The Long Way Home

By

E. S. Young

Chapter Fifteen: Balancing Act

Agent Liam Fusco acts like Ichabod Crane. (blinks) Seriously! I noticed that a few chapters back when everybody was feinting. He's really twitchy and squeamish and passes out whenever he sees blood – he's a bloody reincarnation of Ichabod, honestly. Well, save for his appearance. For some reason, whenever I picture him, he looks like this Orlando Bloom/Tobey Maguire mix. Eh, anyway . . . In this chapter, we get to see things from the lovely Agent Liam Fusco's point of view –

Liam: (looking quite pleased at this) That's right!

Sidney: Kinda!

Liam: (confused) What?

Sidney: See, I'm not exactly taking things from YOUR point of view. But we get to see a lot of you.

Liam: I . . . I thought everyone already saw a lot of me.

Sidney: Not really. No, actually, we see more of Lynné and even more of Sands. You're just kinda . . . there.

Liam: (eyes widen sadly)

Sidney: (hastily cuz she hates to offend) But that's exactly why I'm writing this chapter: the readers need to get to know you a bit more.

Liam: Oh. (brightens) -

Sidney: Kinda!

Liam: What? O.o

- - -

Liam sat on a bench surrounded by thousands of people. Where the bench was, exactly, was a mystery to him. He did not know who the people were either; every one of them seemed to have been waiting for something at one point, but they had grown bored and instead turned to their neighbors and began to chat animatedly with each other.

Upon closer inspection, Liam realized that the bench he was sitting on was one of many. The walls of the spacious room he was in were slanting inward towards the center of the room. The benches, he realized, were mounted on the slopping walls.

'Staggered seating, ' he thought absentmindedly, 'That was Shakespeare's idea, wasn't it?'

Then it hit him. The unbelievable amount of people, the size of the room, the staggered seats . . . the odd room he was in wasn't a room at all.

'It's an arena,' he realized. 'Well, this is certainly a new one.'

A sudden hush fell over the crowd. Once again, the people turned their attention back to the center of the arena. Three rings surrounded each other on the ground floor, and positioned in the middle of the innermost ring stood a figure bathed in an unseen spotlight. It was a man dressed in attire that was just as strange as the room. This man wore black pants, a fancy crimson dress coat, knee-high black boots, and a plain black top hat. Liam couldn't make out the man's features clearly – his back was turned away from the audience. Then, almost as if he had read Liam's thoughts, the man turned around.

Liam did a double take.

'Sands??'

There was no mistaking his fellow agent for another man. The man in the center ring smirked up at his audience, confirming Liam's belief that the person was most definitely Agent Sands. It couldn't be anyone else. Reaching a hand inside his impressive coat, Sands unearthed a microphone and held it up to his mouth.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen," he said, drawing out the dramatic tension, "direct your attention to skyward."

Following Sands' instructions, Liam and the rest of the audience tilted their heads back until they were almost at an ninety-degree angle. High above their heads, a thin wire glinted in the spotlight.

"Kindly put your hands together for the lovely Lady Lynné: Mistress of the high wire!"

Liam's eyes widened in shock. Sure enough, there stood his partner at one side of the arena. She was wearing a rather risqué costume of red satin. Glittery silver sequins studded the outfit. Growing more and more nervous as he followed the length of the high wire, Liam estimated the distance that Lynné would have to walk.

"That is fifty feet, ladies and gentlemen," Sands told his audience without the slightest bit of concern for his sister. "And if she falls, it's an eighty-foot drop."

Liam just managed to stifle a wail.

'Please let her use a net, please let her use a net . . .' he thought frantically, biting down on his fingernails.

"And just to increase your heart rates," Sands drawled into the microphone, "she's going to do it without the use of a net!"

Slowly, Liam took his fingers out of his mouth.

'I saw that coming, didn't I?'

"Miss Lynné," Sands called to his sister at the high wire, "are you ready?"

Lynné replied with a smile and a cheery wave. The crowd roared with applause. People egged the tightrope walker on, urging her to start her deadly feat.

"Okay," said Sands, with a smirk towards the spectators. "Can we get a drum role?"

Obeying his request, a rhythmic drumbeat began out of nowhere, drenching the atmosphere with suspense. Liam watched in horror as his partner began to walk. Putting one foot directly in front of the other, she kept herself perfectly balanced as she made her way across the thin wire.

"Halfway there," Sands told the audience.

"Halfway . . ." Liam echoed, his eyes wide.

Through his terror, as strange as it may sound, Liam could have sworn that he seemed to be hearing what was going through Lynné's mind as she preformed her death-defying act.

