Come To Me (Owned 3)

“Oh?” I quirked a brow, pretending I didn’t already know that. Throughout the entire conversation, I’d kept my head turned from Alice, only spying her in the periphery. Alice had tried to do the same, tried to convey the same impassivity, but she finally broke.

“You could secure your spot!” Alice turned to me, almost beseeching. “We just need a little show of faith.”

“I’d rather chew off my own dick.” Finishing the drink, I set the glass down with a slam. Alice flinched; it was light, but it was there.

“You’re a fucking idiot, Vic.” I’d let her think that. The same way I let Lenny hate me. In the end, it would all work out. “You’re a dead man now.”

“I was already in the gallows, Alice. You were just holding the noose around my neck.”

She was always a slow shot; it was one of the reasons GEM put her in handling instead of field work. She may have come from a military background, but her skill set was limited. Just as she pulled the trigger, I dodged, pulling out my own.

Alice shrieked, but my shot was off. The round whizzed past her head, barely grazing her scalp. I dropped to the ground, bullet lodged deep in my thigh. It was through and through—nothing I hadn’t handled before—but as I was about to make my next move, GEM agents swarmed into the apartment.

“Can’t take me man on man?” I said, laughing. Alice glared, kicking my gun far away from my hands.

Men and women dressed completely in black, M16s attached to their hands, piled into my apartment like they’d found Osama and not the cherry on top of a petty vendetta. Red dots circled the room as the eyes attached searched for any hiding marksmen. It’s what I would have done, what I was trained to do.

I thought of my red dot, the one sitting at the cafe, and hoped that my plan had worked. It was all I had now.

There really wasn’t much left for the GEM agents to tear apart, but they tried. No stone left unturned and all that shit. As I watched them kick over my already smashed TV and pull apart my already gutted couch, I was satisfied. Alice hadn’t taken that from me, at least. I’d destroyed my home before she could.

When it was clear there was no other threat than the bleeding man on the floor, they left. It wasn’t their job to babysit, after all. Now clean up had arrived. I’d only been witness to one clean up before. It hadn’t been my job to babysit, after all. Still, I’d stayed. I’d stayed for her.

She was on the floor, bloody and nearly dead, and that fucking asshole was there as well. That asshole was looking to destroy her. If I’d come a second later he would have raped her. Two seconds later, he would have killed her. I didn’t need to close my eyes to remember her screams; they were with me always. With each beat of my heart I heard the way she clawed for life with the back of her throat.

I told her she was safe with me, and I’d fucked that up royally.

I hadn’t needed GEM to take him out. I’d used a bit of their resources to handle Zoe’s hospitalization and was on my way to tracking down the fucker when my apartment alarm went off. I ran back up to the place, worried as fuck that he had somehow gotten inside.

But no, she’d left. I should have known then that she didn’t follow orders, or just basic common sense.

She’d left.

The rest was my fault. I should have realized by then how she affected me. If I’d taken a few moments to collect myself, I could have found her. I could have found hi

m, and never involved GEM. At that time, though, there were no moments to collect. Inside I felt like a nuclear reactor breaking down. So I went nuclear and called everyone I knew. Alice was my handler at that point, but I had clearance higher than her.

I called it in. I called GEM. I called a code. We got there. We pulled the asshole off. And he was disposed of. I could have left, because men like me don’t wait around to babysit.

But I waited until they were done cleaning off the blood.

And I waited until she woke up.

Then I went nuclear, again.

I hissed as a little bit of gasoline landed on my open wound.

“How’s the bullet feel?” Alice asked.

I laughed. “I could ask you the same thing.”

Alice absentmindedly touched her forehead, the blood was already scabbing over. “You could have been great. Instead…this.” She looked around my quickly drowning apartment. The GEM cleanup crew drenched gasoline over my sink, on the counter, over the wood floors I’d painstakingly kept clean.

“You mean you could have been great.”

“I will be great,” she said, and dropped the match.

I was napping next to the stove when black smoke woke me up. Mama said I was so good yesterday when the lady came that she was gonna do something special for me. She said she was gonna make popcorn, but first she had to eat her candy. She put the popcorn on the stove and I waited, ‘cause something that special didn’t happen often.