Part 11

Francie jumped at the soft knock at the door, expecting Will as she opened it slowly. Why he was knocking she had no clue, but faltered a bit as Vaughn stood with his hands in his pockets and a soft, friendly smile on his face. He looked less put together than earlier, his tie hanging loose and crooked at the collar, hair a disheveled mess showing that he'd run his hands through it in frustration half a dozen times that hour alone, and the jacket had been ditched hours earlier leaving a brown leather holster with a handgun cinched to his shoulders.

"May I come in?"

The woman nodded silently and stepped back, Michael walking into the large single room identical to the one he was using down the hall. The rooms sported a bed, a desk, and a television mounted to the wall, and felt very much like staying in a cheap motel. The T.V. was muted, some kind of cooking show playing.

"I thought I'd come down and see how you were doing, I know it's been a...a weird day."

She laughed wryly at his understatement. "You...you promised earlier that you'd answer any questions I had, is now a good time? Because I have about a million."

He nodded in response taking a seat at the desk as she folded her legs under her on the bed clutching a pillow to her chest and stomach for comfort. "How...long has Sydney been...not who she said she was?"

Michael flinched at the words she chose. "Almost ten years."

Francie's sighed as tears filled her eyes. "Did she ever work at a bank?"

Vaughn smiled trying to send her comfort in his friendly gaze. "Credit Dauphine is a real bank, it just happens to be owned by a world-wide terrorist organization. When Sydney was recruited in her first year of college, they started her at the bank as they ran background checks and did initial conditioning for her training."

"But...why? Why lie about that?"

"They lie to maintain the cover story that they're a secret branch of the CIA. Sydney's profile that they built ahead of recruitment showed that she was a genius and while you think it would be easy to see past the charade, they'd been doing it for over 20 years before she was even brought in. They know how to dot their I's and cross their T's."

Francie was quiet as her eyes stared blankly at the white of the bedspread. Vaughn continued, "Sydney came to us a little under two years ago, about a month after her fiance was killed. It's…" he struggled with the desire to tell the hurting but curious young woman the truth over leaving her blissfully unaware of things she maybe wouldn't want to know.

"The biggest rule at SD-6 is secrecy, and they threaten that horrible things will happen to loved ones if their agents leak the truth. Sydney found out the hard way that they...they weren't bluffing." Francie's eyes flew open as she realized the truth of his words.

"SD-6 killed Danny?"

"Yes."

A strangled groan left her lips, her face matching the sound of her voice. "Why?"

"Because Sydney told him the truth. She didn't want to marry him if their lives were going to be a lie, and...he got drunk and left her a voicemail. He said, 'people aren't spies forever', and because they had her phone tapped they got to him long before she got home from her assignment. That's what they do, Francie. That...that's who they are."

"How did she not know?" Sydney asked him that same question almost a year ago, and it stung him now almost as much as it had then.

"It's...complicated in ways that most don't understand. The point is that they lied to her, and until earlier today, they lied to Dixon and Marshall. They're very good at what they do."

Francie tried to work through the information that the man was giving her. "So...when she left to go to the bank, where did she really go? What did she actually do?"

"Some days she really did go to the bank. The SD-6 office is located underneath Credit Dauphine through a secure parking garage. In the office they would give her a mission, sometimes with Dixon sometimes solo, and she'd head off to do whatever they ordered."

"Like what?"

Vaughn thought through the long list of missions that were in her file. "Covert entry to steal information from high-level targets of foreign governments, or getting a piece of prototype weapon or satellite technology."

"Holy shit."

Michael laughed. "Yeah. And over the last 18 months things got kind of crazy. She'd get a mission from SD-6 and then contact the CIA. We would meet once I coordinated a counter mission, if we could, and she'd go off to do the assignment with the added twist of trying to keep important information and tech out of the hands of the bad guys."

"I...I didn't know anything about her," she said sadly, Vaughn shaking his head quickly while setting a hand to her wrist.

"Francie, you knew the real Sydney. Whether or not you knew the truth about her job, you and Will grounded her to reality, and while she couldn't thank you for it, believe me when I say it was something she desperately needed."

Francie realized how many secrets her friend had to keep and began to understand why the last two years had felt like they had been drifting apart. The two sat in silence for a few moments, though he checked his watch knowing he'd have to head back upstairs sooner rather than later to see what luck Marshall was having once he'd gotten out of debrief.

