Chapter 14 #2
“What are you talking about?”
“You and your entire family are a walking platitude. You believe that anything American is better than everything else in the whole damned world. You’re so blinded by your loyalty to the Stars and Stripes that you can’t see how your government really rolls even if its crap is stinking right under your nose.
Look at me, Katie. Your precious Uncle Sam has turned me into a killer.
Is that the work of a noble and honorable entity? ”
She stared at him in dismay. “Knowing how to kill does not make you a killer.”
“What the hell do you think I did during my training? Sit around crocheting doilies? I not only killed once, I killed multiple times. In cold blood. I snuck up on living, breathing people and murdered them at the behest of your precious government.”
She reeled in shock. Is that what had him so messed up? No wonder he was imploding. “The way I understand it from my brothers, it’s not murder if you’re following a legal order.”
He made a sound of disgust. “You seriously think you can split semantic hairs over killing human beings? Are you really that na?ve?”
“I’m not na?ve,” she retorted hotly. “I get that killing other people is a heinous burden to bear. I’ve watched my dad and my brothers bear it, thank you very much. I know how big a toll it takes on them. So don’t talk to me about being na?ve.”
She was getting worked up, and anger would only push Alex away faster.
She took a deep breath and said more calmly, “Pollyanna though it may be, I do believe that sometimes legitimate, decent, well-meaning governments have to eliminate certain threats if we’re all to be safe. It’s not pretty, but it’s reality.”
He disappeared into the bathroom and emerged with a handful of toiletry items he stuffed into the corners of his bag.
“You know the drill as well as I do,” she tried. “If you didn’t make those kills, somebody else would have. If I know you, Alex, you did your best to make them clean kills that caused no suffering.”
He didn’t answer, but his jaw did ripple angrily.
“You don’t have to punish yourself for doing your job. There are people you can talk to. Who can help you work out your feelings. A couple of my brothers have done it.”
“I don’t need counseling,” he ground out.
“From where I’m standing, it looks like you do,” she replied as calmly as she could muster. “It looks to me like you’re going to great lengths to deny yourself happiness, to punish yourself.”
“You’re the one not being honest with yourself, Katie. I know who and what I am. You, on the other hand, are deluding yourself.”
About him or about herself? Sadly, she asked him, “Do you hate yourself so much that you’re willing to cut me out of your life rather than allow yourself to love anyone?”
He didn’t bother to answer. He merely threw her a derisive look that spoke volumes.
Her spine stiffened. “You really don’t deserve me, do you?”
For an instant, something like pain crossed through Alex’s cold stare. But then the shutters closed again.
Something snapped inside her. He was being an idiot, plain and simple. She battered against his internal barriers without much hope of breaking through, but she had to try.
“You’re so convinced that any show of emotion is a sign of weakness that you can’t let yourself experience the most basic and simple of human feelings.
I see a pitiful, broken human being when I look at you Alex Peters, not some tough as nails super spy.
You’re nothing more than a scared little boy running around trying to convince everyone else of how tough and terrible you are.
And you’re failing. Do you hear me? You’ve failed. ”
Waves of icy rage poured off of him but she was too infuriated to care at this point. How dare he walk out on her like this?
“Here you go, running away from home again. This is the cowardly act of a child, Alex.”
He zipped the suitcase closed and set it on the floor by the door. He whirled so fast that she recoiled in spite of herself. He snarled right in her face, “You are an anchor around my neck, and furthermore, you betrayed me. I do not trust you. You do not deserve my love. I’m finished with you.”
He grabbed the suitcase and stormed out of the bedroom, leaving her to stare at the empty doorway and struggling to draw her next breath.
He was gone. Really, truly gone. It was as if the earth had fallen out from under her feet and she was plunging downward into a bottomless abyss that would never end.
It was so tempting to let her knees buckle.
To fall to the floor and curl up in a little ball and never uncurl.
Blackness closed in around her heart, so dark and thick, she didn’t think she would ever see find her way out of it.
But from somewhere deep, deep inside her a kernel of determination remained.
Dammit, she was a McCloud. A fighter. She might have lost the man, but she wasn’t about to let him leave thinking she’d betrayed him. She would never betray a friend, let alone the man she had loved. He bloody well did not get to have the last word, this time.
She ran after him, but he’d already left the apartment.
Crap, he was fast. She threw open the front door.
The elevator was on its way downstairs, already.
She headed for the stairwell and flew down it, taking huge chunks of steps with every bound.
This was her last chance to have her say.
Once he left the building, she would never find him again.
She tore out into the lobby with the intent to head for the driveway to block his car from leaving the parking garage. But as she raced outside, she spotted his silhouette striding down the street. He was on foot. She tore after him.
“Alex Peters! I have one more thing to say to you!” she shouted.
She heard the gunshot, a sharp clear sound piercing the silent night. Felt something hot slam into her chest. Was aware of being spun around and thrown into the door at her back. Registered the sound of shattering glass. Saw the pavement rising up to meet her in slow motion.
But then her vision started to fade, first to gray, then heading toward black. And truth be told, she was kind of glad for that.
She thought vaguely that she probably couldn’t have stood watching Alex walk out of her life for good, anyway.
Poor Dawn. Poor Alex. Who would love either one of them, now?