I know that we’ve thrown so much at all of you. Really, we have. Alex and I understand that. But, this story isn’t done yet. No, not by a long shot. Please, be patient with us. When we decided to write it all down, we decided to do it justice and really write all of it. That means everything. To those of us that may be reading this that don’t know us, please bear with us as we explain the emotions that go along with things. I know that you don’t need those parts. Those parts are for our friends, our brothers. We know you guys would want to know not just the story, but about us. We’re trying to do that right.
That’s why I’m writing this part. To be able to not only give you the emotions that go with it, but the facts too. This is a part that Alex still has a hard time with. So, again, to those that don’t know us, please be patient through this part of our story. There’s a lot here that is more sensation than fact. The fact, I’m sure is already known. But this is what happened from our view. This is what happened on our side.
It all started about two weeks after Alex made his visits. He and I had been hiding out at a secluded location so that he could keep training me, as he put it. He taught me more than just basic wrestling skills so that, if I was ever caught up in a hand to hand, I might have a chance. Back then he told me that it wouldn’t give me the chance to win against someone who was trained like him, but it would allow me to hold my own until I could either get away or he could come help. Real confidence inspiring, right? He also taught me how to shoot. Which, I hate to admit, is a skill that’s come in handy since then.
But, anyways, two weeks after this, Alex and I decided to take a calculated risk. We went to his house to look over things there and to grab a pair of keys that Alex said the crime scene people wouldn’t have taken, but could end up being important to us. That was where the next stage of our hell hit…
~~~~~~~~~~~
“Are they really that important?” Brian couldn’t help but demand as they moved through the shadows alongside the house. Even though he’d agreed to come here, it had been very reluctantly. Everything about this just screamed stupid. Walking into AJ’s old house just seemed to be asking to get caught. How on earth could AJ manage to look so relaxed and confident?
Recent events had brought chance to his Alex in so many different ways. At one point in time, everyone had teased AJ about being a coiled little bundle of nerves. Even when he was still, he was never all the way still. He couldn’t seem to stop moving, to stop doing. Always go, go, go. There’d been a slight jittery edge to it all as well. But it hadn’t been an external energy. No, looking back, Brian could see that it had been internal nerves that were affecting AJ that way. The parts of who he was warring with who he wanted to be.
There were no lines between those anymore. The person that AJ had been had finally joined with the person he was. What it left behind was one calm, confident person, so much more than he had been before.
The grin that AJ shot over his shoulder at his lover was testament to that. “Look, these keys have other keys which can lead me to other keys which can lead us to lots of good stuff, sweetheart. Trust me. I wouldn’t come back here unless I needed to.”
AJ stopped at a tree beside his house. He tipped his head up, barely noticeable in the dark, and then turned to look toward Brian. “Still able to climb trees?”
Surprisingly, Brian felt his lips curve. “Shit, Mclean.”
That was all that was needed. With a soft laugh, AJ moved into the tree with the speed and agility of a monkey, Brian coming up behind him. At the top the two used a branch to move toward the house and then into the window there. From there Brian followed his earlier directions, sticking close to AJ and yet behind him at the same time.
He tried to remember some of the things that AJ had been trying to teach him. How to place his feet as he walked, judging the sound it would make. He tried to listen to the world around him at the same time to be prepared for any threat that might be waiting for him. There were other things that AJ said he did while he moved to keep an eye on things, so to speak. But Brian wasn’t ready for those. Hell, he could barely manage to do the things AJ had taught him!
How the hell did AJ do all of this at once? Sneaking a peek at his lover, Brian saw the calmness there. The ease with which AJ moved. What was taking almost all of Brian’s effort to think of as he did it was no more than an automatic reflex for AJ. The asshole.
Those thoughts amused Brian as they made it to AJ’s bedroom. He entertained himself inside his mind while AJ grabbed his keys and even while AJ let him back out of the room. Their plan was to stop off in the kitchen and see if there was anything they could steal for a late night dinner. Walking quietly behind his lover, using only the light of the moon through the windows, Brian couldn’t help but smile. A moment later the smile slipped off his lips as he found himself being shoved sideways.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There was only a flash from the corner of his eye to serve as warning, but for AJ it was enough. He shoved Brian sideways, plastering them both against the wall just an instant before a knife whizzed past them. Instinct had AJ dropping down to the ground, yanking Brian down with him. He grabbed the knife in his boot, already ready to bounce back to his feet.
On the other side of the room stood a woman. She was dressed casual, like almost any female you’d see on the streets. Dressed to deliberately blend in to the night and yet pass if caught on the street. A black jogging tank top and black jogging pants as well as sneakers. Those she toed off to the side. In each hand she held a knife.
