The Long Way Home
By
E. S. Young
Chapter Sixteen: Home Again, Home Again
Zigity zag . . . . Heh. But they're not really going home, are they? Nah. That won't happen for a while. (thoughtfully) It might not even happen in this story. . . . I dunno. I also don't know how long it takes to fly from Mexico to Washington D. C., either. Is there even a plane that'll do that? Well, Lynné conned Martinez into loaning her one of his private planes, so I guess it's possible. I think it would take about five to six hours, but only because the plane they were on was private and was traveling nonstop. Meh. Once again, I dunno. o.o
- - -
"After we get the bags, d'you want me to call a cab?" asked Liam, struggling to make his way through the throngs of people that crowded the airport.
"No. I've already got a ride," Lynné replied, slipping easily through the noisy crowds.
"Ride?" he repeated blankly. "When did you get us a ride?"
"On the plane while you two were asleep," answered Lynné.
"Six hours on that thing. . . six hours. . . " Sands said tiredly, being careful to follow the sounds of their voices so he would not become lost in the herd of travelers. "I wouldn't doubt it. Who's driving us?"
"The person waving the sign that says 'Corso' on it would be my guess," Lyn said mildly.
"What?" Liam queried, confused.
"Y'know," Sands told Lyn, "you could've at least TRIED to pick a better name."
His sister shrugged offhandedly not even remembering that Sands couldn't see her. Raising a hand, she waved at the petite blonde woman holding the sign. The woman in turn lowered her sign and, grinning widely, began to make her way through the swarm of people. Her bright smile stayed in place all the while she was pushing her way to the trio of CIA agents. Once she reached them, it still remained plastered on her face, but not for long. She smiled up at them for a moment, then, in a split second, she let out a wail of despair. The next thing any of them knew, she had flung her arms around Sands' neck, tears springing from her eyes.
"Jesus!" Sands yelped in shock, taking a staggered step backwards in an attempt to shake the woman off of him. It was a failed attempt; the woman clung to him harder still, sobbing mournfully into his shoulder.
"Ohh," she cried, tears still seeping out of her blue-green eyes and down her face, "when Lynné called and said there'd been trouble in Cullican, well, at first I was shocked that she was still alive, but, oh, I couldn't even think what had happened . . ."
Bet you could, the voice in Lyn's head thought darkly.
Lynné didn't respond but carefully began to pull Grace off of her brother.
"Down, girl," she ordered calmly, smirking up at Sands, who gently rubbed his arm after being removed of his burden.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Grace gasped apologetically. "I was just so worried . . ."
'Don't be,' Lyn wanted to tell her. 'No one else has ever wasted their time fretting over me. No reason for you to start.'
"Really?" Sands was asking sarcastically, still massaging his injured shoulder. "That is a new one."
"Huh?" Grace asked, confused.
"Um, mind telling me who this is?" Liam broke in tentatively.
"Oh," Lynné said with realization. "Liam, this is my . . charming stepsister, Grace. Grace, this is Liam, fellow CIA agent."
"Fellow?" Grace wondered aloud, sounding perplexed. "But . . . you're not CIA anymore, are you?"
'No, I'm not CIA anymore,' she thought sarcastically. 'Thank you for the reminder.'
Automatically, Sands conjured up a mental image of his sister closing her eyes slowly in suppressed irritation and then opening them again just as slowly to say:
"Gracie," she said disdainfully, "a real agent never retires . . . they just take things a little easier."
Reaching into her small purse, Lynné withdrew a pair of dark sunglasses and shoved them on her face. Grace stared at her, her expression indescribable, seemingly lost for words. Sands, on the other hand, lit a cigarette and began smoking casually, waiting for the silence to dissipate. Liam, suddenly very interested in the dirty tiles of the airport floor, turned his eyes to the ground and shuffled his feet awkwardly. He had to bite back the urge to laugh or even smile at Lynné's comment.
"I'll go get the bags."
- - -
"Lynné," Liam began uncertainly, "when did you buy this place? I thought your only place was in Maine. How did you afford this?"
Lyn smirked.
"You think I spent my salary on booze and clothing?"
"Well," Liam responded, now feeling rather foolish, "that and your car."
"And hats," Sands added as he was led through the front door by Grace.
"Hats that you steal," Lyn replied, snatching the black bucket hat from Sands' head and placing it on her own. Her brother shrugged it off and said:
"Let me guess . . . two-story house, right?"
"You know I don't like one-stories," she replied matter-of-factly. "They just irk me. And there's a spare room on the first floor, so stop complaining before you start."
With another adjustment of her hat, Lyn turned and sauntered out of the room. Sands shook his head after her (or at least, he assumed she had walked away. Having no eyes made it a little difficult to tell, and Lynné's inaudible footsteps didn't help). Liam, having spent three years in the woman's. . .unique. . . presence, sympathized with him.
"I know how you feel," he said, a smile twitching to get out.
"I've given up trying to figure her out," Sands told him, still gazing off in the direction he had heard Lyn last. "Usually it's something I have . . . no problem with but with Lyn?" He shook his head again. "Impossible, improbable even."
