("But you'll never be alone
I'll be with you from dusk till dawn
I'll be with you from dusk till dawn
Baby, I'm right here."
"I'll hold you when things go wrong
I'll be with you from dusk till dawn
I'll be with you from dusk till dawn
Baby, I'm right here.")
- ZAYN, "Dusk Till Dawn"
November - December 2020
Age 20
Year 3, Special Agent
"Are you going to talk about it?"
Riley hadn't actually looked at her brother since they had boarded the plane to Mexico. She had been doing her absolute best not to meet eyes with him since she was sure he had heard Lucas's words to her.
She did not want to talk about it.
She did not want to think about it.
She'd spent her entire life working towards success, and she'd achieved it. She'd broken herself down over years of overworking, never stopping long enough to think about what she was doing. She was Special Agent Riley Matthews, clearance level seven. She was part of an elite team that she'd been chosen for when she was just fourteen years old. She'd passed all the tests, succeeded in everything that was thrown at her.
Special Agent Riley Matthews was not weak, no matter what her mother believed.
She'd grown so much since entering the academy at thirteen. Back then she was happy, bouncy, positive; the nepotism case that everyone could see. She killed herself to break the mold of what she knew her peers thought of her, and it worked. She beat them all; she graduated third in her class. Not even her mother had achieved that status.
But in the back of her mind, somehow she knew the edge was coming.
She'd been running on this cliff for almost a decade. She could only go in circles so many times before she accepted that she was going nowhere, yet approaching the edge ever so slowly.
Instead of answering Josh, she shifted to pull her badge out of her pocket and flipped it open, staring down at this little plastic case that she'd spent five years training for. It was supposed to be worth it.
Was it worth it?
He met her in the field a ways between the helipad and the house, and Riley had to wonder how long he had been standing out there, waiting. The way he was looking at her almost scared her. Relief? Sadness? Hope? Could have been any or all three.
As she hopped out of the helicopter with her duffle bag slung over her shoulder and ran, ducking, to clear the wings dangerously swirling above her, she saw his face more clearly. It was hope.
That scared her.
"I'll meet you in the house," Josh mumbled, clearly seeing the way that Lucas was looking at her and not planning to get in the middle of whatever was going to go down. He made a wide circle past Lucas as he jogged through the field towards their safe house in the distance.
Riley watched as he got further away, and as Lucas got closer. She almost slowed her own pace, maybe subconsciously trying to avoid the inevitable.
"How was your mission?" Lucas asked when she finally reached him.
"No problems, everything went according to plan," Riley answered.
Lucas tugged her duffle bag from her back, and Riley almost tried to clutch onto it. She could carry her own bag; she wasn't a child. But stopping Lucas from taking her bag for her would clearly expose the insecurity in her disdain for his action, and that was the last thing she needed. So she allowed him to slide her bag from her and onto his arm as they walked back to the house.
"Maya's restless," Lucas informed her as they approached the house. "She's been picking fights with me since you guys left."
"Did you try sparring with her?" Riley suggested.
"That was clearly not the kind of energy outlet she was seeking."
Riley grimaced a little at the thought of what he was hinting at. She'd gotten past it, as had Lucas. That didn't mean they wanted to imagine it.
"You should take a shower," Lucas pushed as they entered the house and heard Josh in the upstairs bathroom. "It's been a long week for you guys."
"Lucas…" Riley turned to him, her mind going blank. She'd been dreading the confrontation she'd been expecting from him; basically spent the whole plane ride back to the safe house overthinking what he might say and how she might respond. But he wasn't confronting her, he wasn't pushing her. He'd never forced her to do anything.
His gaze softened on her as his hand brushed hers comfortingly, although the touch actually made shivers go up her arm.
He only ever wanted to comfort her. It was true, what she'd said at the operations rave and in her childhood bedroom. She had never had someone who cared for her more than they feared her mom. And even though he had wanted her to love him back all those years, she just hadn't been able to do it. Just like her family, she couldn't care for Lucas more than she feared her mom.
All he'd ever wanted to do was help her. And all she'd ever done was push him away.
And now she was just so tired. Forcing herself into numb little boxes and learning how to lock certain feelings away and only let out some at exactly the right time. It was exhausting, and she knew that it wasn't the kind of exhaustion that could be alleviated by a rest day.
