Teresa was sitting at the table in our apartment, staring intently at the screen of her laptop. Every now and then she moved her mouse, clicked something and went back to staring. Other than that, she hadn't moved in the past two hours. That I knew of, anyway. I had gone out earlier to get some fresh air – an almost hopeless task in the current hot weather – and was now sitting in the window, one leg dangling outside, the other pulled up to my chest. I was hoping to catch some of the light breeze outside, but that seemed to be too much to ask for. Downstairs, on the street, everything was mostly quiet. A car passed by, a mother with two screaming kids walked down the street, looking exhausted. The rest of the world had wisely retreated into their houses, where it was if not cool, then at least out of the burning sun.
I looked at Teresa again. Next to her computer was the external hard drive I had used to copy all of professor Lucardi's files on. Thousands of them. She was scanning through them, to see if she could get anything useful from it. A copy was on it's way to MI6, courtesy of the British embassy in Paris.
Suddenly she looked up, straight at me.
"Are you watching me work?" she asked.
I shrugged and looked outside again. She pushed her chair back, got up and approached me, to put a kiss on my hair. It made me smile. I turned and before she could go back to her work, grabbed her by the waist.
"It's to hot for work," I said.
She struggled for a moment, laughing a little, but then relaxed into my embrace.
"I want to get this done," she said, "I need to put an end to all of this, the charade. And I can't do anything tonight, with that dinner at professor Lucardi's house."
"You should have let me get this in the beginning," I said illogically, "Then you would've had two months."
She rolled her eyes. "You can't just go and steal somebody's data on their computer," she said, "Besides, I wouldn't have known what to look for anyway."
"I'm a spy," I pointed out, "I can do anything."
The moment I said it, I knew I had made a mistake. Disappointment washed over her face. Frantically, I racked my brain to come up with something.
"But not for much longer," I said, pulling her even closer and kissing her passionately. She responded, and for a while I thought she had forgotten the conversation. Not so, as became apparent when we finally broke free. She stared into my eyes, searching for something.
"Do you really want to give it up?" she asked, "Are you sure about this?"
I buried my face in her hair. "Yes, I'm sure," I said, "For you, I'd do anything."
As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt a strange elation go through me. I hadn't actually said I loved her – neither of us had made any statements in that respect – but it was close enough. She noticed it too, because she moved back to look at me, a big grin on her face. I leaned forward to kiss her again when her mobile started playing.
We both froze, and then started to laugh. She stepped back and took the call, turning away from me and walking to the other end of the room. I heard her soft voice, speaking English, but I didn't really pay much attention to what she was saying. I watched her smile and make small gestures with her hands when emphasizing a point, her face scrunching up when listening intently to the person talking – her mother, I guessed.
I wondered what her family would think of me, if they would hate me. Teresa had sworn to me that they wouldn't, and I had talked to her mother once on the phone – she sounded friendly, if a little suspicious – but she also had a big brother. Whom I wasn't afraid of physically, but who could probably make things very difficult for me.
I remembered the serious look in Jack's eyes, when she had managed to corner me one last time that day in Paris. She had silenced me with that look of hers, that look that had managed to silence me since I was seven, and had basically told me to rethink my plan.
"She's nice, Alex, really. I like her. A lot. But I'm worried. Ever since you pushed Sabina away, you've been... I don't know. Distant. Like nothing could touch you ever again, like you had sworn to never love anybody ever again. And I don't see..." She looked me in the eyes, scrutinizing me, and I had no idea what she was looking for. "I don't... see it."
Then she stepped back, smiled, and said, "But I could be wrong." She glanced at Teresa, who by that point was getting a little annoyed by our secrecy, knowing full well we were talking about her. Jack leaned forward, and just as the train came into the station, said, "She seems to like romance. Make it special."
And that was why, a week after buying it, the small black box with the ring was still burning in my pocket.
I parked the small car on the driveway, a little to the side and facing the exit, as usual. Only when we got out of the car, I realized what I had been doing, namely ensuring a quick getaway, and I smiled ruefully. Teresa didn't notice, however, so I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and together we walked to the ornate front door.
The professor's house was big, but not ostentatious. A central hallway, a large room on the left and in the back a kitchen. To the right, more rooms, an office probably, a storage room. I took in the layout of the house – what I could see of it – as we were graciously greeted by Mrs Lucardi and her husband, and were led to the dining room. Julie and Gaston were already there, as were several other researchers and two students professor Lucardi had taken a special interest in. They sat us down next to each other, for which I was grateful. I quickly surveyed the table, taking in everybody's position, and then locked eyes for a moment with a man sitting on the other end.
