Agent on the Run (The Agents for Good)

by Stanton III, Guy

  It was a relief to get out of the rain. He sat Maria down on the bench and stripped off her soaking wet coats. He picked her back up and sat down, as the rain hammered down on the glass roof overhead.

  He pulled her gun out of her waistband and set it off to the side. Goodness knows there were easier ways to kill oneself than the method she’d chosen.

  He steeled himself to the task ahead and undid the lower buttons of her shirt. Her skin was cold and he checked for a pulse again, it was barely there. He pulled a knife out, but then hesitated. The smooth’s unblemished skin of her abdomen wouldn’t be the same because what he was about to do would leave a scar. What did it matter anyway?

  He started to make the cut, but stopped. Such things always matter to women. He cradled her over onto her side facing him and pushed her pants down slightly at the hip to make the cut in a spot where the scar would not be so noticeable.

  He made two cuts close together and then he quickly made two cuts in his palm, which he lined up over the cuts on her hip.

  The wounds fused together, as he began to concentrate. He shivered helplessly, as her icy blood began to pour into him through one cut, as his blood entered her through the other. He was warming her and being her immune system all at the same time.

  It was an exhausting ordeal to recycle her blood through the first time and his hand shook with his desire to rip it off and let her perish, but his hand stayed put.

  He was without a doubt making the biggest mistake of his life. God help him!

  The hours passed and she warmed up in his arms, as the rain stopped and an unseasonably warm breeze began to blow. She slept peacefully curled up against him all sickness gone from her. In some ways she’d been an easy fix.

  He’d only had to jumpstart the process and her body had intuitively caught on and helped along. He hadn’t had someone react so quickly or instinctually in a very long time. Most of the time he had to do all the work, but not with her and as a result he wasn’t nearly as tired now as he usually was from such a process.

  Elon pulled his hand away from the wounds, only to see that they’d already closed. She’d always have a mottled like bruising from the process from where extra blood vessel growth had been spurred to creation, but it would likely not be noticed down on her hip and with her darker olive skin complexion.

  Their skin tones were almost a match for each other.

  Helping to heal her had only deepened the mystery of who she was to Elon and why her life was being Divinely prolonged as his own was. He pulled her pants up and buttoned the bottom of her shirt. She stirred slightly against him, but went back into contented rest. He should wake her and leave, but she needed this rest so he sat holding her to him, as she breathed deeply and dreamlessly asleep in his arms.

  As if on cue with the dawn’s first rays of light the other benches filled with a smattering of people waiting for the metro train. Only the people weren’t what they seemed. One man stood with a newspaper folded under his arm, another with a book held out in front of him, several more who were dressed for business, one who looked like he was a painter by trade, another who wore a chef’s hat, and two that looked like waiters. None of them were minding their own business though.

  They were all intently watching him making no effort to conceal the fact of their guileless curiosity, as to what was going on. They were all Watchers, otherwise known as angels of heaven and Elon fully knew it. He knew he had embarked on a perilous and misbegotten journey by choosing to save Maria!

  Under the weight of their stares Elon went over and over in his mind in regards to the problem that lay in his arms sleeping contentedly pressed up against him. He sat there wishing that the Watchers would all just go somewhere else, because his own sense of guilt inside was enough to punish himself by. Had he made a mistake by saving Maria?

  The watcher with the newspaper broke rank and walked over. He glanced from Maria and then up to Elon. There was no condemnation in his gaze, which reflected only curiosity as he asked, “Why Elon? Why after so long a time?”

  Elon stared at the angel in shock. The angel didn’t know? That meant something must be hidden from them in regards to his actions!

  Why would that be?

  Elon stammered for a moment and then spoke the truth, “It wasn’t right to just let her die, because it would’ve been convenient for me.”

  The angel nodded and Elon looked away at the horizon trying to solve his own riddle. Looking back he asked, “It was right to save her, but it was also a mistake too. How can that be?”

  The angel smiled, “With the Lord all things are possible, who can tell what He has purposed to come of this.” The angel abruptly stepped back, as Maria suddenly began to stir.

  Maria’s eyes opened abruptly and she vaulted upward completely disoriented and alarmed by her circumstances. She looked around wildly, as she scooted off of Elon’s lap to the bench beside him.

