Chapter 8

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A marylis sat curled up in a corner of her own couch, sipping a hot cup of tea.

Tristan just recently got a call from Masters, saying he shot and killed what was probably the partner to her intruder. That didn’t bother her so much right at this moment, except for the added tidbit of the scar down the right side of his face. She sighed. Once she got him in the morgue, she would check, but at present she pegged this latest dead guy for the same one chatting her up in her apartment parking lot earlier this week—or was it last week?

Anybody, any normal person, would say she was in shock. She kept talking herself out of it, but, to be honest, so many crazy things had happened over so many days now that she found it hard to imagine anything other than being in shock. She’d done better while she dealt with the bleeding of the gunman’s wound, preparing him for the ambulance. However, once that was done, she sank into a muddled state again.

She gave herself a good headshake and muttered, “You’re fine.” Realizing she’d said it out loud, she winced and looked up to see both Jasper and Tristan studying her. “I’m fine,” she repeated.

“And, if you keep saying that, you might convince yourself,” Jasper noted.

She shrugged. “This isn’t exactly normal in my world.”

“It’s not exactly the norm in ours either,” Jasper pointed out, “but obviously we have a whole lot more experience at it than you.”

“I’m not sure I even want to get that kind of experience either,” she declared, giving him a wan smile. “Is your world always like this?”

Jasper just shrugged.

“No,” Tristan replied, “usually our job isn’t this dangerous. This Mason matter happens to be an exceptional case, which is also why we’ve been brought in.”

She nodded at that. It made sense in a way, not that his job description was any clearer, but she understood that, for Tristan, he had drawn a fine distinction where these things were concerned.

Tristan walked over, sat down beside her, and took the teacup from her hands, placing it nearby on the coffee table. Then he pulled her into his arms and just held her.

She curled up deep into the warmth and the comfort he offered. She didn’t say anything, and neither did he. He just held her. After a few minutes, she lifted her head and whispered, “Thank you.”

He nodded. “It’s not asking much to give yourself a break. This has been pretty traumatic for you.”

“It has.” She looked down where their prisoner was tied up. “Are there more foot soldiers coming after that damn key? Can the bad guys not keep their operations straight, or are they double-booking their crimes?”

“If two teams had been booked, the second one would already be here, so no. I don’t expect a second team tonight. That’s one of the things we’ll be quizzing him about here in a minute. That and a lot more.”

“Why isn’t the ambulance here by now?”

“We’re not in any great hurry to get him any assistance. It’s best if he’s a little uncomfortable while we get some answers out of him.”

“Is that what we have to do?”

“Have to?… No. Want to?… Damn right,” he pointed out.

She winced.

“Look. This isn’t how we prefer to handle it,” he shared, “but we must get to the bottom of it. For whatever reason nobody wants to believe we don’t have that key.”

“Which was always the problem with it being taken away from us,” she pointed out.

“Sure, for the first gunman maybe. What happens after the first guy came and got it? What would we tell the next one, or the one after that?”

She winced at that. “I was hoping they were all on the same team and communicating,” she muttered.

“And they might be. We don’t know. What I do know is that somebody here is involved in the sniper shooting of Mason and that several other people have been killed or injured because of this plot to kill Mason. Plus, we can’t forget what they did to Nicholas.”

At that mention, she remembered the poor investigator who’d been held captive and tortured for months. She straightened and glared over at their prisoner, still tied up. “Do you think he had anything to do with that?” she asked, feeling her own outrage rising to the forefront.

“I don’t know, but the best thing is that he’s alive, and that’s one of the reasons we did what we did.”

She frowned. “Did you expect Jasper to shoot him?”

“Well, yeah, it’s what I would have done.”

She snorted. “It’s not what I would have done.”

“Maybe not, but you would have done anything you needed to do to stay alive, no matter what that was, and we would all understand.”

She groaned. “Let’s hope I’m never put to the test because I’m not exactly sure what I would do. I did want to kill him at one point though. This scenario does render us down to absolute basic animal instincts, doesn’t it?”

Jasper walked over and smiled down at her. “It absolutely does,” he agreed, “but don’t ever think that’s wrong. At the core, our one basic need is to survive. That may sound selfish, but, for all intents and purposes, it’s a good thing. Our survival skills and instincts come to the fore to save us. We do what we have to do to survive, and, through that, our species continues.”

“Do you ever wonder if it should though?” she asked, frowning up at him. “Maybe we’re just so far gone as a society that we shouldn’t survive.”

“It’s occurred to me,” he admitted. “I try not to think about it too often because, well, it doesn’t bode well for humanity if I’m right. However, we do try hard to keep our perspective and to realize that, by helping the masses, you would like to think that the rest of us might survive as well.”

“All throughout history we’ve done the most incredibly awful things to each other.” Her voice almost broke as she spoke about this.

“Absolutely, but I would like to think that, even though we have unprecedented access to the news of all the horrific things happening in the world, maybe we are still one of the generations who’s been easier on each other,” Jasper shared. “I get that probably sounds ludicrous to you, but I would like to think that we’re improving.”

“It’s not ludicrous,” she noted. “I’m just not sure it’s realistic.”

He grinned. “That’s okay too, and I’m happy to try hard to believe that we’re improving.”

“Yet,” she pointed out, “you have an injured prisoner tied up in my house.”

He nodded, with a smile. “We do, don’t we? Honestly, I’m absolutely thrilled about it.”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure you should be quite so happy.”

“Oh, I should be,” Jasper countered, with a wolfish grin, “because just think. This is the first one we’ve got alive.”

She looked over at the prisoner, who was glaring at her, as if he’d been listening all along. “Do you think he’ll talk?”