It was as if I was in a bubble. Sound became strangely distant and echoing, a woman's laughter ringing in my ears but not really registering. His cold blue eyes bore into mine, expressionless, and I knew there was no expression in mine either. In that instant, that second, we seemed to size each other up, instantly recognizing a predator when we saw one. And then it was gone, and the rest of the room came back onto focus. I looked up at Teresa, who was still in the process of sitting down next to me and smiled at her. Then I glanced back at the man on the other end of the table and saw that I had been mistaken.
For an almost imperceptible moment, I had thought Yassen Gregorovitch had been sitting there, staring at me. And even though the man looked a little bit like him, he was in fact quite different. He smiled at me.
"What's the matter?" Teresa asked.
"Nothing," I said, and then, nodding at the man, "He reminded me of somebody, that's all."
Julie, who had sat down across from us seemingly heard me, because she asked, "Who?"
At that point, professor Lucardi stepped in, positioned himself next to the unknown man and said, "My dear friends, colleagues, students..." He paused and looked at me, "... boyfriends of colleagues, I would like to introduce you to Mr Maier here, who is representing one of our contributors."
Suddenly, I had a bad feeling about this. I casually looked at Maier as the professor quickly said all our names, pausing at mine to explain who I was. He looked up at his host, nodded friendlily at everybody upon the introduction and then proceeded to chat with his neighbour, who happened to be Julie. I pretended not to take too much notice of him during dinner and tried not to show my growing anxiety. It wasn't something I could put my finger on, it was just there. All my senses were screaming to get the hell out of there, to take Teresa and the information and just run. All because a business man sitting across from me looked just a little bit like the man who had murdered my uncle.
Usually, my instincts were right.
After dinner, I tried to get to Teresa and have her make an excuse, but I was cornered by Mrs Lucardi, who wanted to know all about what it was like to be in the army. I answered her questions to the best of my ability, given that I was hardly paying attention to what she was saying and trying to signal Teresa (Later I found out that she had had a son in the French army who died). Teresa, however, was talking to Maier, and by the way she was shooting glances at me, I had a pretty good idea what he was trying to do. He was hearing her out, about me.
Which meant, that somehow he was suspicious of me. And the reason to be suspicious of me was the same one I had to be suspicious of him. He had recognized me somehow, from somewhere, as I recognized him. From where, I didn't know.
Mrs Lucardi said something. I turned and looked at her blankly. She frowned, but repeated her question.
"Where will you be sent after you get back from your leave?" she asked.
"Oh," I said, "Afganistan."
She shook her head, looking sad. "Quelle horreur," she said, "What do your parents think of that?"
"I don't have any. Excuse me."
I left her standing there, looking a little surprised, and quickly made my way over to Teresa. I butted right into their conversation with a 'can I talk to you for a moment', and dragged her away. Maier looked at us and sipped his wine, looking amused.
"What did he want?" I asked her as soon as we were somewhat out of earshot from everybody, "What was he asking?"
Teresa looked at me nervously. "He was asking about you. What you did for a living. How long I had known you. How we had met. I didn't like it."
Me neither. I hesitated for a moment. Then, "We have to leave. Now. Go to Mrs Lucardi, say you don't feel good."
To her credit, she didn't question me. I watched her go to Mrs Lucardi and start talking, then the worried face of the woman as she grabbed Teresa's arm and gently led her to the door, Teresa's reassuring face and words that she would be all right, and then I followed her out into the hallway. Once there, I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, hastily said a goodbye to the professor who had come out as well, and walked out the door.
"Leaving so soon?"
I froze in the doorway and turned. Maier was standing there, still with that amused look on his face and still having a glass of wine in his hands. I doubted he had drunk any of it though.
"Yes," I said, "She's not feeling well."
"A shame." He turned to Teresa. "I'm sorry to hear that, my dear. I hope you will feel better soon."
A shiver ran through Teresa's body. I tightened my grip on her. Maier turned to me again.
"Drive safely," he said, "Mr.... I'm sory, I'm such a klutz. I forgot your name."
"Fisher," I said, "Alex Fisher."
"Ah," he nodded, "Of course. Fisher."
He raised his glass in salute, turned, and went back into the living room. I turned again to leave, and caught a glimpse of Mr and Mrs Lucardi, him looking surprised and slightly worried, her looking bewildered. Then we rushed outside and drove away, leaving the brightly lit house and its occupants to their own devices.
