Alternate Existence

She was just sixteen. She never wanted this. She never wanted any of it. She didn't want to be an agent. She didn't want to even learn to fight. And most of all, she didn't want to learn her mother was a foreign spy.

Chapter 7: Broken Perfection

They have now done the deed that will either cement Lina into the organization or force her to doubt even her own sense of right and wrong. Khasinau had a friend of Lina's assassinated because they believe she was the source of a leak. I wasn't informed of their intentions until it was to late to stop it, and this, I fear, will be the turning point for Lina. I may be required to reveal myself to her to halt her doing something stupid. --mockingbird 1132984

The two days after the murder of Jessica Presley passed in a haze for her closest friends. Sydney went to school, but she heard and saw no one. She was encased in her own world of pain and confusion and hurt. Not even Jeffrey could bring her out of it, and he knew much of the same besides.

The first crack in Sydney's self-induced stupor came when she arrived at the grave-side service and saw the pristine white casket, broken in its perfection only by elegant gold trimming, closed to any grieving onlookers.

She and Jeffrey sat in the front row of chairs that had been set up, near Jessie's parents. Throughout the service, Sydney twisted a long-stemmed red rose between her fingers. At one point, Jeffrey reached over and held one of her hands, and she realized she was sobbing, and tears dripped unheeded down Jeffrey's face as well. Sydney only gave his hand a weak squeeze, reassuring him that she was there and going through the same pain he was. She continued to mindlessly twirl the rose in one hand.

When the speaker concluded his eulogy, Jessie's parents both rose and went together to place a pair of white roses on top of the coffin. Sydney meant to follow them, but she couldn't. the crowd had thinned considerably and the undertakers had already begun to lower the coffin in to the earth before she could move.

The coffin had already slipped below ground level when she stepped up and tossed the rose down, where it came to rest across the two white ones before Sydney spun and walked quickly away.

Sydney realized later that she had an impression of a beautiful service, but nothing more than a still image of a white and gold coffin could ever be called up in her memory.

Sydney came obediently to a session the day after Jessie's funeral, and what Denosivich saw scared him. Lina's usual innocence of demeanor had been underscored by a quiet determination, as if she were ready to throw herself into fighting in order to protect her heart.

Saying no more than necessary, Denosivich ordered Lina into the center of the room. His concern for her state of mind only increased when, at the end of two hours, she had said fewer than three words. Even worse, she executed her moves with such fierce precision that she threw Denosivich three times before he knew what was happening.

"All right. You can go," he grunted after the third time, when he'd landed hard and to one side of his body, giving him a decided limp when he stood. He expected her to stalk wordlessly across the room, grab her stuff, and leave, but Lina held her ground. After a long moment, Denosivich straightened and met her gaze.

"I need to talk to you," she said hoarsely, a new type of few in her voice. "Not now. Later."

Agent Denosivich studied Lina's face for a long moment. He realized this was the moment of decision: would his intervention push her closer, or would it pull her back from the brink in the nick of time?

Denosivich pulled a notepad out and wrote a time and a place down and handed it to her wordlessly.

Not even looking at it, Lina folded the paper in half and tucked it into the waistband of her shorts. Then she pulled on her jeans and customary sweatshirt and left silently.

"I heard the tape. Jessica Presley knew noting about this agency," Irina said, her voice dangerously low.

"You are the one that alerted me to Angelina's instinctive loyalty to the United States," Khasinau replied. "I'm not sure I trust her now."

"My daughter just lost her best friend," Irina argued. "But she was here today. How can you question her loyalty now?"

"She's not happy here."

"She's not happy," Irina corrected.

"I will tolerate her strange behavior for only so long."

"Her behavior," Irina began, standing. "Is not so strange for a child so recently stripped of her romanticized view of the world."

Without looking back, Irina walked out of the office, slamming the door behind her like a shot.

The harbor, the note had said. Sydney had long since destroyed it. Her time window was between one and two AM that same night, and she had to meet him by the ferry, as if they were two strangers waiting for the late--or early, depending on how you looked at it--boat to Manhattan.

Agent Denosivich was waiting as impatiently as anybody really waiting for the ferry, and his thoughts were not calming. Lina was still just a child. She was just sixteen. She never wanted this. She never wanted any of it. She didn't want to be an agent. He'd seen it in her eyes. She didn't even want to learn to fight until her friend was killed. And most of all, she didn't want to learn her mother was a foreign spy.

As she approached, Denosivich looked away, leaning against the nearby railing and looking across the harbor. Lina followed his lead, leaning her elbows on the top rail and resting her head in her hands.

"Where you tailed? Any chance?" Denosivich asked, keeping his voice conversational.

"I doubt it," she said disdainfully. "I found a camera in my room. Another one," she corrected. "A third one. This one was in a book. My book. I acted like I was reading it, then I left it in the kitchen. I snuck out my bedroom window."

"Wait…don't you live on the third floor?"

"There's a streetlight outside my window." She shrugged. "I jumped and shimmied down the pole."

"You're lucky you didn't fall and break your neck. What about these cameras?"

"The first three were around the apartment in the ceiling. I freaked and covered them with duct tape. When I got home, they were gone, they were gone. Then I found one in a picture frame in my room. I turned it away from my door, so they couldn't really watch me too well. Then I found the one in the book."

She looked over at Denosivich for the first time. Did he believe her, or did he think she was paranoid? He looked fearful, she realized, resigned.

He studied her just as intensely. Did she suspect he'd known all along about the cameras, and so many other unknown dangers…that he knew about her friend's murder?

Finally, Sydney decided for him.

"Tell me the truth," she said simply.

Denosivich didn't flinch, but he didn't respond, either. Sydney had begun to think he hadn't heard her before he spoke.

"I can't," he said. "Not now. Let me talk to some people, Lina, and I'll do what I can."

Sydney pushed away from the railing and stood tall, unmoved.

"Khasinau killed Jessie," she said in a low, firm voice. "I know he did. I want to know why. You'll tell me why," she demanded, the tears Denosivich couldn't see in her eyes not reflected in her voice.

Denosivich nodded slowly.

"You won't believe me, Lina. Let me make some arrangements. Until then, this conversation never happened."

He was gone before Sydney could argue.