Chapter 3- Has to Know
Walking up towards the bank where I have spent seven years working, under a lie, for a man I can barely stand to be in the same room with, let alone manage to say hi to without feeling the anger bubble up inside me. I hear the clunk of my heels echo in the dark, hollow halls, coming to the elevator that distinguishes between reality and cruelty. I step through the barrier and see the same image of misfortune I see everyday. The people I see, who are proud and courageous, are just being used and betrayed. I hold my head, afraid that I might burst into pitying tears. Thinking of all that is wrong in my life, I remember him. I had been good so far today and hadn't thought of him, yet. But now, here and irritated, I miss him and what he had brought in my life.
I find my way to my desk, and sit down, mindlessly, staring at the far corner, and thinking of him. The way he talked, the way he moved, the way his lines on his forehead showed whenever he got nervous or worried. The way he put me on a pedestal and smiled at me with his gorgeous grin that sent tiny chills up and down my back. The way he was just him and tried at all costs to make me happy in this unfair and harsh world, no matter what how much it hurt him. No matter what would happen to me. No matter what. I suddenly noticed that tears had begun to fall every so carefully down my distraught face. They made their way over my chin and landed on the desk, ruining papers and notes on missions that I don't really care about anymore. I stare, my vision blurred, at the drops falling onto the paper, splattering, increasing in size, in agony.
"Sydney, are you okay?" My thoughts of nothing, of no one, are interrupted by Dixon's hand on my shoulder.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, nothing's wrong," I quickly sit up, wildly brushing away the tears and Vaughn, "Thanks, though." I sit here in an uncomfortable silence, knowing he doesn't buy it. I may be an amazing spy and actress, but when it comes to Vaughn, I lose all control, I've found out.
"You know you can talk to me, we're supposed to let each other know what is bothering us," trying to coax it out of me, but mostly reassuring. He stares at me, waiting for me to answer but I can't, knowing that more tears will fall if I move any muscle attached to my heart. "Anyway, Sloane wants to talk to you in his office. Don't worry, I think he's just concerned about you, we all are." He pats my shoulder and turns away, confused and worried.
I, on the other hand, stare at Sloane's office, feet away, scared. Afraid of what he might know. Anytime he calls me in without Dixon, I become frantic and nervous, uneasy. I wipe away the tears reforming in my ears and slowly compose myself back to working form. I walk to his office, my heart pounding, tears still hanging onto my eyelashes. I slide into his office and peek in. He was on the phone, and motioned me in with one cold hand, wanting me to sit down and become comfortable. I will never be able to sit in a room with a man capable to live with himself after the things he has done to me, to Vaughn, and to others that I am not even aware of. The anger burning up inside brings more tears to my misty eyes. I stare at him, talking on the phone unaware of my thoughts running through my head, with such rage. He killed the only men I have ever loved in my life, without the slightest regret. He hung up the phone and realized that I had been crying, almost immediately.
"What is the matter?" He asks me, as if I am his daughter, the thought of that makes my stomach cringe.
"Nothing, just a very rough week with all the missions I have been going on," I casually lie, hoping he won't inquire more into the subject, knowing all to well that I might breakdown and tell him everything.
"I know, I'm sorry for that, but we had to send you," he gets up from his throne-like chair and paces around the room, not looking at me. "Sydney, I need to ask you some questions that are rather intruding and I'm quite sorry." Sure you are, I think to myself, laughing inside at the irony of what was coming out of his mouth. He approached the half-closed door and slammed it shut, making me jump.
"I know you have not been yourself lately, in fact almost a whole year, and it worries me," Really, how? I think. He continues thinking that his opinions mean the world to me. "Ever since you came back from your mission in Paris, you've been disconnected, zoning out, trance-like everyday. Many people have approached me, worried." He stops to view my emotions plainly displayed on my face, lost in remembering Paris. "Sydney, I know what happened in Paris and you do too, but I think we are on a different page of understanding the truth in what happened. Now, I have been honest with you since then in everything that goes on here, now it is your turn." He walks in front of me, sitting uncomfortably in the leather chair that engulfs my weakening body. Leaning on his desk, he waits for me to answer. No response.
"Ms. Bristow, I know you may not want to recall that night, if what I suspect is true, but if you don't you know what will become of you," he lowers his head and stares into my eyes with a brash sense to him. Sensing my unwillingness, he continues. "Let me help you, now we sent you to Paris to retrieve an artifact that held code keys to a Rambaldi clock, which you accomplished. That I understand perfectly and I know you do to, but the thing that I am afraid that is troubling you is what happened while you were in the process of retrieving the artifact. Am I right?" Again he paused, waiting for my actions. I remained motionless, stuck in a trance, reliving the night painfully.