After reaching the village, I turned south, determined to put as much distance between us and Maier as possible. The main reason I'm still alive after all is that I listen to what my instinct tells me to do, and right now it was screaming at me to run. So I did.
"Where are we going," Teresa asked.
"South," I said, peering through the windscreen to make sure we stayed on the dark road.
"But I need my things," she said, "We can't just run..."
"Yes we can," I said, "We have to."
"But why? Why now? What happened back there, who is that man, Maier?"
"I don't know," I said, "But he looks familiar. I think my cover is blown. And that's why we need to get out of here. Scorpia is not to be taken lightly."
"Yes," she said, "Scorpia. That was what Blunt was talking about, I still haven't got a clue who they are. How come you're so sure Maier is Scorpia?"
"Just a hunch," I said, "A feeling. But he knows who I am, I'm sure of it. Maybe he saw me at that Scorpia training camp a few years back..."
"You were in a Scorpia training camp?" she asked, quickly grabbing the hand hold on the door when I made a particularly sharp turn.
I didn't answer that one, but concentrated on my driving for a while.
"Blunt said they're terrorists," she said.
"They are," I said, "Among other things."
"What other things?"
I jerked the wheel and made the turn, barely. Teresa squeaked. I mumbled an apology, but didn't slow down. The road was very dark, and there were no villages in the vicinity. A bright line in the distance signified the proximity of the motorway, but that didn't help us here.
"They're for hire," I said, "Big things, mostly. Assassinations. Sabotage. Espionage."
A straight stretch of road, as far as the beams of the small rental car could reach. I floored the accelerator.
"And you were in their training camp?" she asked.
Why did she always manage to focus on the heart of the matter? "Yes," I said curtly.
"Why?"
"Why do you think?" I asked, working the clutch and shifting gear to slow us down for the upcoming turn.
She didn't answer that immediately. I could almost hear her mind work, reaching conclusions at and alarming speed.
"Have you ever killed somebody?" she asked.
This wasn't going to work. There was no way for me to keep driving like this while trying to come up with answers in such a way that she wouldn't hate me. I slowed down to a legal ninety kilometres an hour and looked at her.
"Can we talk about this some other time," I said, "I really need to concentrate here."
My non-answer was of course an answer in itself, and I saw her wince.
"Teresa," I said, placing a hand on her knee, "Please. I said I'd give it all up for you and I will. But right now, I have to get us out of here in a hurry, or we won't have any future and this whole conversation becomes academic."
She seemed to collect herself. The fact that she didn't push my hand away gave me hope that I could still salvage this.
"All right," she said, placing her hand on mine, "But we still need to go back to the apartment."
"No."
"Alex..."
"No. And that's final."
"I left my notes there."
I stared at her for so long that she became nervous and started gesturing that I should watch the road.
"Do you really need them?" I asked.
"Yes. I do. I've been writing down which files contain the information we need."
"On paper?"
"I always work on paper."
"And you can't reproduce this from memory?"
"Alex, these files have ten digit numbers for file names. And there are thousands of them. I would need to go through all of them again, and all my work for the past week will have been for nothing."
"And a text search..."
"Can't search text in a picture. They're graphs."
I kept going, gripping the wheel tightly. My cover was blown. Maier would no doubt inform Scorpia, they'd be on their way already. Scorpia... I suppressed a shiver. They had been out for my blood for a while, but they had stopped when they came under new management. Crossing them again would probably make me a target again. And if I was a target, then so was Teresa. We needed to disappear.
"They'll know we're on to them," she said.
She had me there. The whole point of the operation had been to discretely find out if Lucardi was somehow developing some sort of weapon for Scorpia. If they found the hard drive and Teresa's notes in the apartment, they'd know and they'd move the research to another place, and we'd have to go and find them again. It'd be better if they thought we hadn't found anything.
"Come on," she said, "Maier is still at the Lucardis. They couldn't have gotten to our apartment this fast, could they?"
I sighed. Maybe not. Slowing down even further, mentally turning the map in my head to match the direction we were going and where to take a turn if we wanted to go back, I turned to look at her.
"All right," I said, "We'll chance it. And then we make a run for it."
I approached the apartment on foot. I had parked the car in the street that ran parallel to ours, and had then used the alley ways to get to the back to our building. I didn't dare using the main entrance, but instead simply climbed up the fire escape and entered our floor through the door that wasn't supposed to be open from this side, but that I had rigged when we first came to live here.