So that’s how this was going to be. AJ stared at her as he straightened up. His gun was across the room in his jacket pocket, God damn it. Maybe, if he was lucky, Brian might get over there. He could get the gun and add a little leverage to the situation.
Even as part of AJ’s mind logged away those details, thought of ways to deal with the threat, the other half of him was almost frozen. He knew who she was. Remembered her. She’d been in his training group. For a small period of time, way back at the beginning, they had been friends. Though they’d been told they had no names anymore, that they were leaving that part of themselves behind, he and her had shared that one little detail. Her name was Olesya and she had been from Russia. In private, AJ had called her Lesya.
“Olesya.” AJ said softly. He held his hands out to either side, the one with the knife kept firm and yet relaxed. He wasn’t going to be foolish enough as to disarm himself. But he had to try to talk to her. “Olesya, listen to me.”
Surprise flickered on her face. Like all the others, she had been shuttled off, dropped somewhere and left to make a new identity after their training. If the look in her eyes was anything to go by then she had no idea that the man before her was the same little boy she’d been friends with. All she would know was that he was an assignment and she was following orders.
“Stop, Olesya. Remember me. Remember who I am. You knew me.” AJ continued. He tried to keep his posture non-threatening. “You and I, we were friends a long, long time ago.”
“How do you know my name?” She hissed at him. Her entire body had gone taunt. She was off balance here. If AJ had been anything like he had been a year or so ago, he would have taken full advantage of the distraction and killed her already. But that wasn’t who he was anymore. That wasn’t how he lived. If there was any way he could talk her down from this, then he was going to do it.
“I know who you are. Just like you know who I am. Little Lesya, my amiga bonita. My pretty friend.”
Those words from their childhood threw Olesya back even further. She froze, her eyes going wide in her face. AJ could see the wheels in her brain spinning. “Rafael?” She whispered to him incredulously.
AJ let his lips curve in a smile. “In the flesh, Lesya.”
“But…you’re one of us. You’re like…like me!”
“Yes.”
Still off balance, she practically gaped at him. At least, by their standards. The average person might have only been able to read minute traces of shock on her face. To AJ, to someone who was not only trained to look but knew how she was trained to hide it all, he could see the severity of her shock. Then he saw the one thing he had been afraid to see. The calm mask they’d all perfected was now slipping down over her face. She was going into work-mode.
He had to try still, though. “Lesya? Please…it doesn’t have to be like this. I’ve done nothing but want to stop work.” He pleaded with her. His eyes stayed locked on her as her whole body changed in preparation for the attack he could tell she was planning. “Please, Lesya. Please, don’t do this. I can explain everything. Just listen.”
“I don’t listen to traitors.”
Because he was watching, he saw the way her body tensed an instant before she launched herself at him. Dodging the blow would have been easy, but it would have also put Brian directly in her line of fire. So he only shifted, taking the brunt of her impact against his chest while her knife hand went harmlessly past him.
The two hit the floor with a solid thud, both of them using their downward momentum to start to roll. AJ couldn’t bring himself to directly attack her; not with memories of the little girl she had once been flittering around inside of his head. So he went on the defensive, hoping to disarm her. That was his first mistake.
She rolled so that she was on her back and he was above her. Then she brought her feet up, planting them on his hips with her hands on his shoulders to throw him back over her head. AJ had been too busy wrestling inside of himself to pay enough attention until his back slammed down into the hard ground and she was suddenly over him again, her knife flashing down toward his throat.
At the last second he managed to bring his own knife up, one blade deflecting the other. Once again they became a rolling, tumbling mass of arms and legs, each trying to get one up on the other. He fought off stars when her fist connected with his chin. Just barely he managed to slip a punch under her guard, straight into her stomach.
“Lesya! Listen to me!” He growled out, shoving back and shooting to his feet. She was on hers as well. The two of them circled one another, their knives still in their hands, eyeing each other like the predators that they both were. That they had been made into. “Would you just stop and listen?”
Here was where he made his second mistake. He saw her soften a little; saw her eyes go a little gentler and her body release some of its tension. Instead of staying back, trying to keep talking, he tried to take a step forward.
Her knife flashed out, scoring a long cut against his stomach. AJ shot back again, reacting instinctively. He looked back into eyes of one who had once been his friend and saw the truth written there. She would not listen. She would not stop. Not until one of them was dead.
Calm settled down over AJ. From the inside out he let himself grow cold. So, this was how it would be? So be it.
When they came together this time it was with a blur of movement that amazed the spectator on the sidelines. It was a dance, almost. A dance of death.
AJ focused on nothing else but one goal. Survival. His instincts had truly taken over. When she made one final lunge at him, he saw the opening that he needed and didn’t even think before he took it. His hand shot up, under her guard, his hand twisting at the last second so that, even as her blade sank into his shoulder, his slid into her chest and directly to her heart.
