"Mary please, lets go back to the house?" I beg her. "Cass can always call us if he finds somewhere we can go and I will not argue with you about it. It won't take anymore time then what it already would if we stay here. I want... No, I need more time with just you."
I pull her close trying to convince her since she's been stubborn trying to stay at Temples because she's worried about me. I brush her face hoping she'll budge.
She sighs..."Well I did plan on three whole days away not just two..."
There's my opening...
"See! We have one more day to enjoy this day doesn't count since you brought me back here." I use a childish point but if it works, I don't care.
"Please, Mary, I still feel like I'm under surveillance here like I was when you first let me out. I just want to breathe in and enjoy just you."
"Okay fine but we're going to take it easy at the house." She sounds so serious .... she's so cute....
"What ever you want baby." I smile and we get Grier to take us back after letting Cass know to call us.
.....
We're out back in the guest cottage of the house that Mary has made into a workout area in the bedroom and small Dojo in the living room/dining area of it.
Before we went in she took off her shoes and made me remove mine as well. We spent two hours cleaning the place up first. So much for taking it easy. She needed to vent out some anxiety and headed back here.
She wanted us to spar together and I agreed. If I could wrestle her down onto a mat, I'd take advantage of it.
Little did I know...
"Come on Lacroix, up." She offers her hand to help me up after she's taken me down for the third time now, She's been using some Judo throws tossing me around the mat.
I take her hand and get up. This is what I get for underestimating Sin. I realized a long time ago that's there's two sides to this woman. Mary is the real her that she doesn't show to many, shy, a little insecure, my wife that I married. Then Sin is her like her alter ego that the world sees. Tough, confident, and quick to retort. That's who I am sparring with and what's kept me from pinning her to the floor messing up my plans.
We take stance and prepare our selves again. She advances with a few offensive Jujitsu arm strikes which I am able to block and I feel her hips and right leg want to move as shes distracting me with more arm strikes. I center my gravity moving my left leg to support my weight and counter her leg swipe meeting it with mine.
Her eyes widen in surprise as she grins devilishly.
OH damn it.... she wasn't even trying earlier. She's about to really kick my ass now.
She steps back and quickens her arm strikes and gets me in the side with one and damn it hurt. What the hell.... I'm not taking this easy on her now.
I begin to make my own advancements mixing offensive in with my defensive moves but she has more knowledge in fighting styles then I do and soon she's got me back on the mat, pinned down.
However, she's slightly compromised as I was able to put her in a choke hold as she took me down.
"Hey baby, Care to call this one a draw?" I ask her as she's struggling to get out of my hold. She looks at me determined and frustrated at the same time. Suddenly she surprises the hell out of me cause she picks me up off the floor and in my shock I loosened my hold and she slipped free and throws me on the mat.
"What's that about a draw Lacroix?" She wipes the sweat from her forehead and I'm looking up at her just in awe.
"What?" She looks at me like confused as I stare at her just dumbstruck.
I get up, "Call me crazy but if that was not one of the sexiest damn things I've ever seen you do, It's definitely up on the top ten." I wrap my arms around her and pull her close for a kiss.
"Really?" She smiles. "So what are you trying to say there Mr. Lacroix?" She lights swerves her head from side to side with a cocky grin on her face.
"I'm saying... you win, I'll be your captive anytime, Mrs. Lacroix." I say huskily to her pulling her against me to show her how honest I was in being her 'captive' right now.
With a devious and domineering look she placed a hand on my chest, "Oh really now?"
"Yes Ma'am." I said as she pushed me back to begin to strut slowly moving her hips to catch my attention.... I swallowed audibly as she opened the door to the sauna room that had a hot tub in it.
"Since you're my captive then...." She motioned me to undress. In less than a minute ... I was done.
"My turn...." She says raising her arms waiting for me to undress her.
God, I love my wife.
.........
We've been leaking more information out of Graves, no longer hiding identities and giving all the good dirt and where to get the information from and even gave us pass codes for his personal data bases.... All in the hopes he would be able to win his freedom.
"See Graves the problem with this is, how do I know this information, these locations, these identities are not compromised? A trap?" I take down the information he's given me anyways, there's safe ways to check on some of it.
Graves has been begging for us to let him go, I finally took him off the table and stuck him in a cell, his muscular atrophy along with his age ensured he wouldn't try and fight back.
I look at his trembling figure, it's quite pathetic. When we realize all the money and the power we think we have is taken out from under our feet, how weak we really are just as a single person.
