CB: Dealer's Hand, -IV-
"You should wait here," I tell Jette as I check my bruised ribs in the mirror. They feel somewhat better, but it doesn't help now that the ache started. My body is numb, right now. My arms itch. My scrapes whimper.
"You told me that last time, and you nearly died."
I glance at him.
He is leaning in the doorway and smoking a cigarette. Somehow he looks graceful, for the bulk of him. His eyes are elsewhere.
"I'm coming with you."
"They'll kill you, Jette, you know that. I'm what they want. For whatever reason."
He looks at me, and there is something empty and determined in his eyes. Something I used to see in my own when I would wake up and prepare to go to work for a clan of murderers. Loyalty.
"I told you to go alone last time because I couldn't do anything for you. It's not the same this time. The reason you're going, it's not what it was. This is something different. Something I can help with."
"Jette," I start to say, trying to think of a way to explain what may happen if I go back. What Annie and Mao both wanted and never really said out loud.
Another glance at his eyes in the mirror tells me that I don't need to.
"As much as you try to deny it, you're still ISSP, Jette. They'll smell it on you a mile away. I don't relish the idea of getting my partner killed."
He turns away from me, quietly, then. And I read it in the curl of the smoke from his cigarette before he opens his mouth to speak. "Are you sure you know what you're walking into here?" If you want to kill yourself, that's your problem.
"No, but then I never am."
I died before, Jette. I don't intend to do it now.
"There you go again, acting completely on impulse." I won't stop you. But I don't like this.
Jette's watched at least two partners die. I guess he just can't stand to think of it happening to another one.
With a faint smile, I leave the room, heading out towards the Swordfish. He'll follow, I know, but only as a backup measure.