by J. Judkins
"I guess that's it," sighed Angel. She stepped in front of Kim and pulled her in for a kiss.
Kim jerked back and used both hands to push Angel away. "Stop that! They're watching us!" she cried, and shot a nervous glance at the movers. None of them were paying attention.
"I don't care about them. All I care about is you." Angel tried to kiss her once more and again, Kim pushed her away.
"Well, I care. Stop trying to embarrass me."
"Kim, this is literally the last time I'll ever see you. Can’t I at least get a goodbye kiss?"
Kim stepped out of range, ignoring the flash of pain in Angel’s eyes.
Angel fidgeted, taking a moment as if gathering courage. "One last thing. I'd like you to give me your heart."
"Why not just take it?" Kim replied bitterly, spreading her hands. "You've taken everything else. There's nothing left."
"It needs to be given voluntary."
"No. I don’t trust you. I need it."
"I've already given you mine."
Angel’s reply was met with stony silence.
"Sometimes our imperial agents become overburdened with too much emotion," Angel told her sadly. "They become sympathetic to our enemies. When it becomes too much for them, they can have those memories erased, if they desire it.”
Kim crossed her arms. The pain in her chest didn’t lessen. “So?”
“If you give me your heart, I can promise you that this will never happen to me. I’ll treasure those memories I made with you. I'll keep them safe. I won't ever forget you, and I'll always be thinking of you."
Kim said nothing.
"But if you leave me like this and I can’t deal with the pain, eventually someone will notice. I’ll be made to forget. They’ll take my precious memories away from me. Everything. Every last bit. It will be as if we never met, and I want to remember you, Kim."
"If you really loved me, you wouldn't be a part of this invasion force."
Angel stepped forward with a fervent light in her eye. "Then give me a reason to resist them," she said.
Kim blinked in realization. "Oh, so that's it, is it? Either I tell you I love you, or else you'll become a willing soldier in their empire?"
"Nothing that dramatic. Love me, give me a reason to fight them, and I'll stop the invasion before it even gets started. We can save everyone."
"Nothing that dramatic?" Kim scoffed, incredulous. "That's more dramatic. And what if you succeed, Angel? What then? I'll be a hero. Heroes are famous. They'll talk about me!"
Angel fists were clenching and unclenching at her side. "I think you're missing the point."
"I'm feeling kind of trapped, here."
Angel threw up her hands. "Oh, do what you want. You always do."
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Angel ignored her. She waved to the four helicopters hovering above the four corners of Kim’s building. "Take it away, boys!"
Each helicopter had a cable leading to each corresponding corner. At Angel’s signal, they began their ascent. The cables pulled taut with an audible snap, and the entire building slowly lifted into the air. Dust and debris rained to the ground.
Kim turned to see Angel halfway to the moving van. "So that's it, then?” she asked, hurrying to catch her. “You're just giving up? Running away? Don't you still want my heart?"
"It doesn’t matter. I don't care anymore.” Angel eyes were wet with unshed tears. The driver’s side door creaked loudly as she opened it. “Do what you want with it."
Kim couldn’t make herself take that final step. She stopped, just out of reach. Her heart yearned for her to take it, but she didn’t dare. "Do you...”
“Do I what?”
Kim couldn’t keep her hands still and finally put them behind her back. “Do you want yours back?" she asked, her voice a whisper.
Angel paused, the door half open. "No. I gave my heart to you. I love you, Kim. And I'll always love you, until the day they catch me and rip the memories out of my head. Then I won’t care.”
“I don’t want you to forget me,” Kim blurted.
“Then come with me,” Angel said, and stretched out her hand. "Take a chance, Kim. Come with me, and we can make a new life together."
Kim's breath caught. "What?"
"I said, come with me, and we can make a new life together. Honestly, Kim, you really should have your hearing checked.”
"I can't do that! I have friends here!" Kim exclaimed, waving her hand at the movers. None of them were her friends but they made good examples of friends. That kind of friendship meant something, didn’t it? Friendship was magic, and all that nonsense.
How could she leave? She couldn't leave! What would people say about her after she was gone?
“I think it’s a good offer,” said Angel.
"Are you kidding me? You’re asking a lot. I have a nice boring life here.”
“But you’re not happy. Throw it all away and come with me. We’ll have lots of sex, find a nice home wherever you want, and have even more sex. We’ll raise some half-breed kids, they'll misbehave, I'll blame you and your inferior Earth genes--”
Kim’s eyes widened. “Kids? I don’t want kids. Kids are annoying!”
Angel threw up her hands. “So forget the stupid kids! Just tell me you love me and come away with me. Excitement, adventure, and really wild things!”
Kim took a step back while trying to make it look as if she hadn’t taken a step back. “Yeah. About that. You want me to tell you what, now?”
“Tell me you love me,” Angel repeated, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “That’s all I really want.”
“What about the constant sex?”
"Constant sex isn’t what drives me. My behavior is entirely influenced by your expectations of me. Haven't you noticed? It’s been that way since the beginning."
"Oh, please! That's not true."
