2. Killian #2
I slip the photograph back into its hiding place and follow him down the familiar corridors. Visiting hours ended three hours ago, which means this isn't official. In my world, unofficial visits usually mean one of two things: someone wants me dead, or someone needs a favor.
The visitor waiting in the secured room is something much more valuable than a friend or an enemy.
A contact, David Webb, Ellie's supervisor, sits across from me, looking every inch the distinguished academic.
To anyone watching, this is simply a psychologist conducting a final pre-release evaluation.
"Mr. Blackthorn. Your final evaluation for the rehabilitation program."
The metal chair I'm in is bolted to the floor, as is Webb’s. He sits opposite me, straight-spined, with his hands folded on the table. His thumb taps twice against his palm. Three seconds between taps. He’s nervous.
Good.
He should be. He knows who I am.
"I appreciate Dr. Hart taking my case."
"Dr. Hart is remarkable with cases such as yours. This program represents significant trust, Mr. Blackthorn."
Trust. The word is a fucking joke. If Webb knew how many hours I've spent engineering this moment, how many favors I called in to ensure Ellie's assignment to my case, he'd be screaming for the guards.
"I understand completely. I'm grateful for the opportunity."
I give Webb exactly what he expects to hear. And he laps it up. The right amount of insight, the perfect balance of remorse and determination. I’ve practiced these responses for months.
We discuss logistics, transportation, living arrangements, and program structure. All details I already know by heart, but I play the part of the grateful convict eager for redemption. Webb makes notes, asks probing questions about my motivations and goals.
If he only knew that my primary goal is finally being in the same room as the woman who’s haunted my dreams every night of these seven years behind bars.
After Webb leaves, I'm escorted back to my cell for the last time.
The guards say nothing. After seven years, we understand each other perfectly.
I'm the prisoner who never causes trouble, who keeps his head down and follows the rules.
They have no idea that my compliance has been part of a larger agenda.
Alone again, I retrieve the photograph and study Ellie's face in the dim light. Tomorrow, I'll see those hazel eyes in person. I'll hear her voice speaking my name instead of just imagining it. I'll be close enough to smell her, to notice how she moves when she thinks no one is watching.
The anticipation is eating me from the inside out. I can't breathe in here anymore. The hunger is so loud I can barely hear the guards on their rounds.
I close my eyes, and I'm back in the Grand Metropolitan. Not on Hart, I found him easily enough. I'm on her. Standing at the edge of the room in that green dress, laughing at something the woman beside her said. Her father was twenty feet away, and she hadn't noticed me. I remained invisible.
Hart died harder than Ross ordered because I was distracted. I was sloppy and angry. At the Order, at myself, at the life I'd been forced to live. By the time I got to Hart, I was already halfway gone.
I've been trying to get back to her ever since.
Guilt is a luxury I can't afford. What's done is done. Gregory Hart is dead, and no amount of self-punishment will bring him back. Now I just carry him. A hundred and sixty-three pounds of corpse weight wrapped around my neck like a noose.
What I can do is protect Ellie from the world that killed her father.
Protect her from the Order, from other men like me.
From anyone who might see her compassion as a weakness to be exploited.
She became my biggest obsession the moment I destroyed her world, my victim, my responsibility.
I can be her guardian angel and her greatest threat, all wrapped in one carefully constructed package.
My phone buzzes, a contraband device that cost me three cigarette rations a month to keep it running. A final update from my contact in the real world.
Unknown: Subject left office 6:47 PM. Stopped at grocery store, routine purchases. Home by 7:23 PM. No unusual activity. Lights out 11:15 PM.
I picture each moment. Her hand on the car door. The grocery store’s fluorescent lights washing out her skin. The sound her keys make against her front door. Three locks, she checks them twice. I know because I’ve watched the footage.
Even tonight, hours before I'll finally be close enough to touch her, I have Ellie watched. Years of surveillance, of knowing her routine better than her own boyfriend does. Years of eliminating threats before they can reach her.
She has no idea how many men have died to keep her safe.
Three attempts on her life, all intercepted before she ever knew she was in danger.
The first was made to look like a car accident.
I arranged for the would-be assassin to have his own accident instead.
The second came closer to succeeding; I had to get creative with a drug overdose that looked like recreational use gone wrong.
The third simply disappeared one night, his body feeding fish in the river before anyone realized he was missing.
She has no clue. She lives in her safe little world, her little bubble, teaching criminals how to feel remorse. Meanwhile, I’m out here making sure she stays alive long enough to try saving me. The irony would be funny if it wasn’t so fucked.
The Order wanted Ellie dead for the same reason they wanted her father gone. Guilty by proxy. Not directly, but through her work, her research, her ability to see patterns others missed. In their paranoid minds, she was guilty by association, a loose end that needed tying up.