  “What’s happening? Where am I? Why am I with you?” Maria exclaimed, as she tried to grasp what was taking place.

  Elon abruptly stood up, “I saved your life. You’re at the East and Broad metro station. Here’s a phone so you can call someone to come pick you up.” Elon abruptly turned and started to walk away with all of Maria’s answers.

  Panicked Maria stood up, “I don’t understand! Would somebody please tell me what’s going on?” She begged Elon, even as she blushed knowing that she must be making a scene of herself in the eyes of the other people at the station.

  Elon didn’t turn back as he walked away, but his words were loud and easily carried back to Maria, “Go home Maria!”

  In the emotional frustration and upheaval of the moment Maria screamed back at him, “How can I? You took the only home I’ve ever been able to find away from me, when you closed the Agency!”

  Elon stopped and Maria could tell he was in a tense inner struggle of some kind. He turned his head to the side without fully looking back at her. His words seemed, as if he was pulling them out of the fire, “What you say of me is true. I do not really have a home to call my own either, but I have a purpose and if you want to help me and share in that purpose you’re welcome to come along.”

  Elon started walking away again and Maria stared at his back in shock. The Agency’s benefactor and Chantry’s mentor was offering to allow her to accompany him into whatever it was that he did?

  What was going on here?

  Was this what Chantry had intended in reference to a secure future?

  If that was the case there wasn’t anything secure about it that she could see!

  Crying she sank to her knees on the depot platform and whispered out brokenly, “God what do I do?”

  A warm breeze of a Divine origin blew words into her soul, “Go.”

  She hadn’t been expecting an answer and the infilling of the assurity of the answer she had received took her breath away.

  “You want me to go with him! Why?”

  Instead of an answer she got a question in return, “Is it hard to be alone?”

  Maria felt overwhelmed at the emotion that rose up within her to answer that question in a way that needed no words to express.

  “It is hard, because I fashioned you to need relationship. My faithful servant Elon has need of your prayers.”

  Her prayers?

  She barely even prayed!

  “My strength is made manifest through your weakness.”

  Feeling on the verge of being struck dead by a lightning bolt Maria asked, “Is that all I am to do for Elon?”

  “In time, when you are ready, I will give you to Elon as a priceless treasure is given to one who is deserving of the honor of it.”

  Maria swallowed and stopped breathing, as the reality of what that meant fully hit her. A part of what had been said before to her was repeated strongly, “When you are ready.”

  There was love in those words, but there was a lot else within her that spoke against it.

&nbs
p; “Whether you choose to go or stay you will be blessed for I will honor your father’s last request of Me.”

  The Creator’s words jogged the remembrance of a deep memory. Maria sobbed, as her gaze touched the back of the man God wanted her to go with. Her father had requested something of her before he had died and it was time for her to honor it.

  Maria got to her feet and stepped forward wiping at her tears. People she hadn’t really noticed were suddenly in her way pressing in all around her. It seemed like she was caught up in some mad shuffle, as she was spun from one person to the next.

  “Here it’s going to be cold this evening you better have my coat.” An insulated leather coat was tossed over one of her arms.

  “Like he said it’s going to be cold, better take my hat and scarf.” A hat was plopped on her head and a scarf tossed around her neck.

  “Looks like you’re on a journey, better take along my pack. It has what you need.” A pack was slung over her right shoulder that had weight to it.

  “You look like you haven’t eaten in days, better take my lunch.” “And my jug.” Another person said, as both a bag and a half gallon insulated jug were thrust into her hands, which her hands reflexively closed over in acceptance.

  Maria was thrust forward toward the diminishing form of Elon in the distance. She looked down at all the stuff that she was laden with. What was going on here?

  She turned back to question the people, who had given the stuff to her, only they weren’t there!

  The people had vanished!

  The metro station was completely devoid of all life!

  “Oh God!” She gasped and then turned tail to run after Elon.

  There was so much she didn’t understand!

  It took a while to catch-up with Elon, but when she did he gave her a look that could have killed several times over. It shook her up to know that she was to accompany a man so antagonistic to her.

  “He’s not angry at you, but rather he’s angry at himself. He thinks by saving your life he has in a way failed Me. He has a weakness of thinking too much instead of listening as often as he should.”

