Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Familiar Adversary - Episode 2


Part 2 - The Unlikely Ally

"You can't be serious about leaving her out there," Kevin Fairchild said to his brother.

"I'm as serious as a heart attack. I can't even count how many times I've nearly died because the Black Council found intel on her site and used it to track us." Ethan was still pissed, and pissed was not a good emotion on him. When he was pissed, awful things were bound to happen.

Ethan's hands molded to the wheel, his knuckles turning white.

"Okay. Yeah, we've nearly bought it a dozen or more times, but you can't blame her. She didn't know she had a direct psychic link to an alternate universe. She had no way of knowing we were flesh and blood real people."

"Kevin, that is a lame ass excuse. If she were so ‘psychic' as you say, she should have known."

"You're just ticked because the stories focused mainly on you, putting you into more jeopardy than the rest of us," Kevin mocked. "Well, boo damn hoo. Poor pitiful you. You knew the dangers of taking this job, you should god-damn well take the consequences."

"I'm just doing what I was trained to do... seek and destroy the enemy before they destroy me."

***

It was still dark and it was still creepy, but at least the screaming had stopped. Friend or foe, I didn't know. I ventured forward a bit cautiously. Okay, a lot cautiously. There was no telling who could be out there in the blackness.

The scream came again, but this time I recognized it as a bird's call echoing out into the night. My body visibly relaxed. It was raining harder, but at that moment I ceased to care. I was about as wet as I was going to get. My clothes were soaked and I was cold and angry.

"Damn you, Ethan Fairchild," I screamed.

I could barely make out a tree to my left, but I could tell there was shelter there. Flimsy shelter offered by leaves on the tree, but it was better than the pounding rain atop my pounding head.

As I ventured forward, I found a large dip between myself and the tree. Probably a ditch. I took a gamble and reached my leg across the expanse. When my foot hit solid ground, I expelled the breath I had been holding. There was no way I wanted to fall into that ditch. I was wet enough.

When I put my entire weight onto the opposite side of the ditch, the ground crumbled beneath me, throwing me off balance. I was too shocked to curse. My only thought was prayer and the hope that this ditch wasn't too deep. I fell straight into the muck at the bottom, but I learned too late that the ditch was angled steeply downhill. My body slipped forward like the motion on a slide at a water park, except this water was dirty and smelled like filth. I careened downward, moving at a breakneck speed, faster and faster until the bottom came up and slammed me in the face.

It was in that moment that the light of the moon went completely out.

***

"I'm not leaving her back there, Ethan," Kevin said. He'd never been one to usurp his brother's authority, but this was uncalled for. The woman had done nothing wrong. Nothing she could foresee anyway.

"The hell you aren't. The longer she keeps from writing her story, the safer we all are," Ethan reasoned.

"Then why not take her to Smith Island or Legacy Headquarters where we can keep an eye on her?" Kevin asked, pausing suddenly. His eyes grew suddenly wide. "You bastard! You're having her cancelled."

"We all have to make sacrifices now and then." Ethan's words were filled with foreboding.
"Sacrifices? Death is not a sacrifice. Death is death," Kevin said. "She's still a human being. So, that makes it murder."

Kevin grabbed the steering wheel of the SUV nearly causing it to careen off the side of the road. They spun in a circle before coming to a complete hault facing the opposite direction.

"We've known about her for a long time, and I longer than anyone," Kevin said. "She isn't a threat to us. She could be an asset if we gained her trust. Let her abilities work for us."

"Even if I agreed with this insane notion - - it's already too late. If she hasn't broken her neck by now, the agent I assigned to the black op will surely have killed her by now."

Kevin was livid. "Call it off! This wasn't how it was supposed to play out!"

"You don't think I'm onto your game, Kevin?" Ethan shouted. "Before we discovered her existence, you were in and out of the sack with every woman I ever cared about, but once you established contact with her, your days as a Lothario suddenly stopped."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Kevin said defensively.

"Don't I?"

"Shut your bloody mouth. It's not like that."

"The hell it isn't," Ethan said. "The only reason she's even here is because of you. If you hadn't told us what you'd found, she would still be in her dimension typing on her computer reporting our every move."

He was such an idiot. He should have never told Ethan about her. What he should have done was brought her in under everyone's radar and explained the situation to her. But it was too late for that now. To fix this, he had to take drastic action.

Kevin raised his gun on his brother. "I hate to do this to you, buddy, but get out!"

Ethan raised his hands as Kevin threw his brother's Glock out into the elements. Ethan followed the gun getting out of the SUV.

"This is a mistake, Kevin."

"Well, it's my mistake to make then. I can't let anything happen to her. We might all regret it."

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