Rogue Alliance

FIFTY-ONE



The plan was that they leave by seven a.m. Brennan had suggested that since it was nearly two in the morning when he dropped Shyla off at her apartment, that they wait one more day so she could rest. But she’d insisted that a few hours was all she’d need. Anything beyond that was a waste of time, she’d said.

So, only five hours after he dropped her off, he was back in her parking lot with a piping hot vanilla latte, ready to go. He had already chugged down a double. She might be able to cope after only a few hours but with his health fading faster each day, he needed all the help he could find to muster the energy to keep going. His benefactor had said six months, but, over the past week, his strength had waned further and he doubted he had more than four.

As she slid into the passenger seat, she reached for the coffee.

“It would be really nice if this had a bite to it.”

“Sorry,” he smiled, “it’s just coffee, I’m afraid.”

“Eh, I figured,” Shyla gave him a sly smile, “So what’d you tell the boss man? Did you tell him we’re running away together?”

Brennan found her quipped sarcasm amusing. It was amazing how she could maintain her stoic front through nearly any scenario.

“I told him that I was going up to Oregon to follow up on a lead about my parents and kept it at that. He didn’t ask any questions. I guess he knows that it would be pointless to argue and I don’t think he would begrudge me seeking that knowledge. He doesn’t feel threatened by it. Nor should he.”

She kept her eyes straight ahead on the road ahead of them.

“You two have quite the bromance going on.”

“Bromance?” he laughed, “Where do you come up with this stuff?”

Brennan was pleased when they eased into a simple conversation for the first hour of the drive before slipping into a comfortable silence. The drive was beautiful. Once in Oregon, the terrain was flatter as they drove north. The farther they went the cloudier the sky became and Brennan tried not to think of it as an ominous sign.

Then again, he was trying not to think much at all. The idea that he might actually see his mother for the first time in over ten years had him feeling twitchy and uncertain. It had upset him to find out she was in a mental hospital and he wasn’t sure what to expect. Would she be coherent? Would she recognize him? If so, how would his sudden appearance affect her? How would it affect him?

It was too much to process so he shoved it aside and gave Shyla a quick glance. She had drifted to sleep with her head resting on her bent arm against the door. Her mouth was parted slightly and he could hear the soft in and out of her breath. Suddenly, there was nothing else in the world that mattered. She was in his life for whatever reason and he didn’t ever want to think of a time when he might be without her. It was like a bomb of revelation bursting inside his head, a single point of knowing which settled in his heart.

She must have felt the weight of his stare. He smiled when she opened one eyelid with trepidation.

“You look pretty when you sleep.”

Uncomfortable with the compliment, she sat up and yawned. Her pony tail had loosened. A few stray strands framed her face. Keeping one eye on the road and another on her, he watched as she tugged the hair tie free and the rest of her dark hair cascaded over her shoulders and down her back. Now she was not just pretty, she was absolutely striking.

“Why don’t you ever wear it down?” he asked, mesmerized. He wanted to reach out and touch it like he’d done the night when he’d caught her in Victor’s office.

Shyla had pulled the sun visor down to look in the tiny mirror and was brushing her fingers through it violently, as if its very existence angered her.

“It’s a nuisance. I hate it.”

“Hate’s a pretty strong word.”

She flashed him an irritable look.

“Yeah, well, I feel fairly strongly about it, so I guess that fits. I’d love to just cut it all off.”

“So why don’t you?” he asked, puzzled.

A certain kind of sadness passed over her features and she rested her hands in her lap, staring down at them.

“Because,” she said, “my mom loved my hair. She would have never wanted me to cut it. On nights when she didn’t have to work, she would sit and brush it and tell me stories of her childhood or of when I was a baby.”

Brennan sensed her nostalgia and feared that he was treading on dangerous ground by pressing forward.

“Those seem like wonderful memories to me, so why such harsh feelings?”

“Because it can be beautiful, but it can also be a curse. When someone’s coming after you, the first thing they reach for is your hair. They can grab onto it and have you on your knees in seconds as stinging tears of pain and shame slide down your cheeks.”

She suddenly turned and stared into his eyes. It was hard to focus on the road with her blatant gaze tearing open his soul. The picture that she was painting in his mind with only a few key words had him feeling raw with emotion. How could her father have hurt her like that?

