"This is an obsession, a kind of agression with himself
It's the way he'll always be
He loves to rebel to go against his ten commandments
For him, thats just being free"
M. Clayton // Lead Interrogator // ♦ var sc_project=11175170; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_security="d0c6c85f"; var scJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://secure." : "http://www."); document.write("");
She rather liked the way her sheer presence seemed to disrupt the austere manner in which his features were usually arranged, the ever-present distaste he held for almost everyone around him, occasionally disrupted by vague flecks of interest that would come and go. Years have made him even more arrogant, but it was a different shade of arrogance – sharper and self-righteously patronising. She couldn’t quite bring herself to pinpoint what it was exactly that she thought of him, other than the usual mistrust and animosity – Scarlett had always been a rational woman, an objective one – she knew and valued the virtues of her enemies, especially her enemies, and yet with him they only angered her. He was charming in that way women liked and men admired, in that way that made her pupils constrict and her jaw clench – he was hubristic and disdainful and effortlessly so, that it was positively infuriating. She only smiled. “Tell me dear, did you not recognise me before it was too late and I turned around, or have you become suicidal? I see no other circumstance under which you’d approach me willingly.”, the words were uttered so pleasantly that the underlying threat would’ve gone unnoticed by anyone else, but Scarlett didn’t give him much time to mull over it. She preferred to keep their conversations quick-paced, perhaps because the threats were only half-serious, and perhaps because she enjoyed the fact he was able to follow her pace. “Seven men.”, she said vaguely, turning her eyes back to the crowd and observing it with disinterest, “Seven of them have tried to start a conversation in past… hour or so, six of them walked away with bruised ego and the seventh is right over there still lurking and waiting for me to shoo you away. Now…”, her eyes lingered on the man before she looked back at Clayton, “Since I admire your gall, and since pretending to be French is starting to bore me, I’ll give you the option to leave before I bruise your ego too…. or you can stay. You seem to get off on the whole, tempting the beast, playing with your life thing, and who am I to deny you the pleasure? Besides, however tragic it sounds, even you are better company than those idiots over there.” By the time she had finished speaking, her voice had gone from that weary, half-annoyed drawl to something that dangerously edged towards amusement, still a bit menacing, almost daring – but certainly inviting. She would never admit to it, of course, she preferred to think of it as a way of establishing control in this situation and ignore the fact that she was strangely thrilled by the way air between them suddenly felt electrified and she rather liked the taste of danger that came with the two of them… talking.
His words were picked out carefully, not that it surprised her, but the fact she made him uncomfortable enough to watch what he was saying more than he usually did, the fact that the arrogance he usually wore so effortlessly, now didn’t seem as certain (it was still there of course) – it made her tilt her head slightly, the corners of her lips slightly upturned without her even trying to suppress the desire to smile. The liquid in her glass swirled in sync with elegant movements of her wrist. She didn’t say anything at first, her eyes trained on his long enough to notice there was something intense in the way he looked back, that same inexplicable desire to see what was going to happen next, and instead of speaking she broke eye contact suddenly with a soft bubble of chuckle that escaped her lips. “Is that what I was like? Oh come on, don’t be so theatrical, Clayton, you paint me as if I were some irrational murderous maniac on a rampage. That was one time and I was in a hurry. I suppose I could’ve just had one of them shot and the rest would’ve scattered, but I wasn’t in the mood.”, she seemed to contemplate the memory for a moment, albeit without losing the look of amusement on her features, “Besides, those friends of yours were lowest of the low, I did the world a favour by having them shot, and to you too – or at least that nose of yours. Really, all that meaningless fighting was a waste of a perfectly good face. You were too green, back then, you wouldn’t have been able to take on all five of them at once. Besides, it was my way of introducing myself to you. Made quite an entrance, wouldn’t you say?” It was back when James and her first picked Clayton out of the crowd, one of the first field missions James approved after he thought her trained enough, and even that wasn’t without a few snipers tailing her at all times. In all fairness, she did signal the snipers to take them down just for fun, simply to exercise power, but it worked – for all his youthful arrogance, Clayton listened. “It was a tactic of a sort. I killed all of them, let you know I could’ve killed you too, right there and then, if I wanted to. But then I offered you quite a deal, and made you feel like you had a choice. So it wasn’t entirely without a purpose. Oh darling, it’s no wonder you hate me so much now, I was such a bloody bitch.” She was smiling again, not one of those quivering smiles in the corners of her lips, but a full-fledged grin that didn’t disappear even as she tipped her glass back to take a sip, her eyes never quite leaving his. The smile wasn’t there to mock him, though she did enjoy reminding him of the amount of power she had over him then, it was there because she genuinely felt amused by the memory of both of them, still oh so very young and oh so very violent. These days she never really had a chance to talk, or even think, about her past, and Clayton was a living proof it was more than a formless memory – she liked that. “You’re not wrong, for sure. But I don’t waste bullets anymore - I’m a killer, not a murderer, there’s a difference there, and I am a one-woman army – much more efficient, you’ll find. Come on, darling, killing is an art, and I rather enjoy the chase – why would I just give all that up?” She had stopped speaking then, and as she did, her eyes roamed his features with a half-hidden curiosity – she was almost shocked to find that he was smiling too. Scarlett was used to those hostile displays of sardonic amusement with him, shark-like smiles with underlying threats and bad intentions – but right now, by the way his features were arranged and his eyes trained on her, she sensed that he was on the verge of almost grinning. It wasn’t like she could explain why she noticed this, or what on him gave it away – it was just a feeling she got, and it was the reason why the smile on her lips didn’t fade right away, or turned sharp and hostile again. It was then, and with a vague feeling of something more akin to genuine amusement than a haughty sense of success for luring the smile out herself, that she realised it was entirely out of his control too.
