Agent for a Cause (The Agents for Good), page 6
I reached out and grasped several strands of her damp hair and looked her directly in the eye, “I like your hair down.” I said firmly.
Her gaze turned a little bashful and she said, “Okay I’ll wear it down more often for you then.”
“I’d like that.” I responded with.
“Well Mister Tyre I would very much like to start kissing you again. Won’t you come in?”
The minutes passed into hours as we kissed. We were both shaking with how much we wanted each other. Anna drew back and rested her forehead against my shoulder and groaned aloud with frustration.
She pushed back from me and her eyes were pleading as she asked, “When are you going to make an honest woman out of me Tyre? This is torture!” She said as she held her ring finger up in the air beseechingly.
It had been the opening I had been waiting for. I fumbled the ring out of my pocket and into my hand and reaching up I slid the ring down her finger before she knew what was happening. She stared in shock at the glittering display of the diamond ring on her finger. She was breathing hard in fact it was close to hyperventilating and I was beginning to wonder if I needed to go get a bag!
She looked at me with her heart in her eyes, “Really?”
“Yes!”
It was like she couldn’t believe it even though I’d told her and the proof was on her finger. Her hands seized my head then and she began to kiss me harder than ever before. She pulled back from the kiss, her eyes passionate and I saw her fingers rise to start undoing the buttons of her shirt.
Breathing heavy my hands settled over top of hers and stopped them. Her eyes questioned me and I responded, “I can wait. I think we should wait.”
Her hands fell away and she leaned forward against me again and whispered, “Me too.”
I rubbed her back as I held her against me. “How does 3 p.m. at the courthouse in two days from now sound to you?”
“You’re serious?” She exclaimed excitedly.
“I’ve never been more serious before in my life!” I said in exasperation with her. I hadn’t given her a ring for nothing.
“That sounds divine Tyre! It’s a date!”
A sneaky look came over her face and in apprehension I awaited for her slyness to unfold. Her fingers closed around the back of my neck and I felt the noose tightening.
“You know in order to make this marriage legal I’m going to need to know your real name. Out with it secretive man!”
She had me I reluctantly had to admit. I had debated about getting married under one of my aliases, but I knew that wouldn’t fly with her.
“Nikolai Gravitausky.”
Her eyes widened, “Your Russian?”
I responded to her question with a sentence spoken in flawless Russian and her hand went to her mouth, “I had no idea!”
What did that mean?
“Me being Russian, is that a problem?” I asked suddenly unsure.
“Heck no! It just makes the mystery of you more captivating.” She leaned close and looked me directly in the eye with one of hers and in a conspiratorial tone asked, “You’re not a former Soviet spy are you?”
“I’m a little young for that don’t you think?” I responded with.
“You did not answer the question comrade! Are you a spy?” Her fake Russian accent was so terrible that it was comical.
I answered her in Russian. Her eyes alive with interested curiosity she asked, “What did you just say?”
“Now wouldn’t you like to know?” I said smiling.
“Hey!” She exclaimed punching my shoulder as I chuckled.
I rolled her off my lap onto the sofa cushions beside us and quickly slid over top of her pinning her to the sofa. Her eyebrows rose markedly, but her smile remained open and inviting. This was easily the most domineering that I had ever been with her and I could see that she liked it.
“Now Miss Anna Courtman soon-to-be Anna Gravitausky I’m going to kiss you for a little while longer, but then I must go for the evening. What are your plans for tomorrow?”
“I need to go collect some more things from my old apartment, but other than that not much why?”
“I have business to attend to in the morning and I just want to know where you’ll be.” I said before I started to lean down and kiss her, but the petulant look she gave me stopped me.
“What?”
“What did you say a little while ago in Russian? Please tell me!” She begged softly.
“I said that the green sparkling fire of your eyes reminds me of why it’s good to be alive.”
Her smile deepened and her eyes got smoky with passion. “Nikolai you forgot to ask me what I’ll be doing for the rest of the night after you leave.”
“What will you be doing?”
“Dreaming about what it will be like to become all yours in just two days.” She said huskily, as she pulled my head down for our shared kiss.
Chapter Seven
Seconds to Live
I got what I needed done a lot earlier than I had expected to. I’d made a rush job of it, because the idea of Anna going back to her old neighborhood didn’t sit well with me. I wanted to escort her there and back to ensure her safety.
She’d come to represent so much of my life that I really didn’t know what would happen if she were taken from me. She put the excitement back into living for me. I knocked on her door and after no answer I knocked again. Had she already left?
Anna was still cringing over how much the special daycare agency that she left Kevin with for the day had charged for their services. It didn’t matter that she could afford such care now it still felt wrong.
Daycare providers knew full well the leverage they had over people by and large and they appeared to be taking full advantage of it! She had only needed Kevin watched for six hours today, but she was being forced to pay for the entire week! It was robbery only under a different name in her book.
