Chapter 11 Past
Past
Rohan
In the morning, we don’t talk about what comes next, because we both already know how this thing is going to play out; no point in raking up all the reasons why we can’t do this if we’re just going to bury them six feet under all over again afterward.
Aaron doesn’t tell me he’s stepping back as my handler, but a few days after the mission, I get called into Snow’s office, where she explains that I’ll be base bound for a while until they can reassign me to a new leash holder.
I can see she’s expecting a fight, possibly even some kind of supermarket toddler-level tantrum, and it’s very gratifying in the moment to deny her that.
Snow lets me turn my wheels for a few weeks while she struggles to find someone else who will agree to be my handler.
I don’t know if it’s because of my past, which most of the agents on base shouldn’t know about, or if Aaron dropping me like an unpinned grenade really marked me as trouble that explosively.
When Snow gets bored trying to sell my virtues to other senior agents, she throws in the towel and sticks me with a temporary handler for each assignment instead.
The only saving grace for that is she lets me decide which missions to take, an option I’m certain most junior agents are not granted, and I use my unearned privilege as I have throughout my life, to it’s fullest extent and without an ounce of shame.
Most of the handlers Snow throws me at are fine, but none of them are as skilled or competent as North, and the problem with having the best right out the gate is that anything less than that starts to feel like an insult on my own capabilities.
“Your senior agents,” I tell Snow after one particular job that got far messier than it should have done, “are fucking weak. You should kill them all and start over.” I’m very reasonable about it, but Snow still looks at me like she’s wondering if I’ll be one of those mistakes she’ll regret forever, or if I’ll do her the favour of dying so she doesn’t have to.
“Thank you for the assessment, Agent Sathe,” Snow says, dry as a rusted machete. “I will certainly keep that in mind for the future.”
Despite my frustration with FISA’s ongoing addiction to red tape morality bullshit, there’s a stretch of time where everything is ok, trudging along with very few issues.
I don’t see much of Aaron because he’s out on missions even more often than I am, but it’s fine.
I went eighteen years of my life without Aaron North and his large hands and vaguely amused quarter-smiles, I can survive a few fucking months of no contact well enough.
But then everything goes to shit during a mission in Novosibirsk, fucking Siberia of all places.
It’s a nightmare right from the start, when the intel on how many people are supposed to be showing up at the weapons exchange is grossly incorrect, as well as the buildings interior maps being outdated, so half the exit points are just walls now.
I get clocked by some hyper Siberian arms dealers and they send their goons after me.
With more luck than anything else, I find my way out onto the streets and start running.
But we’re in a bad part of town, all gaps, entire pieces missing like chipped teeth, nowhere to hide, and I have zero idea where I’m going because my hit and run handler—Senior Agent Lane--goes radio silent on the comms.
Since there’s no one around here to call the police, or everyone who is here knows better, the well-armed Siberian lackeys feel free to unload their weapons on me.
Bullets fly past my head as I sprint along snow-slick cobbled streets, and getting shot starts to feel like an inevitability that I’m going to need to plan my survival around rather than hold out hope for avoiding entirely.
“Fucking Siberia!” I growl as I slip on a patch of ice which only narrowly prevents me from receiving a bullet to the throat.
“Fucking cold bullshit weather. No grit on the roads? Where the hell is the commitment to health and safety regulations in this country?” I sound half hysterical, which is good, because that’s only half as hysterical as I feel.
There’s a crackle of static in my ear and for a moment I think maybe my part-time handler had a fit of conscience that he will severely regret when I survive this and come for him, but then a different familiar voice comes through the comm line.
“Agent Sathe,” Aaron sounds blessedly unruffled, his usual gruff bark of command a welcome reprieve. “Go left at the next building.”
“Hey, babe!” I trill, following his advice and cutting abruptly to the left, narrowly avoiding another series of gunshots to the back, turning the corner of a large building, bullets hitting the chipped brick behind me.
“Now stop running and drop to the ground!” Aaron orders like a drill sergeant having a particularly trying day at boot camp.