"She's always seemed kind of evil to me," Grace put in, offhandedly pushing an errant strand of blonde hair behind her ear.
"Well, she can't be too hard to figure out," Liam said to Grace. "She's just like him," he said, jerking his thumb towards Sands. The other agent arched an eyebrow as if to say, 'Hey, I know exactly what you're talking about but I am blatantly acting like I don't.'
"But that's nothing new," Liam told them, sounding somewhat worn out, as if he had had this same debate before. "What we don't know . . . is her MIND, how she thinks. What goes on in her head, no one will ever know."
"I don't wanna know," Sands and Grace replied simultaneously.
- - -
"Can I come in?"
Grace opened the bedroom door just enough to poke her head through. Scanning the room, she allowed her greenish-blue eyes to absorb the scene before her: Lynné was standing a few feet in front of her, her back turned, bent over the queen-sized bed as she sorted through one of her many bags of luggage.
Lynné's bedroom expressed the girl in no way, yet it was neither opposite nor unexpected. It was. . . . nice. Yes, Grace decided, it was nice. The floor was of a light brown color and, like the rest of the floor in the house, hard wood. The choice of flooring went very well with the walls, which had been painted a pale purple shade, the color of lilacs. Two vast windows bordered the eastern wall, opposite of the door Grace had looked through. They were each large enough for two people to fit through and she wouldn't doubt it if Lynné sometimes crept through them and onto the roof every now and then. If Grace recalled correctly, she had vague memories of spying her stepsister out on the roof of their house in Colorado. Whether Lynné knew that she knew or not was uncertain.
The peculiar thing about the room was it contained no pictures. There were no drawings, no artistic photographs, not even warm family photos. The entire house was like that, Grace noted, remembering the little self-guided tour she had taken a few minutes after her arrival.
"Um, Lynné?" she called uncertainly.
"You're head's already in," Lyn said lazily, holding up a gun so she could attach a silencer to it, "the rest of you might as well join it."
Awkwardly, Grace entered the room, her eyes wide at the sight of the gun. She was standing beside Lyn now, never taking her fearful eyes off of the other woman. Lyn waited for her stepsister to speak and continued working on her gun. Silence.
"You wanted something?" Lyn asked, continuing to load her gun.
"I, yeah," Grace stuttered before falling back into silence.
Closing her eyes in exasperation, Lynné sighed and lowered her weapon.
"And . . . ?"
"Oh, I, uh . . . well, you . . .you, when you called me from . . from the plane . . .you just said that Sands had been injured."
"And you want to know the details, that right?"
Grace nodded. Lynné sighed as she stowed her gun away and turned to face her stepsister.
"The cartel caught him," she explained steadily. "They were pretty pissed that he'd learned so much about them. So, after . . . punishing him as they saw fit . . . they let him go. With the condition he was in, I think they doubted that he'd be any trouble in the future."
"They were wrong?" Grace asked in an eagerly horrified way.
Lyn smirked. "What d'you think?" She didn't wait for an answer. "But Barillo sent several of his goons after Sands anyway. They shot him . . . three times. Twice in each leg, once in his arm."
Grace grimaced at the thought but kept quiet, waiting for Lyn to continue.
"But they got theirs," she went on casually.
"So did that bitch I was bedding, you failed to mention that part."
Both women turned to see Sands, sunglasses firmly in place, casually leaning against the doorframe.
"I assumed you would've rather told her that yourself," Lyn explained, "so I skipped it."
Sands raised an eyebrow from his position at the door and slowly nodded twice in reply.
"Um," began Grace, "Lynné was saying . . .err, um –"
"I know what she was saying," Sands informed her, sounding bored. "The cartel didn't impair my hearing."
Startled, Grace breathed, "What do you mean . . . ?"
"I thought you'd wanna explain that one too," Lyn said to Sands. "I know how you love being dramatic about things."
"Thank you, Lyn," he replied sarcastically. "I owe you one for that."
"Oh , you owe me more than one," Lynné told him. "But I can wait. Not for long, though."
"Would someone please tell me what happened!?" Grace cried out suddenly, sounding tearful again.
"Sorry, Gracie," said Sands, following the sound of his stepsister's voice, "Lyn has a tendency to distract men, even ones who can't see her."
"What . . . ?" gasped Grace, her eyes nervously darting from Sands to Lynné.
"Remember that bitch Lyn failed to mention?" Sands didn't hear a response, so he assumed Grace had nodded, either that or she was in too much shock to say anything. He continued, "Well, she got me a great souvenir to remember my trip to Mexico."
And then the sunglasses came off.
- - -
"I didn't know Gracie could scream like that," Sands said, taking a long drag from his cigarette.
"Mmm," Lyn murmured, gazing out at the star-speckled sky. The balcony on the second floor had a wonderful view even though the house was in the city. "Cry that much, yes. Scream that loud, no. Your sense of humor is so perverse, you know that?"
"Yeah." Sands smirked. "She was loud, wasn't she?" he asked.