Once inside, I quickly rushed to the door to our apartment, stuck in the key and opened it carefully, letting it swing all the way open. Gun in hand, I slid inside, listening to the sounds of the building. Everything was quiet. It was one AM, people were sleeping. I touched the door with my foot and it closed again. The apartment was empty.
I lowered the gun, placed it on the table and stepped up to the window to look outside. The street was deserted. Cars were parked along the curb, moonlight reflecting on the wind shields. I scrutinized each and every one of them, but you can't really tell if there's anybody inside watching the building in the dark.
The floorboard cracked.
I knew that crack, it was a place close to the bathroom. I usually stepped around it when going to the bathroom in the middle of the night to avoid waking Teresa. I hadn't checked the bathroom.
A million things went through my head as I spun around, crouched, and launched myself into the direction I knew my assailant would be. One of them was berating myself for carelessness. Another was that I knew this tiny apartment blindfolded, and whoever was currently trying to move out of my way by sidestepping me obviously hadn't expected my quick reaction and had underestimated me. And there all the advantages I had ended.
I managed to hit him in the stomach, but instead of doubling over like most people would, he merely grunted and lashed out with his foot, hitting me in the thigh. A full hit would have paralysed me, but as it was I kept moving, and he only managed to cause a sharp pain to shoot up my leg. I staggered backwards and he came at me with a little more caution.
From what I could see of him in the dark, he seemed to be an average man, average built, brownish hair, nondescript face. He was fast though, as I found out when he suddenly jumped at me and tried to slam his fist into my face. I managed to partially block him, but hit my head against the wall anyway. He grabbed my throat and started to squeeze while pinning me against the wall.
Not good. I struggled for a moment, feeling the pressure on my windpipe increase. If I didn't do anything soon, he'd crush it and then he'd get to watch me die, suffocating because no air could ever reach my lungs again. Not an option.
I stopped my struggle and went limp. It didn't fool him of course, he knew I was faking it, but that wasn't why I stopped. I feebly moved my arms a little, as if flailing aimlessly, and then reached behind my back where I had not only stuffed the gun earlier, but also a knife. I took it out and gutted him.
Immediately, the pressure on my neck subsided. In the dark, I could see his eyes go wide in surprise and pain. I yanked the knife up, yanked it out and then stabbed him again, in the chest this time. Then I pushed him away from me and he fell backwards, landing on the rug with a thump. I took a step back, bumped into the wall and let myself slide down to the floor, gasping for air, feeling dizzy.
If anybody thinks killing is easy, think again. Sure, I had caused the deaths of a number of people, had shot people even, but I had never stabbed somebody. I stared at him, laying on the floor, still clutching the now sticky knife in my hand, and started to shake. This was killing from up close. This was actually reach and yank the life out of somebody. Suddenly, I felt sick. I scrambled to my feet and rushed to the toilet to puke my guts out.
I so needed to get out of this business.
When I had managed to recover somewhat and my brain had started functioning again, I set about cleaning the place up. I had no idea if he was there on his own or if he had a buddy waiting for him in a car downstairs, but I wasn't going to wait and find out. I needed to leave, as soon as possible, but I couldn't leave him here.
Quickly grabbed Teresa's purple backpack, grabbed her laptop and the external hard drive and then unceremoniously stuffed in all loose laying papers that even remotely looked like notes. She had told me what to look for, but I ignored her rather detailed instructions in the motel room where I had left her. I simply took everything.
When I was done, I surveyed the room, checking to see if I had missed something, and then walked to the window and peered outside again. Nothing was different, nothing had moved. I moved back, grabbed some clean clothes from the closet and stuffed them in the backpack with the rest. I had some trouble closing it, cursing the zip until I just gave up and left it open. I put it by the door.
Only then I went to check on the man on the floor. He was quite dead, his glassy eyes staring at the ceiling. I quickly felt his pockets and retrieved an ID in the name of Francois Boulanger, which meant absolutely nothing. I also found a wad of cash, which I stuffed into my pockets. No car keys.
I stared down at him for a minute. No car keys, which indeed meant he probably had a buddy waiting in a car downstairs. Who would get impatient, and check up on him at some point. I pocketed the ID, scrambled back and rolled him into the carpet he had conveniently fallen on, saving me the trouble of wiping his blood from the floor. I got up, took a deep breath, heaved him up and worked him up on my shoulders. Staggering a little, I walked out of the apartment, down the hallway to the fire escape. I opened the door, checked the alley and the windows overlooking it briefly, and then let him drop. He fell down with a thud, next to the large metal wheelie bin we used to dump our waste in.