"Did...are you-" she paused, Michael leaning forward and encouraging her to ask him anything. "Are you and Syd dating?"

It was by far the hardest question that she'd asked. His brain screamed 'yes', but there was no way that what they had been doing for the last month had been dating. Pining eyes across the office and brushing fingertips when passing folders back and forth wasn't dating.

"It's...complicated."

"Is that a yes?" She pushed because she had to know if this guy was the guy.

"No. We can't just...date, Francie. If these people saw us talking to each other we'd be shot and dumped in a river."

This statement, and the anger behind it, shocked her. "That's what she meant by 'frowned-upon'."

Vaughn chuckled despite the tightening in his throat. "That's a very mild way of saying that, yes."

"Did...are you the guy she went with to Hong Kong?"

Michael frowned. "I don't know what you mean."

"When she got hit by the car and hurt her leg a month ago. She said she...months ago she told me she had a crush on a guy from work named Michael, and then she said that she hooked up with him in Hong Kong. Are...is that you? If it's not, god, I'm really sorry, but I gotta know."

Michael looked down at his folded hands for a minute as Sydney's breathy whisper of those three sacred words bounced around his memory. He couldn't stop the tears from filling his eyes before he looked back up.

"Yeah. That...it wasn't Hong Kong," he corrected, clearing his watery throat, "it was Russia, and on the operation she was stabbed in the leg. A blizzard blew in so we hiked two miles to a CIA safehouse cabin and hunkered down for a day and a half until they sent a rescue chopper."

Francie was again reminded how little she knew about her best friend. Finally looking up and making eye contact she saw the anguish on the young man's face. "She said she got hit by a car."

Vaughn looked over at the closed door as a tear slipped down his cheek. "Sydney hated every single moment she had to lie to you, I want you to know that. S-she didn't want to lie but after Danny and with Will getting involved, she was terrified that you would learn even a tiny bit about her life that would put you in danger."

Francie cried for a moment feeling his hand on her shoulder, and after a moment she took a deep breath and wiped at her face with her fingertips. Vaughn wasn't prepared for her to chuckle and catch his attention, her face lost in memory.

"This had to have been before Will figured things out, that idiot," she grumbled, Michael grinning despite the painful thudding of his heart in his chest, "but she said something a few months ago when they got into another fight about her crazy-ass schedule. Will told her to quit her pointless job and...though it was harsh, I agreed."

"What did she say?"

The smile left the woman's face as she turned sorrow-filled brown eyes on the man she'd just started to get to know. "She said that her job was far from pointless and that if we even knew what she did each day we would thank her for doing her job so well. I have always been confused about her loyalty to that bank, but now...it...it makes so much sense."

The conversation paused once more. "But...now that I have all this truth here, I don't want it. I mean...I really wish I didn't know, you know?"

Vaughn nodded. "I'm sorry, Francie."

She backpedaled, "I don't mean...I mean," she swallowed, trying desperately to find the right words as if she'd just offended the green-eyed agent a few feet away. "I...it just makes me love her more."

Michael smiled, "yeah."

"Am I ever going to see her again?"

Vaughn felt the tightness back in his throat. He hadn't given up yet, but things were looking grim. "I...don't know."

"The last thing I said was for her to quit her job, call up her crush, and have a week full of sex," she sniffled seeing she soft smile on the green-eyed man's face.

"I...wish she'd have entertained that a bit harder right now."

...

"Sydney?" Vaughn's voice was distant and worried, she could hear it in the timbre. She had another bout of regret and asked herself for the millionth time since calling him 'why the hell did you call him'.

He rounded the corner and stepped in front of the closed gate seeing her seated on the cold cement floor leaning against a wooden shipping container with a mostly empty bottle of rum to her left. Her hair was disheveled as if she'd just run her fingers through it instead of a brush after a restless couple hours of tossing and turning in bed, and there were deep circles under her red-rimmed eyes. Even in the crappy overhead light he could see the wet trails on her cheeks and he slowly pulled the gate open to join her.

"What happened?"

