Armed and Dangerous (The IMA) (21 page)

“
That's the man,” he said. “He was a member of the BN. The
Bureau du Nuit
. His name was Pierre Dupont, and he was one of their leaders.”

“
Was? He's dead now?”

Michael nodded grimly.

That meant that man — Pierre — had been tortured to death in one of the camps; it meant that unlike us, he had not been lucky enough to get away. A terrible death.

“
I bet the BN weren't too happy about that.”

“
No, they were not.” Michael paused to wipe some sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist. “In their own way, the BN are just as dangerous as us. They are willing to stoop to acts of massive violence to further their cause. They prefer to think of themselves as peacemakers, but any animal fights back viciously when cornered and the BN are no exception to this rule. They protect their own.

“
Callaghan wants them eliminated because they pose a threat to the expansion of the IMA. They are encroaching upon territory that we have already claimed as our own, and killing our agents. I was chosen to head the expedition Callaghan formed to put them in their place. I never met the team I was allegedly leading. I just reported to that bastard, and he reported what I said back to them — filtered, of course. I figured he thought I might sabotage him, or decide to stage a rebellion of my own.” He gave me a dry smile. “The thought did cross my mind.”

“
But that was the rumor
he
started about you in order to get Richardson to eliminate you,” I protested. “It was never actually true.”

“
You've heard of self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“
Greek tragedies are all about self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“
There's a reason for that.” He glanced over his shoulder. “They seem to get you in trouble, too.”

He was right. This whole mess started when my dad hacked into the IMA's weapons database with the name of an old Greek god. “Maybe they're cursed,” I said.

“Never talk about curses to a man from the bayou.”

“
You don't believe in that crap, do you?”

“
This, coming from the Catholic schoolgirl?” His face didn't match the severe tone. It was a spot of lightness in his otherwise dark tale, and didn't last.

He told me how he planned to use the IMA's and BN's mutual distrust of one another to double-deal to both groups, feeding each faction a blend of half-truths meant to provoke them into direct conflict.

For a while, it worked — but then he had been found out, and the BN decided that getting back at him through me was too good of an opportunity to pass up. They risked his vengeance and his wrath by drugging him with the PCP that had caused him to nearly attack and kill me, and left him on my front porch for dead for me to find.

“
Why not just kill you outright?” I wondered aloud.

He glared at me. “I don't know. I guess they were hoping I'd bump you off. Or that you'd kill me in self-defense, save them the trouble. Who the fuck knows how they think?”

“You used to,” I pointed out.

“
The deuces are wild as far as Callaghan is concerned.”

“
So what happened? How were you found out?”

“
Someone caught on to me.” Michael kicked a stone out of his path. I watched it go skittering away, making ripples in the sand. “Someone who knows my methods.”

“
Who?”

“
Apart from Callaghan? I heard the BN mention someone named Villanueva. I think he's a rat.”

“
A rat?”

“
That means the IMA have another double agent. One who isn't me, and whose loyalties seem torn between theirs and the BN.”

“
I know what a rat means,” I said. “I watch
The Sopranos
. What I meant, was, does that happen a lot?”

“
It's the danger of double agents. Sometimes they realize the grass really is greener on the other side.”

“
Is that what happened to you?”

“
Me, I found out both sides were nothing but shit and decided to
passe
on the hell out of there.”

I turned away so he wouldn't see my smile of relief and read something out of it that he shouldn't.

It felt good to have Michael on
my
side once more. I felt more comfortable around him than I should have. On the other hand, he had shown himself to be the lesser evil. He said it best himself: he knew how to survive.

We took a water break every half hour. Around two in the afternoon we lunched on tinned sardines and a shared can of string-beans. He had me drink the vegetable-flavored water from the bottom. “You're not used to weathering it,” he said. “You need the extra fluids.”

That brief but welcome morning coolness disappeared much too quickly. The sand was too hot even to sit on. I found that out the hard way during one of our breaks when I tried to steady myself and burned my hand on the hot shards of rocks. We had to squat, leaning against the sandstone cliffs for support. Cast in their own shadow, they were cooler than the sand. My legs were killing me and my calves and hamstrings screamed at that new and unwelcome strain. “Why didn't we take a car?”

“
Too easy to trace.”

“
What if we dumped it somewhere after?”

“
You watch too much TV.”

“
At least a car would have air-conditioning.”

Michael snorted. “Yeah? What if some cop pulled us over to check our papers? I don't have any ID.”

He was right — and I begrudged him for it.

The food was some consolation but it was a far cry from the milkshakes I'd started fantasizing about as my brain marinated in its own juices like steak tartare. A Neapolitan milkshake — strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla, so I wouldn't have to choose a single flavor.

Clearly my body was mad at me for putting it through this crap and was wreaking psychological warfare in revenge. Stupid body.

Michael was mostly silent, and didn't speak unless spoken to first. It was too hot to talk. All my energy went towards getting through the sheer exertion of walking and breathing through the shimmering heat. I was surprised he had said as much as he had. His face was creased in thought, so I suppose he was still mulling over what he'd recounted to me earlier, turning over each possibility in his mind like a man at a game of shells.

