Beck’s hand moves from my cheek to the nape of my neck, using a light grip to urge me forward until my head his resting on his shoulder and my hands linked at his back. This will be the last hug we share for God knows how long, and we make the most of it. Our bodies melting into each other until his muscle is my muscle, his flesh is my flesh, his bone is my bone.
“Can’t you take a break?” he asks. “Go home. See your parents and your sisters. Re-calibrate just for a little while?”
“No,” I answer simply.
Months ago, the thought of going home would have sounded anything but relaxing to me. These days, I find myself longing for my mother’s arms and the constant chatter of my sisters balanced among the quiet power of my father’s presence. I wake up from dreams of falling asleep between Cal and Beck in my childhood bed and laugh at the ridiculousness of thinking my parents would allow that before crying over the small likelihood that I’ll find myself needing to pitch the idea to them.
So much of life now is longing. Wanting things I will never get to have because Aubrey won’t allow it. After all, he’s the architect behind my schedule. Not literally. He isn’t the hand holding the pen that writes everything into my overpacked calendar, but he gave Jordan the order to keep me busy. She disseminated it to everyone else on staff. On the outside looking in, Aubrey appears to be a supportive husband, helping his wife in her endeavor to be something more than ornamental. What no one seems to see is the malice it takes to give someone who thrives on having a purpose a schedule filled with nothing more than busywork.
Even the interview Beck referred to minutes ago fits that bill.
I’d gone to Good Morning America to discuss the successful placement of mental health professionals whose sole purpose is to create emotionally safe environments in hopes of preventing school shootings like the one that claimed AJ’s life in twenty schools across the DMV area. It should have been a gratifying moment, a nationally televised celebration of a dream I’d worked towards for years now finally coming true, but I found no joy in it because the entire conversation was about Aubrey. How gracious he is, how supportive he is, how kind he is to make backing my First Lady initiative one of the top priorities for his first hundred days.
I know that’s why he did it.
Why he honored the terms of the contract I could no longer hold him to because I’d been the one to break it.
And it wasn’t about grace or altruism.
It was about control. About making sure every conversation regarding the promise I worked so hard to keep included him. About taking the joy out of getting the work done. About turning me into a villain if I leave him and a frivolous figurine if I stay.
How is this my life?
The internal question slithers through my mind, only drowned out by the sound of Agent Shaw’s knuckles colliding with the door a few feet away.
“Time’s up,” Beck mutters, pulling back reluctantly. “Kiss me goodbye, gorgeous.”
I rise up on the tips of my toes, dropping two chaste kisses on his lips. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He doesn’t linger, but his words do, staying with me long after he’s begun his ascent up the stairs I came down minutes ago. It’s an extra precaution. If any one ever bothers to check the camera, which Agent Shaw assures me no one ever does, all they’ll find is footage with altered time stamps that shows us entering the stairwell on one floor and exiting on the other moments later.
Logically, I know it’s not the smartest plan, but it’s all we have until we can find a way to truly have each other.
2
CAL
Agun to his temple.
Or maybe in his mouth. The cold glide of the metal harsh and bitter on his tongue. His blue eyes wide and desperate. Muffled pleas for his life landing on deaf ears, processed by a brain that holds no sympathy for him, only hatred. Only the desire to see his life end with no thought or concern for what it will mean to be the one to end it.
With a subtle shake of my head, I put an end to my silent exploration. Fantasizing about killing the President is usually one of my favorite pastimes, but I’m feeling particularly disappointed in the lack of creativity I’m displaying today. There’s nothing groundbreaking about a spent bullet and splattered brain matter in a country where a hundred or so people die by firearm every day. Outside of being commonplace, it’s also far too quick and kind of a death to give to a man like Aubrey Taylor.
No, what he deserves is a slow, painful death. Something tailored to fit his specific brand of depravity. Something that will ensure his final moments are filled with the same agony Selene, Beck and I have endured since he made us pawns in the gameof chess he calls his life. Shooting him just doesn’t meet those requirements.
Unless of course, it’s a bullet in the stomach, I muse.Gut shots are incredibly painful.
“Something funny, Agent Drake?”
The unwelcome question comes from the other side of the expansive, oval-shaped room, behind the large, wooden desk with ornate designs where Aubrey is sitting. Cordelia Barnes, who’s across from him, glances over her shoulder, waiting for me to answer. I force my features to relax and shake my head.
“Nothing at all.”
“Sir,” the former Senator and current Secretary of State adds. “You’re addressing the President of the United States, agent. You should call him sir.”
Her Southern drawl adds a sprinkling of racism to her attempt to correct me. I haven’t called Aubrey ‘sir’ since he strong-armed me into taking this job, and I won’t start today. You’d think her previous failures on this front would make her give up, but she’s as incorrigible as she is annoying.