He felt a pang in his heart as she looked up at him, a fresh tear dripping down, and her eyes shone with guilt, shame, pain, and sorrow. She was in a warm-looking pair of pink sleep pants, the color juxtaposed against her mood, and a red camisole that clung to her waist. A sweater was abandoned on the table above her giving him a good look at the large bruise on her upper arm and finger shaped dark circles on her wrist where the giant bodyguard from her mission a few days ago had grabbed her in an attempt to subdue. The guy had been left with a broken arm and a massive concussion at the very least, Sydney getting away lightly though he hated to see any marks on her skin.

"What's wrong?"

She held out her hand, something hidden behind the tips of her fingers, and Michael stepped into the cage, closed the gate behind him, and reached his hand out under her fingertips to accept what she offered. She dropped the item into his palm and took another swig from the bottle before wrapping her arms defensively over her stomach.

Sydney took in his rumpled appearance. He wore plaid pajama pants that were hanging low on his hips and the outline of his physique pushed through the thin fabric of the plain white undershirt. He'd literally scrambled out of bed, put on shoes, and drove to meet her. Dropping her eyes quickly she tasted the guilt again at the back of her throat.

In his palm was a ring - a simple engagement ring, but one he'd memorized a week into knowing her. Though he hadn't seen it in months, Sydney saying that she was choosing to move on partially to help Francie and partially for herself when he'd asked, he recognized it quickly.

"Shit," he grumbled as his tired brain keyed into the date. "November 7th," he said quietly, his fingers running over the smooth lines of the gold band and the faceted edges of the stone setting. It was one year to the day since her fiance had been murdered catapulting Sydney into her current hectic and complicated life.

He saw her nod, her fist wrapping around the bottle and lifting to take a burning swig before setting it clumsily back to the floor within reach. "Sydney, I'm sorry."

"Yeah," she mumbled, Michael setting the ring back into her outstretched palm and pulling over the metal folding chair to take a seat. His body language was open as he folded his hands leaning his forearms on his knees. "I...if he din't know," she swallowed, her words slurred, "if I never told him...I never would've," pause, "lern'd the truth."

He didn't really know what to say so he nodded and let her keep going.

"It ws my fault. I...I got him killed," she whispered past the quivering of her lips and closed her eyes.

"None of what they've done to you is your fault, Sydney. That includes killing your fiance."

"I'm srry I called," she stuttered behind a hiccup, her hand picking up the bottle as Vaughn leaned over and pulled it easily from her grasp.

"Enough, you've...had enough." His mind was on overdrive thinking of how he could possibly get her home, and he frowned while asking, "how did you get here?"

"I'drove." she said as one word mashed together. "Parked on th' other side," she gestured poorly with a loose wrist.

"Sydney-" he balked about to read her the riot act for driving drunk, but she shook her head to clarify.

"I did'n...drink till I got here. I," she slurred, "I juss wanted to be 'lone."

He was relieved that she hadn't been impaired on her ride over, which meant her mind was put-together enough to look for and shake tails if she'd had any.

"If you...wanted to be alone, why did you call me?"

Her right shoulder shrugged as she frowned and sat up to tilt her head back with a thump against the wood, her eyes staring up at the pipes and metal of the ceiling, "I'm srry, I...shouldn't've called."

"Hey, no, that's not," he faltered and set the bottle on the table to his side away from the drunk young woman. "When I said you've got my number, I meant it."

"Why was I too dumb to figure it out?" She growled, her fist closing around air as she dimly recalled the bottle had been taken away.

"Being good at what you do doesn't mean you can't be fooled. You're not a fool, Syd, they just...they were better liars."

They sat in comfortable silence, Vaughn watching emotions flash across her face. Since he'd started to have feelings for her he hadn't allowed himself time to stare, but in this moment there was ample opportunity and he was tired after worrying instead of sleeping the last four days.

"Thiss year has been...too mush," she said quietly.

"Agreed."

"I didn think it would be this hard."

Vaughn frowned. "You didn't think what would be this hard? Taking down an established, world-wide terrorist organization?" He was trying to add a little levity in an attempt to pull her out of an emotional downward spiral, but it was possible that she'd been in that spiral for over a day and hadn't reached out until now.

They had their counter mission meeting, she went off to Austria, and then it had been four days. Three days of little to no sleep until tech services announced that the item had been retrieved from the dead drop location and was in analysis. She'd apparently done the mission to a tee, but for whatever reason had remained silent the entire time and for a day after. Now he knew why and his professional worry turned into a different kind of worry.