Their faces were inches apart. He watched her eyes widen, saw the little gasp on her lips, before everything in her eyes just faded away. When he pulled the knife free, she slid lifelessly to the floor. AJ found that he couldn’t move any more. He paid no attention to the blood seeping out from under his shirt. Didn’t feel the fire of the cut she’d scored there. Nor did he notice the knife that was still sank into the meat of his shoulder. None of it registered.
With hard, cold eyes he looked down at her. Blood was slowly pooling around the small woman. Vacant eyes stared up at him. No matter how many times he’d done it, this taking of a life, it never grew any easier. Never. Most especially when it was someone that he had known. Even more so that it was a woman.
“Olesya.” He whispered her name, cementing her name in his mind. Adding it to the list. There was no one that he had killed that he didn’t remember. Each one went on that mental list; one that would taunt him still in the wee hours of the night. Their names and their faces. He knew hers would be there now. But not the name she had given herself in this life. No, the name she had been born with.
A gentle hand touched his arm, pulling his attention back. AJ lifted his eyes, looking into a pair of the brightest blue eyes he’d ever known. He saw the small shiver Brian gave, but didn’t know that it came from the darkness and death lurking in his brown gaze.
“Her name was Olesya.” AJ said softly. His eyes traveled back down to the form on the floor. So lifeless. Gone. Empty. “It meant protector of human kind. Ironic choice, don’t you think? They said it was a sign. That she had been destined to be chosen by them.”
“Come on, Alex. We need to get you cleaned up.” Brian whispered to him.
Cleaned up? Gradually AJ felt sensation start to return to his body. He almost wished he hadn’t. His stomach started to burn and his shoulder was throbbing harder and harder. Reality pushed in, shoving away the hard edge of grief. He looked down one last time to the girl he had once knew. “Allen will pay for this.” He swore.
“Yes.”
Brian’s simple agreement soothed AJ like nothing else had. He didn’t see Brian gather up their stuff, but he felt with Brian moved him toward the kitchen. There they stopped, letting the door cut off the sight of everything else. The click of that door was like a wakeup call to AJ’s brain. He found himself feeling much more alert.
In front of him, Brian knelt down, lifting his shirt out of the way. “This doesn’t look too bad.” He commented. “Not very deep. Doesn’t even look like it’s bleeding.”
“There’s bandages in the bag I made you carry.” AJ told him. He swallowed, forcing his brain to shut off what had happened and focus on the here and now. They were what were important right now. Later, he would grieve. Later, he would mourn the loss of what could have been. “We’ll need gauze, tape, and the sewing kit.”
“Sewing…shit.”
“Don’t worry, love. I’ll manage that part.”
While Brian rummaged in their bag, AJ limped toward a drawer that he’d always stored kitchen towels in. At least the people who’d searched his house hadn’t ripped it to shreds. Thank God for that.
He grabbed a couple towels and moved toward the sink. There he prepared to do the hardest part. His brain locked down and his teeth clenched when he brought his hand up to his injured shoulder and gripped the hilt of the knife. After one last, deep breath, he yanked. He gasped and the knife clattered into the sink.
The pain swarmed over him, in him, almost trying to take him under. But he mastered it. It would not take him down. He’d survived so much worse and in worse conditions too.
Brian’s hand was suddenly there, taking the towel and pressing it over the wound. Then he put AJ’s hand over top of it and moved his hand out of the way. “Hold that still until I’m done with your stomach.” He ordered. Then he was squatting again and using a towel to clean the blood off of AJ before putting butterfly tape over the thickest parts of the cut and then taping a wide strip of gauze over it all. Once that was done he stood up and reached for the towel on AJ’s shoulders.
“I can do it, Bri.” AJ tried to protest.
His love just leveled him with a steady stare. AJ wasn’t the only one who had changed recently. Brian had as well. He’d become slightly calmer, steadier. Less shakable. Not only that, but the two had learned how to move as a unit, working with one another in a way that almost didn’t need words anymore.
Because of that, AJ leaned against the counter by the sink and closed his eyes, trusting himself over to Brian like he never had with anyone else in his life. He made not a sound as Brian cleaned the knife wound, nor as he stitched it up. Instead he took the time to think about what they needed to do next. Where would they go next? What would be the best idea?
The fact that the woman had found him wasn’t a good sign. It meant that he was being observed. Followed. That meant that their time was limited. AJ needed to get answers and he needed them fast. To do that, he’d have to access certain types of information. Talk to certain types of people.
A touch on his arm let him know that Brian was done. Silent, the two shared one single long look, each one of them knowing that things were about to get much more serious. The stakes had been upped.
Together, the two gathered their things, took AJ to his old room to change, and then they left the house.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He thought he would have ended us there. He was wrong. We walked away that day. Together, we went to find what we needed.
Then, together, we would kill him.