“I see,” was all he could say. He was at a loss for words. The car was silent as she finished tying her hair back. It struck him odd that her feelings toward her hair, the love-hate relationship she had with it, reminded him of his relationship with Victor. Within those first few months of knowing him they’d developed a real friendship, but recently that bond had slowly eroded away as the undertones of Victor’s personality made themselves known. Now all that was left was the sense of being indebted to him.



*



His world felt smaller, tunneled down into a very small existence which consisted of only the steps he was taking forward, the steps which would lead him to his mother. The atrocities he’d been subjected to in the institute, the horrors he’d committed of his own free will, were nothing to the shock that was setting in as he walked down the hallway of the small facility where his mother was residing.

It was less of a hospital and more a small clinic. He was glad to find that it was very clean, even comfortable, with décor that encouraged the feeling of home. Except for the nurses and the nursing stations at each end of the hallway, it felt like a small living facility with a central commons area. Not quite the sterile, lifeless facility that he’d pictured. There was no similarity between it and where he’d been kept for the last decade. For that, he was grateful.

After talking with the nurse for some time, he finally convinced her to let him see Clara Miller. She had insisted that she had no living children but when Shyla held up the missing person’s flyer, the woman had taken in a sharp breath.

“My god, it’s you,” she said, “she’s spoken of you so many times. I…don’t know how she will tolerate this. Maybe I should have you wait until tomorrow when her doctor can be here.”

Brennan shook his head.

“No,” he said, “I can’t wait until tomorrow.”

The nurse procrastinated and pondered over the predicament for a few minutes before she finally agreed to let them back.

“Okay, but I’m going to have to be there to monitor her. We don’t know what this could do to her.”

“How is she? I mean, how lucid is she?”

“Oh, quite lucid most of the time. In fact, she will go for a long time in a completely normal, aware state and we’ll begin to think she’s finally ready to move out of here and to a halfway house. But then, without warning, she’ll go catatonic on us and she’ll be gone for three or four days.

“But she’s been stable for weeks now. I think it would be okay for you to see her.”

Brennan followed her along the west wing and was grateful that she had not pressed for more information. She seemed to sense that it was more complicated than either of them cared to get into. He didn’t know that his step had faltered until Shyla’s hand slipped into his. Looking down at her, she was strong and brave and everything that he needed her to be. He gave her hand a small squeeze and stepped into the room.

It was a small room with a single bed. The curtains were open to the rainy day and the walls were decorated with hundreds of photos. What captured Brennan’s attention was the small, meek woman who sat in a rocking chair just to the side of the bed and stared longingly out the window.

A thousand memories rushed to the forefront of his mind. It was a whirlwind of flashbacks so vivid and fresh that it nearly took him to his knees. This petite, lonely woman had been such a source of love and joy in his past. It was so confusing, so frustrating, that he had been robbed of her and those memories for so long.

Clamping down on those feelings and the pain that was squeezing the breath from his chest, he focused only on the present. Watching from the doorway, he waited until the nurse had approached her.

“Clara, there is someone here to see you,” she said, “are you up for company?”

“Company?” Clara looked up into the nurse’s face. Brennan saw a very wise but broken spirit in his mother’s eyes. Then as if sensing his presence, she looked past the nurse and focused on him. The recognition was immediate but the acceptance was slow, careful, and so very fragile, as if she dared to hope, worried the vision in front of her might slip away. He could read it so clearly on her face and feel it so strongly in his own heart.

“Brian,” she said in a whisper. It wasn’t a question. She said it with confidence and a deep knowing, “Brian,” she said again and slowly stood up.

He walked towards her and her lip began to tremble. When he reached out to her, she nearly ran into his arms. Afraid to hurt her, he refrained from squeezing too hard, but she was holding onto him as if her life depended on it. He could feel her body shake as she wept in his arms. When he felt the first salty tear run down his own cheek, he finally felt freed from the past ten years. He hadn’t known before, how restrained, how enslaved he had felt even after his escape. Not until he held onto the woman who had raised him for those first sixteen.

It wasn’t until later that he realized they were alone. Shyla and the nurse had left them to reunite in privacy.