CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN


I'd retired to bed around three that morning, but Jace had stayed up when
Stirley finally came back to the cabin.


I'd been around enough men to know that there's a guy code. No guy could shed
tears when another female was present in a room.


After my first nightmare woke me two hours later, I left the cold confines of
my bed and moved downstairs.


Stirley proved that I was wrong about the guy code.


He sat on the couch, staring into the fire that Jace had lit our first day
away from our expedition and he was gripping a beer bottle that was the last in
line after the other six that littered the floor beside his feet.


He didn't wipe the tears away when he looked up at me.


I sat, my blanket wrapped around me, as I took the couch that Jace usually
sat upon.


It wasn't one of those moments when the person in pain waits to see what
damning, insensitive, or comforting words the other would offer.


Stirley sighed and said hoarsely, "Jace is going to take this mother fucker
down. He has to because if he doesn't, I will."


"I've never loved anyone."


Stirley choked on his words and stared down at his bottle. He hung his
head.


"I've had lots of guy love me, but I've never loved them back."


"She loved me." Stirley said hoarsely. "She loved me and she was my light at
the end of the tunnel."


I'd heard similar words from Jace.


"I loved her. I love her." Stirley whispered fiercely. "And he has her."


I sat and took the beer from his number fingers. I don't think he even
noticed.


Stirley continued, "I've given a lot for this job. I mean, all the glory
that's promised us, taking on one of the hardest, most grueling jobs in the
department. It's not what they say it is. I mean, hell, if we really get inside
to the point where we can finally damage them back, there's no going back. Look
at Jace. He's got this—you go to headquarters and Jace is a legend that everyone
wants to be, but he's never going back. He's not getting out of this. He's in
too deep. There's no end for him, but Cassie—she was my end. She was…she was
supposed to hold me back. I wasn't supposed to get too sucked in to the point
where I don't know how to get out. Cassie did that for me."


She…she was my light that I saw at the end of my tunnel. She…was my
second chance in life.


"Jace never cared about the glory. He's in this because this his life. If he
were to win and go back to get mainstreamed into one of the civvies, he wouldn't
know what to do." Stirley reached blindly for a beer, found an empty one, and
took a drink. "I don't know what keeps him going. He's driven to the point where
we can only stand back and marvel, but…he's not getting out. I was smarter than
that. I had a loophole that was going to keep me with a leg half-out."


"She was your window to a better life."


"Yeah." Stirley tried another drink, failed, and some more tears rolled down
his face.


"I never had a window." I muttered to myself. I finished Stirley's beer.
"This was my life. This is my life."


"Yeah…" Stirley sighed heavily. "You're not normal. You're an anomaly."


"What do you mean?"


"Most people live your life because they have to. They've screwed up, got
addictions, financial problems, whatever. They get kicked to the streets, but
you chose it. You don't have addictions. You're not a streetwalker. Why do you
do what you do?"


"I don't do anything."


"No, you do. Everyone stays where they are because they're getting something
out of it. If it's not working, they do something else. You're doing
something."


You want to change things.


Jace's words haunted me and not for the first time. They were starting to be
an irritation, but I glanced at Stirley and saw his misery took the
frontseat.


"She'll be alright…" I started, but I couldn't say those words.


Stirley never corrected me.


She wouldn't be alright. Her spirit might as well have lingered in that room
with us because both of us felt it.


I realized that Jace had never promised to save Cassie. He never made any
reference to that sentiment. Stirley knew that too. It was why his tears landed
continuously and why a professional undercover agent took the time to drown his
sorrows in a safe fortress for the moment's time. He'd get up and continue his
fight to save his window to a better life while Jace and I would get up and play
Marcus' game.


"I asked Jace just to kill Mallon and be done with it." Stirley announced.
"He wouldn't do it. And he could. Jace knows where Mallon is, where he spends
most of his time. Jace could get in and get out, but he don't do it. You wanna
know why? Because Jace wants something more than Mallon dead. He should just
kill him, but he won't…"


I stood up and tossed my beer among the rest. I gently grasped Stirley's hand
and pulled him upright. "Come on. You should get some sleep."


He didn't want to sleep because he'd dream. I knew that I wasn't the only one
that would be awake with nightmare by morning's entrance.


Maybe he drank enough liquor to chase the nightmares away. Maybe he'd sleep
dreamless and his mind could slip into a black hole.


I showed him my bedroom and shut the door as he crawled underneath the
covers.


I glanced at Jace's room and then down the stairs to the couches below.


Jace's door opened and he appeared in the doorway. He skimmed over my
shoulder to my closed bedroom door and then sighed as he held the door open
wide.


I ducked underneath and laid down while Jace laid beside me.


"You hear all that?" I asked as I looked to the dark ceiling above. There was
an antique fan above his bed, but I doubted it was ever used as I saw it was
inches thick in dust. The gold lettering and swirls that decorated it were
gorgeous. The fan could be worth hundreds, but it stayed in it's place with dust
to keep it company.


