24. Hazel
Hazel
When I took shooting lessons back when I was in high school, the instructor had stressed over and over again that the only acceptable reason to shoot someone was in self-defense. I’d kept that lesson close to my heart over all the years I’d practiced at the gun range.
Moving to Canada had put a stop to my regular visits to the gun range, but I’d continued to practice my aim in the woods using a BB gun. Whenever I came to the U.S., I’d make a point to visit the local range and practice with the real thing.
Lois had been surprised when I asked her for a gun, but after verifying that I knew what I was doing, she’d loaned me a small revolver and a thigh holster that I’d hidden beneath the stiff fabric of my dress.
I’d been betting that Donny would be too arrogant to search me.
In his mind, women were weak. Not a threat.
He knows better now, I thought wryly. Or he would, if he were alive.
I didn’t come here to kill him, but I was ready to do it if I had to.
I didn’t draw my gun when he punched me in the face.
I didn’t draw it when he dragged me to the floor by the ankle.
I didn’t even draw it when he started strangling me.
But when I flipped him off me, I saw him reach for his own gun.
That’s when I’d made the decision. It was him or me.
In slow motion I saw his finger move towards the trigger. I ducked, and he shot at me, hitting the wall a few inches above my head. When I saw him press the trigger a second time I fired back. It was self-defense.
I should have aimed for center mass. I was firing at close range and he was a big target. But some part of me feared he’d keep coming, especially if I just hit him in the shoulder. So I’d aimed for his forehead, purely out of primal instinct, and sent my bullet right through his head.
He got off a second shot as I hit him, this one going wide as he recoiled from his injury. A third shot rang out as he dropped his gun. Then there was the organized chaos of half a dozen Sapphic Security agents crashing through the house. They’d come to save me, but in the end, I saved myself.
Someday I’d feel good about that, but today was not that day.
I fell to my knees, hands shaking, not even looking up as someone gently pulled the gun from my hand.
I was going into shock, I realized. All around me the Sapphic Security team was working.
Lois was on the phone asking for a cleaner.
Wanda was taking pictures of the body. An agent I didn’t know was righting the furniture.
I felt Boris come up behind me before I heard him. For a giant man, he was very quiet.
“Come Hazel, we will go to your mate now.”
“I have to give a statement to the police.”
“There will be no police,” he said. “Let boss wolf take care of things.”
He helped me up off the floor, one beefy arm coming around my shoulders. I was grateful for the support. I’d never killed a person before. I had no idea what it would feel like. The fact that Donny was an abusive criminal asshole didn’t make it any easier.
Boris walked me out to the SUV we came in, buckling me into the front seat and pressing a button on the dashboard as he eased away from the mansion.
“Marilee, I have Hazel with me,” he said as soon as she answered. “She is uninjured but shaken up. Where should I take her?”
“My house please Boris, I’ll meet you there.” Marilee raised her voice. “Hazel, are you really okay?”
“I’m okay,” I said, hating how weak my voice sounded. “A little bruised, but okay.”
Boris didn’t say a word the entire thirty minute drive to Marilee’s house, and I appreciated that.
I needed time to think, to process. I remembered all the times my father had casually mentioned killing someone, like it was no big deal, another day at the office.
Had he ever felt like this? The guilt and revulsion and sorrow were choking me.
We pulled into the driveway of a duplex that looked similar to the safehouse we’d stayed at, except there were flowers planted in the yard and a rocking chair on the porch.
“You will feel bad for a while,” Boris said as he turned off the car. “The first time you take a life, it is hard. But you did what you had to do to survive. He would have killed you with no regret. Remember this.”
Marilee came flying out of her house, wrenching the door open. I unclipped my seatbelt and she pulled me out of the car and into her arms.
“You’re really okay. I was so worried.”
Her normally calm demeanor was gone, her voice shaking. I didn’t respond, just let her lead me into the house.
“What do you need?” she asked.
I glanced down at my dress, realizing for the first time that it was covered in blood, and God only knows what else. “A shower. And clean clothes.”