His attempt to lighten things failed, and her sadness remained. "I juss…juss feel like everthing is...crumbling. All the time." He stayed quiet again letting her vent. "I can't handle all this."

Almost a month had passed since she'd killed Noah Hicks, unfortunate timing with this other anniversary date right around the corner. He wasn't sad to see Hicks gone since the man had turned out to be a notorious assassin. Vaughn had convinced himself that his relief wasn't because she had gotten back into a relationship with the man and that relationship was now undoubtedly over, but that it was because he was sad to see her job take away someone else she'd cared about.

Her voice was watery, tired, and had a rawness to it suggesting that this wasn't the only time she'd spent crying in the past few days.

"Evrything with my mom...Noah, counter missions, Sloane tryin' to kill me and Dixon doubting me," the list went on and he was actually thankful when she stopped. "I don know how to handle all this and do my job good...well."

Vaughn grinned. Drunk or not, she was an English major.

"I juss...hurt people. Nothing I do matters." She flopped her head back against the wooden crate with a thud, her closing eyes squeezing out tears that ran down her temples to the angle of her jaw.

That's where his tolerance ended. "Don't ever say that again. You've done more in a year than your father's done in ten. Trust me, I've seen the files."

She stayed quiet, not agreeing or otherwise and not lifting her head, so he continued. "I know it's hard to see that what you do matters, Sydney, but you keep people safe…every day."

"Not Danny...not...Noah," she countered. "Not at Badenweiler or…a handful of other missions where...where I got people killed."

"You can't carry the burden of every bad thing on your shoulders, Syd, that's not fair. Those things...those things you couldn't prevent."

"I don't wanna do this anymore." She reopened her eyes seeing the slow shock hit his face.

Her words cut him. "What?"

"I...can't do this."

"You...you want to quit?"

She sobbed, "yes."

He thought that maybe it was just the weight of everything combined with the alcohol, but the seriousness in her eyes and the way her shoulders slumped when she admitted defeat made him simultaneously sad for her and angry at her.

"You know you can't do that. And I'm...I'm sorry. I really am sorry about Danny, and Noah, and everything with your mom and dad that's just...the worst right now. But you cannot quit."

She whimpered, "why not?"

"Because they'll kill you."

She rolled her eyes closed but stayed quiet, her eyes pleading with his to let her go.

"And they'll kill everyone you may have talked to. You know this. I shouldn't have to explain this again after everything we've seen and done." He folded his arms over his chest leaning against the creaking metal backrest trying to hug the anger back in as he took her words as a personal attack, even if she hadn't intended it to be. She wasn't just giving up on being a double, that he didn't blame her for, she was giving up on him - maybe eventually them.

"What if it never ends?" she whimpered.

Instead of answering, he rose from the chair and decided to break his biggest rule: he knelt on the cold hard floor and pulled her into his arms.

...

"Do… do you have to hover?" Marshall grumbled over his shoulder to Vaughn as the agent bounced behind him eaten by nervous worry.

"Sorry," he mumbled and took a step back, bumping into Weiss as the larger agent also stood a bit too close.

The JTF ended up at a loss, the timer on the website winding down until only fourteen minutes remained. Putting all of their hope in Marshall Flinkman meant that everyone else had to wait and see what he came up with.

Kendall stood to Jack's left, the father with his arms crossed over his chest defensively as he tried to follow Marshall's movements, though he was too fast on the keyboard going from page to page and dialogue box to dialogue box.

"Okay. I got...well...something I guess," the techie announced as he leaned back in his seat.

"Good work, Marshall," Jack exhaled.

"Don't thank me yet. She's somewhere in the southwest of France. Maybe...maybe in the northeast of Italy. It's hard to tell with the signal jumping around. And," he paused, "I could be totally wrong. I'm trying to follow the signals path. The least degraded is the closest to the source. This is the strongest instance but...there's still some degradation."

"Somewhere within a hundred square miles? Maybe?" Michael tried to hide the growl from his voice, but was having a hard time withholding the anger at yet another failure on their part.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Vaughn, it's...it's as close as I can get right now."

Jack set his hand to Marshall's shoulder, "keep working at it. You'll get there."

He kept typing as folks moved to their desk, some making calls as others flopped tiredly into the rolling chairs.

Kendall sighed, "conference room, ten minutes," he barked, gathering papers from where he had been working.

