Elastic Heart

Kicking his door open, Law smiled back at me. “Well I do.”

I didn’t need to follow Law up to his room. I remembered it with perfect clarity. It was where we had kissed, where he had saved me. It was where he held pieces of me I hadn’t known still existed.

It was a very eerie walk back there. I kept having déjà vu. When he waved his keycard over the lock, my eyes focused on the card and the hallway disappeared. It felt as if I were a high school student on prom night following her date into the motel.

I was so unnerved that the minute Law unlocked the door I pushed past him and ran inside before he could. I needed to get a good vantage point. I chose the radiator, ignoring the hot metal scalding my skin.

“Interesting spot,” Law remarked as he shut the door behind us.

“Shut up. Why am I here?” The metal burned my flesh, but I refused to be weak. Even changing locations felt like I was giving something up to him. In lieu of responding to me, Law went to his mini fridge and pulled out two bottles of water. He took a sip of one and offered me the other. I glared at him.

“Suit yourself.” Law put the bottle back inside the mini fridge and turned to me. “I have a journalist that can help you.” I was so bewildered I couldn’t even laugh. A journalist? Like a member of the media? Part of the lynch mob that had personally tied me up and thrown me over the

edge of a building marked “The Associated Press?”

After a few moments of silence I eventually said, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Are you laughing?” Law asked. Thankfully the radiator had turned off. The metal was still hot, but I was no longer at risk of third-degree burns. I lifted one sweaty thigh over my other leg and leaned against the winter chilled window. Law watched me just as intensely as I him.

With light brown hair cut short enough that it was out of his face, but long enough that I could still run my hands through it, he leaned forward so that it almost covered one eye. His head was cocked in a way that I’d grown accustomed to, a way that seemed to either be studying me or laughing at me. I could never decide. Law’s five o’clock shadow was eternal, and beneath the shadow always sat a smirk. Except for now. Now his mouth was set in a hard line.

“What’s the name of this journalist?” I asked, relenting. “Who does he work for?” Law moved from his perch against the mini fridge toward me. Fascinated, I watched him. How could someone simultaneously be a mercenary, but also full of mirth?

Law handed me a card. “He’s freelance.” I reached for the card, not taking my eyes off of Law. “Go to him. He’s good and can be trusted. At least look him up.”

“How do you know him?” I looked at the paper skeptically. It read Matthew Jameson in italic silver letters.

“I don’t. A few of my old colleagues were sources to him. He was good. Never ratted them out.”

I looked from the card, to him, to the card. “Your colleagues? Like Morris?” I scoffed, shoving the card in my purse. “Why should I trust you?”

“Don’t trust me, trust him,” Law shrugged. “He’s never betrayed a source and reports on serious shit.”

Tired of pretending that Law didn’t work for people like Morris, I stood up from the radiator and headed toward the door. I took one last look at Law and said what had been weighing on me since the beginning, “I don’t get you, Law. You work for Morris. You’re a lobbyer. You aren’t a good guy, so why are you pretending to know them? Why are you pretending that you care? Like you said, you pity me.”

I sighed, turning to exit, when I heard a loud noise. I spun around to see that Law had kicked over a chair. His hair was a mess, but nothing compared to the wildness in his eyes.

“Fuck!” he said, running a hand through his crazed locks. “I’m not a lobbyist, Nami!”

“Don’t fucking lie to me,” I countered, eyeing the chair. I didn’t think Law would hurt me, but displays of aggression didn’t sit well with me.

Sighing, Law picked up the chair and put it back in its place. After a moment or two of arranging it so it was back in its place, Law sat down. I watched him with equal parts fascination and disdain. I didn’t trust Law at all. My trust for him went about as far as I trusted my cable company when they promised to keep my bill low. Still, watching him put that chair back in place was a bit…odd. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Law rubbed his middle finger, head low. I watched the ritual, entranced. Minutes passed as Law continued to rub his finger, the only sound the loud blasting of the hotel radiator as it turned on again. I remained standing, damned if I’d let him lull me into comfort.

“I worked for the FBI.” Law’s voice broke the monotony, but he still rubbed his middle finger.

I laughed. Okay, he got me. I wasn’t expecting that. “Seriously? You think I’ll believe that? Were you also a spy?”

“I worked in the human trafficking division. I quit about five years ago. I couldn’t…” Law paused and the rubbing ceased. Dead air, like the silence of a funeral procession, filled the room. Not even the sound of breathing could break it.

All at once he continued, “I just couldn’t keep losing. The girls and little boys…they all disappear. No matter how many leads we track down, they’re just gone. Right in our own fucking backyard, but still gone.”

I eyed him warily, head cocked slightly. Law wasn’t looking at me. Law wasn’t looking at anything. His eyes had glazed over and his brow furrowed, as if reliving some nightmare.

“I—” I started to speak, to argue that he was a liar, but Law coughed, interrupting me. He placed his hands on his knees and looked directly at me, as if the past few minutes hadn’t happened. As if I’d seen something I wasn’t supposed to, and he was trying to wipe the memory away.

“So, yeah. I can give you my old ID number and unit and you can look me up. It’s been five years but there are still plenty of people there that will remember me. And anyway, you can’t erase bureaucracy.” No, I thought bitterly, but bureaucracy can erase you.