***
After three days at Marilee’s house and a long debriefing at Sapphic Security, I’d mostly recovered from my traumatic experience. Don’t get me wrong, I was still grieving over what happened with Donny, but I could look at it with clear eyes now.
“It was self-defense,” Marilee reminded me more than once. “He’d already tried to shoot you. He wasn’t going to stop.”
That didn’t keep me from wondering if I could have done things differently and not set him off. It was Lois who made me feel better about it.
“He was an abuser, Hazel. If you hadn’t gone there, or you hadn’t fought back, he would have moved onto the next woman. They always do.”
What wasn’t making me feel better? Marilee was treating me like I was made of glass.
She’d asked Lois to take her off any new assignments for a few days while I recovered, but she’d barely touched me.
She’d hug me, hold me close at night, but when I tried to initiate anything she’d tell me I was still recovering.
Our conversations were brief and stilted, and I had the sense that she was upset with me but wouldn’t say why.
We spent our days reading, napping, or watching TV in silence and it was making me go stir crazy.
Meanwhile my boss was emailing me asking about my return. Seattle had been fun… well, interesting was probably a better word, but it was time for me to go back to real life.
I broached the subject one night at dinner. “I need to go back to Canada. I booked a flight for tomorrow morning early.”
Marilee dropped her fork with a clatter. “What? Why?”
“I can’t just hang out at your house forever. My parents have gone back east, the Rossis have dropped the bounty on my head, and Lois says she doesn’t need anything more from me about the case. I have a job and a life in Ottawa to get back to.”
Her expression was carefully blank, but I could feel the pain in her. Yet she said nothing. I waited for her to ask me to stay. To ask if we could date long-distance. To ask me anything. But instead she picked up her fork and said, “I can give you a ride to the airport if you want.”
My eyes burned with unshed tears as I kept my gaze fixed on my plate. “That’s okay, I can call an Uber.”
I slipped out of bed when Marilee was still sleeping, getting ready as quietly as I could before carrying my bag out to her driveway. I had my phone in my hand, ready to order an Uber, when a familiar vehicle pulled up in the driveway. It was Wanda.
“What are you doing here, Wanda?”
“Get in, I’m giving you a ride to the airport.”
I dropped my bag in the back seat then buckled into the passenger seat.
“How did you know when I was leaving?” I asked.
I hadn’t given Marilee the specifics, and she hadn’t asked. As far as I could tell, she didn’t mind that I was leaving, and that hurt more than I knew was possible.
“Marilee said you were on an early flight to Ottawa, so I hacked into the airline system and found you.”
Her tone was so matter of fact I had to shake my head.
“You really do things differently here.”
“We’re not that different from your parents’ organization,” she said. “Except we’re on the right side of the law.”
“Well, I appreciate the ride.”
“Do you know who my mate is?” she asked suddenly.
“Tasha Blue, right? The singer?”
Wanda nodded, her eyes on the road. “People like me and Marilee – all of us at Sapphic Security really – we’re protectors.
It was ingrained in us during our time in the military and it’s reinforced in our work as bodyguards.
The hardest thing about being a protector is when the person you want to protect the most doesn’t need you. ”
“I don’t understand.”
“When I realized that Tasha was my mate, there was a small part of me that thought, she can buy anything she wants or needs, what does she need with a bodyguard who grew up in a trailer park? But then I realized that she didn’t need me to take care of her. She needed me to love her.”
When I didn’t respond she continued, “It killed Marilee to let you go up against Murphy alone, even with us there ready to help. You’re strong and independent and can kick ass on your own, so maybe she’s wondering why you would need her.”
“So you think I should make myself smaller for her? Act helpless?”
Wanda laughed. “God no, what I’m saying is that if you love Marilee, she needs you to tell her.
You’re her mate, but more than that, she’s head over heels in love with you.
But she’s not good at picking up social cues, and she would never want to keep you from your career or clip your wings.
She’s the kind of person who never asks for anything for herself.
So you have a choice. Leave and never see her again, or stay and force her to talk like she needs to. ”