by Jack Stroke
The change of scenery did nothing to soothe Amber’s mind and quickly she found her brain in overdrive. Like a brain fever, charging in all directions. What was she meant to do? How was she supposed to live? Her existence stretched out in front of her, an endless sea of hours, minutes and seconds which she had absolutely no idea how to fill.
What was she supposed to do with all this time? How did ordinary people cope? She wasn’t always like this. As Megan had so eloquently put it, when had Amber stopped being a normal person? When had she stopped doing normal things?
And the worse Amber felt, the more she realised all this was no accident. She had been normal once. She’d had a life. Only for it all to be snatched away. Yes, snatched. Her life had been ripped away from her. Irrevocably taken, and now she wanted it back, except that wasn’t possible. There was no way back. She had been moulded into a monster against her will. She had never wanted this. To that extent, it hardly mattered whether Mother had tried to get her to kill Ben or not. She had turned Amber into this creature that she was now, capable of killing her own godson.
One thing was sure. Sitting around this horrible van, staring at the walls wasn’t going to solve anything for Amber.
She needed action.
67
The house was beautiful, as she expected. Classic and refined. Amber waited until she was inside before she made the call. She paused in the kitchen, leaning against the granite benchtop.
“Tony… I need to speak to her. Straight away.”
“Amber. It’s the middle of the night.”
“Now. This is important.”
Moonlight spilled from the sizeable window. The apartment was a well-stocked space for one.
Mother’s voice sounded sleepy as it came on the line. “Amber…”
“Why did you do it?”
“You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Try to make me eliminate Ben?”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you,” Amber said, keeping her voice low.
“Because we are not your enemy.”
“We’re not supposed to believe in coincidences, right?”
“Do you wish to threaten us or discuss the basics of your training?”
“Coincidences, yes or no?”
“No.”
“How did I end up in Paradise Cove?”
“That was your choice.”
“Was it? I just happen to end up in a place where you knew where to find me? Where you had a job waiting?”
Noises filled the kitchen, the bump of footsteps from above. Amber ducked low behind the counter.
“You appear to be mixing up coincidence and opportunity.”
“Right.”
Mother’s voice sounded increasingly tired, rather than sleepy. “How do you believe you came to be in Paradise Cove then?”
Amber’s breath shortened, getting to it all now. “You set it up somehow. You knew Megan and Ben were there, and you made it happen.”
Mother blew out a loud sigh. “And how could we possibly do that?”
“The photo… Were you responsible for the photo too?”
“Photo?”
“You implanted the idea into my mind somehow. Of going to Paradise Cove. You made me do it. I don’t know.”
The kitchen light flickered to life.
“Amber, how would we do that? How could we? Listen, you sound unhinged. Why don’t you come in?”
“I’m already here,” Amber said, surprising Mother as she entered the kitchen, by popping up from behind the counter and sticking her Sig in the older woman’s face.
Caught off guard, Mother dropped her phone to the floor.
68
“I can feel you in me, like a parasite. Your tentacles inside my brain, controlling me.”
They had moved from the kitchen to the lounge, Mother sitting back on her leather couch, Amber opposite, perched so far forward she barely scraped the cushion of the seat.
“Do you mind?” Mother asked, poiting to a knitting basket.
“Knit? Really? You knit?”
“I do. It helps relax me.”
“Knock yourself out.”
Amber watched her closely to make sure this wasn’t a trap. That she didn’t have a weapon or an alarm or something in the basket by her chair. Mother took out two needles, a ball of string and a half-finished whatever it was she was knitting.
“I would never have taken you for a knitter.”
“We all need hobbies. How did you find me?”
“Oh, please. Nice place. Your security system needs upgrading though.”
“Maybe,” Mother said. “These days we are merely bureaucrats. People don’t generally come looking for us. Why don’t you put your gun down?”
“The gun is fine where it is. But you tell me, am I going to use it? You know me better than I know myself.”
Mother clicked her tongue. “We don’t control you.”
“You know, I really thought I could escape you. Escape all of this. But I should have listened. There is no escape.”
Mother crossed her legs. They could be in her office right now, except she probably wouldn’t be wearing fuzzy men’s pyjamas to the office. And she wouldn’t be knitting. There was something else different about Mother. No sunglasses. This was possibly the first time Amber had ever seen Mother’s eyes.
“What is it you want, Amber?”
“I want a life. My life. The one you stole from me.”
“We never stole anything from you. No one forced any of this upon you. It was all your free choice. Many years ago you were offered an opportunity, and you took it.”
“I was just a kid. I was in my early twenties. I had no idea.”
“You were a smart and capable adult, capable of making your own choices and decisions. You still are.”
“I never wanted any of this. Not really. I didn’t know what I was getting myself in to.”