"He couldn't say that stuff to me. Thanks." Jace wasn't drowsy. He was wide
awake.


"I didn't go down there with that intent."


"I know."


"You heard my nightmare."


"I figured you'd have a few."


"I thought I was done with Marcus." I wasn't.


Jace took a deep breath, glanced at his closed door, and said faintly, "He
knows that she's gone."


"What's he going to do now?"


"He's going to get up. I'm going to have to rough him up, probably leave him
in a ditch so that he'll get picked up and taken to the hospital. And then he'll
be back in Mallon's good graces and he'll be more valuable than before."


"And that would make him…" A king's checkmate.


"That would make him Marcus' new right-hand man because he'd have contact
with you and me and Marcus wouldn't throw someone like that away."


"He told me that Cassie was his window."


"A life that we lead, you get sucked into it and a lot of guys need someone
or something to keep them fighting to get back out."


"He said that you're a legend, but you'll never leave this life."


"That's not true. I'm not like the rest of them. I was always in this life.
I'm just trying to end what I can do and then maybe, I'll find something to
do."


There was something in his voice, a soft wistful note that had me murmuring,
"But you don't think you'll survive this, do you?"


"No." His voice hardened and he looked at me. His grey eyes seemed to shine
brighter than normal. "I'm not being conceited when I say that I'll make it to
the end. I'll be there for the big showdown, but that's when I know that
something's going to get thrown in my face. Like I said before, if I lose my
soul, you need to end me."


"How do you know I'll be there?"


"Because Mallon and I both want you there and we'll both make sure you're
there."


"Why?"


"Because you see what no one else does." Jace said softly, simply.


I burrowed into the blanket and murmured, "That makes no sense to me."


"It will." Jace flipped and laid on his stomach. "Goodnight, my little
dove."


"Shut up! Don't call me that."


He chuckled, softly, and the sound was surreal as a broken man's dreams had
been shattered across the hall.


That wasn't Jace's fight or my fight.


Stirley had his own fight now.


"He's gone, now, isn't he?" I whispered, now suddenly tired. My eyelids were
heavy.


"Yeah. He became what he was telling you that I was." Jace yawned and closed
his eyes as he hugged a pillow to him. "This isn't a job for him anymore. It'll
be his obsession and much later, he'll realize that he'll become just another
legend for the civvies at headquarters to study and revere."


"What are civvies?"


"Civilian agents. They're the guys who go to the office, work the case, and
go home at the end of the day. They might get called in during the night, but
they're not one of us. We're the hardcore agents."


"So what are you called?"


"The Deep Cuts because we burrow inside and we make the cut that'll bring
down the beast."


"I'm an anomaly. That's what Stirley told me."


"Yeah, you certainly are."


"I don't know how I feel about that." But I was too tired to really think
about it.


Jace said softly, "I'm not your enemy, not anymore."


I yawned and replied before sleep found me again, "I know…"


I had another nightmare, woke to Jace's arm around my waist, and managed to
fall back asleep with his calming breaths tucked against the crook of my neck
and shoulder.


When I had my third nighmare, Jace woke with me and the morning light was
peeking through his closed curtains.


Neither of us said a word. Jace stood up and left for the bathroom downstairs
while I snuck into my bedroom and used my own bathroom.


Stirley was gone, but I didn't think he'd go far. And as I made my way
downstairs, I saw that he hadn't. He sat there, cool and composed as if the
night had never happened.


He was playing Marcus' message over, stopped, and rewound it to play it
again.


A list of ideas was at his fingertips and Jace took it to study them.


He passed them over as I stopped at his side and he went to make some
coffee.


I curled on the couch, reading over Stirley's ideas who Job was, and accepted
the coffee that Jace brought a little later.


"We're looking for someone who works for Marcus. Who's innocent of this whole
ordeal. Who believes and trusts in Marcus, like he's a god or something."
Stirley announced. "We might as well just give up. Everyone I know that works
for Marcus don't fit this bill, not by a long shot."


I sat up, "Okay. Marcus called himself God. He thinks he's a god, or God to
this person, at least."


"This isn't just someone who works for him. This would be someone who more
than works for him, like…"


I sucked in my breath and exclaimed, "Like a relative. Someone who loves
him."


"Who's blind to what an evil son of a bitch he is." Stirley clipped out.


"The book has to be protected." Jace sat down beside me. "He wouldn't let
just anyone guard it. The book has to be somewhere that we can't just walk in
and get it."


"Job was innocent. Marcus said that. And he said that in the end, Job never
cursed God. That was the point of the battle. God used Job, his most faithful
servant, to prove a point in his faith of him. It was unbreakable. That was what
God wanted to tell Satan." I murmured.


"What are you talking about?" Jace asked.


"I don't know. I'm just talking…"


"Who believes that someone like Marcus is a god and won't change his mind?
Not on of his employees would do that. I don't know of any of his relatives,
except maybe his sister…" Stirley looked towards me.