"Liam thought one of us had shot her," Lyn told him, with a light laugh. "I'll bet he tripped at least twice the way he came barreling up the stairs like that."
"He did crash into the door," Sands admitted. "Good thing I'd moved out of the way . . . Where are they now, anyway?"
"Down in the kitchen drinking tea and discussing how terrible we are, I'm sure," Lyn answered thoughtfully.
"Yeah, that sounds like them," Sands said nodding slightly.
"Mmmhmm," Lyn murmured in response. "May I borrow that?"
She reached up and took his cigarette from him and placed it between her own lips. Inhaling deeply, Lynné gave Sands the feeling that smoking had been something she'd been dying to do for a long time.
"I didn't know you smoked," he said.
Lyn shrugged.
"I've been smoking since I was at least fourteen. I can't believe you didn't notice."
"Yeah, well," Sands said darkly, "my knack for noticing things hasn't been up to scratch lately if you know what I mean." He pointed to the dark glasses that hid the gaping holes where his eyes had once been.
"Wonder if they'd ever hit it off?" his sister wondered aloud after a moment of silence. "Grace and Liam."
"I didn't know romance was ever on your mind," Sands informed Lyn as she took another drag on HIS cigarette.
Lyn shrugged.
"You didn't know I smoked, either."
- - -
"I-I . . . I can't believe. . .oh my God." Grace shook her blonde head and took another sip of tea.
"I know," Liam replied. "It was so sudden."
"They both act like it's nothing," Grace said in hushed tones.
"Yeah, well, that's how they deal with things," Liam told her.
"I know," Grace said sharply. "I lived with them for about eleven years."
Liam backed off at the woman's uncharacteristic attitude. Eager for a reason not to speak again, he quickly took a swig of his tea.
"I'm sorry," the woman said quickly, seeing the look on Liam's face. "It's just. . . if you'd've seen that . . ."
"I did," Liam said quietly.
Grace put a hand to her mouth and whispered, "What did you do . . . ?"
Staring down at the dregs of his tea, Liam remained quiet. He really didn't want this woman to know he had fainted when she had merely screamed in horror. He didn't want anyone to know that. With worried contemplation, Liam remembered something Sands had told him quite a while ago:
'I'm not saying this because I like you, because God – if there is one – knows I wouldn't think twice about killing you.'
Wait, that wasn't right. Sands always told him that. But there had been more . . . Sands had been going somewhere with his odd speech.
'But the thing to know is . . . lie. That's it. No matter who you're talking to just . . . lie. Fuck it. Who cares as long as they don't know the truth, right? So LIE, Fusco. But not to me . . . cuz I'll know, savvy?'
What did that word MEAN, anyway? Oh well. He'd look it up in the dictionary later. Right now, he needed to think of a convincing story and pray that Grace hadn't picked up some of Sands and Lynné's traits and learned how to tell when someone was being untruthful.
"I, umm," he began, clearing his throat, "I sorta . . froze up . . .and, ah, just-just stood there staring. It was horrifying but I . . I couldn't look away for some reason. . ." He trailed off, looking down at his hands, not wanting to meet Grace's eyes.
"Oh . . ." she said softly. "Oh, oh, right. . . yes. . ."
Liam sighed. Grace took another sip of her tea. Minutes passed.
"There's something . . . I have to tell you," Liam began cautiously.
Lifting her head abruptly, Grace looked up at him, her eyes wide and curious.
"Yes?"
"You cannot let Lynné and Sands know, not until I know a few things first," he stated firmly. "You see . . . I have a brother in New York . . .and he . . . he's a doctor and he's going to perform surgery. Now, it's a highly new operation, very dangerous, never been done before."
"What's he going to do?" Grace asked in awe.
"He, well, he has a patient who's willing to have the surgery –"
"Liam, what is he doing?" Grace cut in sharply.
"The patient is blind," Liam said finally.
Grace gasped. "Like –"
"No," he told her, "They were born blind. But they want to be able to see and so . . .my brother's going to try and make that happen."
"Is he," Grace began, "is he going to" – she swallowed hard – "to remove that person's eyes and . . . . and give –"
"Give them new ones, yes," Liam answered promptly. He sighed, closing his eyes wearily. "Like I said, it's never been done before and there's a fifty-fifty chance that the person will die."
"But there's a fifty percent chance they'll live, right?"
"Yes."
Grace stared down at her empty teacup.
"When . . . when will we know?" she asked softly.
"Tomorrow," Liam answered quietly, and he took another swig of his tea.
- - -
This chapter seemed to go really slow to me. I don't know why cuz I had it written in about three or four days. And it's not like it's really short either. Hmm. I dunno. I just sorta had writer's block on this one. I seemed to take a lotta breaks while writing it. I'm really not sure how chapter seventeen's gonna go except that we're gonna find out how the surgery went. Maybe – arrgh, no, that'll be giving stuff away if I say it now, so I'll just shut up and leave. . . . . . . That's right. . . . . . I'll leave . . . . I'll just . . . leave. . . . . Um, bye! (runs away quickly) - - - - ------======o.o;;;
.