Counterfeit Love

"I think the traditional hell imagery has some kind of boat."

"Captain Finch then. I can live with that. This is why you do what you do."

"What I do?" I repeated, carefully folding upward, inspecting the palms of my hands. They were scraped and painful, but blood-free.

"With Badass Barbie and MC Ken. You guys take down traffickers because of the men in that folder."

"Yeah," I agreed, unable to look at him.

"Never been happier to be part of someone's mission before, dollface. Even if I had to initially be blackmailed into it."

That easy, lazy, charming smile of his seemed to pull the hands from around my throat, let me take a proper breath again. As I did so, I reached out, slipping the half-smoked cigarette from between his lips, dropping it down, snuffing it out with the tip of my shoe.

"You're supposed to be quitting," I told him.

"Funny thing. I forgot all about that when I had no one around to remind me," he said, raising his brows a bit pointedly at me.

"I needed space."

"Nope," he said, shaking his head.

"Nope?"

"Yeah. No. I'm afraid I can't give you space. You know... because of the mission."

"The mission doesn't mean we need to see each other every day. The mission means you need to be printing money instead of writing PDFs."

"Not that mission."

"There is only one mission."

"Well, it is kind of the same mission. But it is an offshoot of the main mission, I guess."

"What are you talking about?"

"About our private mission."

"We don't have a private mission."

"But we do. Starting with this Michael prick."

"Finch... no."

"You like that word a lot," he observed, eyes dancing. "Unfortunately, I appear to be a bit allergic to it when it comes to things like this. So, the question is, when do we roll out?"

"We are not rolling out to do anything."

"Well, we will do the rolling. I might be doing all the dirty work. Unless you decide vigilante justice is for you too."

"I can't ask that of you."

"You aren't asking. I'm offering."

"I was going to have Ferryn work on it."

"Yeah, I bet she's real good at it. But seems like she is pretty busy already with the main mission. We can't, in good conscience, take her away from that now, can we?"

He made a persuasive argument, didn't he?

"Why?

"Why what?"

"Why are you offering to do this?"

"Because when I tried to shake your hand you looked down at it like it might reach out and grab your throat. Because you flinch when a man raises his voice. Because you stiffen when a guy gets too close. Because someone took something from you. Because they need to pay for that. Besides, it will be fun."

"Killing people will be fun?" I asked, dubious.

"Well, that part might be all solemn righteousness or something like that. But the road tripping? Come on, you can't tell me we aren't going to have a blast."

"We can't road trip."

"Sure we can."

"I have a job."

"Way I hear it, you're a bit of a boss around here. You can do that thing that bosses do when they want to get away for a while."

"Delegate," I supplied for him.

"Yeah, that. You delegate the workload. Then you hop in a car with me and we sing shitty two-thousands music and eat crappy fast food and sleep in sketchy motel rooms. And have the time of our lives."

"I don't like sketchy motel rooms."

"Then the presidential suite for you, angel."

He almost made it sound... possible.

Surely, it wasn't.

Normal people didn't just get up out of their lives, pack a car, and drive off into the sunset with guns and knives in the trunk.

Then again, we weren't exactly normal people, were we?

Still.

There were obstacles.

Even if I was seriously considering it.

Which I wasn't.

Of course, I wasn't.

It was crazy.

And I was practical, reliable, boring old Chris.

With her lists and her guards and her complete inability to unwind, to have fun, to do anything risky or impulsive.

"Chris," Finch broke in, making my head snap up, finding him watching me with those deep eyes of his. "Comfort zones are a great thing. But you're never going to be satisfied living in one all the time."

He wasn't lying either, was he?

Had I built a good life? One full of family and friends and a career I was passionate about? One with security and certainty and, yes, comfort?

Yes, yes, I had.

Did I find a sense of satisfaction in that?

Of course.

But could I genuinely say I was happy?

The sad truth was no. I couldn't honestly say that.

"You have a nice cage here, doll. It's real safe. You decorated it real nice. But it's still a cage. Bust out of it. Come with me."

God, but it was tempting.

More tempting than finishing the whole pint of ice cream after a bad day. More tempting than hitting the snooze button when you were up late the night before. More tempting than staying in this very safe, very pretty cage I had trapped myself inside. A place no one could get to me, true, but also a place that kept me from experiencing anything else the world had to offer.