I almost pity him.... almost.
"You still haven't given me the answers I'm really wanting though...." I set down a plate of rice and beans in front of him.
"WHO are YOU so afraid of Graves? WHO wanted to teach me a lesson? Who wants to use me bait in their own trap?"
I set down a glass of water and a slice of apple pie. The pie shocks him and he looks up at me.
"For your willingness to be so helpful and you've made me and my friend a lot of money. You're blood is like a fine wine so I'm told." I laugh and start to walk out.
"...surprised you don't drink it." I hear him mumble.
Turning around, "I'm sorry you want to repeat that?" I lean against the door frame looking at him.
"I'm surprised you don't drink it." He said louder.
"Well at least I know you're getting better at telling me the truth up front now Graves. Why would I drink it? I don't have powers like the Fae who need it for them. I'm not THAT evil, Graves, that I would willingly for no reason drink blood. I'm not a vampire." I sneer.
"How do you know?" He says quietly picking up his spoon and beginning to eat the pie first.
"Know what? That I'm not a vampire?" I laugh.
"That you don't have powers. Or even John for that matter now. You both contain Fae blood in you now, who's to say you're not capable of having powers. Especially since it's obvious you haven't tried or even thought about it being a possibility."
The look of disgust must have been evident on my face, "What you have no problem draining me of mine to make money off it. What's the difference in taking it to drink other than flavor?"
He starts to laugh. "You know Sin, we're not as different as you think. You just think you have the higher morals of us two because I was helping Ortiz make us both money off drugs? We were just somebody else's pawns in a bigger picture than you or I could understand. When we did start to understand, we were expendable and now here we are. I'm a dead man either side of these bars. Your caged too, just your cage is large enough to make you think you're free and safe. You're not sure who you are running from anymore, other than maybe yourself."
He put's the empty pie plate down and downs the water after downing the glass.
"I think that's your biggest problem Sin. I know you have been running from your self for so long, both your past and your future."
"You think you're a good person and you do things for the "greater good" concept everyone likes to believe in to validate war and violence. Relabeling it as 'Justice' done for the 'greater good'. You've see so much death and have had so many atrocities done to you, I know you have wished for death." He stands up and walks over to me keeping a good five feet of distance.
"Except you don't get to actually die do you Sin? Although I know you wish you could have when Ortiz got a hold of you."
"I saw the videos of what he did to you, fucking animal he was." He shakes his head at me clicking his tongue.
"Although I do have to admit there was a few times I saw... when he had broken you..... you seemed to enjoy the pain he was inflicting. Maybe that's what you're really running from now....." He took a few steps closer, "the fact you liked it and it's wrong for a good person to feel that way. You have always wanted to be a good person."
He shook his head at me.
"You know I think you're right about one thing. I do think it's wrong for a good person to like pain and inflicting it on others." I stepped forward face to face with him, " But there is one major thing you got wrong?"
He leans forward looking me straight in the eyes, "What did I get wrong?"
"That you believe, that I still want to be a good person." There's a sickening thump and Graves eyes go wide in shock and he gurgles blood up out of his mouth coughing it right into my face as I pull my blade out of his throat.
"The decent people in this world still need people like me.... just good enough..." I let his body drop down and stroll out letting him bleed out on the floor. I walk out and upstairs passing Cass along the way.
"Si.." He starts to say something, notices the blood sprayed all over my face and just lets me pass. I can feel his eyes watching me go up the stairs to my room.
I walk in and go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. My face is covered in thickened and drying blood from my nose down and a fine spray across my chest and forehead. I look like someone from an apocalyptic film who just lost everything and rage killed her pursuers.
Grabbing a washcloth I began taking the majority of blood off. I pulled my clothes off and tossed the ruined shirt in the trash. After taking a shower, I'm drying off still in just a towel when John came walking in drenched in sweat from training with Temple who had been training him in higher levels of martial arts.
Seeing me in just a towel, drying my hair, he stopped and just watched me hungrily. He saw the look in my eyes though and his demeanor immediately changed.
"What happened?" He asks.
I sigh, "Graves, I killed him. He actually tried to get in my head... pathetically of course. Still, he tried to accuse me of trying to be a good person. I told him that the decent people left in the world needed people like me....just good enough. But now Graves is dead, I don't know who the puppet master is that been pulling the strings. We still have to live in fear of being found by whoever is looking for us. I can't keep putting everyone's life in danger by being associated with them.