I looked at it for a moment, considering it, but then dismissed it as being too dangerous. I couldn't risk him being found there, so I went back inside, retrieved the backpack and did a quick survey of the apartment to see if there was anything in need of straightening. It looked quiet and peaceful once more. There was no sign a man had died here. I closed the door carefully, thanked whoever was responsible for letting my neighbours be heavy sleepers, and left the building for the last time.
It was when I had disposed of the body – stripped him off all his clothes and dumped him in the Seine way west of Paris, so with some luck he'd float all the way to the sea and good luck to anybody trying to lift fingerprints off his body this way – and had changed clothes as to not alarm Teresa with my blood stained shirt, that my body finally gave in. I sat in my car, hands on the wheel, and couldn't get myself to move.
A glance at the clock on the dashboard learned that it was almost four AM, and I was tired. The desire to just let my head rest on my hands for a moment was almost overwhelming, and I had to fight to keep my eyes open. I sat there for a long while, trying to get a grip on my swirling emotions, until I finally managed to move my hand to the key and start the car. I drove all the way back to the sleazy motel next to the motorway south of Paris where Teresa was sleeping alone in the king size bed, and only the thought of laying down next to her soon kept me awake.
When I arrived there an hour later, I parked the car at the back of the hotel, let myself in through the back door of which I had conveniently stolen the key earlier that evening, and almost didn't make it up the stairs. I fumbled with the key to our room, leaning my head against the wood panelling of the door and then suddenly fell inside when the door was opened from the inside. Teresa caught me before I could fall to the floor.
"Alex!" she exclaimed.
She dragged me inside and let me fall on the bed, which felt nice and soft. She said something, started tugging at my feet but I was too far gone to realise she was probably removing my muddy shoes. As soon as she let go, I rolled to my side and simply let go of the world.
I woke up slowly. My fuzzy brain had trouble connecting somehow, and it took me a while to realize that the crunching sound I was hearing was actually somebody eating an apple. I opened my eyes and stared at the wallpaper for a while, and then finally turned my head to look at Teresa. She was sitting at the small table that was squeezed in between the bed and the wardrobe, looking at the screen of her laptop. I watched her profile for a while, until she noticed I was awake.
"Hey, sleepyhead," she said happily, "Back in the land of the living?"
I moved, rolled to my back and groaned from the aching muscles in my arms. Dead people are heavy.
"Yeah," I croaked, "What time is it?"
"Past ten," she said, "We have to leave soon or we'll have to pay for another night." She held up a croissant. "Want one? Got it from a bakery down the street this morning."
"Yes, please," I said, working myself up into a sitting position.
She handed me the bread and I took a small bite. I wasn't really hungry. The memory of how the knife had simply cut into him, the feeling of warm blood on my hands effectively killed any desire to eat. I put it down.
"I've mailed the names of the files to the address Blunt gave me for contacting MI6," she said.
I stared at her blankly. Her smile faded.
"That's all right, isn't it? I mean, this is hardly sensitive information, it's just a bunch of numbers..."
I rubbed my eyes and tried to think, which was hard because of the throbbing headache. I must have hit my head harder than I thought. Carefully, I brought my hand to the back of my head and sure enough, a sensitive swelling was there. I winced.
"It's fine, I suppose," I said, "You're right, it's just a bunch of numbers."
She closed the lid of her computer, turned, and placed her elbows on her knees, watching me. To appease her, I took another bite of the croissant and tried to pretend it didn't taste like cardboard.
"Now tell me what happened last night," she said.
Two possibilities here. Tell her the truth, and then try to convince her that this was the last time, that I would never kill again, that I would leave MI6 and go back to school and have a normal life with her. She might believe me. Or I could lie.
"Nothing much," I said, "Except the apartment was being watched. Had major trouble getting in and out without being seen."
I'm a pretty good liar. I had expected her question of course, so I had prepared the answer, which made the decision to lie easier. I knew I could pull it off. I glanced at her once while talking, but let my eyes wander through the room for the rest of it, knowing that staring her directly in the eyes would give her the impression I was trying to hide the fact that I was lying. I casually told her about driving around to detect possible tails (true, I just left out that I was also carrying a gruesome cargo), told her about the car parked in front of the apartment (also totally true, although I hadn't identified the actual car), and finally how I had made it back to the motel, completely exhausted.
I must have told a pretty good story, because she came and sat next to me, and then things heated up for a bit.
"We really should get going," I said later, much later, glancing at the alarm clock net to the bed. Eleven thirty AM, it read. "Or we will really have to pay for another day."
