a building to cover your tracks.”

  “That was human trafficking.” And, in my defense, it was Iraq, not the suburbs of DC.

  “It was gruesome and you should be ashamed.”

  I roll my eyes. “And yet, I’m not. The address.” I have one small problem with remorse. When I see someone has taken away another person’s rights, through war or trafficking or slavery, I have no problem taking theirs. If someone ends up on my list of names, marks, or targets, then I assume they deserve to be there. It’s a flaw. “I want his address.” What hasn’t Dash told me? My brain screams this is a mind run and I am unconscious somewhere right now.

  “It’s not close to the city. It’s a bit of a commute.”

  “Then I want a helicopter and his address.” I hope my tone suggests I am annoyed.

  “Give me five minutes.” He sighs and hangs up as I exit, locking the door. Binx gives me a look. I nod, sitting on the steps. “I know, buddy, but you have to stay in the carrier so you don’t try to kill the pilot. Remember last time?”

  He growls low. I’m sure the growling and hissing are entirely because he remembers the last time he flew.

  I ignore the cat and rack my brain for the missing pieces Rory might have showed me.

  What do I know?

  I know I saw my family.

  I know I didn’t find any memories in there. They were Rory’s invention, and I don’t remember them the way I should with my own life memories.

  I remember the run and that is all. Nothing new is there. Just as he taunted me there wouldn’t be. I wouldn’t remember anything new from inside his head; it was all his memories or ideas he forced on me. I didn’t find anything in there.

  But Antoine is the least dishonest person I know. If he says there are secrets in my head, there are. And Rory must have known about them. There must have been pieces of the puzzle I am interpreting as his, but they were mine. Details I gave Rory, not the other way around.

  A car pulls up in front of the house after about a minute of my mind scrambling to make sense of the concept of new secrets. A man in a suit opens the passenger door and then the back door for me. I walk to it, noting the cut of his hair. He’s military.

  Am I in a mind run?

  My cat, my pissed-off cat, uses his claws to tell me I am not. So I get in, putting Binx next to me on the seat. There’s no trust left—I am scarred for life from the mind runs. I assume the military driver and passenger are a trap. Everything is.

  “Evening, ma’am,” the driver says.

  I offer a nod and turn my head to the window. I watch them the entire time in my peripheral vision. Neither even looks at the other. One drives and the other one looks out the window, maybe watching me in his periphery too.

  It’s dark, and DC is almost still—it’s not as bad as New York for some reason. To me, it’s far quieter and more civil.

  When the car stops and I see the chopper, I breathe a little better. I had planned out both their deaths, but I knew I would have been injured, to say the least.

  I carry Binx to the helicopter, keeping in my line of sight the escort I had in the car who is now following me, all while maintaining one eye on the lone pilot.

  He nods at me and the escort just behind me. I open the door and climb in, receiving a piece of paper the moment I sit. The escort gets into the passenger seat up front.

  Binx looks terrified. I feel like an ass for bringing him, seeing his eyes so wide, but I didn’t think it out at the moment I decided to come. My plate of half-eaten food is even still back home on the table.

  We lift off after a moment and my eyes lower to the piece of paper. I frown seeing the address. I know the area, not well, but it’s not what I expected at all. It’s not far from here by helicopter.

  I figured I’d be flying farther away from his parents’ house, not closer to it. McLean is on the way to Middleburg. Not that I ever knew where Middleburg was before I met Dash.

  The man who was in the car with me turns and shouts, “Do you need a weapon, Master Sergeant?”

  I part my lips to say no, but I nod, not speaking. In that moment of noise and worry, I remember the words Rory said about the tour we would be taking. The one that show
ed me the lies inside my head—when he showed me my family.

  I take the nine mil and stuff it into the back of my jeans like I’m Dirty Harry and not a trained assassin who knows not to stick guns in her pants. I have seen an ass cheek or two shot off by careless handlers.

  “Thanks.” By the weight of the gun against my waistband, I assume it’s fully loaded.

  “Ma’am.”

  We fly over DC, leaving the city and all its lights behind us. But we are heading in the direction of McLean, so we still see heaps of residential lights down below. I now know exactly where the house is, but I cannot imagine what it looks like. I pull my phone out, putting the address into Google. Nothing comes up. Google Maps refuses to be directed to the area, and the aerial is completely fuzzy. I can’t help but wonder how much that costs.

  I leave Google Maps and look at the “call” button. I touch it, staring at the number that called me the night of the dinner party. I press it, swallowing and wondering what I am up against.

  “Jane?” Henry answers directly.

  “Who is your brother?”

  He pauses. “What did you find out?”

  My insides tighten and I feel like I’m in a mind run again. “Who is your brother?”

  “Get my father on my side and I will tell you anything you want to know.”

  “Why do you think your father would listen to a word I said?”

  “I wasn’t the only member of our family there, I was just the one who was dumb enough to not pay attention to the cameras.”

  I close my eyes, wondering if Dash was the other one. I am still scared the blow job from hell was real after a fashion.

  “Tell my father I need him and he has to answer me, or I will out him and Dash.”

  I nod, even though Henry cannot see me. “Okay.”

  “My brother isn’t just the dashing UN doctor you know so well. He’s a memory specialist all right, but you were someone to him before you were ever in this program.”