John, what do we do? Graves was right, My cage is just big enough to make me think I'm free and safe and I have so many others I've caged in with me now." I pull on some clothes and sit down my head in my hands.
John sits down next to me, "Mary, I love you. You don't have to feel like you are living in a cage. We could find someone who could help. Who knows you're so used to running maybe the ones looking for you aren't trying to harm you, but help you?"
I pop up and look at John, doubts are flickering through my mind about him being brainwashed again. "John? Why are you saying stuff like that? The people that had Graves terrified are the ones pulling the strings for making people into drug addicts taking their prescriptions and are the reason all this happening in our lives. "
"Now, Mary, you need to take some responsibility for your choices too you know. You chose to be in the CIA you chose to investigate Ortiz. What happens when you go rogue for too long? You forget which side you were fighting for in the first place." John scoots closer to me putting a hand on mine.
I pull it back away from him, " I know very well what choices I have made that have led me to this. I have a question though John for you. Whose side are you on? Who are you fighting for?" I pray silently I'm just misunderstanding what he's saying.
He gets up and starts to pace, "I don't get it Mary, you trust me and then you don't. You love me but then you are so easily hurt by me over everything. We're just talking about what has been bothering you and now you're treating me like I'm the bad guy! " He sits down face in his hands turned away from me.
His shoulders are shaking and his breath is coming in short rasps. I crawl up behind him and hug him around his waist.
"I'm sorry John, I guess I didn't think did I?" I try to comfort him.
He starts to chuckle lightly.
He starts to turn to face me and I noticed his face is rotting away.
"John?!" My eyes go wide in shock and I back away as rotting flesh drips from his eyes as he blinks, teeth fall out of putrid lips, his hairs turn wispy and gray, and the stench of death and diseased, rotting flesh comes off of him.
"Maa..rrrr...y.." The sound that comes out of his mouth around a tongue that doesn't want to work anymore, is garbled. He stands up reaching for me.
I back away my back hitting the wall of the room.
"Maarrr..yyy wwwee. uuu..p" He walks over to me and grabs me by my arms as I'm screaming.
I'm trapped, this is not John it can't be John!
"NOOO, JOHN!" I'm screaming trying to push him off me as his face gets closer. His grip gets tighter on me and I have no choice but to give now. That putrid tongue comes for my screaming mouth....
"Marrryy Wwaake up. MARY WAKE UP! MARY WAKE UP!"
......
I wake up and I'm still screaming and crying and John is yelling at me to wake up.
I back away in fright and start sobbing uncontrollably.
We're in the guest house out back of the country house. Me and John sparred just earlier. After the Sauna and Jacuzzi we had passed out on the lounge style benches.
This is where I was. That was not real.
"It wasn't real, it was just a dream. It wasn't real, it wasn't real,it wasn't real." I rocked back and forth and John goes to comfort me again but I flinch thinking of those putrid hands and rotting flesh.
"I'm going to be sick." I mumble covering up my mouth as I start to gag and John grabs the trash can quickly and I miraculously projectile vomit into from 3 feet away.
He's able to get it under me before the next wave of vomit comes flying out of my mouth. John goes and gets me a glass of water and rubs my back as I continue, ending up in doing the dry heaves the rest of hour. After wards I'm so beat from vomiting, so tired, but now I'm terrified to go to sleep.
"Mary, are you alright baby? That seemed like a pretty bad one, you woke me saying my name and then you started screaming. What happened that's got you afraid of me?" John asks hesitantly keeping distance between us so I don't get scared.
I slowly gathered my thoughts and told him what I had dreamed. "It felt so real John." I told him still visibly trembling.
"But it was just a dream Mary. A horrible one, but still just a dream." He opened his arms for me to take comfort in and I did.
"Yeah I thought the dream being covered in blood was just a nightmare too.... It was of your death though." Tears hot and heavy leaked down the corners of my eyes and cascaded over my cheeks.
His warm, strong hands lifted my head up gently to look deeply into my eyes like he was staring into my soul. "Mary, that is the past do not let it continue to torture you. You survived it, I am now here. It can't hurt you anymore unless you let it."
I stare up at him knowing his words to be true. "It does make me curious though about the blood thing. Should we talk to Temple or Lar about it?"
I look up at him in shock.
"Hey I'm just curious!" He defends himself. "The snap ability would come in extremely handy if we ever need to get away quickly."
"I don't know if I could willingly drink someones blood for it though." He reassured me.
"I'm afraid that I would though." I said trembling again at the thought.