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His eyes were quick to witness her predacious tendencies: from the way she plucked the words from her lexicon as if it were a garden, the very words that she chose to ornament their conversation with. Through that garden she meandered in a rather smooth, serpent-like manner, the fluidity of her movements incapable of causing any commotion at all, except for assembling a meticulously arranged armada of darts by a single touch: her words – the darts – flew to their designated places on her command, thus stinging exactly where she wanted them to sting. She toyed with her choice of: teasingly tugging on the very petals, thorns, and buds of the flowers that inhibited her garden, serving comments and explanations necessary for the upbringing of the amicable flow of their conversation. The flickering gleam of her eyes had then perhaps reminded him of the almost mythical past they shared: he had seen her orchestrate an army of people as if they were instruments, just the way she effortlessly instrumentalized her words: carefully, then all at once. The unnerving approach she held and how she chose to wield her words all while maintaining the indecipherable yet seemingly entertained, amused composure rendered him atypically dubious, trying to predict what exactly she had on her mind yet facing nothing but a revelation that took the form of an enormous, ghastly question mark that reappeared each time in his mind when he attempted to decode her thoughts. His eyes grazed the shape of her head, inquisitively scanning as if he was searching for an entrance inside.
While still on familiar grounds that comprised of teasing and threatening, the skeletons in their closets rested peacefully, undisturbed whilst they played pretend in an environment that they had never found each other in before. The clattering of the champagne glasses, the jocund spirit of the gilded upperclassmen that exchanged empty words, thoughts and ideas but not without a glance in Scarlett’s direction, at least once, all entranced by the presence of the woman in a way that Mitchell did not allow himself on a conscious level. There was, perhaps, a rotting bit of sanity left in that mind of his, that opposed the death chase that he was painfully enamored with and restrained his suicidal impulses. There, perhaps, was not much of it left once the sacrilegious comment was poured out of his mouth. His hand stood extended, the silver lighter nestled in his grip as he anticipated her reaction. The obvious absurdity of his unnecessary remark rang with the magnitude of ten thousand church bells, perhaps signifying the hour of his funeral, while her eyes transitioned from the lighter to his eyes. The very concept of time started to decompose once they eyes aligned. He ceased simply existing, being, captivated by the depravity of time progress, efficiently reined by the brisk, hypnotizing and ravishing eye contact that came into existence between the two of them while leveling out the shock of her touch upon his skin. Her hand burned him. The sheer shock caused by the unforeseen physical contact between the two of them still remained unmanifested on the surface; his wrist now encapsulated by her significantly tinier hand, her long nails ferociously dug into his skin yet the pain that the pain that the contact might have evoked fell muted in the background, numbed by his incapacity to acknowledge it, as if he was having an out-of-the-body experience. The searing heat that waved through his body failed to sway him once he gathered his focus to remain inert, bearing a close resemblance to a marble statue to the point of suspending his respiration system almost completely. Standing on a precipice, almost driven into a stupor by her haunting glare (or was it more of a gaze? Unable to differentiate and discern which one of those it was, Mitchell was quick to realize that the intensity of stare left a myriad of imprints under his eyelids; where once darkness was when he would close his eyes, he knew that he was to find her cerulean eyes, each time he blinked), Mitchell’s pulse raged unceasingly underneath her nails, where little crescent marks were to be tomorrow; or perhaps, even little crescent-shaped cuts. The faint realization of the ill-fated uttered mistake echoed in the background of his brain, as a hint of reason tried to rummage through his thoughts, sieving for an ounce of rationality that would perhaps dive for a self-preservative reaction out of him yet the only thing that came was naked nothingness, shamelessly loitering about while his cardinal point of focus was fixated upon the unchanging arrangement of her features, the underlying threat beneath them tucked away and incomprehensible to his eye, yet very familiar to the pressure point of his wrist, where her nails were. Her ruthlessly and instinctively devised envelopment profoundly stunned him, rendering him incapable of recollecting any information yet once she decided to burst that little bubble of theirs that contained an eternity within itself, Mitchell darted an almost accusing stare in her direction. Yet another unfathomable reaction of hers followed – a simple “Thank you” in her smooth and silky voice gave him just enough time to regain the balance of his thought that he so desperately craved after the hypnotic eye contact was broken off. The lingering presence and evidence of the little incident was the very fact that her hand rested in the previous position, on his wrist, as he was growing aware of the sputtering, dare say, pleasing pain. Veiled in complacency, lulled into a delirium of his own conviction, Mitchell failed to realize that Scarlett was far from done with him; her nails retreating from the clawing position they were in and her fingers eliciting touch that was not necessarily meant to carry an undertone of gentleness within yet it was dissimilar to what he had felt before from her. Again, a burning-like sensation occurred where her fingers once were, and he cautiously watched her feline movements and for the first time recognized and consciously acknowledged the grace of her movements.