"It's showtime, Sydney. How are you feeling? Are you excited?" Flynn popped back into the room setting his hand to her shoulder, her sudden intake of breath making him smile as he set fire to her skin. "Oops, sorry about that."

His assistant joined and parked himself at the desk, fingers typing, and Flynn turned the camera to face the workstation table as he looked over at the other man with patient eyes. Glancing down at his watch he noted they had three minutes remaining.

"How many viewers do we have, Rob?" His voice was that sickly calm that set her nerves on edge.

"Pushing 50,000, but I expect that number to get a lot higher once you start," the techie said robotically in a high-pitched British accent as he clicked and typed. "Alright, you'll go live in two-thirty and we'll be in the control room if you need anything." Hopping up he left the room, Flynn and Sydney alone as she lifted her brown eyes to meet his calm and calculated blue stare.

He smiled, "still trying to figure things out, love?"

"Just wondering what your resume looks like to make you the Alliance's go-to torture expert."

He raised his eyebrows seeing her engage him in actual conversation. "You know, after this first session I'd be happy to chat more with you about my intriguing past."

"I'm fine with it staying as a curiosity," she answered.

A sideways grin split his lips, "I like this new you. We're going to get along famously."

She butterflies danced in her stomach as she mentally counted down what she assumed was around two minutes. Off by only a few seconds, the watch beeped on his wrist and she spotted a red led light appear at the top of the camera.

"By now, most of you have been wondering if what I'd posted twenty hours ago was the truth, and I'll assure you all that this is real. There's just over 50,000 people watching at the moment, and while I expect to lose some that think this is a hoax, some that aren't going to like when things get bloody, and some that genuinely lose interest, I know a core contingent will stick around. Maybe it's a fetish. Maybe you know this person and are desperate to see if I'm lying. Either way, you've been waiting long enough so let's get started."

He waved a hand over the items on the table imitating a game show assistant, Sydney rolling her eyes off-camera. "I do love the classic tools of the trade. Various knives, needles, pliers...all right fun if I do say so myself. But my pièce de résistance is right here." Pausing, he gestured to the battery box. "This device sends an electrical current through nodes adhered to the skin. No, it doesn't shock; that's amateur. This feels a bit like your whole body is a vibrating hum - quite annoying and uncomfortable after a while, but the effect makes every inch of skin a conduit for pain."

"You know, it's easier if I show you this effect." he stepped from behind the table and turned the camera to face the woman trapped in the chair at the center of the floor. "This is Agent Sydney Bristow, an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency. Though, from their press conference hours ago, they're not claiming her as an asset. But don't worry, love, I'm sure they're thinking of something."

Her fiery brown eyes glared up at him, though he ignored her attempt to intimidate and followed the wires leading up to the nodes attached along her body. "This device works particularly well over long term use, and since Agent Bristow and I will be spending the whole week together, I'll finally get to test my machine longer than a few minutes." He placed his arms behind his back, hands clasped, and maneuvered around behind her. "It makes every instance of human contact pure misery, and it'll only take a couple of days for the brain to adjust until it fears even the simplest of touches." He slowly set his hands to her shoulders, Sydney unable to stop the pained grimace that flashed across her face, her eyes closing and jaw clenching.

Flynn grinned and pulled his hands away, "We might as well get started, shall we? Let's talk, Sydney. I'm sure the people out there want to know more about you. How long have you worked with the CIA, love?"

Swallowing and opening her eyes back up she squared her jaw and stayed silent while throwing a particularly intense shade of hatred in his direction. He continued without her participation and grabbed a file folder off the table to flip through it.

"It says here that you were recruited when you were," pause, "nineteen. Wow. How old are you now?"

Silence.

Flynn sighed. "Twenty-five? Six?"

Silence.

The man smiled, though she saw malice behind his frosty blue stare as he set the folder down and made his way over to her side. Nothing in his body language or voice suggested that he was frustrated, but she saw the anger flicker in his eyes before it went away.

He walked his fingers up the side of her bicep and it was easy to see the muscles tense, the grimace on her face following her body's reaction to try and lean away from his touch. The sturdy chair, however, and the fact that her arms were bound around the tall custom welded back made it so she couldn't move far enough to escape and had to put up with the nerve-crackling pain as he touched her skin up to the side of her neck.

