by David Beers
The plan of attack was developed over the next few weeks; Christian had nothing to do with it, was entirely too busy recovering from Luke’s brutal attack.
Waverly came back, though, sitting down in the same chair and looking at Christian with eyes that said they would die before they quit.
“You’re being reassigned,” he said. “You’re no longer in the Exceptional Crimes Unit; you’re over the Targeted Individuals Program. You are the sole employee as of right now. Your mandate, and your entire unit’s mandate, is to find Luke Titan. He is the targeted individual. This unit is a line item all to itself on my budget, and the President himself signed off on it. Do you have any qualms?”
Christian had shaken his head, pain flaring in his cheek as it did anytime he moved.
“Good. The doctors say you’ll be ready to return to work in five months. I expect you there.”
“What about until then? Who’s going to be looking for him?”
Waverly smiled. “I thought you might ask that. Here.” He pulled a computer from his bag. “Don’t get caught with it,” he said as he placed it on the bed next to Christian.
And thus, the Targeted Individuals Program had been born. Tommy joined eleven months later, his own recovery taking much longer, and with much less success.
They had one other employee, Simone Goodfriend. Waverly had given her to Christian and Tommy, though without any debate in the matter. That had been purposeful, and the right move, if the annoying one.
Now at home, Christian unlocked the front door and went inside. He went straight to his bed and lay down on it, putting his laptop on his stomach before opening it. He’d done the same routine since college—when he was working on multiple degrees instead of chasing criminals.
He pulled up the email Waverly had sent after the meeting, outlining the plan of action.
They were so wrong on this, but he didn’t know how to make anyone see it. Luke wasn’t coming by himself, but without more proof, Waverly was taking that route—because in truth, Tommy’s idea seemed more logical. The resources and time it would take to arrange something as massive as Christian’s idea … well, no one believed it possible.
Christian stared at the computer for a few minutes and then shut it down. He rose from his bed and walked into the kitchen, pulling his phone out as he went. He hadn’t called his mother in a few days. She hadn’t called him either, and he noticed it as surely as she noticed his absence. Each of them remaining silent, though for different reasons.
Christian had always found it hard to relate to people, but never his mother. Not until Luke shoved a knife through his face, at least. Now, speaking to her …
Everything changed, he thought as he pulled up her number on the phone. Everything changed and there’s only one thing you can do about it. Find and kill him.
But would that change anything back? No.
He held the phone and stared at his mother’s number for a moment, not quite ready to dial. All of this—everything from the scar on his cheek to his inability to communicate with his mother—could be traced back to Luke. The person he had trusted, looked up to, admired … Christian had missed the truth. Stared at it for years and saw nothing but what Luke wanted him to see. And what happened because of it? A lot of people died. And now, Christian thought, a lot more were about to.
He pressed the screen, wanting to force that thought from his head.
“Hey, honey,” his mother answered.
“Hey. Sorry I haven’t called. It’s been a busy few days at work. Waverly came into town.”
“No problem. I know you’ll call when you can.”
Silence fell over the line. Christian felt how great the distance had grown between the two of them—a distance that he’d always felt with others, but never with her. She was his lifeline to the world, what had kept him connected for so long.
“How are you?” he asked finally.
“I’m good. Trying not to worry about you, though that’s easier said than done.”
“Why are you worrying?”
“You really need to ask that?” she said.
“Yes. I’m fine. I’m in no danger.”
“There’s more danger than the physical kind, Christian. But you know that.”
Silence again. All of Christian’s brain power, and yet his mother shut him down with two sentences.
Christian stepped outside onto his porch, closing the door behind him.
“Luke is coming back.”
“How do you know?”
Christian chuckled without mirth. “He wrote a letter telling me. He isn’t too big on secrecy, at least on some things.”
“So, you might not be safe physically either.”
“I ….” But he wouldn’t lie to her, so he let the sentence die. There was no safety from Luke, and Christian knew that now. There was only relentless attack, and the hope that you could be more brutal than he.
“Christian, I’ve got to get some food out of the oven. Will you promise me you’ll be careful?”
He heard the tears in her voice. She rarely showed such emotion, having always been strong for him—helping him navigate the world given his massive insecurities.
And why does she cry, Christian? Because that person no longer exists. The person on the phone isn’t her son, but Luke’s.
“I will, Mom,” he said.
The moon perched high in the sky, looking down upon demon and saint alike. Its gaze held firm, casting light on all without judgment of worth.
Luke had once been called a demon. A woman named Lucy Speckle had given him that title, before slitting her own throat. Luke had no use for terms like demon or saint, though if pressed, he would certainly align himself closer to the saintly class.
He stood just inside Christian’s front door, it closed behind him. He breathed in deeply, smelling Christian’s scent. He had missed it, not realizing that until just now. The house was silent, but he could still make out Christian’s breathing pattern. His old partner was asleep, luckily, though he would have still come even if that wasn’t the case.
He walked over the hardwood floor, his feet making no noise. Very few people knew the stealth with which Luke moved, but he was a predator through and through.
