5.
Neal abruptly pulled away, his eyes hard. Reilly was playing games with him, messing with his head, and frankly, it was pissing him off. Neal had had enough of mind games ever since he had been released into Peter's custody to consult for the FBI, since Kate and Fowler and empty wine bottles and cryptic notes and amber music boxes. With her sly smirks and coy, whispery, stabbing words, Reilly was getting to him, and it only served to make him angrier.
"You're wrong." Neal's voice was cold and hard. "I'm nothing like Jon Bernard."
Reilly arched a lazily inquisitive eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yeah," Neal confirmed coldly, his jaw clenched. "Unlike Mr. Bernard, I don't like guns, I don't do violence, and I do not hurt people to get what I want."
Reilly let out a sharp bark of laughter, the sound a mix of scorn and desperate glee. Her laughter suddenly died off as she leaned forwards, her eyes glittering like a thousand shattered emeralds. "You say you don't like guns. You say you don't like violence. You say you don't hurt people," she spat. "But you're a damn fool if you really believe that conning people out of their most treasured possessions and their livelihoods isn't hurting them."
Behind the mirrored glass wall, Peter stood with his arms crossed over his chest, all of his concentration narrowed into a single beam of focus directed at the first and only 20-year-old girl that Peter had met who hadn't swooned for Neal's charms within the first five seconds of laying eyes on the convicted conman. Reilly had just skewered Neal with the hard, cold reality that, in all of the seven years that he had been known Caffrey, Peter hadn't been able to put into the right words, and she'd delivered it with just the right amount of passionate anger and scorn that Peter knew would pierce Neal's polished façade and get to him.
"Damn," Jones muttered. "Look at Caffrey. I don't think I've ever seen him this off his cool before." He paused. "Reilly really knows what she's talking about, doesn't she, boss?"
"Either that," Peter said, "or else she just really knows what to say to get under Neal's skin."
Late into the night, Neal stood on the balcony of his bedroom suite, staring out at the multicolored nightlights scattered far into the Manhattan dark, and thought about Mozzie, Peter, Elizabeth and June, Alex and her strawberry-sweet parting kiss, Lauren and Jones; and Kate. He thought about Kate, wondered about Kate, with her wide eyes and light laughter and silky, sweet-smelling hair. He thought about Isabelle Reilly, who was only 20 years old and yet the innocence had already gone from her glittering green eyes, only 20 years old and yet she knew just the right thing to say to cut him to the core. Isabelle Reilly, whose pain and anger and wariness had manifested itself into a mask, a façade, coy smiles and seducing whispers, not far removed at all from his own charming grins and suave remarks.
They were alike, Neal realized, he and 20-year-old Isabelle Reilly, she who struggled in vain to hide her true emotions. More alike than Neal would have guessed. More alike than he wanted to accept.
A/N: Hey guys! Okay, first off, I just want to say that I am so, so, so, reallyreally sorry about the delay in updating. Let it be known that the blame here goes to my HIGHLY irritating computer, who feels as if it is obligated to just start losing documents at random so I have to end up retyping everything.
Secondly, I'd like to hear your opinions/wishes/requests on what should happen next. I've got a vague idea floating around somewhere in the back of my head, but I want to hear what you guys think should follow Neal's epic realization into reality.
Oh, and one last thing: as for the shortness of the chapters, Painted Eyes is deliberately written in short, snappy installments. Painted Eyes has about the total content of a oneshot, but in separate multiple chapters.
cheers!
-queen