The lightning never strikes twice in the same place, they said. Yet when Scarlett Burroughs came forward with the ferocity of a tornado, enclosing the space that previously existed between the two of them, Mitchell became convinced that the lightning, would indeed, strike for the second time. Pulse rushed by her yet again unpredicted reaction, yet instead of commotion, painted on his face was a hint of an unholy matrimony between a hot fever and an anarchy of his thoughts, fused together ever so nicely that the vein on his forehead appeared as if summoned. The raging of his significantly syncopated heartbeat provoked by the sudden closeness of hers he so desperately ached to tone down yet in her glances he recognized similarities, however, undetectable due to the profoundly distracting nature of the words she uttered. The very word honey spoken in her voice flattened the wrinkles of his enraged heartbeat significantly, not necessarily calming him but aiding him to achieve at least a level of cool-headedness. The patronizing, hauling manner that she addressed him in left him slightly bitter, alas, the position he found himself in required a certain elevation in his attitude in order to overcome it. The daunting roams of her hand underneath his bowtie and around it made him re-examine his position and how far exactly in centimeters was her weapon away from his aorta. The puerile and rather crude comment that he uttered suited much more the frat boy she mentioned before, but her comment accompanying the intrusion of his personal space roused the coals in the dormant heart of his, the fury resembling that of hers in amplitude yet controlled, seemingly unprovoked although as far as he knew that was what it seemed to everyone else but her. The sterile façade that he pleasantly bore, unchanging under any kind of pressure was only not at all Scarlett-proof, and she knew exactly which buttons of his to push. On a subconscious level, the fury that he encountered and could not reason out was due to the fact that he felt the frail images of countless, faceless women in the back of his mind fading silently, consumed by the inception of her. A remarkably unfamiliar sensation was lured out by her threatening presence, fiddling the strands of his thoughts around as she leaned in to his ear; at this point his mind was howling at her words, by the end of her sentences he felt as if he was thrown into a nebulous version of a world.
Once she withdrew passed a second that confirmed vacancy of the spot where she was in just a second ago; negative presence of emptiness between them staggered like betrayal, “I do think you know the answer to that,” the petulant child in him awoke once again, stirred into function by the ever so teasing comments that she baited at him only this time, he took the initiative and pierced through whatever comfort zone she had retreated into if there existed any, and at this point he doubted that, he doubted everything that existed in the same place as she did, and leaned in to whisper in her ear the following, “I checked,” his voice but a murmur, meant to send shivers down a woman’s spine yet he was unsure, for the first time, of his abilities to do so, his mind pondering the question of her immunity on him, “And, your dress? Frat boy fantasy material,” he uttered, pleased with the slight dominance shift, taking time to lean back, purposefully elongating and enjoying the coruscations flashing between them, his pearl string of a smile lured out by the sudden convulsion of confidence. Unsure of whether or not he had just signed a death warrant, Mitchell’s pulse however indicated the slow but sure to grip of the adrenaline drunken ride was getting stronger, thus he was able to at last recuperate the boyish air of nonchalance that he approached her with. As he retreaded, he proceeded to take out a cigarette of his own (and what said American more than Lucky Strike?), sneaking a glance or two towards her when he was convinced that she could not see him (with her head curved back, exposing her collarbones efficiently in the process of doing so as she exhaled the smoke from her lungs; the sudden scorching sensation stemming from the area where her nails were intruded his wandering gaze as if to remind him to retain his uninvited looks), and quickly and effortlessly even transferring his attention to a much less interesting activity, and that was lighting up his cigarette. Mitchell, a not so frequent smoker, exposed himself in front of her and in turn, he received criticism that made his eyebrows knit together, expressing his perplexity with the sudden poke, “What?” Uttered with an appropriate innocent facial expression, he continued, “I was far from aware that there was a wrong way of smoking a cigarette. Am I being blasphemous now?” By shifting the weight from one leg to another, he held the cigarette up and the sleeve of his shirt discreetly slid down, thus exposing the redness of the burning crescent moons that she left him with, “Would you do so much and