The Angry Flame
By Divamercury
Chapter 8
We both seemed a little self-conscious now that we were actually face-to-face after the events of the previous evening.
"Good morning, Lady Sara," Ian said awkwardly, his eyes drifting down to the floor.
"Hi, Nottingham. What's new?" I asked, trying in vain to initiate small talk.
He clearly didn't know how to respond, and I gathered this from the dense silence that permeated the corridor.
"Where were you? I expected to see you in there," I said, jerking a thumb back towards Irons's office.
"I was performing an errand," he said simply.
"Oh. Well, I've got to be going, but" I couldn't think of what to say. "It was nice seeing you," I finally decided, ignoring my mind's protest at how lame that was.
"Yes, I agree. Goodbye, Lady Sara," Ian said (a bit dejectedly, I noticed), and he left while I stood watching him go. He pushed the door gently closed behind him, but it didn't close completely and a crack was still visible between the door and the doorframe. For some reason the look on Irons's face as the door was closing made me want to stick around, so I did, leaning against a wall casually. Any passersby would assume I was waiting my turn to see Irons and wouldn't bother me about it. I carefully slid closer to the crack in the door and continued to lean, eavesdropping all at once.
"Has the task been performed?" Irons queried.
"Yes," Ian replied. I noticed the absence of "master" in his response.
Apparently Irons did as well, but made no real mention of it. He just seemed ruffled.
"Well, that's good. Now on to your next assignment."
Ian visibly blanched, and I raised an eyebrow slightly. What would make him, a hit man of all things, pale? I was about to find out.
"Have you gotten close to her?"
"Yes, but your errand was not my inspiration for it."
"It should be, my Casanova. Remember where your loyalties lie."
"I am keeping that in mind," Ian replied defiantly.
"That remains to be seen, Ian. I am telling you—and have been for some time— to seduce Sara Pezzini."
Oh my God!' I screamed in my head. Irons, you are such a creep! I will so get you for this!'
"I consider Sara a friend, even though she may not return the feeling, and I don't hurt my friends."
Well, thanks, Ian, that's nice of you,' I thought.
"I suppose you wouldn't. It's not like there are many of them to speak of, and it's difficult to harm someone that doesn't exist," Irons said. Ian recoiled.
I gasped, but stifled it instantly. Ouch! Irons, that was cold, even for you, the Ice King,' I thought, my eyes widening. I studied Ian's expression. He looked like all the mirth had just been sucked out of the world. But Irons didn't stop there.
"And you are correct in thinking that she doesn't feel the same way about you. Why should she? All you are to her is a preprogrammed assassin without a mind of your own to speak of, and an extremely subservient one at that."
I could tell that each word was cutting deeper into him than the last, but he stood strong. Good for him, at least one of us was. Each word Irons spoke was cutting into me, too, and I sank down toward the floor, feeling terrible. Irons was right about how I had previously seen Ian, and that made my face burn with shame.
"All the same, I won't do it. It's not right to do something like that to her, especially after she lost her lover under unfortunate circumstances—"
"—You're dismissed, Ian. Get out of my sight immediately."
I sprang away from the door, knowing that I was in exactly the wrong place should the door open in the next ten seconds and I want to remain unseen. Thankfully the corridor was very short, its floor was carpet-covered which muffled my footsteps, and I was able to bolt out of the building before Ian reached the door. I sprinted to my motorcycle and headed back to the precinct, Irons's cruel words echoing through my mind and sending me into the biggest guilt trip ever experienced by a human being.
As I was speeding through the streets of New York, I was furious with myself. I couldn't believe that Irons had hit the nail on the head about describing how I had felt about Ian, and I just hoped that it wasn't too late to undo the damage done. Thanks to the Witchblade (which had a curious fondness for Ian, I had discovered) I could distinctly see each time I had put Ian down, reliving the flash of emotion through his eyes that I had never been able to identify until the moment I reviewed it. Complete and total sorrow. I winced when I snapped back to earth, realizing something that just made my insides writhe with a surge of guilt
I was worse than Irons.
Ian withstood Irons's abuse (physical, verbal, and emotional, as I could prove after seeing evidence of each) on a regular basis and dismissed most of it (except the scene I had witnessed). In contrast, I had never given him a single iota of trust, of kindness, or even of plain, common decency. And he was going out of his way to protect me, thinking about my loss of Conchobar recentlyI hadn't said much about it to anyone, but until recently I had felt like I was dying inside, but I was beginning to cope, to move on with my life. And now, with these strange developmentsI was thoroughly disgusted with myself.
I arrived back at the precinct in a foul mood, fouler than usual. I sank down into my desk chair once I reached my office and dove into a stack of paperwork, trying to find anything that would make me take my mind off of the events of that morning. I barely acknowledged my lunch break, devouring a bag of Doritos and sipping a Dr. Pepper before diving right back into my work. I hardly heard Jake when he tried to brief me on something he found important to a case we had been working on.
"That's nice, Jake," I said absently, ignoring his irritated look. I shrugged and went back to my work, all the time thinking, Just how do you apologize for belittling someone's existence for as long as you've known them?' One more question I'd thrown out into the cosmic vacuum without knowing the answer.