Angel cocked her head as if listening. “We’re out of time,” she said, her voice insistent. “Tell me that you love me. Say the words.”
“Out of time? You’re saying there’s a time limit on this offer? You’re kind of backing me into a corner, here.”
"It's six-forty."
“What are you--”
Kim jerked awake to the shrill sound of her alarm buzzing incessantly on the floor. She silenced it and rolled back to stare at the ceiling.
A dream.
Angel was gone.
A wave of sorrow swept over her. It gripped her heart and squeezed.
Kim turned to look at the empty space where Angel used to be. She reached out, gathered her pillow into her arms and took a deep breath. There was nothing. Other than the faint smell of shampoo, there was no discernible scent. Nothing unique.
How could I never notice that Angel didn't have a distinctive scent?
Kim tossed the pillow aside. She was denied even that.
What is wrong with me?
There had to be a reason for it. She wasn't in love. Why did she miss Angel so much? All her life, Kim never craved companionship, or friendship, or anything. She’d certainly never felt lonely. She didn’t need anyone.
She didn't.
Her eyes found the empty space again.
I just don’t know what went wrong.
Kim tried to make sense of it in her head. There had to be a reasonable explanation. Surely missing Angel meant just that, she missed her. If her feelings felt a trifle strong, maybe on the edge of debilitating, surely it was due to the fact that Kim never had a friend like Angel before. Even Angel could see it. Kim was a typical antisocial, introverted, self-centered individual. A product of her generation. She never had any desire to make friends.
In any event, Angel was wrong. Kim did have friends. Just not many. At least three reasonably close friends at work. More elsewhere. None of them shared multiple common interests, but each shared at least one. Admittedly, they weren’t close friends, and if one left the room Kim more or less forgot about them and found other things to do,
but that still qualified them as friends. Didn't it?
In the last two weeks, Kim never thought about calling them up to share information or even considered going to them for advice. But that was nothing new. The habits of a lifetime were hard to break, even assuming Kim wanted to break those habits in the first place. Which she didn’t.
Okay, friends were a bad example. Kim didn't share her close, personal thoughts with Angel, either, but it was obvious Angel was more than just a friend.
Doesn't 'more than friends' imply something more meaningful, Kimmie?’ her inner voice asked.
Kim’s mind rejected the idea. Surely the only reason Kim slept with Angel and couldn’t stop thinking about her was because Angel tricked her into it and got her to agree to it. Multiple times. The only other reason was because sleeping with Angel happened to feel really, really good. That’s why she missed Angel! She missed the sex. Admittedly, the best she ever had.
Technically, the only sex she’d ever had, but that didn’t matter. It still qualified as the best.
That must be it.
Except that wasn't it, either, Kim realized. Sex was more Angel's thing.
Angel was persistent. That was the reason. Kim couldn't envision herself wanting anything without something to get her started. She was the exact opposite of Angel, who delighted in finding underhanded ways to get Kim thinking about things before springing the trap and pretending to be oblivious to having anything to do with it, the minx.
So if it wasn't friendship or sex and it couldn't possibly be love, what was it?
Obviously, it couldn’t be love because of...reasons. If Kim were in love, she never would have said those horrid things to Angel that drove her away. She’d also be more upset. Instead, she’d fallen asleep instantly last night, after a mere two or three hours of lying awake, staring at the ceiling. She’d only dreamed about missing Angel. Surely dreaming about someone didn’t signify any sort of emotional attachment.
Kim wasn’t heartsick or anything. That pain in her chest was...something else.
Before leaving forever, Angel wanted to torment her one last time. Angel said she was doing it out of love and said she wanted to protect her, but clearly Angel only sacrificed herself for Kim’s safety because she thought ‘the ultimate act of love was sacrifice’ and wanted to get one last shot in. Just to piss her off.
Kim glared at the ceiling. The ceiling held no answers.
Maybe she simply missed her?
Kim considered it, then smiled. Yes, that was it! She missed her! Nothing more. She missed Angel, and was worried for her safety. Nothing more and nothing less.
Perfect!
That settled it! After work, Kim was going to find Angel. She’d rescue her and get her back and tell her what a jerk she’d been for leaving her, because that’s what friends did, dammit!
She didn’t need a stupidly romantic reason to go after Angel. All she needed was a generic reason. Kim valued friendship above all, and would have risked life and freedom for any of her close friends if it wasn't too much trouble.
That was it. Good enough. End of story.
It was a mere coincidence that the person Kim was deciding to rescue today was a beautiful woman, sexy as hell, who said she loved her and did her best to have sex with her whenever she thought she could get away with it. Which was pretty much all the damned time.
Kim was doing this for her own reasons, and not because of love. Friendship taken to the extreme. If Angel thought it was sappy and romantic and meaningful for her to go up against armed guards with nothing but a pressing desire to get her friend back, well, that was Angel’s problem, not hers.
Kim looked at the clock again. 6:48
She smirked, then threw off the covers and vaulted out of bed.
Why wait for tonight?
Chapter Fifty-One
Kim parked in the convenience store parking lot as far from the store and its cameras as possible. That morning she’d broken a personal record dressing and getting ready, but if her hunch paid off, it would be worth it.