She groaned an answer, "twenty-eight. I'm…I'm twenty-eight."

"So, almost ten years." He responded by instantly taking his hand away from her skin, Sydney panting slightly as the fiery burn turned slowly back into the annoying tingling vibration.

She closed her eyes refocusing her breathing, the special training at SD-6 on torture going through her head. If you're caught, you have to be able to stall until help arrives. Your team will be looking for a way to get you out, so your best friend will be time and opportunity. They will try and bait you with easy, baseline questions and work their way up to the hard stuff because they think they have all the time in the world. Be stubborn on the easy ones only giving it up if you think you need to, because they'll escalate slowly if they think they're breaking you.

Flynn moved back to the rolling chair to her right and crossed one leg over the other with body language open and unthreatening. He was still in view of the camera though Sydney was prominent on nearly the entirety of the right side, the angle zoomed in just below her feet and a few inches or so above her head.

"What's your favorite color?"

She frowned. "Are you serious?" Flynn merely gave a sickeningly sweet smile. "Green," she said with a growl at the back of her throat.

"Interesting."

"Is it? Do you think this is what 50,000 people want to see?"

He leaned back, glancing at the screen, "212,000 as of right now. How long have you been actively trying to undermine my organization?"

She stayed silent. She knew that answering that question may make her timeline a bit easier to research on their end.

"Another one I can answer for you: eighteen months," though the words were aggressing, the tone was low and calming.

She stayed quiet, her eyes rolling and looking around the room projecting an annoyed nonchalance.

"It says here that your father also works for the CIA. A mister," he paused peeking back into the file, "Jonathan Bristow. Do you work together?"

No answer.

"Silence, eh? You know...you were right that over 200,000 people logged in to see me torture you. But why skip the foreplay, darling?"

Again, she stayed quiet, so Flynn set the folder down and followed up with: "How did your fiance die?"

She couldn't hide her reaction and sent him a glare before facing forward just right of the camera.

"Robbery, was it? Tisk," he clicked his tongue against his teeth. "That's a shame. Though, reading the police report, nothing was mentioned as stolen. Isn't that strange?"

She sighed and compartmentalized her thoughts keeping her face as blank as possible. Flynn saw this from the side and smiled softly, changing his voice and demeanor from upbeat and casual to soft and sympathetic.

"I found out what happened, Sydney. Do you want to hear about it?" He saw her jaw clench. It was minute and those watching through a screen probably didn't notice, but he was far too good at his job to miss basic early details like the one she, as expected, just gave away.

She'd told him what he wanted to hear with her age, assuming like every good little spy with training and maybe a bit of practical experience under their belt that it would set a baseline. Once she gave that up, he decided to stop playing by the book and hit her with something emotional to open her back up. He knew it wasn't the physical torture she was going to have trouble enduring, though he was excited to challenge that part of her psyche over the next few days, it was the emotional prodding he was going to pummel her with first.

"That was when you first bucked against my organization, so we fired a literal warning shot." His words were smooth and soft, and she tried to push down the guilt that was bubbling up from her stomach into the back of her throat.

"Your friends and family don't know you killed him, do they? Does his? Does his mother know what you did? Sure...you didn't pull the trigger, Sydney, but you got him killed. Your job - the one thing you're good at - murdered the man you love." He paused letting the words hang. "Everyone you know thinks it was still just a tragic accident. Unfortunately, you didn't learn, did you? After you got Danny killed, you kept interfering. Your patriotism is an inspiration."

Flynn stood back up and moved to her side. "You must not love your friends very much. Despite what you did to Danny, you didn't stop pestering us. Stealing our intelligence, killing our agents, undermining our influence. Because you're a fighter, aren't you, Sydney?" He set his hand gently on her shoulder and felt the muscles tighten below his warm palm. "One wasn't enough, was it? You had to try to kill one of your closest friends as well." Rising he pulled his hand away, the bound woman breathing through her nose a few times as the pain ebbed.

"Maybe if you knew how to quit, so many people in your life would still be alive." He could see that her eyes were filled with tears and holding back emotions that she was trying desperately to compartmentalize. He also saw that she was finding it difficult with the introduction of the machine.

He softened to a whisper. "If they aren't watching, at least you don't have their hate on top of your own."

Drip. A single tear tumbled down her cheek, Flynn smiling as he continued.