I felt the weight in my bones. There was no room for error in the Bureau, not unless Father willed it so.
He didn't raise his voice. Never. The words just dropped into the space between us and sat there, like a lead slug stuck in a time warp that could unravel any second.
I wasn't stupid. I had an idea what he was talking about and what was inside the folder. I made more contact with the current client than with any of my previous clients combined. With no valid reason. Still, I didn't know what to say since he was right.
He gestured for me to look inside the folder.
I took it and pulled out the contents. They were high resolution photos of me and Kimberly Holt. On my bike. This was the night I took her home because she called me asking for my help. There was another page. Call logs between her and me. Burner or not, but the Bureau spied on its own employees too. Father's excuse was security. But I knew it wasn't the kind of security he wanted us to believe.
"You do know the protocol, right?" he finally asked. It sounded more like a statement than a question.
"Yes." I slid the contents back into the folder. "To maintain separation with the client during the job."
"See. You're not that oblivious after all."
I didn't reply.
"There's a reason for this protocol, Operative Seven. It's to keep your identity secret."
"From whom?" I asked, surprised at my own boldness. "Even I don't know my own identity."
Father drew in a slow breath and let it out. "You are not a protector. You are a solution. There is a difference." He tilted his head, like he was about to tell me something funny. "You two spoke on the phone too. More than once. And the duration of those calls is what I don't like."
I said nothing again.
While the shadows made his face unreadable, I felt the burn of his attention all the way down to my gut.
"You can leave," he said, finally.
I got up. My legs worked, but they didn't want to.
I made it to the door, hand already on the knob, when Father spoke again.
"One last warning."
I stopped, glanced at him over my shoulder.
"The client is not your concern, Operative Seven. If the client is adistraction and you need a replacement for the assignment, let me know. Otherwise, complete your task while keeping your distance. Is that clear?"
"Understood."
He rose up from his chair, disappearing into the shadows completely.
The conversation was over.
25 kimmy
My apartment after midnight was pitch black, punctured only by the tremble of the light from my laptop screen. I hadn't planned to be up this late, but sometimes you get stuck in a feedback loop you can't break.
And tonight, it was about revenge. Or closure. Or maybe just the act of watching it all happen, frame by frame, so I could convince myself I was right to do this, I was right to hire a questionable organization to ruin three lives because they had ruined mine.
I was in my bed, scrolling through the news, reading the stories one after another. Each headline was an additional nail in the coffin of my former tormentors.
The first article was about Ronan Wick. I didn't need to read it again, but I did. The headline was direct. Wick was facing new federal charges in light of the ongoing investigation into his machinations.
There were court dates, additional bail conditions, quotes from some legal analysts about the severity of the charges. There was a video embedded, too—a low-res clip of Wick being escorted through the courthouse. He didn't look up. He just stared at the floor, at his shoes, trying to make himself small. The comments below the article were a fistfight. I read them all.
There was a rush to it, just a sick, sour joy. Some primitive part of me wanted the whole world to see what he really was. Some other part—a part I hated more—felt a prickle of guilt about it all.
