by Sara Schoen
It must have hurt her to know it was only a matter of time before her own father would kill them both. It made me wonder if she knew Ash Crest had been ordered to kill her. Her father most likely put out the hit so he didn’t have to get his hands dirty, but it made me wonder how long he had been trying to get rid of her. How long had he been waiting for Ash Crest to finish the job? It was hard to process a father wanting to kill his own daughter, but then again I had seen a lot of twisted things since I joined the agency.
“She wants to know what we are going to do about her sister,” Renegade said breaking me from my thoughts.
“Sister?” Demon questioned, his voice raising slightly as he tried to contain his excitement that the conversation had shifted to English again. “I’ve never heard anything about a sister. Are you sure that’s what she said?”
“Yes, she says that her sister is still back in Russia and wants to know what we are going to do about it,” Renegade said, causing Katya to nod in agreement. He was acting like her translator now. If her father and his men could speak English I didn’t see why she couldn’t.
“We didn’t know you had one,” Demon stated as he reached out for Katya’s arm. “Let’s talk to Sharp Shooter and we can figure out what to do about your sister. You should have told us when you woke up.”
Katya nodded, but lightly pulled her arm out of Demon’s hold and took Renegade’s elbow. Demon tried to hide the hurt that swept across his features as she pulled Renegade away. My hands balled into tight fists as I tried to control my actions. I didn’t have a good reason to throw a punch, though Demon thought it would be funny to tempt me.
“She’s taking your man. Are you going to stand by and let it happen?”
I took a deep breath in a futile attempt to calm the anger coursing through my veins. I tried to think of anything else, but I knew it was a lost cause. Every time I closed my eyes and tried to center myself, Demon’s words echoed in my head. “He’s not my man,” I said as I cast a glare at Renegade’s back, hoping he could feel the heat of my gaze as he walked away. He never turned around. “It turns out relationships suffer in this business.” I could hear the low growl in my voice which only upset me more because I was letting this get to me. Not anymore. I’d take solace in the one thing Renegade could never take away from me. “If you need me, I’ll be training. Don’t interrupt unless absolutely necessary.”
I didn’t wait for him to respond before I walked away. I knew what he would say and I didn’t need to hear how I was letting the chance slip away, or how I was at fault. I just wanted to take a few hours to myself and prepare in case Sharp Shooter came to his senses and sent me somewhere far away from the other agents for a while—hopefully somewhere without cartels or Renegade. I was ready for some kind of change. I just hoped it came sooner rather than later.
Chapter 8
While Rum and I had gotten closer since I first joined, her training still hadn’t gotten easier. Between honing skills, and making sure I didn’t lose them, there was a lot of extra training I wouldn’t have considered necessary for a thief. We increased my running, which I hated the most, but I understood why I needed it after how difficult it was for me to catch the plane. What I didn’t understand was why I needed to be prepared if I ever came face to face with a wild animal, to swim a far distance in case I was ever dropped into the ocean, or my personal favorite—how to fit in too small a hiding spot. I still had cramps from the spot she stuck me in before I left for Russia. I hoped one day it came in handy or I would think she was doing this to torture me—though it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the reason.
Rum enjoyed throwing in a few surprises, which included knives aimed at my head, and punches ready to land anywhere she could manage. Just as the thought entered my head, a blow landed in my side.
Once the wind was knocked out of me, Rum landed a few more blows and took me straight to the ground. I didn’t have time to react when my back made contact with the hard floor of our training room before she was on me, placing the cool steel of my knife that she must have taken during our fight, and faking a killing blow by swiping the blade in the air above my neck.
I let out a hard breath and sank into the floor. Disappointment and exhaustion set in as I eased further into the floor. When she got off, pretending to clean the knife, I couldn’t help but tear apart our fight. I should have felt her pull my knife from its sheath. I should have prevented the blow that took me off guard. There were a lot of things I should have done, but didn’t. Those were the mistakes I couldn’t make when the fight counted most.
“You’re distracted,” Rum said bluntly as she stepped away from me. It was no longer a question of if, it was a fact. She even knew who was distracting me, just not the full reason why.
When Renegade had left me behind he got a commendation from Fire Fox for making a hard choice, but following the code. Rum didn’t see it like that and made sure to tell Renegade he had to watch out for me, not leave me behind out of convenience. I knew it had been a hard choice because in the military they vowed to never leave a man behind, but here you had to or two agents would be lost instead of just one. Even though I knew that, I couldn’t swallow the feeling of betrayal any easier.
“You need to stop thinking about him. What if this wasn’t a training exercise?”
I took a deep sigh and tried not to think about the pain I would have gone through if it was anyone other than Rum. When I didn’t answer, she answered for me.
“You would have been dead and we would have been out a thief again.” The agency had spent a lot of time looking for me after Hess died in Sandtown. Sharp Shooter claimed that it was because the skills were hard to come by, but I couldn’t be sure. To this day they hadn’t found anyone to match their needs for a thief. I was the only one. She let the words sink in, letting me delve into a moment of self-pity before continuing. “Renegade’s actions, however they seem, are clouding your judgment and taking over your thoughts. You need to refocus and put everything about him behind you otherwise I’m not sure what’s going to happen to you next time you’re sent out. Please don’t let me lose two friends.”
