Games We Play

by Isabelle Arocho

  Pulling into the driveway of the McBain family home Sasha saw something she used to dream about after her parents died; a big house with laughter and relatives pouring in and out of the front door. Every face she saw looked happy and loved. A surge of sadness gripped her heart at the reminder of all the ways her family had been robbed to share such moments.

  Nick held her hand and didn’t let go.

  Through the foyer and in the living room she met his youngest sister and brother, both in their early twenties. Mr. McBain was also with them seated in front of the TV.

  “Your mother told me you were back in town and bringing this poor girl to suffer an evening with these knucklehead children.”

  Nick’s youngest sister Josslyn exclaimed, “Hey!”

  “I love you pumpkin.” Mr. McBain took Nick and Sasha’s arm and moved them away from the group into the kitchen where his wife was cooking with another one of Nick’s sisters, the infamous Emily who couldn’t cook even a can of corn.

  Belinda was quick with her big hugs. “You made it!”

  Emily asked after introductions were made, “Can I ask what happened?” she motioned to Sasha’s cast and black eye the concealer was doing a bad job at hiding.

  “Um,” Sasha thought about a hundred different lies she could tell but in the end there wasn’t a reason to lie, not here not now. It was after all part of her job and the suffering was hers to share how she chose. “I was kidnapped by a serial killer and we got into a pretty bad fight.”

  Emily paled at the mention of violence. “Wow. What happened to the other guy?”

  Nick answered, “He’s in prison. What are you doing in the kitchen? Aren’t you scared something might explode, mom?”

  Emily groaned. “One can of corn and I’m never going to live it down. I missed you too Nick.” The siblings smiled at each other to show there wasn’t even a hint of seriousness behind their banter.

  It wasn’t until everyone was seated around the table for twelve the questions came for Sasha. The McBain’s were interested in everything about her. She answered again truthfully’ her parents had been killed in a car accident, her sister was killed by the same serial killer to break her arm, she moved to Washington several years ago, she always wanted to be apart of the FBI, and yes she loved Nicholas.

  Belinda smiled over her cup of soda. “I want you to hold onto this one, son. She has good taste and likes to eat.”

  “I’m trying, ma.”

  By the end of the night Sasha felt like a fool for ever being scared to face his family, they truly were the loveliest bunch of people she’s ever met. It was almost sickening except for the fact no one had put on an act, this was the real deal between them and they all welcomed her with open arms. Mrs. McBain’s cooking also helped ease her nerves, the woman was a God in the kitchen and before calling it a night Sasha had two bags filled with leftovers to take home.

  In the car Nick asked, “Do you want to spend the night with me?”

  “Yes.” Sasha didn’t have to think about it. They hadn’t been apart all week and she didn’t want that to change. “You don’t have any neighbors running above your head at six o’clock in the morning.”

  “No wonder you’re always grouchy at the office.”

  “Bite me, McBain. We have to stop by my place first so I can pick up a few things. I called Pete when you were talking with your dad and he said it was ok if I came back to work tomorrow but only for desk duties.”

  “I leave you alone for five minutes and you called Pete?”

  “I’m weak. I wanted to know what’s been happening. He did take on that girl Billie Savich, she started this past Tuesday and he also hired on another guy who doesn’t have a start date yet.”

  “That’s good, with more agents we won’t be spread as thin. No more talking about work, the morning will be here soon enough and this is the last we have of our vacation.”

  This time she reached out and took his hand first. “You got it.”

  Chapter 34

  The next month had its up and downs. Sasha was spending more and more time with Nicholas at his house, only going to her apartment to grab more clothes on the weekends. They quickly found a routine at work, driving in together and sharing lunch when there was free time at the office. Pete wasn’t letting Sasha take on any field work until her cast was taken off so she was given the job to assist Billie with her caseload and show her the ropes.

  Billie was a fresh faced agent eager to please and more than that she was easy to be around and likeable. It didn’t take long for them to become friends and start to confide in each other. Sasha told her about the regrets with her sister and how well things were going with Nick. In exchange Billie told her about her family back in Boston and the ex-boyfriend she couldn’t shake from her system even five years later.

  The downs came at night when she was hit with the loss of Carolyn all over again and plagued with memories of Jim taunting her. Jim proved to have a shred of decency and pled guilty to his crimes. He was currently awaiting the death penalty in Texas where his first cycle began and ended.

  The biggest up of her life came during the return flight from South Carolina where Sasha joined Nick for a consult he was giving a team of fellow agents. Pete had no problem agreeing to let her go, it wasn’t a field case and he secretly knew of Nick’s fear of flying.

  On the flight home Sasha was going to adopt the same tactic she used before to ease his nerves; talk him to death. But Nick was always catching her off guard and this time was no different.

  “So,” Sasha began, thinking of something to chat about and only coming up with one subject they hadn’t covered in the last seven weeks of dating. “what happens next between us?”

  “I told you I love you first so now you decide what comes next. It’s your turn.” Nick pointed out with a small grin playing on his face. He wasn’t going to let ‘the talk’ freak him out.

