Thank you all for the reviews and new follows!
Here's the FINALE!
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Warning this chapter contains SWEARING similar to the programme.
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LOVE'S TERROR CELL
CHAPTER 10
Peter Quinn had guided Carrie to another room. Somewhere a bit more private for what he had in mind. This sort of action was not for Saul's eyes.
The lighting in the room was soft. It cast dim, flickering shadows. Very romantic thought Carrie, as she gazed across at Quinn.
They regarded each other for a few moments, neither speaking. Carrie smiled to herself. Quinn really was incredibly good-looking. She decided that she could watch the shadows dance on his perfect cheekbones forever.
She knew that he would be the first to speak. There would be no more games, no more lies. Only the truth stood between them now.
Carrie silently vowed that she would always tell him the truth from now on. He deserved that, after what she must have put him through all this time. Especially today, after the silly kiss in the shower cubicle.
It's going to happen right now! She was excited and apprehensive in equal measure at the thought. She clenched her thighs.
I always suspected he had a dominant dark side... like Christian Grey, perhaps...
"Carrie..." Quinn began softly, but then he stopped and swallowed.
He inhaled and exhaled slowly, before frowning and pursing his lips.
Perhaps he's as nervous as I am? Her eyes widened at the thought.
"Carrie... you know why we're here, don't you? Why we've come to this room, alone, together?" Quinn's blue eyes suddenly penetrated her, mercilessly.
"I certainly do." Carrie gasped, breathless at the dark intensity in his voice and his stare. Her heart violently thumped against the wall of her chest.
"Would you agree that when I asked you before. Three years ago? You made a terrible mistake?" His smooth voice gave her knots in her stomach.
Carrie nodded and closed her eyes briefly, as she tried to breathe.
She remembered that day from three years ago very well. Vice President Walden had died. Abu Nazir had been captured. Also, perhaps most importantly, Peter Quinn had proposed to her and she had rejected him, so he had disappeared from her life.
Disappeared, after he had assassinated Nicholas Brody.
It was all different now though. Everything had changed. Brody was just a bittersweet memory. Galvez was gone. Only Peter Quinn was in her life right now.
Carrie shuddered as she realised that Quinn had finally got her exactly where he wanted her. Completely alone. All to himself. She accepted that she was now at the mercy of all his power. She suspected that his complex fantasies could involve anything. Possibly a combination of romantic, wonderful, sexual, weird, dark, dangerous...
Carrie shivered deliciously knowing that she had never felt more alive. Secretly she knew that she lived for rare moments like this. She felt like adrenaline and endorphins were coursing through her veins. She would give Quinn what he wanted. She would play her role perfectly, whatever part he wanted her to play.
...
Quinn analysed her carefully and precisely, as if dissecting her. He knew Carrie better now. Knew that she did not respond too well to sudden proposals. He would try and stay calm this time. Ask her the big question in a different way. His hand twitched on the shiny object in his pocket, as he looked at her pale hands and her bare slender ring finger.
"Carrie..." He gritted his teeth. "Why did you tell me that you had simply escaped from Abu Nazir in the old Mill?"
Carrie shrugged, insouciantly.
Quinn's entire body jerked angrily. "When in fact Nazir had released you, because Brody had kept his side of the bargain?"
She stared back at Quinn stonily.
Quinn exploded loudly near her face. "Why didn't you inform your colleagues that you knew Brody had helped Nazir, to kill Vice President Walden?"
Carrie inhaled sharply and drew back as far as she could from him. It was difficult given the shackles. She looked away from the raging Peter Quinn and stared at the floor. She shivered fearfully at the dark and stale bloodstains that met her eyes.
She knew that this dingy Interrogation room had seen a lot of pain. She never thought the day would come when she would be on the other side of the table.
Carrie swallowed. She would try and tell Quinn the truth, even though she knew that it sounded pathetic.
"I didn't want to lose my job. I love my job." She whispered, hoarsely.
"Would you ever have reported Brody? Perhaps if he'd not died that night, himself?" Quinn asked exasperated and red-faced, but slightly calmer now.
Carrie shrugged and looked down at the old bloodstains again. She owed her life to Brody. He had provided Nazir with the serial numbers to Walden's pace-maker, so it could be controlled remotely to kill him.
In return, Abu Nazir had kept his promise to Brody. He had released his hostage, Carrie, from her captivity in the abandoned Mill.
I'm grateful to Nazir for that! She thought with sudden clarity.