The truth in her words filled me with dread. I feared what would happen if I didn’t straighten up. While it hadn’t affected me greatly on the mission to Russia, I knew that it came out in my tone and actions toward Demon and Katya. I had been harsh to Demon more than usual when he brought up Renegade. I know he did it to try to get information out of me, but it wasn’t something I was ready to share yet. Only Rum and Fire Fox knew he left me behind because he called Fire Fox after he left to ask what to do next. No one else did, and I wasn’t fully ready to tell Rum or anyone else what I was feeling so they could dissect my feelings further than I already had.
“Night Stripe,” Rum called quietly to pull me from my thoughts. “He did what he was ordered to, but you need to be prepared in case someone else leaves you behind again. I need to know you can get out of there alive. All that matters is you getting out so you have the chance to come back and kick their asses for leaving you.” A smile curled at the ends of my lips, and she smiled back at me before continuing. “Most relationships here, whether in a romantic sense or as partners, fail because one of the agents die before they have a chance to see it out. I’m not telling you that you can’t have a relationship, but you need to be aware of the consequences if you attempt to have one.”
I nodded in response as I pulled myself from the floor, taking Rum’s outstretched hand for help. I tried to brush off the dirt from my clothes, but it was useless. The sweat I had worked up during the training had seeped into my clothes and let the dirt stick to me. I sighed in defeat and tried to relax. Between drama with Renegade, Katya taking up more time and patience then I predicted, and the looming issue of having to explain to her and Renegade about Ash Crest, I wasn’t prepared for relationship advice from Rum. I mostly expected her to beat me with the stick she carried around. It had something to do with the monks she worked with for years, but
I think she kept it around just to punish me.
As if she could read my mind, she slapped the back of my legs with her khakkhara to get my attention. “You’re already overthinking everything again. I can see it on your face.”
“I wasn’t thinking about anything,” I lied. I knew it was useless to lie to her, she had taught me how to look for small ticks to see if someone was lying to me, but I wasn’t ready for another lecture, either.
Rum scoffed, and put one hand on her hip as if to intimidate me into blurting out the truth. When I didn’t, she gave me an abbreviated lecture since she couldn’t pin point what was on my mind. “Don’t let Katya get to you. She’s not after something; she’s trying to come to terms with what happened. You don’t have to tell her how you knew her before. She probably doesn’t want to know or has already assumed that her father tried to get rid of her before. And as for Renegade, Hess had a saying about men—they are all stupid and nothing we do will ever change that. He knew he needed your trust to figure out what happened to Ash Crest. Everyone here is keeping their mouths shut, and you’re the only one with the whole story. He’ll have to deal with that, but if you want to move forward you’ll have to tell him straight out what you want because that’s the only way he’ll figure it out. He doesn’t seem to take hints very well.”
I smiled at her before wiping it off my features. “As you said, one agent gets distracted and ends up dead. I need to focus on the mission, not on him. It’s for the best that he and I don’t discuss that yet. I will need to tell him eventually because one day someone’s going to slip up, and he’s still out for revenge. He’s out for blood, actually.”
“Much like you were,” she pointed out. “You two may have more in common than you think.”
A breathy laugh escaped my lips, quickly turning into a smile when I realized she was trying to cheer me up. “I never said I would change what I did. I just never thought I’d have to explain what happened to others Ash targeted, or that I would become targeted because I decided the kill the sick bastard.”
“I’m glad you wouldn’t change it, because you can’t.” She smiled at me, a fleeting glance at our friendship to anyone who passed by before she wiped it away. “You don’t have to tell me why you decided to kill him, but you should tell Renegade. You’re blunt and honest, and while that comes across poorly to some it’s the best thing to do in this case so he can stop searching for who killed Ash and you can get your head back in the game. I need you focused; I’m not ready to lose another friend.”
“You won’t,” I promised. I knew it had been hard for Rum when Hess was killed, that was why it took almost a year for us to become friends. She didn’t want to lose someone else and suffer a similar pain. “You’re stuck with me at least until my training is done.”
A smile came across her features, but that quickly wiped away when the doors to our training room were opened. We both turned to see who had interrupted our training. After how Rum treated Demon when he first introduced me to her I was sure most people knew to avoid her while she was in here.
“This is where some of our agents train, but the training areas are set up differently based on what your job is,” Renegade explained as he gestured toward Rum and I. He failed to notice the anger on Rum’s features, or the annoyance on my own, as he showed her the room. Katya looked as if she didn’t care and would rather be anywhere else but here.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked, gesturing between Rum and I.
“Didn’t you see we were in here?” Rum questioned. “I thought Fire Fox would have taught you better than to interrupt people while they are training.”
Katya flashed a worried glance between Renegade and I. She could clearly see our displeasure. Mostly I was upset at what Renegade could have overheard. If he heard me, he wouldn’t seem taken aback by my anger, he’d be throwing it back at me for not telling him. I just wanted to tell him at the right time, which would never happen, so the longer he was kept busy, the longer I could keep my secret.