  Sasha laughed. “So that’s how this works? We take turns?” she turned in her seat and met his navy blues head on. This time she wasn’t going to let nerves keep from letting her yank his chain.

  “It works for me.”

  “Ok then, I need to think.” Sasha said as she looked down, as if she was thinking really hard but in reality she didn’t want him to see how close she was to laughing hard in the cabin full of passengers.

  Nicholas grinned as he cupped her chin and brought her face to meet his. He kissed her, it seemed simple and loving to the naked eye but it was a hot kiss with more emotion than such a kiss could carry and she knew right off the bat he was trying to knock her off balance. Maybe he was nervous about this conversation after all. “You were saying?” he asked after letting her go. The stitches were gone from her forehead and al the bruising was healed from her face.

  “Oh you’re sneaky.” Sasha knew deep down they were trying to best each other like they had gotten used to doing over the last year but this time instead of using work they were using their relationship. “Ok the next logical step would be getting married. We make this lie real.” She glanced down at the ring still on her finger, the ring she hadn’t found time to take off yet.

  “Ok.”

  Sasha did a double take, it was her mouth hanging open instead of his. “What? You know I was joking right?”

  “I wasn’t.” Nicholas said softly, his eyes never leaving hers with intensity that said they were no longer teasing each other and this wasn’t a game.

  “You are nuts. We’ve only been seeing each other a month and a half. I know your mom has seen the ring and she’s been hinting at you making a move but I really think that was a joke. It’s all too soon.” Sasha rambled all the words together and hoped they made some sense to him because nothing was making much sense to her. He was giving her a damn heart attack.

  He got steadier the more she freaked out. “Who says it’s too soon?”

  “Anyone with common sense, Nick! We’re still getting to know each other.” Sasha pointed out seeing it wasn’t some wei
rd dream, he was dead serious as she met his eyes.

  “I know as much as I need too. You come across tough but you have a soft heart and cry at sad scenes on TV. I know you hate vegetables and love everything piece of junk food ever created. I know you bite your nails when you think no one is looking and when they are looking you gnaw on your inner lip because you’re nervous. I know you love your job even though you hate to admit it scares you a lot of the time. I know you want a big family because you never had one and you want to make up for the fact you couldn’t know your parents. I know you love me and I know I want to spend the rest of my life with you. You’re right, to anyone it would sound too soon but to me it just feels so right.” Nick held onto her hands as he spoke.

  Sasha began to cry as his words touched all the parts of her heart, how honest and sincere he was being couldn’t be faked. Staring at him she couldn’t think of another argument to fight a cause she wasn’t sure she supported anyway.

  Holding her hands he maneuvered the ring off her finger without ever breaking their stare. “When I had to pick this out I thought of you and what I thought would look the best on your hand. For those couple of minutes I pictured it, giving you this ring, asking you to marry me. I never pictured doing it in the one place I’m scared of but what the hell. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, I’ll understand.” He explained, never looking away from her eyes. If he was nervous or scared at all, and he must be, he did a hell of a job hiding it. “Sasha, will you marry me?”

  “I haven’t taken the ring off since you gave it to me.”

  “Trust me, I’ve noticed.”

  “I do love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “There’s two sides to this wrestling in my head. I want to say yes because I can’t imagine the day coming that you’re not here with me. You’ve been a constant in my life from the moment we met in Pete’s office and these last few weeks have been hard and I don’t think I could’ve gotten through it without you. You’re really good under pressure.”

  He bent his head and kissed her hands. “I’m good at faking it. What’s the other side?” he didn’t seem bothered by the crowd watching them as he stayed knelt in front of her with that beautiful ring in his hand.

  “Everyone I love dies. I know it doesn’t matter if we get married or not if something happened to you it’d devastate me but….”

  “If you keep a distance something bad won’t happen? I don’t think it works that way, babe. Your parents suffered an accident and your sister had the bad luck of falling in love with a serial killer, you couldn’t have changed any of that.”

  Sasha’s tears fell free while she shook her head no. “It wasn’t an accident. I only tell people that in hopes I can believe it myself and try to let it go. Ironically the last thing Carolyn and I talked about was our parents and how I didn’t want you guys to know the truth. She thinks I became a fed to solve their murder and that was true for a long time.” The poor guy was proposing to her, he might as wall know the last of her secrets.

  “Why would you want to hide that?”

  “I grew up with people feeling sorry for me and I didn’t want that in my work life too. They did die on the rode but it wasn’t an accident. The truck hit them on purpose and kept going. The truck was reported stolen and found a week later burnt in an abandoned parking lot. It wasn’t an accident or a chance encounter, the driver wanted them dead but Caro didn’t see it like that for a long time and blamed me because they had been on the rode that night picking me up from a science club meeting. I was ten and started to believe she was right and it was all my fault. It didn’t take much for me to lash out.” It was the first time she had ever talked about it, not even in her long conversations with Pete or Gage had she told them the truth about her parents and how she became interested in law enforcement.

  “Is that how you met Sheriff Howard?”