"No." I said quickly.


"It's worth a shot, Maya." Stirley argued. "I mean, she's related to him.
She—"


"She doesn't think he's God. And she's not innocent."


"She kind of is." Jace added. "She is innocent of all this, she just had the
bad luck to be related to two dicks."


"She doesn't have faith in him. And she would never keep his Decoder for
him."


"She's protected. No one would think to look there, where she's at, who she's
living with." Jace prompted.


"No. She doesn't have faith in him."


"Unless it's just for show. Unless she's…where she's at…just for show and
she—"


"No! I'm not wrong about this. She would never—she ran away from him. I—"
Gave up everything for that freedom. "I gave up my freedom for her. That wasn't
for someone who had faith like Job did for his God."


Jace sighed, motioned for Stirley to leave, and after he did, he said
quietly, "And maybe Marcus manipulated you into his bed. Maybe that was all for
show, to get you where he wanted you."


"No."


"It could be, Maya. I've seen worse things happen."


"Five years."


"Exactly. Five years, Maya."


"I already sacrificed my freedom for her. I won't listen to you even
entertain the option that it was just a manipulation."


"Why? Because you might've gotten suckered into something? Because it's not
something that you or I would do?" Jace fanned the flame, mercilessly.


"Stop it."


"No, Maya." He lashed out, controlled. "You need to entertain every option.
It could be. Lily's with a guy who's made it his life's purpose to end her
father. Lily loved her father. We both know that. Family's family, no matter the
gene pool. I still love my dad, even though he's passed out in a bowl of soup
and a bottle Bourbon at his hand. I love my dad and if he called, I'd go."


"Lily is not like that."


"Lily could be like that. We don't know. She could have the Decoder."


"No. We were like sisters."


"Blood's thicker than any memory. I know that, Maya, and so do you. If Krein
called you, what'd you do?"


I turned grave eyes on him, hollow, and asked, "Why are you doing this?"


"Because every blind spot is where you have to dig. It'll keep you alive in
the end. Trust me."


"It's not Lily."


"It could be Lily."


"She's not innocent."


"Technically, Job wasn't either. He was human. He wasn't perfect."


"She…" wouldn't do that to me, but she could. She found Jace. She pointed me
in the right way.


"She's living with a DEA agent, one of their bulldogs. She's protected and
the book is protected."


I couldn't say anything.


Jace sighed and said softly, "I'm not saying it is Lily, but I'm saying that
we have to seriously consider it. It's the best we've got right now."


"We're wrong."


"No. I would be wrong, but I'm willing to take that chance and be proven
right." Jace stood up and left me to consider any other ideas that Stirley had
jotted down, but all were groundless.


Stirley entered the room again and remarked as he sat down before the laptop,
"I'm going to research this thing. I think there's a lot we probably aren't even
understanding, you know what I mean?"


"Yeah." I muttered and glanced darkly down the hallway where Jace had
left.


Stirley followed my gaze and seemed resigned when he commented, "He's usually
right, you know. He's lived for this long. He's a ghost to a lot. Lanser knows
where to look and where not to. It's irritating sometimes."


"What is?"


"He's always right."


Jace returned with a coat and a bullet proof vest. He grabbed his carkeys and
instructed before he opened the door, "I'm heading out. I have a meet."


Stirley looked up and waited.


Jace gave his orders, "Keep researching this. We need to move tomorrow. I
don't want Marcus to have any more time on his side and we, sure as hell, need
to get this wrapped before the week is up."


The door shut behind him and Stirley cursed as he studied the computer's
screen again.


We were in the same position throughout the rest of the day. Thinking.
Arguing. Brainstorming. And we ended up with nothing except the multiple
handouts that Stirley seemed to continuously download and print off.


After the sixth document, I exclaimed, "Where did all this media stuff come
from? I swear, when we first got here, I thought we were lucky to have running
water."


Stirley chuckled, remembered his plight and said, soberly, "Jace will set it
up if we need it, but he's on the run so much, it's usually not worth the
time."


"Thanks for doing all the research."


"I'm doing what I can." Stirley mumbled. "If anyone's going to figure it out,
it'll be you."


"What do you mean?"


"It's why Jace needs you, isn't it? You know Marcus, how he thinks." Stirley
pointed to the papers in my hand. "Think like him."


"Marcus isn't exactly simple."


"Not many would recite a bible story and offer up a bait as prize. I only
know of one ego-maniac that would do that, and Mallon has a streak that's not
insane at all. I trust Jace and Jace trusts you. He thinks you can figure this
out. I'm going to trust that. Think like him, Maya."


"No pressure." I drawled.


Stirley turned back and said dully, "You wouldn't be here if you couldn't
handle pressure."


I looked down and my eyes caught a single sentence among the thousands, but
the words sunk deep and I knew I wouldn't get them from my mind.


Alone, he agonizes.