I was still reeling over it. How could one man face the world alone and still be sane, never mind
alive
? It made it harder to hate Michael for all the things he'd done, knowing he had suffered like that. I wanted to believe he had changed, that he was capable of change. But I also didn't want to get hurt, or set myself up for disappointment.

Michael looked back again, in that uncanny way of his, and it was as if he had read my thoughts. His expression was as hard and battered as the sandstone cliffs. I shifted
the weight of my backpack on my shoulder, as if the sheer intensity of his gaze had added more weight to the load.

“
Don't look at me like that,” he said. “I didn't tell you all that because I wanted your goddamn pity.”

Why had he told me then? “I wasn't. Pitying you, I mean. I was…just looking at the cliffs.”

“Good.” He nodded at a cave entrance. “We'll stop here for the night.”

This cave was shallower than the one I'd found — it was a large embrasure denoting where massive erosion had occurred God only knew how many years before but not very deep. I was pleased that my cave was better than his.

Because he wanted to avoid being seen Michael refused to make a fire and allowed me to use the flashlight just long enough to procure the necessary provisions for the night.

“
Looks like we'll be spending more time together than we bargained for.” His voice came from the darkness without warning, perilously close to my ear as I snapped the flashlight back off and set it aside.

Swallowing, I agreed that this was so.

“In that case, I think we should clear the air about something I'm sure has been on both our minds.”

My throat felt too dry. I wondered if I'd swallowed too much dust. “And what is that?”

“The sexual arrangements.”

I nearly dropped the tin of fruit I was struggling to open.

He took the can from me, opening it easily. “Don't get me wrong. I got you into this mess, and I'm going to get you out. I owe you that much, and I'm not going to use sex as leverage. I'm not that kind of man.”

He handed the tin back.
You were
, I thought, taking it.
You demanded that I sleep with you in exchange for helping my parents and A escape from that wretched island
. I drank the fruit, still warm from the sun.
Did you forget?

“
I'm not going to force you into anything you don't want. But I'm also not going to take a vow of chastity and pine away for you, or whatever the hell it is that men do in romance novels these days. I have needs. I'd rather satisfy them with you, but if you don't want me I suppose I'll just have to find someone else. Might take me a while, but I'll make do. I always have before.”

My traitor heart faltered. “You said it was dangerous. To be together, I mean.” I wet my cracked lips and my
tongue made them burn. “You said that I'd be killed if I were around you. That's why you said you had to leave.”

I sounded like I was whining, even to my own ears. Throwing out excuses as if they were weapons without looking first to see where they would land. Hoping one of them would hit.

He reached out, fingers brushing my face in a blind caress, before closing around the edge of my jaw. “Yeah, well, it's beginning to look like we're fucked no matter what we do. At least if I'm with you I'll know it wasn't because I didn't do enough to keep you safe.”

I found myself leaning into his touch before I was quite aware of doing so, and his hand dropped as I began to understand the significance of what I'd done. “I — ”

No, no, no. This is wrong. All wrong.

His posture shifted to watchful readiness in the dark. “Careful.” I felt his hands come down on my shoulders. Keeping me from moving closer, but also keeping me from backing away. “I want you to think about this very, very carefully. What you're getting into. This won't be a one-time thing.”

His words buzzed strangely in my ears. Was he…asking me to be his girlfriend? I couldn't make myself form the words. They caught in my throat like burrs. I wet my lips. “What if I decide to say no?”

“
I won't touch you.”

“
That didn't stop you before.”

Michael sucked in a breath. His fingers tightened on my shoulders. “No. And I made that choice. I let all that anger and pain get twisted up in my thoughts for you.” He leaned in. “It fucking kills me. Every night. I relive what I did to you every night.” His forehead rested against mine. “Until you,” he said softly, “I never felt truly helpless.”

My vision blurred. I swallowed back the sob working its way up my throat and looked away, even though he couldn't see it. He tilted my head up, though the feel of my tear-streaked face gave him pause.

“
I am not a nice man,” he said, even as he loosened his grip. “I don't do valentines or anniversaries or weddings or any of that shit, and I might very well break your heart, but I can promise you'll never be bored.”

And then his lips sealed against mine, tongue slipping as expertly past my lips as he did through my common-sense, and I closed my eyes at the familiar taste of him as his thumbs dug lightly into the grooves of my collarbone.

No
, I thought.
He is anything but boring.

I thought that kiss would never end, but then it did. As if some taut string between us had been cut, he pulled away, and with him went some of the pressure weighing down on my chest.

“I am sorry.” He caught my lower lip between his teeth, and dropped a kiss along the upper. “You deserved better. You still do. I'm giving you the choice now I should have given you then.” My skin hummed when he pulled away as if an insect was fluttering its wings along the sensitive skin. “Until then, that's something for you to consider.”

“
Michael…”

“
Don't talk. Go to sleep.”

He didn't touch me again that night.

I realized for the first time just how hard and lumpy the ground was through that thin, cheap fabric. Since I couldn't sleep, I had the whole night to wonder how much self-control I possessed.

Michael:

I'd noticed her watching me. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't done everything in my power to keep it that way. I knew she liked my body, even if she was too shy to admit it, and I suspected she didn't hate me as much as she pretended. If she did, she would have delivered me to the cops when the BN dumped me on her doorsteps.