'Just doin' my job, ladies and gentlemen. Restoring the balance, remember?'

"Only four more feet to go," said Sands, watching his sister with anticipation.

'Four feet . . . she might make it,' Liam thought, daring to sound hopeful. 'She just might make it.'

Out of nowhere, there was a burst of flames appeared on the tightrope. Liam gasped and searched frantically for Lynné, but then, to his horror, he realized that the fire that had suddenly grown out of thin air had appeared on the exact spot where his partner was balanced. The flames had swallowed the former CIA agent in an instant. It was so sudden . . . there was nothing anyone could do.

'But no one's doing ANYTHING!' Liam yelled inside his mind.

"Do something!" he shouted desperately to the crowd. "Someone, anyone – look at her!"

But the people around him did nothing except cheer the mistress of the high wire on. Liam stood there, rooted on the spot, with no means of helping his partner as she slowly burned before his eyes. He could only stand there and pray that she would be all right, though it seemed hopeless, the flames were too intense . . . He had seen Lynné do some very impressive things; she never ceased to amaze him. He had witnessed her coming out of situations that would have killed a normal person. Lynné, always refusing to go down without a fight, could go through Hell and come out the other end still standing. But, for the life of him, he couldn't see how anyone, no matter how undefeatable they may seem, could survive being engulfed in a blaze like that.

And then it was over as soon as it started. The seemingly unstoppable flames had died, leaving no trace of their existence, including Lynné.

'Where is she!?!' Liam thought wildly. 'People just don't disappear like that!'

But they did, he remembered. His partner had disappeared for nearly three years, however, he had at least known where she was. Now . . . Searching the tightrope again and turning up fruitless, Liam sank back down onto his bench and buried his head in his hands. The crowd didn't know; they didn't care. She was gone, but that was nothing to them. They could always get another performer, just like the CIA could always get a new agent to replace the ones that had gone missing or had been killed. It was nothing to them, nothing at all. Even Sands seemed unfazed by the shocking turn of events.

"Did you see that, ladies and gentlemen?" he shouted excitedly. "How does she do it??"

- - -

Liam came out of his restless sleep slowly. Rubbing his eyes and shaking his head to clear his blurred vision, he glanced around him and realize that, for the first time, he was relieved to be on a plane. Turning to the seat next to his Liam was startled to see two large brown eyes staring up at him.

He thought of asking her why she was doing such a thing, but thought against it. Instead, Liam stared right into his partner's unwavering eyes. It was then that he realized that the dark orbs never blinked. Lynné's eyes were glazed over and contained a transfixed look.

'She's asleep,' he realized. 'My God, she sleeps with her eyes open . . .'

A sudden dinging sound shattered Liam's thoughts and a voice over the unseen loudspeaker rang throughout the plane.

"Passengers, please fasten your seatbelts," requested the anonymous voice. "We will be landing in Washington D. C. shortly."

"Damn," his partner muttered as she stretched in her seat. "I'd hoped I would've slept through the landing – what?" she asked upon seeing the look on Liam's face.

"Nothing . . nothing . .." he assured her, sounding slightly dazed. Ignoring the puzzled look on Lynné's face, Liam suddenly became very interested in buckling his seatbelt.

He couldn't work out what his dream had meant, for it surely had some meaning. Liam tried to recall the events that had occurred within it; there may have been some hidden meaning contained inside them for all he knew. Then it came to him. There WAS. There was a meaning, a very plain, well-stated meaning in his dream.

'Restoring the balance.'

Lynné was walking on a high wire, trying her best to stay balanced. Sands was in control as he always was, so it made sense that he was the ringleader of the three-ring circus that was Liam's dream.

'I never died, I just got a little singed.'

Three years ago, Lynné had been the Operations Controler for their mission in Mexico. She was the one who was in charge of leading a team of CIA agents, setting up the right scenes, and watching the Barillo cartel fall. But before she knew it, the cartel had caught up with her. They had dragged her to off to some deserted ranch in the middle of nowhere; all the while she had been locked in the trunk of a car with nothing but the jeers and threats of her kidnappers for company.

But she had survived. How, was a mystery to Liam, but he wasn't about to ask her.

- - -

It won't be a mystery for long, though. Everything will be revieled eventually. . . . . . unless I forget to reviele some things. o.o' I kinda have a tendency to do that. (frantically searches chapters to see of she skipped over anything). Ehhhhh . . . . Give me a moment, oy vey.

Liam: I do NOT act like Ichabod Crane. .u

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