Now We Are Free - Chapter Six

Everything Falls to Pieces

    That was all Dez caught before she had bolted out of hearing. It was awfully hard to run in flats. She darted around corners and through halls, stuffing to the jeweled clutch into her own purse. Oh no! the elevator! Wrong way, they would be coming up those! She skidded to a stop and smashed one of the buttons to go down. A ding sounded from the elevator beside her just as her elevator doors rolled open. She dashed in and rammed the down button. But too late!

    Six burly security guards poured out of the elevator next to hers and one caught his hand in her doors just as the were about to close. The doors rolled back to reveal a very trapped secretary. Dez couldn’t fake herself out of this one. It was obvious who she was. She couldn’t even give them a name without being found out. The one on her badge was already taken. She had failed miserably! The agency was going to hear about this, and if the agency could bail her out of jail for fraud and theft, they would send her back to Basic and wipe her memory.

    All of this had gone through her head before the first security guard stepped into the elevator. Their expressions were blank and grim. There would be no help from them. Just as she was about to appeal to their better side, if they had one, glass shattered and sprayed as a window behind them was smashed through. All six of them whirled around to face the man dressed in black who had flown through the glass. Dez recognized his tall well-built figure immediately. It was Tav! It didn’t matter to Dez why he suddenly showed up, she was just glad that he did.

    Two of the security guards rushed him, and two faced Dez in the elevator; the final two still too shocked to do anything.

    With a new hope rising in her heart, Dez’s mind switched from despairing to fight mode. These fellows would take much to bring down. In moments both security guards were on the floor and Dez gingerly skipped over them to join Tav by the window. Tav had easily took down the four who came his way.

    He grabbed her arm and locked his around her waist as he pulled her to his chest. He did something with his vest that she couldn’t see and asked, “Ready?”

    She barely had time to say, “Yeah,” before he jumped out the window and they were racing up through the air, the glass exterior reflecting their strange silhouettes.

    Dez caught her breath when she realized that she didn’t have a harness of her own. She clung tighter to Tav. He laughed. She scowled. It was all just fine and dandy when he was the one with the harness. In her indignation, one of her shoes (which she somehow managed to keep on this entire time) slipped off her foot and fell to the street below. Dez didn’t dare watch it descend.

    Before long, they were on the top of the roof, Dez limping undignified over the tiny pebbles, and Tav collecting his gear into various pouches in his vest and pants. Once he was done, he glanced over at Dez, absorbing her appearance in civilian clothes. She looked good. But that was beside the point. “Where are your clothes, Dez?”

    She met his steady gaze, trying to mask her true feelings under an air of indifference and professionalism. But inside was chaos. She had failed and she knew it. Tav was disappointed in her. He had come to her rescue once, but she doubted that he would defend her in front of the committee. She was a failure. “Mayla. I got these from her.”

    “Okay. Let’s go.” He turned abruptly, grim with his own thoughts.

    Dez watched him turn, and her heart broke inside. He was disappointed in her and had every right to be. How could she ever regain his trust, his admiration? She wanted to run to him and beg for his forgiveness, plead that he would show some favor on her. She wanted to say something. But no words came to mind. He had abandoned her at the very time she needed him the most. She was alone and ashamed.

    Head lowered, Dez limped after him, back to the edge of the roof.

    They made the trip across the city in complete silence. Every second of it tortured Dez. She couldn’t concentrate on what to do and made all the more mistakes because of it, heaping more shame and embarrassment on her head. Tav silently corrected her. She could barely look him in the face.

✧✧✧

    There was an apartment flat on South 59th Street that was sorely in need of a new paint job, a good scrubbing and general maintenance. All it’s occupants were much like the home they lived in. You could be sure to find that none of them had an honest living and all were poorly dressed, tattooed and on some drug or another.

    This was the kind of place Dez had in mind when she first heard about “Mayla.” She was very much surprised when she was directed to Boulevard Ave. in the center of the Uptown district. Here the apartments were fine residential areas with even finer residents. All had their own honest livings in the business realm with comfortable wages and, therefore, comfortable lives. And Mayla was among them. She was an attractive young lady, maybe mid thirties, running a legitimate home business which payed decent, but not great. She also ran a second business that was less legitimate and made up where the other didn’t in funds and society. Mayla, of course, wasn’t her real name, but it was certainly the most well known.

    Each visit from her customers was kept confidential from others (unless there was extra money involved) and she never asked questions. She gave them what they needed, and they gave her what she needed.

    All this being said, it wasn’t long before Dez and Tav were in her back room where she kept all her costumes. Mayla had left them together with Dez’s agent uniform. Tav turned his back and Dez changed as quickly as she could. Once she was struggling her boots on, she started to speak. “Tav... I’m so sorry. I failed. I could have done better—”

    “Stop, Dez!” Tav whirled on his heel and turned his full attention on her. Dez shrank under his gaze. He continued, “Stop beating yourself up and throwing pity parties! That’s not going to help the situation in any way.”

    Dez’s pride was wounded already, but this didn’t help. Her anger flared up in defensive despair. How could he not understand? “How could this get any worse?! There’s nothing more I can do! I failed and am going to be wiped and sent back to Basic. And you hate me for it! What could possibly make this situation worse?”

    Tav’s facial expression softened and looked hurt for a moment. But then it changed back to his tense anger. “Are you ready yet? Cause the committee’s not going to want us to be late.”

    Dez melted again. He still hated her and she could do nothing. He wanted to take her back, cause that what she deserved. She stood, defeated.

    Tav jerked the door open to find Mayla busily flipping through papers on the other side of the room. She walked over to them, pleasantly concluded business (Tav paying more for the lost shoe), and showed them to the door. Tav walked briskly down the hall to the elevator. The doors rolled together and Tav pressed the button for the roof.

    Dez looked at his hand, then at his face. Still stoney. She gulped. Was this a change in plan? Maybe the agency didn’t want her back? She could see it now, the headlines for tomorrow’s paper: GIRL FOUND DEAD IN STREET AFTER SUICIDE. No one would know who she was, there would be no family to contact, just a story in a paper.

    But Tav wouldn’t do that, would he? They were friends, and had been for years. But the agency never encouraged any relationship, stay reserved, unattached. It certainly looked like he would do it.

    The elevator dinged their arrival and the doors rolled back. Tav grabbed her arm and dragged her out onto the roof. This sealed Dez’s earlier fears. Her eyes darted around and caught on the crimson and scarlet sunset streaking the horizon and sky. It looked all too much like blood to her.