  Maria didn’t know why, but she felt humor in the last Divinely felt sentence and she gave a spurt of laughter.

  Elon gave her a strange look, but kept walking.

  “Those people back there weren’t real!” Maria said not quite sure why she was trying to have conversation with this man she practically knew nothing about.

  “Oh they were real all right! They just weren’t people.” Elon said in response.

  Maria swallowed, as the answer to that one became clear to her. The day was starting to become chilly or maybe it always had been and she just hadn’t noticed it. Either way the coat draped over her arm looked inviting. She stopped and set the sack and the jug down and unslung the pack in order to put the coat on. It was a perfect fit.

  She slung the pack back on and picked the other items up to hurry to catch back up with Elon’s fast pace. He was still very much angry. Seeing the perfect fit of the coat on her, only seemed to drive him farther over the emotional brink of some internal chasm somehow.

  “Pray for his anger to depart.”

  The thought came and why not, so she did. After a few moments Elon pulled the sack from out of her hand and peered inside. He pulled out a breakfast sandwich and holding it out to her he said, “Take a bite.”

  Feeling like a child Maria did. It was the best tasting anything that she’d ever had!

  “Taste good?”

  She nodded vigorously. He pressed the rest of the sandwich into her hand, “Then eat the rest of it.”

  She went about accomplishing that, as he pulled another sandwich out and started eating it.

  The sandwich in Maria’s hand was gone in short order and she was suddenly very thirsty. Before she could object though Elon had taken the jug from her and was swigging down the mystery fluid. He stopped and held it out to her, but her eyes remained rooted on the spot where his lips and been on the jug.

  “Don’t tell me you’re a germaphobe! Are you?”

  “I’m afraid so.” Maria admitted.

  Elon sighed dramatically and then rooted around again in the bag. His hand came out with a long straw. “Wondered what this was for, now I know.” He said, as he passed the straw and the jug to her.

  Maria put the straw in the jug and began to drink of the sweet beverage that it contained. While she drank she noticed that Elon’s face had changed a lot and she even thought she saw the glimmer of a smile. Her straw sucked empty.

  She stared at the container aghast that she had drunk it all, “I’m sorry!” She exclaimed.

  Elon chuckled, “That’s all right. You needed it. Tasted good didn’t it?”

  Maria nodded and asked, “What was it?”

  Elon shrugged, “Bug juice for all I know.”

  “Do you think I’ll ever have it again?”

  “It’s always a possibility I suppose.” Elon said, as he reached out and unslung the pack from Maria’s shoulder to sling it over his own shoulder. He then reached into his waistband to pull out her gun, which he handed back to her.

  She took it glancing at him surprised, “You trust me?”

  “Yes. Any reason why I shouldn’t?” Elon asked speculatively.

  “Can’t think of any?” Maria answered honestly.

  “Good. Are you still mad at me for taking the Agency away from you?”

  “Yes.”

  Elon nodded, “Thank you for being honest. Honesty and truthfulness are key if we’re going to work together. Don’t ever lie or deceive me Maria about anything no matter how trivial it may be in your eyes. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes. What would happen if I did though?”

  He looked at her then and some part of Maria’s soul quelled at the sight of the intensity in his eyes.

  “You don’t want to find out.”

  She believed him.

  Some time passed by as they walked along, until Maria asked, “So where are we going?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Do we have to walk this fast to wherever you haven’t decided yet?”

  “Yep.” Was Elon’s curt response.

  More time slipped by, which again Maria interrupted, “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Saving my life and giving me back a purpose again.”

  Elon glanced over to Maria and studied her for a moment before responding, “You’re welcome.” His pace slowed ever so slightly then, until it was a match for Maria’s normal stride.

  To Be Continued.

  Guy S. Stanton, III

  A few things about me

  I live in the country. It’s the best place to be I’m

  thinking. I share my life with my beautiful wife, Beth,

  my three children and one cat named Herman.

  When I’m not lost in a daydream the most likely

  place you’ll find me at is flower gardening

  or at the movie theatre. I use to think I was strong, but

  now I freely admit that I’m weak. My new reality is

  okay because Jesus Christ has me covered.

  It’s better that way trust me!