Such injustices had always rankled and even infuriated her. More often than not the perpetrators of these injustices were overlooked and allowed to continue on unchallenged. Free to continue raking in the money and dealing out abuse to people. That was why she devoted all of her time when she wasn’t working a job or spending time with Kevin to the effort of bringing to justice those who had hurt Kevin.
It wasn’t right what had happened to him and even now the same thing was still being done to thousands, if not millions of babies each year. It was doubtful that she, despite all of her efforts, would ever make any lasting impact, but she was still going to try because it was the right thing to do. As long as she was alive she would be a voice for Kevin and the growing millions suffering just like him.
It didn’t matter if no one would listen to her. She wasn’t stopping her work. A successful, meaningful life, came down to doing the right things in the time that was allotted for each to live. Her continued persistence in seeing that Kevin received justice was simply the right thing to do. Bill pulled up at the curb and she got out.
“Thanks Bill I won’t be long.” She disappeared into the building.
Apparently the clerk was still off nursing his hand and face as there was no one around the front desk. She opened the door to her room and felt a wave of relief course through her.
This dismal threadbare stretch of her life was over! Thank God because it had nearly been the death of her. She stepped forward into the room and a hand closed over her mouth hard.
She screamed against the hand and tried to pull free of its owner, but in a sickening clarity of peripheral vision she saw a hypodermic needle descend toward her neck and jab into it painfully. There was an instant burning sensation and her unknown assailant pushed her roughly to the floor.
What was happening? Had she been drugged? Her chest began to constrict painfully and she clutched at it. Through the pain her eyes fixed on her assailant. He wasn’t even looking at her, but instead was watching his wristwatch.
Rape must not be on his agenda then. Her pained gaze drifted from him to the half open door across the hall. Her eyes found the wide-open, but sightless eyes of Mrs. Reed, who lay dead on the floor of her apartment.
It was hard to breathe let alone talk, but she choked out, “Oh God!”
She’d been poisoned! She was dying! Who would look after Kevin? She didn’t want to die! Kevin needed her!
Her killer looked up from his watch and then at her dispassionately before he stooped down to pick her up. Dimly Anna recognized the dirty walls of the hall going by.
She couldn’t breathe!
Her body was jerking and all conscious thought was fading fast. She saw yellow. Bill! Bill would help her!
She got one glance at the yellow taxi before being slung into the passenger side of a sedan. Bill’s face was bloody and he was slumped over the wheel either unconscious or dead. Bill couldn’t help her and Tyre wasn’t here. Everyone was gone. Kevin was her last desperate thought. Who would pick him up from daycare?
I saw the man dump Anna into the car and I hurtled across the street smashing him into the front hood of the car.
He thrust back and bumped me back a few feet. He turned my way with a feral look, even as a knife seemed to materialize in his hand. He was a trained killer, but then so was I. I closed with him as a knife slid into my own hand from up my sleeve.
We were a flurry of motion and desperate hard fought action. He scored first with a bloody swipe across my forearm, but I had been baiting him and my incoming fist smashed him backward and into the car and as I stepped forward I rammed my blade into his groin, poised next to a main artery. He cried out in pain and savagely I grasped him by the hair and brought his head up.
“What did you do to her?”
His eyes focused on me and he sneered as he spit into my face. I had his answer. He wasn’t the kind that talked so I let the blade slice through the artery before twisting the knife savagely within him. He’d bleed out in seconds. As he lay against the car dying I rifled his pockets for information.
My bloody fingers found a bottle and I yanked it free desperately. I read the label, pantho acid, and cursed viciously. I threw it to the side and it shattered against the curb.
Oh God this was bad! I needed help if I was to save Anna. My eyes took in her still unconscious state. Maybe it was already too late!
My eyes caught a flash of light and then a sound. There was an ambulance several streets over. I acted swiftly on that life line. Jumping into the car I started it with the now dead killer’s keys and jammed it into drive. With a screech of spinning tires the sedan lurched forward churning over the body of the killer with a double thump.
I swerved around obstacles at breakneck speed until I saw a brief flash of light down a side street.
There!
The car was on two wheels as I swung around to go down the side street. The back end of the sedan threatened to outrace the front, but I counter steered it and soon my course was corrected only to have to repeat the steps again as I turned sharply onto the street the light had gone up.
The ambulance was several blocks ahead and I took off for it. There were blaring horns, as I raced around any obstacle in my path. Passing through an intersection an SUV caught the back corner of the car and spun the sedan completely around.
My elbow smashed through the driver side window with the impact, as most of the glass of the window landed in my lap. The car lurched forward again as I slammed onto the gas. I reached my hand across to feel Anna’s pulse, it was thready and barely there.
The ambulance was just ahead. There was an intersection ahead, the light flickered from yellow to red and vehicles began to stop even as more of them came turning into the oncoming lanes. There was no way through!
“Hang on Anna! Don’t leave me now!”
I swung the car into the narrow space between the two parallel parked cars along the street. I thought that the front axle of the car broke when it hit the curb of the sidewalk, but we kept going on.