“Absolute nonsense. Revisionist history is as dull as it is self-serving. You went into this with your eyes wide open.”
The clack of needles stopped as Mother examined Amber over the knitting.
“You think your life would have been different if you had made different choices?” Mother said. “If you had zigged instead of zagged?”
“Something like that. I… I just want to be a normal person. I want to go into a room and not calculate how to kill every single person, in case I need to make a quick exit. I want to not rate everything I see as a potential weapon, and I want to stop assuming every single person I encounter is doing the same thing.”
“But you’re not an ordinary person. Don’t you see? You are something extraordinary. Very few people have the abilities you have. Nothing comes without sacrifice. You can’t do what you do without being who you are.”
“But I don’t want to be who I am anymore.”
“Well, that part is normal. No one does. No one is living their dreams. No one ends up where they think they are going to end up. That’s not how life works. You at least have the advantage that you are helping make the world a better place.”
“So you say.”
Mother scoffed, irritating Amber.
“What’s funny?”
“It is hard to believe this is the issue. Welcome to your forties. My girl, there wouldn’t be a single person in the world your age who hasn’t gone through what you’re going through. Who hasn’t had doubts and second-guessed themselves. That is merely a sign of a life lived. And if you hadn’t taken those choices you did, you would be second-guessing a whole other set of choices. If you had never taken us up on our offer, you would have wondered about that every single day of your life.”
“At least I would have been a person.”
“You’re a woman in your forties. Do you want to know a secret? No one is happy in their forties. Especially women.”
“Some people are.”
Mother shook her head.
“
Most people aren’t monsters.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Amber raised the gun again to show she wasn’t joking.
“Oh, you poor thing. You don’t really believe that, do you? That you’re a monster?”
Amber struggled to form a response. “I almost shot my godson last night without a thought.”
“So? Maybe you should have.”
“No, I shouldn’t. He is completely innocent.”
“No one is completely innocent.”
“He had no involvement with the drugs. Zero.”
“You didn’t shoot him though.”
“No.”
“I’m not sure what the issue is.”
“I almost did.”
“Almost doesn’t count. In that moment, did you believe you should have shot him?”
Amber nodded.
“That doesn’t make you a monster, my dear. You’re a soldier. Soldiers have to do terrible things sometimes. The most unimaginable things. That’s just how it works. You believed him to be involved.”
“Yes, mistakenly.”
“It would have been unfortunate. No matter how hard we try, mistakes are unavoidable in life. Even in what we do, as horrible as that might sound.”
Lowering her gun slightly, Amber squeezed her eyes shut tight for a moment. Was all of this a charade? Would she really kill Mother? Could she? Surely if she was serious, she would have gone directly to the bedroom and killed her in her sleep. Mother knew this as well, and yet Amber still thought it a genuine possibility she may shoot Mother. Did Mother think that too?
“What happened with the heroin?” Mother asked.
“I destroyed it.”
A smile crept across Mother’s wrinkled lips. “That’s our girl.”
“It was pink.”
“What was?”
“The heroin. It had a pink tint to it.”
Mother pulled a face. “Unusual. Eastern European possible. We’d have to look into it. At a guess that would match with the chatter we were hearing.”
A quiet took over the space.
“What now?”
“Did you eliminate those involved?”
“Yes.”
“Excellent. Now, life goes on.”
“Yes, but… I can’t do that, and I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.”
“How?”
“No idea. There is only one person who can help you with that. It’s called living. You have to make peace with yourself and figure your way through. That unfortunately is what life is.”
Placing her Sig down on the table, Amber rubbed her eyes with her palms.
She probably wouldn’t shoot Mother. Not tonight.
69
Mother had some leftover spaghetti in the fridge which she and Amber shared, eating it cold.
“You believed we were setting you up to kill Ben?”
Amber nodded.
“With what endgame?”
“I thought this was a test. All of it.”
“You’re too old for tests, my girl.”
“Every mission is a test. Every test a mission. How many times have you told me that?”
“True.”
“I thought you were doing it to see if I would do it or not, I suppose. To see if I would still follow directives.”
They continued to eat in silence for a few moments.
“We can’t control you, Amber.”
“Yes, but I can hear your voice inside my head. Controlling my mind.”
“That’s a good thing.”
“It is?”
“It’s a sign of good training. What you do is highly specialised. You need to be able to turn off certain parts of your brain and just take action. More often than not, there isn’t time to ponder all the ramifications. You know that. If you tried, you would break.”
“I have broken.”
“What, this? Phhfftt. This is nothing. If you broke, it would be far worse than this, trust me.”
“It’s happened to others? This sort of thing? Before?”
“The not thinking thing isn’t so we have control over your mind. It’s to lessen the burden. What you do is punishing physically and psychologically. As such, we attempt to ease that burden wherever possible. The idea isn’t to render you a moron. Equally, you have to be able to trust in us.”
