Rogue Alliance

THIRTY-SIX



“The money was transferred this morning,” Brennan said into the phone.

“Fine, fine, that’s good. I should have Victor’s paperwork filed by this afternoon. Then I’ll have a meeting with the judge and viola, he’ll be home within forty-eight hours. Piece of cake, he’ll get a slap on the wrist, maybe some community service for assaulting a police officer, but that should be the extent of it.

“But that’s this time, Brennan, and I’m going to tell you what I told Victor. He’s got to keep a clean record after this. I’ve bailed him out twice in just the last couple of weeks. I can’t keep working miracles here.”

“You don’t have to worry about Victor,” Brennan said, “he knows full well the consequences of his actions. He’s going do what he wants to do. As for working miracles, whatever you can’t do, I’m quite sure we will find someone else who will.”

“I…I didn’t mean…what I meant was…”

“Thanks for your time, Mr. Garrett, I’ll let Victor know where we’re at and I’ll contact you if anything else comes up.”

Brennan hung up the phone and stared out the window. Fall was in full swing. The colors were turning vivid hues of gold and reds. After ten years in the institute he’d forgotten how incredible the season was.

He stood and lifted the window until it was fully open. Leaning out, he pulled in a deep breath and held it, loving the pungent, crisp air. Freedom; it was vital, imperative to the soul’s journey. Without it, one lost the ability to understand their place in the world, to be a free-thinking individual. He understood this on a fundamental level. After many years without contact from the outside world, he had learned to believe in only what his masters had exposed him to, trained him for.

Now that he was re-integrating with society, he found that, although he was free in the sense that he was no longer incarcerated against his will, he was just as stifled by those around him who he’d made allegiances with.

Shyla had said that he wasn’t like Victor and questioned his loyalty toward him. What she didn’t know was how turbulent his own emotions where over their dynamic. He was more like Victor than she wanted to believe, and he grappled with that. Especially since he’d witnessed the way he’d treated Shyla. When he’d barged into the room and seen Victor’s strangling Shyla with her own scarf, he’d nearly blacked out from the rage.

The instinct to kill Victor had been three-fold. It hadn’t been loyalty in that moment which saved Victor, it had been a brief glimpse of clarity and logic. The aftermath of killing Victor would have plagued him with a guilt from which he feared he would never recover. Despite his failings, Victor had saved him, allotted him his valued freedom and brought him to this very point in his life. He owed him, whether he liked it or not. And if he killed Victor, real freedom would never be a part of his future.

He closed the window and sat back in the chair, thinking of how Shyla had stood in the doorway earlier that morning, her badge in hand, the expression on her face stoic and resilient. He could only imagine how much it had cost her to face Victor again. But true to her nature, she did it calmly and armed with only her gun and dry sarcasm.

The night he had saved her he’d seen the softer side of her that he’d always known existed when she allowed him to pull her into his lap. As he’d held her, he had felt her walls of bravado crumble away, her illusion of infallible strength withering as she succumbed to the trauma of her near death experience.

He’d gently stroked his hand down her soft braid then down her back. Having her there, in his arms, he felt connected to her, bound to her. When she kissed him, his belly burned with a new kind of fire. It was the first time in years that he’d embraced a woman in such a way. The one night stand in San Francisco had been executed out of need and desperation, fraught with only hunger.

That moment with Shyla had been something more and whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was just as tied to her, as he was to Victor. The fact that they were two equal and opposing forces only complicated the matter.

The phone trilled and broke into his thoughts.

“Hello?”

"Hey, Brennan.”

Her voice was welcome to his ear.

“Hello, Shyla.”

“Since I didn’t have to time to chit chat this morning, I was wondering if we could meet later this afternoon. I have some questions for you.”

“Should I contact my lawyer?”

“No, no. It’s not like that exactly. Listen there have been some changes on this case. I can’t talk about it right now, but I think you and I have to talk.”

He ran a hand through his hair.

“Fine,” he said, “do I need to come down to the precinct?”

“No. This is off the record. There is a little diner on the far edge of town, just before you drive out of city limits on the south end. Meet me there around five o’clock.”

“Sure.”

He hung up and sat back in Victor’s office chair. What exactly did changes on the case mean and why was it off record? He had a feeling things were about to get much more complicated.