  With a nod she continued, “He was a deputy back then and suggested to Sheriff Martin instead of sending me off to juvie to have me work around the station to work off my punishment. I did the filing and would see different crime scene reports and it started to excite me more than science and that’s when I decided I wanted to become a cop and catch bad guys like the one who killed my parents. You should know that about the bad luck charm you want to marry.”

  “You’re not bad luck, Sasha. You saved those kids from Kellermen, you stopped Jim from killing more people to finish his cycle, and you’re saving me from suffering Sunday dinner alone with my folks.” His antics worked as she laughed at the last one.

  Sasha leaned her forehead down to his. “You can do so much better than me.”

  “Probably, but I’ll always love you the best.”

  She laughed again and knew better than to take his sense of humor serious. “You’re such a charmer I don’t know what to do with myself.”

  Nick slid the ring back on her finger. “You can say yes.”

  Chapter 35

  Peter Truman didn’t like to give bad news and that made his job somewhat ironic because everyday he was forced to give someone bad news. He hated it worse when he was forced to give his agents bad news. They weren’t just employees, they were his friends and many of them the children he didn’t have. He and Diana wanted a big family but they had only been blessed with one child, a daughter named Evelyn.

  Sasha and Nicholas looked happy together as they stepped into the office and he was happy for them. He was happy it didn’t take much longer for them to realize what he had seen all along; they made a terrific pair.

  Bad news was much like a bandaid, it was best to get it done quickly and figure out how to clean the blood if the wound bleeds. Wearing a smile he was told by them was comforting he pulled the bandaid. “Jim has escaped custody.”

  Sasha went still, her eyes darkening with anger and her words silent. It was Nick who asked, “How?”

  “During a therapy session a fight broke out and all personal was called to assist. Alone with the doctor, Jim gained the upper hand and killed him. Assuming the doctor’s identity Jim walked out of the prison before the doctor’s body was found. The incident took place this morning just an hour ago.”

  Sasha sank into a chair before she fell over. This couldn’t be happening, it took so long to lock him up and now in the matter of a therapy session it all changed. Jim was free again. “Damn it.”

  “The nation is on alert, if he tries to board a plane we’ll know about it and his picture is being ran in every major news outlet right now.” Pete was trying to ease the blow and said every word with conviction. “We’re going to get him.”

  “What can I do?”

  “It’s better to be safe than sorry, I want you to keep an eye out for if he tries to contact you but that’s it. We’re leaving the manhunt up to the Marshals.”

  Sasha nodded and ran out of the office right for the bathroom. Hearing Jim was roaming free to kill again made her physically sick. She was on her knees in front of the toilet bowl when Billie stepped inside and called her name. “I’m in here.”

  “Nick asked me to check on you, are you doing all right?” Billie brushed her friend’s hair back over her shoulders and held it out of the way.

  “Yeah. Fish for breakfast and hearing about Jim escaping didn’t make a good mix in my stomach. I think I’m ok now but I just can’t wrap my head around this…” the nausea faded but the tears quickly took its place. “I thought with him in prison it was finally over.”

  “Come on let me help you up.” Out of the bathroom stall Billie gripped her shoulders after she got cleaned up. “They will catch him and he will pay. Between Nick, me, and the rest of the team he’s not going to hurt you again. You got it?” her blue eyes were stern, not unlike a mother trying to reassure a child.

  “I got it. There’s nothing to worry about, so what if thinking about him makes my knees shake and to run back and hurl the last of the food in my stomach.”

  “That a girl. Pete’s calling a meeting
for something he called personal work not official business. Do you know what that means?” Billie held onto Sasha’s arm as they left the bathroom together.

  “Yeah, he usually says that when he’s holding a dinner party and we all have to show up or forfeit a day off.”

  “I guess I’m in.”

  Pete wasn’t hosting a dinner party but it was close to it. The bureau was honoring him for his closing rate at an event this Saturday, four days from today, and they were all invited.

  Noah asked the dreaded question. “Invited or mandatory?”

  Pete gave a grin that gave his answer. “I’ll leave that up to you all to figure out and when I make you come into work during the weekend you’ll understand why. Our new recruit will always be there where you can all meet him before his start date Monday.”

  Sasha spoke up to avoid having her thoughts linger on Jim again. “What’s the new guy’s name? You haven’t told us much about him.”

  “His name is Justin Renard and he’s transferring over from a private group.”

  Noah’s interest was peaked. “Private like black ops?”

  “Private like private. I know you all have some work to get done.” With a wave of his hand Pete shooed everyone out of his office.

  Nick stopped Sasha in the hallway and waited until the rest of the group went ahead. “You ran out pretty fast before.”

  “I was feeling sick and tossed up my tuna sandwich.”

  “I told you to avoid eating from those vending machines.”

  Sasha gripped the lapels of his jacket. “Kiss me.” At his hesitance she groaned and explained, “I washed my mouth out after tossing up my food.”

  Nicholas smiled before he kissed her on the lips. Sasha abruptly pulled away and he knew she wasn’t thrilled with him. “And for the record I wouldn’t hesitate to kiss you no matter what.”