"Not interjecting anything? Ok, now you found the artifact and started to meet Dixon at your fixed point, but called over radio silence. Why? You ran down the opposite hall of where you should have gone and into a closet that left you baffled, right? Please stop and correct me if I am mixing up the story at any point." I glared at him with such fury, gripping my nails deep into the chair. I could feel the tears balancing on the tip of my eyelids, knowing what he was going to reveal all over to me. Knowing that he was going to ruin my good day, knowing. I closed my eyes, wishing that I don't know what I do. I opened them and still remembered. I tried again, but still no luck; I never have luck with anything.
"Now, when you got in the closet, you were surprised, correct? I know that you didn't expect to see me there with that man. Tell me, Sydney did he tell you that he was CIA and we weren't or did he just trick you into thinking he was with us? I know you knew him, otherwise you wouldn't have screamed when you saw him like he was, chained to a chair bleeding." I can't handle this anymore, too much to handle. The tears fell, letting him know everything he wanted to know. I am broken. My head falls trying to hide the constant flow of hurt.
"Sydney, come on now, don't cry." My head snaps up, was he the one following me around all day long and sending me those notes. Couldn't be, could it? The tears still flowing down my reddened face begin to stain my skin, permanently becoming apart of me.
"So, after you stormed in on me interrogating him, he saw you and looked away, not wanting you to see him like that. Now I need an answer this time, I know I've asked this before, but I need to know. He told me that he had approached you at your college and offered you information about the CIA. You took it after many offers, and planned on meeting him there in the storeroom, thinking he was working for me? Did you think he was working for me?" He was yelling now, right into my face.
"Yes, yes! I, I had no idea that that he was against-st us. He didn't tell me that we we were not CIA, and and I I 'm sorry that I, was so gullible for believing him." I blurted out, screaming back at his cold lifeless body, I lied and protected myself. The tears gushing out of my traitor eyes never slowing down, betraying him even while he was dead, cold in the grave. I look up towards, where I know he is watching me and think, I'm sorry Vaughn, you told me to lie. I saw your eyes as Sloane told me what you had said and agreed with him. His eyes still vivid, embedded into the back of my head, looking longingly at me, forcing me to comply, forcing me to kill him. I stay somewhat still, shaking from the hurt and memories drifting out of me, being watched by a man who brought me to this. I killed him, that's all I can think about, I did.
"Good, thank you, but one more thing that I must know." My head slightly finds it way up to see him walking back to behind his desk to sit down. "Obviously, that confession has been giving you grief, killing a man that you think you know is always hard." Like you would know that grief, I think to myself. "But I think that there is still something else that is bothering you. Sydney, did you know Mr. Vaughn, personally? Intimately?"
He stared at me as the last word he spoke rolled off of his tongue and into my ears, tearing away at my heart. I couldn't breath; my throat became tight and clogged. I refastened my grip on the chair, staring into my lap, letting the numerous tears fall gracefully down. I knew Vaughn, knew him well, too well. That was the problem.
Regaining my head, I jerked my head up. "I don't know why this has any relevance to anything that relates to you?"
"Sydney, it is very relevant to me in that I want to know where your loyalties lie." He began twiddling his pen, but never removing his darkening stare off of me.
"My loyalties lie with you, no matter how I knew someone, who I didn't know the truth about. I trust you and expect to receive that same trust in return." I couldn't believe what had just escaped from my mouth making words, not making any sense to me. I don't trust you, I will never trust you.
Sloane just looks at me, trying to break down what I had just said, inspecting it, searching for any flaws that he can accuse me of. He finally lowered his head and stood up. "I'm sorry I brought you so much pain, please forgive me. To let you know, you have my full and complete trust, you're like a daughter to me. You can go home, now, we've got everything under control here." He smiled at me, a smile that sent chills and fury racing through my veins. I want to scream at him, I am not your daughter. I never will be.
"Thank you," was all I could mutter out through the flood of tears. I got up, shakily and escorted myself out of the room that stole all the senses from my body.
My body becoming frail and unable to move itself stumbles as I walk pointlessly about the floor of offices. I went back to my desk and grabbed my purse, with a firm grip, and walked out the door, down the elevator, out to the outside world oblivious to the real identity of the bank, to the true feelings hidden deep inside my soul. My heartbeat rapidly increasing, my breath remaining short, I only can think of one place to go to escape. I have to go to him, to let him know that I hate it when I lie, when I betray him.
I walk through the streets of L A., distraught and lost amid my thoughts of him. Seeing him, chained to the metal chair, alone, hurt, betrayed by me, I can't think. People, shops, cars, go by without me paying any sort of attention to them. I drift lazily through the world to the one place I know I can find comfort, no matter who is watching me. I don't care. Vaughn has to know how much I love him still, how much I didn't want to lie, how much my body aches for his every second of my wretched life, how I don't think I can go on much longer. He has to know everything, no more lies and secrets. I tighten my grip on my purse, my only link to reality, to sanity that I'm barely holding onto, slowly losing my grip, slowly, very slowly.