People dodged out of the way frantically and flattened up against building façades as I drove down the sidewalk heedlessly. I took out a parking meter as I swung back into the street again. The car came down with a loud thump as the front end dragged pavement when we came off the sidewalk curb. I sheered the front corner off of a van and narrowly missed being hit by several other cars, as I dodged through the intersection.
I roared up behind the ambulance. They weren’t likely to stop for any reason with their lights flashing so I didn’t waste my time. I drove up alongside and brought the driver side door directly over into the front right corner of the ambulance with a crunch of metal and busted headlight glass.
The driver tried to swing away and avoid me, but I stayed with him herding him toward the protruding bulk of a Greyhound bus parked along the street. The ambulance screeched to a halt and I let the seat back and flipped over into the backseat. With my back against the seat I kicked up with both legs and popped the back window out of the sedan.
Crawling through I fell over the side of the trunk to the pavement. Gaining my feet I pulled a pistol and held it up as the driver of the ambulance who was swearing a blue streak approached me. Seeing the gun he stopped and his hands drifted upward. I was already moving for the back of the ambulance.
I threw the doors wide open with my gun prominently displayed. An EMT shrieked in fright as I viewed the occupants of the van. I really hadn’t wanted to endanger someone else’s chance at continued life by stopping the ambulance, but even if it did I’d do it again, if it meant saving Anna’s life. She had come to mean the world to me.
A boy of about twelve with what looked like a busted forearm stared at me his eyes huge as he focused in on me, especially the gun in my hand as all the pain he was experiencing was completely forgotten for a moment.
“Sorry kid!” I said by brief way of an apology before addressing the EMT, “Calcium di-sulphate get it now!”
She quickly got it for me and I ran to Anna’s side of the car. The calcium would neutralize the pantho acid that was triggering a massive heart attack within Anna. I hurriedly injected a full syringe into Anna’s arm.
I only hoped it wasn’t too late already, as her pulse felt like it was barely registering under the pressure of my finger at her neck.
“She should be in a hospital mister!” Said the ambulance driver peering over my shoulder at what I was doing.
I couldn’t have agreed more with him.
“I can take her along with the boy!” He said.
I voiced my gratitude and had started to scoop up Anna’s limp body into my arms, when I heard a screech of tires sound out further down the street. That would be the police most likely come to drag me away. I glanced over my shoulder just to make sure. It wasn’t the police.
A big black SUV was surging directly towards us. The killer must’ve had a backup team. I turned to the approaching SUV pulling my second pistol free as I did so. Sighting down both pistols in front of me I pointed them like I would my index finger and then I let them begin to talk.
The windshield shattered and the SUV swerved. As it swerved I shot out the inside tired and that combined with the erratic swerve helped flip the SUV over. It tumbled several times and landed on its roof.
I had replaced my clips with fresh ones while I watched the carnage of twisting metal and shattered glass unfold. I brought both pistols back up and began unloading them into the remaining live occupants of the mangled SUV. They would never bother my Anna again. I made sure of it.
I holstered both pistols and turned back to Anna. The hospital was out as an option now. I couldn’t risk Anna being there with only a patrol cop to guard her, while I sat in cuffs at the local precinct. Anybody with the money to hire trained killers like these could bump her off easy in a hospital room. She was safer with me.
I could hear sirens now. I felt Anna’s pulse. It was stronger and had a steady rhythm to it now. I scooped her up and made my way down an alley and within fifteen minutes I managed to disappear untraceably from the scene. Disappearing was one thing I was extremely good at.
I watched Anna begin to stir on the couch and I could hardly keep my anxiousness for her health at bay. Who would awaken and what would she awaken as?
She could have easily suffered brain injury or perhaps organ damage from such an experience. Would she even know me? Would she be able to take care of Kevin? I found that it didn’t really matter if any of those things were true, because I would take care of her and Kevin.
I so desperately wanted those sparkling green eyes to open and recognize me though. It was important. Why was it so important? Because I loved her and I wanted to be remembered by her as the one she loved.
Even if her memory was gone I would show my love for her by caring for her, even if she had no love for me. She stirred more and my fingers clenched harder together. Her eyes opened and took in the apartment before finding me. Tears started to well out of her eyes and her arms reached for me and I was suddenly on my knees holding her as she sobbed into my neck, her arms holding me tight the whole time.
She kept calling out my name going in between Tyre and Nicolai and then back again. Either was fine to me. I’d been Tyre for so long it felt strange to hear Nick sounded out again in reference to me. I held her and tried to calm her down.
“I thought I was dead! I thought I’d never see you again!”
I saw a look of horror pass across her features and I guessed the root cause of it and held her down as she tried to rise up.
“Kevin is fine! I found the paperwork for where you left him and since you made me as a contact for him I was able to pick him up. He’s in the other room playing on his iPad. I fed him some of that gluten-free stuff that you bought for dinner. You don’t need to worry about him okay!”
She relaxed back down to the couch. Her hand came up to touch my face and I grasped it lightly as I kissed her palm. Her eyes were completely naked with earnestness, showering me with unmerited affection.
