He pushed back from the table, his chair scraping across the floor. Clara flinched at the sound, too tired to push the reaction away. “No, I don’t. I can figure out how to do it without unnecessary death. We’re not doing this your way.”
“It isn’tmyway. It’s the way Command has instructed. I was told no witnesses. We can’t have witnesses, Carver. Don’t you understand that? You’re acting like this is something I enjoy!”
“Well don’t you?” The disgust in his tone shouldn’t have surprised her, but she couldn’t find a rebuttal.
“No,” she whispered, but it didn’t matter.
“I can’t even look at you right now.”
He stormed out, leaving towards the bookstore in the front. Towards Marsh.
Clara slumped back in her chair. She thought he understood with what she said on their trip here. She thought he would have figured out why an assassin was partnered with him. Why else? If it was only stealing something, then stealth would be all that was required. Carver, the perfect spy, could slip in and slip out.
It wasn’t that simple. It never was. He was more innocent than her if he still saw the world in black and white.
42CARVER
Carver did, in fact, leave to find Marsh. He needed to rant. He needed someone else that viewed things the same way he did. He needed the solidarity Clara would never give him. What could he do? What could he offer?
He still believed murder was wrong. That was what this would be. It would be murder because she was going in and she was taking the lives of people who had never directly harmed them. Right? Surely, he was right.Killing on a battlefield is different than killing someone in a lab.He reasoned. But why?If the lab created weapons that will kill us, doesn’t that make the lab a battlefield?
Carver’s head was pounding. All of this was too overwhelming. So much more than it was supposed to be. Assignments were supposed to cost something, yes. Physically, psychologically, emotionally, mentally. He knew the drill. He knew what Nate said. This was a final test. Him and Clara, pushed to the brink. Would they break?
They were special operatives. There was a reason most operatives, no matter how good they were, had a limited number of assignments under their belts. There was a reason they werepulled after a certain number. Command didn’t want to deal with a bunch of fully broken soldiers.
But he had been the best. He was still the best. He was able to categorize every assignment into boxes in his mind. Open them only when necessary for debriefs and move on. Sure, he had seen terrible things. But he had never hurt anyone, had never killed anyone. The process of categorization was easier that way. That’s why they kept sending him. He was able to deal with it all.
Would this be the assignment that broke him? He could feel the fractures it was already creating within him. One after the other. They had started slowly. Seeing her face. When she crashed into him on the train and he held her for a split second. Defending her when that man was trying to touch her. Each moment a fracture.
He cared way too much to watch the girl he loved become a monster. Maybe he didn’t get it. Maybe he couldn’t understand what the past three years as a Viper had molded her into. Maybe she had killed people already, like she claimed. But he couldn’t prove that. He hadn’tseenher kill anyone. In his mind, she was still the same innocent girl he loved. She was just so much stronger.
And yet, he knew she had become someone different. He saw how she treated people. She didn’t care about anyone else’s emotions. Her sympathy for the creatures was the only time he truly believed she cared about anything. Outside of that event, her guard was always up. She was always waiting for the next punch to hit. What a terrible way to live.
He walked into the bookstore, hoping Marsh would be closing soon. She had closed early every day, using the festival as the excuse. She was flipping the sign to “closed” and locking the door as he walked in.
“You look exhausted.” She said, but there was no malice in the words.
“Yeah.” His voice came out gruff and he cleared his throat.
“There’s a chair behind the counter, sit. I’ll finish locking up and we can talk.”
He nodded. He sat in the chair, pulling it close enough to the counter he could lean his head in his hands. It hadn’t even been a week but he felt like he had aged years.
He heard her light footsteps coming his way, but didn’t look up. Her hands found his shoulders and she began massaging the tension away. He almost groaned with how good it felt. He leaned back into her touch.
“Everything okay?” She asked.
He didn’t know how to respond. “Clara is an assassin.”
She paused her massage, “Yes?”
“Like, I knew that. She told me she had killed people.”
“But now you’re surprised that her plan is to go in, guns blazing?”
He exhaled loudly. “When you say it like that I feel a little stupid. But yeah. I don’t know. I felt like she would have more qualms about murdering someone.”
“Is it murder though? And Carver, why are you surprised? That sounds like naivete on your part.”