If Angel’s first victim had recovered and staggered home, Kim would have nothing. But if someone noticed the man lying unconscious in the parking lot, they would have called for help. That meant police.
The police would have questioned the store clerk. Ideally, the clerk would ask questions of his own. As the attack had happened late at night, that person would have worked the graveyard shift between midnight and eight in the morning, and could be at the store right now.
The door chimed as she stepped inside. Kim ignored the clerk and his greeting, giving him a druid stare as she passed, a look perfected in the online game Everquest. This wasn’t a look so much as an attitude, wherein druids would race past and pretend not to notice people begging for the highly sought after spirit of the wolf travel spell. Kim similarly pretended not to hear, picking up chips and helping herself to the soda machine.
Once secure in her guise as an ordinary, paying customer, Kim checked out the cashier. She recognized him as a college student, barely a year or two out of high school. A plan formed in her mind. All she needed to do was ask about that first night, without sounding overly interested.
"Hey, your name is Kim, right?"
Kim stumbled to an ungraceful halt.
"I'm sorry, what?” Kim stared back, trying to conceal the surprise in her voice.
The clerk gave a half smile as he leaned up to the counter. “It’s Kim, right? You introduced yourself over two months ago.”
Kim remembered nothing of the sort. “Oh, yes. I remember now,” she lied.
His smile widened. “Yeah, thought it was you! Saw you with that girl the other night."
This time, Kim couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice. "What? How could you? We didn't do anything!"
"What?"
"We just went up to the top of the hill then came back down. That's it!"
He continued to stare at her.
"What do you think you saw?" Kim demanded.
"I didn't see anything."
"That's right. Because we didn't do anything."
His face broke into a sly grin. "Were you going to do something?”
"None of your business!" she yelled, then blinked. "Wait, were those cameras yours?"
"Huh? What cameras?"
Kim gestured wildly at the window with the hand not holding her precious caffeinated drink. "The ones on the hill. Were those yours?"
"Listen, I don't know anything about any cameras. You were here the other night, but when I checked again, your car was gone. I just wanted to ask about your girlfriend."
Kim’s mind raced with several emotions before finally settling on a mix of disbelief and stunned resignation. "Oh, God, she is my girlfriend, isn't she? She really is."
"What makes her so important?" asked the clerk.
Kim turned her face away to hide her blush, grateful there were no other people in the store. "We'll, she's beautiful and…"
Don't say passionate!
"…ahh, focused, and a bit of a romantic in an illegal sort of way. She's smart, clever, and I think honest but I’m not really sure, and...and..."
Her breath caught. The knife twisted in her chest again. One hand braced against the counter to steady herself.
And she’s gone. She left me.
"No, I mean, what makes her so important? As in, why are there people looking for her?"
Kim snapped back to reality. "What?"
"Why are there people looking for her?" the clerk repeated.
"Tell me about them."
"It's just one guy, actually. He acted like a cop, but we had our doubts. Turns out his identification didn't pan out."
"What did he do?"
"First he came in with a picture, an actual photograph, not a sketch artist picture, asking if this girl came inside the store. That was a couple weeks ago. Your girlfriend, right?"
Kim knew she was blushing, but she smiled. "That's right. She's my girlfriend," she told him, smili
ng with pride. She felt a curious form of giddy detachment, as if someone else was saying the words and not her.
Maybe her subconscious had finally taken over.
"This guy wanted to review the tapes. Normally, we're not allowed to look at 'em, but he insisted. He had us call the manager to get permission. About an hour later, he asked about you. Specifically, you."
"Me? Why me?"
"Not by name. The guy picked you out as a regular. He seemed to know you came out to look at the stars, sometimes. You had that telescope."
"You told him my name?"
"Only your first name.” He held up his hands, backing away. “I’d seen you once before with the telescope, then you came in to buy something and used a card. Maybe you got gas. I don’t even remember what. I looked at the card and remembered your first name, that’s all.”
“You told me I introduced myself.” Kim glowered.
The clerk had the grace to look embarrassed. “Yeah, what do you want me to say?” he asked after a moment’s hesitation. “It gets boring at night. Saying you introduced yourself sounds lots better than me saying I remembered it from a card.”
“I see.”
“Important thing is I told the guy you introduced yourself, and that’s how I got your first name. He seemed to buy it.”
Kim felt herself relax. "Not a problem. Don't worry about it," she said, realizing how lucky she’d been. Whoever Angel’s hunters were, they didn’t seem very thorough. A professional would have tracked her and found Angel within hours. "Anything else?"
He shrugged. "No, not really. So what's this about, anyway?"
"You said he acted like a cop?"
"More like a security guard with too much power. You know the type? Give some people a gun and a badge and suddenly they're pushing people around. More like a Fed wannabe than a cop. This guy acted arrogant, made demands. He showed up after the cops did."
"What did he look like?
"Hell if I know,” the clerk snorted. “Just a guy, you know? It was the middle of the night, but he never took off his sunglasses. Maybe he thought it added to the overall FBI image, but now I’m thinking he didn't want his picture taken."