Teresa popped herself up on one arm and leaned on my chest, but moved back when I couldn't suppress the wince. She pulled the sheets back a little and looked at me.
"Where did all these bruises come from?" she asked, "They weren't there before..."
"Got into a little bit of a fight on my last assignment," I said casually, "Takes a while for a bruise to show up. I've been stiff the whole week."
"Fight? But you said everything went OK?"
"It did. I just got a few punches."
She frowned, and moved away a little. I let my hand, with which I had intended to touch her face, fall back on the mattress.
"Alex..." She looked down, letting her hair fall in front of her face. Then she looked up again. "Please don't lie to me."
"I didn't lie. I just left it out because I knew you would worry. It was no big deal."
"That's what you always say! But it is a big deal! How can this not be a big deal!"
I sighed and closed my eyes. "Teresa please. I told you I'd quit. In fact, I'm quitting. Right now. Come here, watch me."
I let myself roll out of the bed, sat down at the table and opened her laptop. I quickly typed in the password, opened my mail box and started typing. Teresa came and stood next to me.
Blunt – I quit – bye, Alex Rider.
"Rider's your real name?" was the only thing she asked.
I nodded. "Let's leave," I said, "Let's go to... Florence. Have you ever been to Florence? It's beautiful. And then we can drive all the way to Rome. Have you ever seen the Colusseum? It's huge, and you won't believe..."
She placed a finger on my lips to silence me and smiled.
"How about Venice?" she asked.
I shuddered. "No. Not Venice."
"Here," she said, "Let's stop here."
I was driving at that moment, and it was getting late. We had driven the whole day, taking turns, in a general southern direction. The first part of the trip I had spent looking for somebody tailing us, until Teresa had called me paranoid and had ordered me to stop, at which point I continued my survey of the road behind us a little more discretely. We had stopped for lunch, then again for dinner and it was close to nine in the evening.
"Roanne?" I said.
"Yes," she said, "It's a pretty name for a town. Let's stop here."
I was tired, so I didn't protest but simply took the nearest exit, drove into the rather boring looking town and parked the car in front of the first hotel that didn't look too expensive. After we took a brief look at our room, accompanied by the manager of the hotel, suspicious because we didn't have any luggage, we fled outside and went for a walk to see where we had ended up.
It was already dark, and we strolled down the empty streets, looking at the brightly lit but closed shops. She commented on everything and anything, and finally insisted on calling her parents that she was all right. I listened to her side of the conversation, and shot her a warning look when she was about to tell them where we were. She rolled her eyes at me, but refrained from telling them anyway. After she had hung up, we were quiet for a while, me contemplating the likelihood that Scorpia was bugging her parent's phone and whether or not to tell her that, and, from the look on her face, she about whether to tell me to stop being paranoid. In the end, neither of us said anything.
"Let's go shopping tomorrow," Teresa said, obviously trying to change the subject that was on both our minds, "I feel dirty. And oh, look at that beautiful church..."
I agreed easily, happy to be walking around with my arm wrapped around her shoulder, feeling once again very protective of her. Her enthusiasm was refreshing, and for a little while I could pretend to see the world through her eyes, look at the beauty of things, not trying to categorize sniper positions on every building. I should have. I wasn't aware of it at the time, of course, but fate was catching up with me.
That night I slipped out of our room and left the hotel. The still warm summer air laid like a blanket over the town, and our room lacked a functioning air conditioner. Teresa had managed to fall asleep anyway, and I had watched her for a while, trying to make a decision. I thought about how relaxed she looked, peaceful, sweat trickling down her skin. I thought about how brilliant she was, and how lucky I was for her to even notice me. And then I thought about the splash of the body in the river.
"She's a romantic," Jack had said.
Driven by a sudden feeling of urgency, I walked through the quiet town. Somewhere, a church struck two AM, and right after it finished another church did the same. I walked swiftly, despite the warm night air. I knew where I was going. I had a plan.
The museum came into view and I stopped for a moment to survey it. In front of it, a highly modern glass entrance, then a courtyard and then the old building, holding artefacts varying from arts to Roman remains to pottery. A local museum. Teresa had stared at it in delight, and had said she wanted to visit it.
She was a sucker for museums. I don't really remember how many of them we visited in Paris, but she always wanted to go in. And then she'd start telling me about the things she saw, the things she knew about them, and reading the cards, checking her facts. She knew an incredible amount of things and she had an amazing memory. I trailed her, mostly, listening to her, watching the amused glint in her eyes whenever she found something unexpected.