“Good idea in concept,” I say blithely, “but there are at least four of these fucks and despite my best efforts to eat all my vegetables as a kid, I’m just not big enough to trip them all at once.”
“You’re still a kid,” Aaron reminds me in a growl. “Just do as your told for once and hit the fucking ground now!”
Trust is not my strong suit, for a myriad of very appropriate reasons, but Aaron hasn’t shown me anything so far to make me doubt him and my options are pretty slim right now anyway.
I drop to the snow covered cobblestones and curl myself into as small a ball as I can, assuming the point of this is to make myself as less of a target as possible.
As soon as my body smashes against stone, a large black van speeds out from a hidden side street and stops in the middle of the road less than ten feet from my head.
The van’s door slides open to reveal a group of FISA agents, each of them holding a big, black assault rifle.
They turn their guns on my pursuers and open fire.
I don’t see the bullets land, but the sound of men dying behind me is pretty distinct.
One of the FISA agents removes their helmet and mask to reveal the face of Damon North, who jumps out of the van and races over to me.
I try to get up, but the bullet that cut a wretched gash across my torso makes it difficult to do much more than hiss through my teeth.
Damon lowers himself to one knee and takes my arm, slinging it around his shoulders and dragging me back up with him.
I hold onto my injured side as Damon walks me toward the van.
“Ah, Aaron,” I grit out through the comm. “Your son was just my valiant hero. Maybe take him out for ice cream when he gets home or something.”
Damon huffs out an amused laugh, which is nice except for how it causes his shoulders to shake and therefore accidentally agitate my stupid bullet wound, pulling the skin around it when he jostles me.
Aaron is, predictably, less charmed by my attempt at whimsy.
“Shut up, Agent Sathe,” he reprimands, impatience snapping in his voice like a whipcrack. “Just let Agent North get you into the van so the medics can look after you.”
“Sir, yes, sir ex-boss!” I say on the tail end of a pained gasp.
Aaron must get called away, because all he does in response is demand that I “fucking behave myself for five fucking minutes” before cutting off the line.
Damon helps me into the van where, as promised, a team of medics are ready and waiting. They make me take off my clothes and immediately get to work fussing over the black blood still gushing out of me in an obscene torrent.
It turns out that upon closer inspection I actually have two gunshot wounds rather than one and they’re both pretty adamant about trying to kill me via blood loss despite my enhanced healing abilities.
Damon gets out of the medic’s way and sits down opposite me across the van.
He has a mildly concerned expression on his face that reminds me of his dad, the pinched brows and the slight downturn of his mouth.
There’s an edge of flint in his eyes too which is definitely reminiscent of the times I’ve seen his dad supress some form of garish anger.
I grimace at him whilst the medics do their thing. “Don’t get all emotionally invested in me, North junior,” I warn him. “Be like your dad and learn when to walk away.”
He doesn’t need to know that his dad didn’t get very far before he looped back around like an addict with one foot inside a rehab centre and the other a heroin den.
Damon’s light scowl turns into something grimmer, harsher, meaner, his lips pulling into a jagged sneer for a moment before relaxing again. At first I think that look is for me, but then he says, “Pretty sure the only thing my dad is walking away to do is put six bullets in Senior Agent Lane.”
He sounds so certain about that, so unsurprised by the prospect that his dad might, right now, be willing to commit murderous vengeance on my behalf, that I’m stunned into silence for a handful of seconds, staring at him in disbelief.
“Six?” I ask once I’ve found my voice again.
Damon’s third expression of the day makes him look even more like Aaron than the other’s that came before. His mouth tips up into a malevolent smirk, edges sharpened to razor points meant to cut and slice, to inspire fear in his enemies.
“Just to really make sure the impact is understood by any future handlers who read your old mission reports.”
“Hm,” I say, bobbing my head. “Gotta be thorough with your retribution, otherwise how else will the mean little senior agents learn? Right.”
FISA’s medics finally get with the fucking program and stick me with a needle attached to some God forsaken morphine and I feel myself start to drift into a softer state of mind, the pain from my multiple gunshot wounds fading to a low pulse rather than a raging scream of torn nerves.