Amber focused on the green pesto flakes as she wound the spaghetti around her fork.
“What do we do now?”
“That depends,” Mother said. “Do you still intend to use that?”
She indicated to Amber’s Sig.
“Not right now.”
Mother nodded, no discernible change in her demeanour.
“As for the rest of it, nobody can make this work for you, Amber. It’s up to you. You are who you are and what you are. You find a way and you figure it out. You found a way into my apartment tonight. If we tasked you to kill someone, you would find a way. Find a way to live your life.” Mother scraped her fork along the bottom of her bowl. “We are always around if you need help. But that is all it can be. Help.”
“What do I do about Megan and Ben?”
“That is entirely your decision.”
“Yes, but —”
“Amber, you are a grown woman. You need to take responsibility for your own life. Stop blaming us or anybody else.”
“I’m not supposed to have close relationships.”
A cold smile curled across Mother’s lips. “That is what makes you such a good operative. You follow the rules so stringently. Close relationships make you vulnerable, yes. You know that. However, if you are willing to risk it, the choice is yours.”
“Yes, but…” Amber slumped in her chair. “I don’t know what I want.”
“It’s your life, Amber. You have to live it.”
Amber gazed at the apartment. “What about you? Living here, with your knitting. Are you happy?”
“Not particularly, no. But happiness is something we can live without.”
“How?”
“There is plenty more to life besides happiness. Duty. Sacrifice. Honour. Satisfaction…”
“You don’t even have a dog. I could imagine a little yappy dog running around here.”
Mother shook her head. “Dogs die.”
“I… I don’t want to end up like you. In a place like this.”
“That won’t happen.”
“Why not?”
“You’re too emotional.”
“Like a regular person?”
“No. You’re not a normal person, Amber. You have a very specialised set of skills. You kill people when you have to, and you are good at it. Few people can do what you do. Even with the extensive training, few could have come as far as you have. If you want to be special, you have to be different.”
“What if I don’t want to be special?”
“A little late for that, unfortunately.”
70
Amber ended up staying the night in Mother’s spare room. Despite having broken in with the sole purpose of killing her, staying was no more awkward than it would have been staying at Mother’s any other time.
The momentary pause allowed Amber to think. Really think. And not the garbled mess of thoughts that had been assaulting her mind, a more relaxed piecing together of what it was she actually wanted. It was a problem. Not knowing. For once her mind didn’t feel broken though. That was a good thing.
Evening the next day, Stavros dropped Amber back at Paradise by the Bay Holiday Cabins. She had only decided one thing - that she was going to come clean and tell Megan she was an assassin. Or she thought she would. Maybe. She wasn’t sure. All she knew was she had put in a lot of work here with Megan and Joan and Ben and wanted it to continue somehow. They were part of her. Her fabric of being. She had denied that for too long. She didn’t want to run away from them again. At least, not right now.
Amber still had the key for cabin six. Was that a subconscious error? Intentional in some way? Ha
d she forgotten to return the keys to give her an excuse to come back?
She dropped off her bag and headed directly for the owner’s cottage. Joan met her at the door with a simple hug. She didn’t say a word. Nothing about Amber being back or making the right choice or anything like that. She merely breathed “Good luck” and drifted out into the night.
Amber made her way in. Sitting at the kitchen table, Megan held a glass of beer.
“Well, well, well… Look who’s back.”
Amber took a seat. Was she going to be able to go through with this? Did she really want to?
“I thought you’d run away again.”
“No. I just had some stuff to take care of.”
“Some stuff… The mysterious Amber, with her big important life she can’t speak of. Too important to tell the likes of us.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s it like then?”
Amber cleared her throat. She opened her mouth but the words wouldn’t come. Megan finished her drink and let out a large burp. Going straight back to the bottle, she filled the glass again.
“How many of those have you had?”
“Why, you want me to save you some? Oh, that’s right. Little Miss Perfect doesn’t drink anymore. Or eat. Or do anything us mere mortals do. It must be hard gazing down on us from up there.” She swung around towards Amber, spilling a few drops. “It’s bad enough hearing it from Mum, I don’t need this rubbish from you too.”
The sound of the ticking clock took over. This wasn’t much fun. Was all of ordinary life like this?
“What do you care how much I drink, Amber? Seriously? How is it your concern?”
“I care about you.”
Megan pointed an unsteady finger at her friend. “That, is a lie. You know, I don’t think you have said a single honest thing since you showed up here. Don’t pretend you care about me. You don’t care about anyone. Anyone except Amber. It’s funny, that’s all you’ve done since you’ve got here. The whole time. Just lied. Lie, lie, lie.” She took another sizeable drink. “I know you ran away again, Amber. We both know it.”