There were so many things she wanted to say to him, but she didn't even know how to begin to verbalize them. Not to mention how terrified she still was. She knew she still didn't have the strength to defy her mom, step out of a life she'd been perfectly molded for and walk into the unknown. This life was predictable. It was safe. It had order and people she knew and it was all she knew how to do.
Anything else was unpredictable and terrifying.
All she could find the strength to do right now was stare at him, his name dying on her lips.
But he knew anyways, and she could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. He saw how scared she was, and he knew she still needed time, and she felt safe knowing he would never push her to do something she couldn't do.
"I know," he murmured.
She spent hours, days, weeks mulling over everything. She found herself sitting silently staring into nothing as she lost herself in her own mind, overthinking everything that she was doing and what she could do and what outcomes it would have. She knew that her team was worried about her, and Maya even tried to ask her about it, but she shut her down. She needed time; she couldn't talk about what she didn't understand herself.
Once she heard Josh and Lucas having an argument over her, but she didn't want to listen. She left the house and braved the December snow to avoid hearing the consequences of her own choices.
If she left the organization, the team would break up. Their little family was sometimes all she felt she had; the four of them, the safe house, the missions were all she'd ever known in her adult life. Leaving, quitting, wouldn't only affect her; it would affect all of their lives, it would change everything. She didn't know if she could face being the reason that they all had to give up what they had been working towards for so many reasons.
And what if she did leave? What would she even do? This life was all she'd ever been taught. She had the equivalent of a high school diploma, sure. But she had no college experience, no job training or post-secondary education. She didn't even know where to begin a career that wasn't as an operations agent. She didn't even know what she enjoyed doing, what interests she had, what kind of working life she would consider if she had not been trained specifically for this purpose for as long as she could remember. She wasn't prepared for all the choices she would have to make; she didn't even know where she would begin.
And then there was her mom. The person she'd been modeled after for so many years, the person who had given birth to her and taught her and expected things of her. She'd finally achieved what her mom had wanted for her, but it still didn't seem like it was enough.
Would it ever be enough?
And if it wouldn't, how long would she walk in circles until she finally stopped?
She found him in the middle of the night a few days before New Year's Eve. She hadn't been sleeping much; even when she did, it was restless. She stared down at her watch as she hesitated outside his door, knowing that she shouldn't wake him at 3:07am. But she'd waited long enough.
She knocked softly, shifting from foot to foot as she subconsciously hoped he would not answer. If he didn't answer, she could put it off a little longer.
But the door opened and he peered out at her, his brows knitted in worry. "Are you okay?"
"Did I wake you?" Riley whispered anxiously.
He shook his head, opening the door wider to invite her in. As she stepped into his bedroom, she noticed his desk lamp on and his laptop open, although the screen was black. She turned in the room, glancing over his things and the world he'd created for himself, the comfort he'd decided on, realizing it was mostly bare.
The door shut behind Lucas and her eyes snapped to him, now leaning against the wall with his eyebrows still furrowed. "Should I be worried about you?"
"I don't know if I can do this," Riley blurted out, shaking a little.
Lucas's shoulders dropped a little and he walked towards her, wrapping his arms around her as she swallowed over and over again, still getting up the courage to even speak about it.
"You don't have to right now," he assured her, his voice vibrating through his chest against Riley's cheek, and she closed her eyes. "I'll be here for whatever you need, whenever you need it. If you're not ready to leave…"
"That's not what I meant," Riley admitted, although she didn't move from her position attached to his chest.
"What did you mean?" He asked after a brief pause.
The silence around them was almost deafening. With their teammates asleep, the world around them dark, she could almost feel the empty space around their safe house closing in. It was just them, there, in the soft yellow glow of his desk lamp and the warmth of his bedroom, wrapped in the warmth of his body.
"I don't know… how much longer I can stay."
A/N: I decided to delay a part for Maya's chapter (next). This is the end of the team's functional life, but the official explanation will be in the next chapter. This was a harder chapter for me to write than usual because a lot of my content is often based on dialogue, and there isn't a lot of that in this chapter. I hope I adequately explained how Riley is feeling and that it wasn't... boring.
I have seriously messed up my sleep schedule but that is because I stayed up until 5:30am studying for a finance exam last night (that I got 100% on, so it paid off!) and so I wasn't going to sleep earlier than 4 tonight. I have a research paper to write but procrastination makes creativity fly for me. Might even get out the next chapter before this weekend if I procrastinate enough.
This book is now well over 85k and 2.5 years in. If you've stayed with me all the way through now, I would like to personally thank you for your interest lol.
Kisses,
C