“I just wanted to show her around some before the meeting,” Renegade said, holding his hands up in surrender. ”I was also told to come tell you guys to be there.”
“We already know about the meeting to decide what to do with her,” Rum stated. “We are training to fix a few things that would have helped her in Mexico.” As the words left Rum’s mouth, Renegade’s face fell. For a moment I felt bad, but at the same time he deserved it. He left me and I had to fend for myself when I was supposed to rely on him as a partner.
“Show her somewhere else,” I interjected. “We need to finish before we listen to what Sharp Shooter has to say.” I didn’t know about the meeting beforehand, I assumed there would be one but I didn’t know when. Sharp Shooter hadn’t told me when I left his office so Rum must have heard from Sharp Shooter before we met for training. All I knew was that I was meant to be protecting Katya, but Renegade seemed to have that under control. She was hiding behind him as if terrified Rum and I would attack her, and Renegade probably enjoyed having someone who willingly wanted his protection. His sister didn’t need it since she moved, Alex was taking good care of her, and without a cartel around she didn’t have much to worry about outside of a normal life.
Renegade furrowed his eyebrows and glared at me before stepping back to move Katya and himself from the room. “You’re just like Rum,” he grumbled as he exited the room. It was meant to be an insult, but she was at least here for me. I trusted her and that was more than I could say for him.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” Rum said with a smile. “I feel like I’m a pretty good role model. Now, go get cleaned up. We meet with Sharp Shooter and Demon in an hour to decide what to do with Katya, and no one will want to be around you smelling like you’ve been training for the last few hours.”
“I thought I was protecting her. What is the meeting about?” I asked as we left the training room. I saw Renegade watching us as we stepped outside. We had just made a scene of kicking him out only to leave a few minutes later.
“You’re a very literal thinker.” Rum shook her head as if she was disappointed. “There are different ways to protect people; you should know that more than anyone. You’re protecting her from her father by risking your life, protecting your family by leaving them to be in the agency, and protecting Renegade by keeping your secret.” She gave me a hard glare to make sure I was listening. “There’s a lot of ways to protect people, you just have to find what each person needs.”
Chapter 9
I spent my entire shower wondering what Sharp Shooter was going to do with Katya. There were a lot of options, but we had to figure out what was best for her. In my opinion, she should stay in the building. That way we could keep her safe even if her father started to look for her. By now he was sure to have figured out that Katya was missing and not dead. Her mother’s body would have been found if someone went looking for it, unless it got buried under more snow. Then it could take a while for them to discover the body, though something told me we wouldn’t be that lucky. I was never that lucky, and I tended to get caught more than anything else.
There is nothing wrong with that. I learned more from my mistakes than I did from success. They forced me to grow, and then I knew I could handle myself if it ever happened again. At least I knew now if I was ever trapped by Mexican drug lords I knew how to escape and make it back to CIRA in one piece. I let the thoughts slip away in the last few moments I was in the shower, letting them vanish as the water slid down my body. The moment was fleeting, but in these times between missions they were all I had to think over everything.
The second we got back we were busy preparing for the next mission. It was something I took solace in, the time I spent with the other agents in this building before we were sent out again. Others tended to focus on training or revenge. A shiver raced down my spine, which was instantly fixed by the warm water and the lull of the music I had turned on beforehand. It was only a matter of time before
Renegade found out I slipped him false information about Ash Crest, about a man who wasn’t real, but supposedly took Ash’s life. It wasn’t my fault he was so willing to believe the information. I think he was just thankful it wasn’t me. I knew he had an inclination I killed Ash, but he took the information too easily. He wanted to believe someone else did it.
“You’re overthinking it again,” I said to myself, shutting my eyes and taking in a breath in a futile attempt to relax. “There’s nothing more to it than him wanting answers. He doesn’t know you killed Ash. He doesn’t know you lied. Just keep it together and he never has to know the truth.” The words relaxed me, but at the same time I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s all they were. Words that would one day come to bite me in the ass. I had kept my secret this long; nothing was going to make me give it up.
I turned off the water quickly, as if to cut off my thoughts at the source, and quickly dried off. I turned the radio down slightly when I got out and took some time to dry my hair with a towel. The steam filled the bathroom, calming me as I pushed away the remnants of my thoughts, I was always more relaxed and in a better mood after I showered. I just didn’t get many opportunities to shower on missions depending on where I was sent or what I was doing. Showering in Russia had been a distasteful thought. What if I had to rush out after showering? My hair would be frozen and I’d be chilled to the core. That wouldn’t have been fun for Demon or I since I would be complaining every moment we were outside.
A knock sounded on my bedroom door, effectively ending the semi-good mood my shower had put me into. I knew it would be Rum or Demon coming to get me for the meeting. I wasn’t ready to sit through a discussion on what to do with Katya. There were always varying opinions, and previously, none of them had a stake in this fight. I tried and failed to save her before; I wasn’t going to let that happen again.
