“There’s conditions,” I cut him off. “Your main HQ is here. Literallythisfloor. We are a block from the hospital and two blocks from Davis’s house, you can have the executive conference room down the hall to set up, assuming it works for you. But, I stay in the loop. Completely. In the loop. If this goes down, I know about it.”
I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on. Bishop was smart and played a long-game here. He saw right through me and knew I wouldcave to whatever they wanted, so it was really just me asking for a favor.
“It’s done,” he said. “You are in the loop.”
“You also need to tell Bannon - Walter Bannon, he’s the chief of surgery, tell him what you can, he deserves to know.”
Agent Frost looked at me with a slight smile.
“Bannon is already involved.”
Perrin
I don’t know what I was expecting weeks ago when I went into Bannon’s office to turn in my resignation. I wasn’t expecting what actually happened, with Bannon shredding my letter before he opened it.
When he said Holden’s name, I was ready to run, but he calmly explained that he had a friend who had been involved in a similar lawsuit like mine, but didn’t fight the accusation, just signed the non-disclosure and settled. Later, the friend told Bannon how Holden had acted, the pressure Holden put on them to settle. Bannon was suspicious, and I could tell he wanted some answers for his friend and colleague.
He then explained how he was working with the FBI to lure Holden here, because I was here, and that the open position Holden applied for was part of a ruse. I had a million questions, and Bannon was patient.
I couldn’t help but remember how Holden always set me on edge, but what did I know back then, really? I chalked a lot - too damned much - up to hormones or nerves. It wasn’t like I had the maturity or confidence to read the look in someone’s eye. I was new to the job, new to my sexuality, new to damn near everything outside my sheltered bubble. The fact that someone as respected as Holden Davis wanted me to be in his OR was the most flattering thing that had ever happened in my entire life.
When Sydney Connors had died during surgery, it was the worst day of my life. I had gone to Holden at his home, and there he was - with thatlook. I had wanted to leave,seeing it; but I didn’t have anywhere else to go and I felt that Holden would understand, even if no one else did.
Holden did what he always did, flirt and say things I always wanted to hear, draw it close to the line, but then pull back under being “professional.” That night things got further than they ever had, we had made out heavily, still exciting for me in my newly-able-to-be-out life. But, that was Holden – sex and power were mutual, if not equal. For me that night was trying to feel something,anything, other than the numbness of having someone die on my operating table.
But, I didn’t feel anything. Not comfort, or assurance, oranything. For the first time, despite all the words and grand gestures, I started looking at what Holden made me feel, and what I thought, rather than what he was telling me.
It scared me that I let myself get caught up in someone that way, someone I realized I didn’t really even like or want - I was listening to him tell me I did, and I was weak and naive enough to believe it.
At one point, I was even thankful for what I had gone through with my parents. If I hadn’t, I don’t think I would have relied on myself to know what I needed and believed. In a strange way, I had Malcolm to thank for ultimately knowing I was being manipulated. Again.
Then the lawsuit came and Holden came tomyhouse that time, apologetic and sad, convincing me that my mistake was ok, that it happened to everyone. Except, I had replayed that surgery a million times in my head. I knew I wasn’t the cause of whateverwent wrong, and that knowledge was as clear to me as anything had been in the two years I worked with Holden.
Hearing him tell me I was in the wrong, after listening to what he said for so long, was incredibly difficult. But, I understood the pressure Bannon’s friend had been under, understood how Holden could manipulate and change and gaslight, leaving you thinking you couldn’t live without something you really didn't even want.
So, when Bannon was done telling me the all too familiar story of his friend, he asked if I would meet with someone who might be able to unmask who Holden Davis really was. I had agreed, and Bannon led me into a small conference room next to his office, and that’s where I met Agent Bishop Frost. In the past four years, the agent had put together the connections. He reached out to Bannon, knowing I was working here, and knowing Bannon’s vicarious connection to Davis.
Bishop was careful, in that way law enforcement officers often came across. Deliberate, I guess may have been a better word. He laid it out for me, what they needed, the ability they would have to listen in virtually everywhere in the hospital. What they expected to hear Holden tell me. All I had to do was get the necessary information out of Holden, get him to talk. There wasn’t much to that, not really, except my own terror at doing it.
And so it began.
Seeing Holden again that first day was one of the hardest things I have ever done. He smiled, embraced me, and a million memories flooded back. I instantly wanted toplease him, to show him I was capable, to earn his praise, and that really threw me for a loop. Whatever I was hoping or expecting to feel, it certainly wasn’t that.
What came next was death by a thousand paper cuts. Every day, on edge, forcing myself to ground to reality, while at the same time cutting off a bit of me so that I could play Holden like Bishop needed me to. Like I needed me to.
Counting things mostly worked for me. Holden had always been able to twist my head, so a few days of him correcting me on things I knew I got right, turned into me counting things randomly throughout the day to make sure I had something concrete I knew. Sticks of gum, floor tiles, pencils - it really didn’t matter.
Holden regaled me with stories of our shared past, and at first, I would question whether these things actually happened. But then, he would suddenly tell me something that Iknewhad happened, something I felt was an actual memory, and it made everything get all twisted again - between the real world and Holden’s world.
The thing that dug deepest is that he would constantly tell me how much I was flirting with him, or leading him on. I wasn’t. It was just Holden’s view of sex and power.
But he would comment about how I was making him feel, and then how he was going to keep it professional. He would use any excuse. Once he came into the locker room when I was changing out of a scrub shirt that had been ruined in surgery. I always kept a long-sleeved shirt on under to keep the chill of the hospital at a minimum, but he had looked over my body hungrily, and told me how I couldn’t keep undressing in front of him. I had to remind myself he walked in on me and I was still fully clothed.
There was also the way he talked to other people about me, he was always cautious in talking to others, as if he knew I wasn’t very competent, or that it was a shared secret. It really started to get to me. I double and triple checked everything I did, and then felt a wash of shame every time I did it. Doing it meant I believed him. Even a little bit.
One day, I walked out of the OR because the girl prepped for surgery looked too much like Piper. It was right after Holden had questioned something I did in a prior case. He had read a chart, then questioned me, and I automatically started questioning myself. I hated that I did, my job didn’t leave space for that sort of thing, and so Bannon saw my shaking hands and let me scrub out.
Another day, Holden came up to me at lunch, and asked about my plans for the holidays. It was September by now, and I hadn’t thought about it. I was living one day at a time, not looking too far in the future if I could possibly help it. I had to split my mind - the Perrin that believed Holden and was the kid he knew back in Boston, and the Perrin I actually was now.