The gunman snarled. “I have no intention of talking. I’m not even sure what the hell you did to me,” he said, turning to look at Jasper. “Yet, when I get out of here, I’ll make you pay for it.”

“Oh, point taken, but you better act fast,” Jasper replied, with a nod. “I highly doubt you will live more than one or two days though,” he added, with a wave of his hand, “so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

The gunman just snorted. “You’re one of the good guys, so you have rules to play by. I don’t.”

“The people you play with don’t have rules either,” Tristan pointed out, “and they’ve pretty much killed everybody else involved. So, it’s not that we will kill you within a few days. Your side will take you out.”

“No, they won’t. They need me.”

“Oh my God,” Amarylis cried out, staring at him, “are you so stupid? You are just the hired help. You can and will be replaced.”

Tristan chuckled.

“That’s what they all say,” Jasper added.

The gunman glared at her. “What the hell?”

She nodded. “They’ve killed everybody, even guys just like you, who were right there in front of us, waving their guns around, saying they were needed too.” She shook her head at him, glaring right back. “So cut your ego down to size and realize that these men don’t give a crap if you live or die.… They have a temporary use for you, and that’s it.”

He shrugged. “You don’t know anything about it.”

“I know they end up on my table in the morgue. As far as I’m concerned, you will die too. I don’t care if you end up on my case list. The prospect of cutting your bones apart doesn’t exactly fill me with revulsion,” she shared. “Got some heart disease in there? I’ll find it. Broken bones from an abusive childhood? Don’t worry. I’ll see them. Anything you want to tell me about yourself before I take my knife to you?” she asked, her tone hard, as she glared at him. “There are no secrets once you’re on my table.” He appeared a little grossed out by her words.

“You seem to be such a nice person,” he replied, with a sneer, “and then you talk like that, and everybody knows you’re psychotic, waiting for the world to blow a gasket.”

She laughed. “If I’m psychotic, what the hell are you?”

He smirked. “I’m somebody who makes shit happen in this world, but I don’t expect you to understand.”

She replied, “No, I sure don’t, not with all this shit that’s happening, all at the expense of others.”

“You won’t be making shit happen in a day or two more,” Tristan pointed out.

The gunman rolled his eyes. “Christ, you’re one of those little do-gooders too. No wonder you’re hooked up with this one. You two deserve each other.”

She nodded. “You’re right. We do.”

Tristan forewarned her, “You might not want to sit in on this next session.”

She swallowed and nodded. “You’re probably right.” She stood and gathered her cup of tea and headed toward her bedroom. She stopped and pivoted to the gunman, saying some final words, “I’ll see what they did to you when you’re on my table anyway, but I sure as hell won’t shed a tear.” And, with that, she went into her bedroom and closed the door.

The gunman turned and looked at them, a sneer on his face. “Nice touch having your softie around.” He laughed. “She doesn’t know that you’re limited by everything you’re not allowed to do. I don’t have that same limitation. So, when I get out of here, you’re dead.” He wore an odd expression, as he turned specifically to Tristan. “You have no idea what I will do to her.”

“And, for that reason alone,” Tristan stated, giving him a wry smile, “you’ll never get to her.”

*

Tristan heard the door click as she went into the bedroom and knew that she’d heard that last line, and that was probably good. He didn’t have anything to hide, and assholes like the one in front of him would not continue what they were doing, not with Tristan around. He looked over at Jasper and pointed at their captive. “All yours.”

Jasper nodded. “So, what’s on this key?” he asked the gunman in a conversational tone.

The guy just glared at him and didn’t say anything.

“I wonder if he’s the gay lover,” Jasper suggested, looking over at Tristan. “He looks gay, doesn’t he?”

The guy stared at him in shock. “Good God,” he muttered, “that’s not what I look like.” And then he laughed. “Not a bad opening salvo though.”

“Not bad at all, is it? Particularly since we already know what’s on the key.” The other guy paled, as Jasper nodded. “So, it seems like you might have a vested interest in all of what’s going on right now. Yet not a whole lot of people give a shit, not when we know that you’re quite prepared to kill everybody in your orbit in order to save your own ass.”

“You don’t know anything,” he snarled, “and I’m not on that key.”

“Then somebody you care about is, or somebody else is on the list and is paying you enough that you’re willing to be here,” Jasper suggested, with a laugh.

“So maybe his boss is the gay lover,” Tristan guessed, with a chuckle. “Maybe he’s jealous. Maybe he’ll take over his boss’s spot, and he doesn’t like competition.”

The gunman just glared at him and didn’t say anything.

“He does look gay though, doesn’t he?” Jasper asked again.

“Yeah,” Tristan agreed. “Definitely something about the way he’s looking at you,… and the way he wasn’t looking at Amarylis. I see what you mean.”

“I don’t like bitches,” the gunman snarled.

“Exactly. We already figured that out,” Jasper noted, as he and Tristan had a good laugh at the joke.

“I don’t like bitches who psych me out,” the gunman clarified, turning red. “It’s got nothing to do with her.”

“Then you don’t understand what you’re up against,” Jasper declared, “because, whatever the hell is going on in your world, you’re not getting out of this one.”

A knock came on the door, and Jasper looked over at Tristan. He nodded, then walked to the door and waited until the MPs on the other side identified themselves.

When he opened the door and let them in, the gunman laughed. “See? You guys are all about following the rules.”

“Not really,” Tristan argued. “They’re just here to haul you someplace where we don’t have to worry about your screams and calls for help.”

The gunman looked over at Jasper for help, and, for the first time, a shadow of fear crossed the gunman’s face.