He moved along the house without stopping; his eyes saw all. The silent alarm was most certainly going off, alerting the police to the intrusion, giving Luke only about seven minutes before blue lights and sirens filled the quiet neighborhood. Luke had seen the alarm when he stepped in, and smiled at it. Christian thought Luke might show up one day, having a tailored made alarm so that it wouldn’t ring in the house—just in case Luke might miss it, the police would show and capture him.
Luke reached Christian’s bedroom, the door standing open. He stepped inside and walked to the edge of the bed.
Christian lay on his side, his back to Luke. Moonlight filtered through the blinds, creating just enough illumination for Luke to see Christian’s face. An angry scar stared up at the ceiling, something that would be red in light, but was dark and forbidding now. Luke had put that scar there, and any damage that resided inside Christian’s skull. The knife had left other unseen damage as well, damage which stretched much further and deeper than any blade could reach.
Luke stared with the face of a wolf, though he wasn’t aware of the cruelty he wore. For once, Luke was lost in his head, looking out at the man he’d done so much for.
Minutes passed and finally Luke’s mind overpowered his emotions, ripping him from his thoughts and alerting him to the time.
Luke’s hand darted forward and his thumb rested just over Christian’s scar. He didn’t let it drop, didn’t touch the man’s skin, but only stood there with his finger blocking his view of the red circle—giving Christian the appearance of smooth skin once again.
Luke’s hand dropped back to his side and then he left the house as silently as he’d arrived.
The sirens screeched through Christian’s dream, breaking it apart as a sledgehammer
would glass.
His eyes opened and his feet swung out of bed almost immediately after. His hands found their way into his nightstand and he pulled out his pistol, just as he heard someone call from the front door.
“Dr. Windsor, I’m Officer Bradley Romaine with the Atlanta Police Department. Are you inside?”
Christian’s mind raced, trying to understand what was happening, though missing too many variables to say anything with certainty.
“I’m in my bedroom. I’m uninjured. Can you tell me what happened?”
He heard footsteps falling across the floor and placed his own weapon on top of the nightstand. The police officer turned the corner, his gun raised.
“Dr. Windsor? I hate to ask, but can I see some identification? Your alarm went off, and my partner and I were dispatched here. He’s securing the perimeter.”
“Sure,” Christian said. He crossed the room and went to his chest-of-drawers, grabbing his wallet off the top. “Can I toss it to you?”
The officer nodded and Christian flipped it through the air. The officer caught it easily, holstering his weapon as he looked at the name on the plastic card.
“Thanks,” he said, crossing the room.
“I was sleeping. I didn’t hear an alarm. You’re saying it went off?”
“Yes, sir. It alerted us approximately ten minutes ago. You didn’t hear anything? No one’s been here? Did you have an overnight guest that just left?”
Christian looked at the floor, his eyes narrowing as he ignored the questions. His eyes flicked back up after only a second. “The door was open? The front door?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Romaine? Interior secure?” the partner called from the front door.
“Everything’s secure,” Romaine called over his shoulder.
The other officer walked across the house, joining the two in Christian’s bedroom.
“Sir,” Romaine continued. “Were there any overnight guests?”
“No, no,” Christian said. He walked past the two of them without saying anything else, hustling down the hallway toward the front door. He heard the two officers following behind. Christian rounded the corner to the foyer, where the door still stood ajar.
It had been open when the police arrived.
His alarm had gone off, bringing the police to his house—only it didn’t make noise inside the house.
Yet no one was here. Just him.
Christian stood with his back to the two officers as they entered the foyer.
“Sir?”
Christian closed his eyes and sighed.
“Go ahead and file your report. The FBI will take over once you’re finished.”
Last night was the first time Christian had slept in four days—or it was supposed to be. He hadn’t, of course, fallen back asleep once the police arrived.
He showed up to the office at 7:00 in the morning. He hadn’t shaven and his hair was a mess, his shirt and tie a poor mimic of someone wanting to look professional. Christian didn’t care about any of it.
He took the elevator down to subbasement C; he and Tommy no longer sat above ground. Waverly had given Christian the subbasement in the new unit’s beginning, Christian telling him he wanted to work alone and the Director not objecting.
There were three offices set up in the subbasement, one for each of the people in the unit.
Christian saw Tommy’s office light on, and he crossed the small interior floor to Tommy’s door.
“Luke is back.”
Tommy’s eyes were the only part of him that could move easily, and they flashed to Christian. (His fingers could do a slow dance on his wheelchair, allowing him to move it and fiddle with his computer.)
“What?” he whispered. It was lucky he could talk at all. Luke had stabbed Tommy ‘perfectly’ in his neck, slicing vertebrae but managing to keep from killing him. Tommy’s vocal chords, through a lot of diligence and hard work on his part, finally came back to him—though weak. They’d never return to their former state. Nothing about Tommy would.
“Luke came to my house last night. The alarm went off, but he of course left before the police showed up.”
Tommy backed his wheelchair up from the computer monitor, turning it so that he faced Christian. “Slow down. How do you know it was him?”