Carrie felt eternally grateful to Brody for saving her life. Although she knew that Nazir had mentally cornered Brody and forced him to act, apparently in order to save the woman that he cared for so much. She still wasn't convinced that Brody had killed Walden just for her though.
In her heart, she could vaguely understand that the motive to kill Walden, had seemed entirely honourable to Nazir and subsequently to Brody. They were avenging the death of a little boy, Issa, whom they had both dearly loved. The little boy killed by Walden's drone strike.
However, despite her own gratitude and whatever their heartfelt motives, Carrie still knew the bottom line.
Her eyes were wide open as she whispered cautiously to Quinn. "I knew Brody was a terrorist, like Nazir, for what they did to Walden."
Quinn issued Carrie directly with the truth about her own collusion with Al-Qaeda. The truth that Galvez had not been able to handle.
"Carrie, you did not report the murder of the Vice President! You let the world go on believing that he'd died of natural causes. You covered up for Nicholas Brody, Abu Nazir and Al-Qaeda!"
"You practically have blood on your hands!" Quinn's voice was rising furiously again.
Blood on my hands! She noted Quinn's grimace, as his hand twitched in his pocket.
An image of Brody's bloody hand impaled on this very table flashed through her mind. Impaled with the knife that was almost certainly in Quinn's pocket.
Carrie suddenly started sobbing and couldn't stop. She couldn't handle it any more. She was aware that she must look pathetic to Quinn. A pathetic mess.
She blinked at him through her streaming tears and tried to imagine her future.
A cell next to Roya Hammad perhaps?
When her eyes refocused she saw that Quinn was blinking back tears too. She guessed that he was now torn. Torn between the Carrie that he had known and once loved. Maybe still loved. Laughing Carrie who had kissed him so carefree in the shower cubicle at the Sports Centre earlier today.
Then there was this other Carrie. Carrie who had covered up for Brody, Nazir and Al-Qaeda.
Perhaps Quinn even suspected that it had been Carrie who had slipped Abu Nazir the razor blade? So Nazir would never get the chance to talk about the deal that he had made with Brody, in order to kill Walden?
She hoped Quinn wouldn't ask her about that. She wasn't even sure if she could tell him the truth. She frowned and tried to remember if she had given Abu Nazir the blade.
Fuck! She thought. I ought to remember something like that! What has ECT and all these tablets done to my brain?
Peter Quinn removed her shackles silently and left her alone in the room.
…
One week later
Carrie huddled at the table and lifted her grey baseball cap ever so slightly, so she could read the computer screen in the Public Library more easily. A few wisps of her newly dyed mahogany hair escaped.
As well as owing Nicholas Brody her life, Carrie now owed Peter Quinn her freedom. He had left her cell door open after interrogating her.
It had allowed her to escape.
She had even waved goodbye to Saul. He had been stood in the corridor frowning and confused, but he had let her walk by. Does he even know? She still wondered.
And what do I owe Danny Galvez? She thought sadly. An explanation and an apology, perhaps?
...
She didn't owe Galvez her heart, but she was determined to give it to him anyway. She had known for a while now that she loved him. More desperately than she could ever have imagined.
Perhaps he'll understand if I explain the whole story about Nazir, Brody and the pace-maker. He knows what it's like to get caught up with terrorists.
Perhaps he'll understand if I explain about kissing Peter Quinn... She frowned. That would be the hardest bit. Even she didn't really understand that.
Carrie knew that she would have to find Galvez first though. He seemed to have vanished. His apartment appeared empty. His cell phone was switched off and his email account had been deleted.
Carrie prayed that Galvez was still alive. Perhaps on the run somewhere. Like herself.
Hopefully Al-Qaeda hadn't got to him first, as Quinn had suggested.
Fuck fuck fuck she thought, scrolling down the screen. There were pages upon pages of Galvez's in the online telephone directory.
Carrie pulled her iPhone out of her pocket and dialled the first Galvez on the list. It was a long shot.
Perhaps if I can find someone in his extended family, then they might know where he's gone?
She swore there and then that she would look for him her whole life, if she needed too. She knew she could not stop until she had found him again.
...
Carrie breathed deeply. She was now resigned to the truth that her arch enemy, Love, had finally won.
Love was in control of her now and as she had predicted, she had lost everything.
She had been well and truly turned by Love.
Even though she was completely alone and free, she was definitely a hostage in Love's Terror Cell.
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THE END