She also called the Mona Lisa boring.
Shaking my head at the memory, smiling a little, I made quick work of the museum's alarm system and entered, making sure I didn't leave any traces. I wandered through the museum for a while, trying to figure out what would interest her the most and finally settled on a collection of Roman jewellery. Perfect.
I opened the showcase, placed the ring next to an ugly bronze one and placed the card next to it. Then I closed the lid, admired my work for a moment and then made my way back to the window I had come through. When I closed it behind me, I suddenly felt watched.
The prickling in my neck caused an almost imperceptible break in my swift movement. Casually, I turned away from the window and walked along the side of the courtyard in front of the museum. My eyes swept the grounds, the buildings, the glass reception area, but I saw no movement in the deep shadows of the night. The feeling subsided somewhat and I chided myself for being paranoid. We were in a peaceful town in the middle of France, nobody knew where we were, nobody had a reason to watch me, other than to prevent me from breaking into the museum, and if they had wanted to do that, they'd have raised the alarm long ago.
Of course, paranoia had kept me alive all these years.
Dismissing that thought, I swiftly made my way back to the hotel and crawled back into bed next to Teresa.
We woke up late, managed to convince the manager of the hotel to let us have breakfast anyway and then left, holding hands. She looked refreshed, not as tired as the day before and I felt better too, even if I got little sleep again. She dragged me into the first shop that had women's clothes, and she bought a pair of pants, two t-shirts and shorts. I refused to follow her into the underwear section, instead wandering around a little, and finally buying a new t-shirt too. When we left the store, I tried to gently guide her to the museum.
My excitement grew. This was it. I was going to do it. I was going to formally ask her to marry me, even though we had only met two months ago, even though she thought my job was objectionable, even though compared to her, I was severely lacking in both cultural and scientific education. I knew she would make me a better person, she'd keep me on track. In return, I'd protect her from harm, always.
We rounded the corner of the Rue Anatole France, the street where the museum was, and I glanced at her nervously. She noticed something was up, because she raised her eyebrows at me. Somehow, the expression on my face must have convinced her that whatever it was, it was something nice, because she smiled at me.
We went up to the glass reception area, and I bought two tickets. Teresa was already staring at a leaflet, looking interested. The cashier waved us through, saying something like we were the only ones in the museum, which was only natural since it was again ridiculously hot outside. Nobody in their right mind would go to a museum on a day like this. Perfect.
We traversed the courtyard, and I had to restrain myself not to pull her along and rush straight to the Roman exhibition. I remember how the sun shone mercilessly down on us, the quiet of the place, I remember the look of anticipation on her face when I turned to look at her. She smiled, stepped forward and hugged me.
"Thank you," she said.
"For what?" I asked.
She just smiled. I grinned, stepped back and started turning towards the steps of the entrance again.
"Guh," she said.
Everything was still quiet, the courtyard was still peaceful. I started turning back in surprise. She stumbled, and I caught her. Next to me, a chip splintered off the stone banister of the stairs, and I became aware of a stinging pain in my right arm.
Instinct took over. Holding her close to me, I dragged her to the questionable safety behind the banister, then up the steps and into the darkness of the museum. A bullet hit the door frame just as I went through it, but since I had become a moving target, moving erratically from left to right instead of in a straight line, none of them hit. Inside, I moved out of the sunlight and into the shadow. Quickly, I checked the windows, but I could see only sky and trees through them. I was out of his line of sight.
Only then did I put her down on the floor, letting myself drop on my knees next to her. Her eyes were open, unseeing. Her chest was one big bloody mess. Gently, I rolled her over and checked her back. A small round hole, right next to her spinal cord. Whoever had shot her, had known his business. He had known exactly where to hit her, had waited for the right angle, and had pulled the trigger when one bullet would have killed us both if I hadn't moved so suddenly.
I let her down again and straightened her a little. Then, because it unnerved me, I closed her eyes. She almost looked asleep now, if you refrained from looking at her chest, which was kind of hard to do. I touched her forehead, thinking about the great mind that had now stopped, and wiped a stray strand of hair out of her face.
Somehow, I should feel something.
Quick footsteps brought me back to the present, and I blinked. I hadn't realized my mind had wandered, thinking about walking along the Seine, explaining to her that she had to at least act as if I was her boyfriend if we were going to pull this off, about lunch in the park with wine out of a carton, about her excitement whenever she discovered something new.
"Mon Dieu... Qu'est ce qui s'est passé ici?"