Christian stepped inside the office, laughing as he did. The laugh was high, born of stress and exhaustion. “Who else could it be, Tommy? Veronica didn’t suddenly show up to see me, but leave before I woke up. Nothing was taken, nothing was even disturbed. The lock wasn’t even damaged; the damn cops said it didn’t appear to have been messed with at all.”
“Then how did he get in?”
“He picked it without leaving any trace.” Christian was pacing back and forth in front of Tommy’s desk. “He’s here and he wanted me to know there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Waverly will want to hear about this.”
“I’ll send him the police report. I got them to give me a copy before they filed.”
“You think it lends support to my theory? That he’s coming alone?”
Christian stopped walking and faced the whiteboard at the front of the office. “If it did, wouldn’t he have killed me?”
“No. It wouldn’t have been dramatic enough. It wouldn’t have caused enough chaos. And, no one would know Luke did it. They might suspect, but there’d be no proof.”
“Are you worried he might come to you next?”
Christian didn’t turn around at the soft laughter he heard.
“Seeing Luke again would be a damned relief, buddy. I don’t think he’d let me live this time, and that’s not necessarily such a bad thing.”
“You’ve got to go home.”
Tommy listened to Simone Goodfriend chastising Christian, smiling inside even if he couldn’t on the outside.
“I’m not going to watch you pacing around here all day because you didn’t get any sleep. I knew this shit was coming; I’ve seen it the past week. You’ve got to go home and sleep.”
“I’m fine,” Christian said. The two of them stood in Tommy’s office, staring at each other as if Tommy wasn’t there.
“You’re not fine. Look at you. You look almost homeless. When was the last time you slept?”
“It’s not important.”
“It certainly is important,” Simone said. “Because when you don’t sleep, you start acting weird, and it’s too close to the weekend for me to have to deal with your oddness. Go home and sleep.”
Tommy knew what she actually meant, even if her words didn’t say it, per se. She didn’t like Christian’s countenance when he lacked sleep, but that wasn’t her real concern. She knew Christian needed sleep for his own sake, and that’s what she cared about. The woman was brash, and at times, harsh, but Christian knew as well as Tommy that she meant well.
“I’m not going home,” he said. “I don’t know if you’ve somehow forgotten, but Luke was at my house last night. I don’t think that’s the safest place for me.”
“Fine. Go to my house. Sleep there.”
Christian opened his mouth to say something, but paused, a small smirk growing on his face.
Simone didn’t smile. “Go on. Here are my keys.”
Christian shook his head and walked past her, not taking them from her hand.
“He’s ridiculous,” Simone said once Christian was out of the room. She didn’t wait for an answer, but turned and followed him, clearly intent on badgering him until he acquiesced.
Tommy let out a slight sigh as his room emptied. He’d gotten to the office around five that morning, wanting to look at their plan with a fresh set of eyes. He’d been able to get about two hours of work in before Christian showed up. It was eight now, and Christian would certainly email Waverly before he left the office (if he did leave; these power struggles weren’t always decided in Simone’s favor).
Tommy needed some silence to process everything he just heard. He preferred silence more and more now
adays. The only two people he spent time around were in subbasement C right now, but sometimes he didn’t even want to be around them.
Now was one of those times.
He used his right index finger to propel his wheelchair across the room. He hooked the front right portion of the chair into the sliding glass door’s crevice, then moved the wheelchair forward, gliding the door closed. He turned the chair back around, but didn’t go back to his desk.
He wanted to think about Luke. His relationship with Luke was odd, to say the least. He spent most of each day—the vast majority of it—hunting the man, thinking about nothing other than him. Yet, in any real sense of the word, he never actually thought about Luke. He thought about catching him, about trapping him, about any number of things relating to his capture; yet, rarely did he think on the actual man.
That part of Tommy’s life was dead, perhaps having happened to someone else entirely. Tommy had decided early in his recovery that he wouldn’t venture down that road. To go there was to die, if not physically, than certainly spiritually. Alice, his fiancée, wasn’t coming back—he couldn’t reverse time and take the bullet from her skull. The bullet that Luke had put there.
There was no way to give Tommy his legs back, his arms, or the ability to move.
He couldn’t get any of it back, and thinking about Luke reminded him of that. Tommy didn’t want to be reminded, not of the man he once was, nor the person he’d turned into. So, he focused on work, and left the actual thinking of Luke to Christian.
He couldn’t do that right now, though. Waverly would have questions on what Christian proposed happened last night, and Tommy would need to be prepared. More than that, though …
If Luke was back, it didn’t matter what Tommy had told Christian about it being a relief.
He would come for Tommy. He’d come for them all, and while Tommy wasn’t afraid of death (perhaps what he told Christian was true; perhaps he wished for death), he didn’t want to meet it before seeing Luke meet his own. That’s what motivated Tommy: the hope of seeing Luke lying with his eyes open and blood leaking from his mouth. He hadn’t told anyone that, but he didn’t think he needed to either.