I looked up. A man in a black suit was standing there, wringing his hands. The hair on his balding head was comically combed over the bald spot in the middle, and for a moment I wanted to laugh. I managed to stop myself though, because I didn't want to appear hysterical.
"She's dead," I said, "Elle est mort."
I got up, keeping a careful eye on the door and the windows. Then I looked down on Teresa, absent-mindedly stroking my wet t-shirt. I looked down, and saw that it was covered in blood. Most of it hers, but some of it definitely mine, judging by the stinging pain in my arm and the side of my chest.
"You are 'urt," the man said, obviously the manager, not some museum guard.
A wave of nausea washed over me, but I suppressed it. Suddenly, I grabbed the man's arm and dragged him away from the still form of Teresa. No, not Teresa, she wasn't there any more. Just an empty shell, a corpse, a collection of meat and bones. That what had made Teresa Teresa, her brilliant mind, her smile, her passion, that was all gone. I rushed to the stairs, and, when the manager started protesting and resisting, simply turned around and stared. That silenced him.
On the second floor, at the Roman exhibition, I walked directly to the showcase where I had planted the ring the night before. It was still there, gleaming next to the old and weathered Roman artefacts. I let go of the manager, placed my hands on the showcase and stared down at it.
I wasn't sure what I was doing here. I think, initially, I had planned to get it back, to hold on to it, but now, looking at it, I didn't know what to do. I didn't really need it any longer, taking it with me was useless. Better it stayed where it was.
I shifted my feet. My hand almost slipped from the showcase, and I noticed I had left a bloody print on the glass. Behind my back, the manager was slowly backing away from me.
"Stay right where you are," I said, not bothering to repeat it in French.
Painfully, I straightened. My arm was throbbing, the side of my chest was burning, and I felt a slow trickle of something warm trickle down my side and right arm. The bullet that had gone right through Teresa had managed to do only minor damage to me, nicking both my chest and my arm. I turned around. The manager had stopped moving, looking at me fearfully. Briefly, I wondered what it was about me that scared him so much, but then I dismissed it. The most important thing right now was that he seemed to be inclined to do whatever I told him to.
A year later, the warm rain is slowly soaking me. Cars drive by, splashing the water up from the road, people with umbrellas look down at the ground, bend on getting inside a soon as possible.
Somebody enters the glass reception of the museum, coming from the courtyard that separates the reception from the eighteenth century building that contains the collections. A middle aged man with a black suit and a balding head. He speaks to the cashier for a moment, and then looks outside. I don't move, and he just stares at me. Then he turns around and leaves. He has seen me, knows I'm checking up on him, and he's going to make sure the ring stays right where it is. I feel no satisfaction in that, no triumph. It's just the way it is.
They had found us through Teresa's mobile. My mistake. I should have realized that the only thing they had to do was access the phone company's databases and check the last known coordinates of it. Every mobile can be tracked that way, it's a simple triangulation from the three nearest phone towers. Scorpia, being who they are, has access to any information they want, either by bribing or threatening the phone company employees. They pinpointed our position with an accuracy of less than a hundred meters. So in a way, it's my fault she's dead.
I watch the museum for a little while longer, but somehow I seem to loose purpose. The manager has seen me, the ring will still be there as a strange sort of tribute to the person who died there, and if my leaving the ring in that museum instead of taking it with me seems twisted, then so be it. I get up, glance at the museum one last time and then turn around and leave. I'm on my way to South Africa, another assignment, another job to be done. Life goes on.
We all have to live with our mistakes. Mine was thinking I could stop doing what I do best, and live a normal life together with an incredibly smart woman. Have a normal job. Children maybe, some day. Thinking that cost her her life. I don't need the ring to remind me what she meant to me, and leaving it there, for all to see and wonder what the card next to it means, satisfies some strange need in me to honour her.
Not because I loved her.
But because I didn't.
I know I said I'd update this 'later', but I got distracted by some other stories and then I fell asleep (not because of the stories, but because I was tired). Thanks for reading, whoever had the courage to read an Alex Rider romance story, and thanks to my reviewers:
Chaos Dragon, darkmoon666 and Emmy-loo
Roanne really exists, and so does the museum (it was that one that immediately came to mind when I read the challenge). It's been a while since I've been there though and there's only so much you can get from google earth, so I hope I didn't do the place any injustice.
Thank you Chaos Dragon for bullying me into this, I mean graciously allowing me to enter your challenge/contest. (I won!)
And for the record, I do not use online translators. The French is horrid because my French is horrid. I'm trying though.