indulge me,–” he inquired, yet before he had a chance to finish his thought, she volunteered to instruct him on how to smoke properly. Prompted to talk, Mitchell almost snatched an opportunity to prolong their strange encounter, not entirely deaf to her words either, “Monitoring,” his reply did not need the dose of enigma he dosed it with, yet that was the manner of replying that he was used to; instead of leaving it that way, he decided to continue, “For any… suspicious gang activity and on a much lighter note, trying to save myself from boredom,” he observed her now, with an exquisite excuse as he let his own cigarette burn; there were nineteen of then left in the pack. He had time. Once asked about his date, his eyes unwillingly detached from the sight of her to skim through the crowd with an elaborate squint in form of a frown, masking his reluctance to do so; as he looked and looked there wasn’t a face he recognized – all women looked the same. Blonde, tall, dresses all alike, there was no difference in makeup, no difference in their hairstyles or anything that could serve as a potential clue, “I cannot seem to locate her whereabouts,” he uttered half of the truth, with a shrug of his broad shoulders, relocating his attention from the crowd back to Scarlett, wondering if he would even remember he had a date had she not mentioned her, “Hunting, are you?” Something was whispering to him that the woman was not about to confess what she was doing in here and strangely so it seemed fine with him; her affairs were probably unrelated to their organization, since he had no memory of her being assigned to perform a job.
As she gracefully extended her arm in order to offer him the cigarette she was smoking, Mitchell once again noted her exquisitely aristocratic movements, sensing the subtle difference between the cultivation of them – she was nothing alike the American blue-blooded entourage that he encountered before; not allowing her to hold onto the cigarette a moment more than she needed to, he reached forward to take it from between her fingers, now careful not to make unnecessary physical contact out of pure precaution (or was it because he dared not elope in that electrifying direction without the absolute need of it?), her statement successfully luring out a guttural chuckle out of his throat, first of its kind for tonight, “I need not be convinced of that,” he was fast to take the cigarette out of her fingers and once a safe distance was established between the two, he took note of her curious cerulean eyes contrasted against the red that suited her so well, “After all, let us not forget that I had the pleasure of witnessing your operations,” A rather intrigued smirk followed his ambiguous statement as he brought the cigarette to his lips, the smell of her lipstick smearing inside of his nostrils, “Am I doing this right?” He did not need the validation yet it was entertaining to ask so as he was taking a drag out of the cigarette, the gleam in his eyes timidly flickering.
Times were tough. With David’s absence, Molly hadn’t barely been able to make rent. Scarlett had been amazing in helping the family, but Molly wouldn’t ask for money. Not if she could help it. So when one of her co-workers asked if she could cover a shift at a local bar, Molly obliged. Brandon was old enough to watch the girls, even if David wasn’t around. It was rather different to the restaurant she normally worked at, but Molly found herself falling into patterns easily. Service was service. The patrons here tipped well at least.
When a man sat down and called her over from where she’d been cleaning glasses, she put them down and walked over. “Whiskey? Sure thing. Any particular brand? Or just the house?” she asked, pulling out a clean glass. The man didn’t seem like someone too fussy, so she reached for the house whiskey– the cheapest– but didn’t pour yet.
His head was spinning from the moment he opened his eyes; he felt as if his every vein was filled with fluids full of needles, circulating the small metal particles throughout his body; to him it appeared as if those needles, once they made it to his head, were repeatedly nested in his brain. Hoping to steer the presence of a migraine away with liquor, he opted for whiskey (liquor would not have been his choice a year ago, per se, as he did his best to avoid mixing the substances; yet, his flirtation with death was skyrocketing lately and he had nothing but aspirations to continue it apparently), knowing that it’s going to sweep him into numbness shortly. The bartender was, Mitchell realized once their eyes clashed upon establishing contact, a young-looking woman who offered him a choice.
Choice. Her seemingly innocent question poked him into thinking about what he thought he did not have – a choice, a say in his addiction, as it spiraled out of control. A blank stare at the bottle might have tricked the woman on the other side of the bar into thinking that the man was conducting a debate on which whiskey should he have, yet, Mitchell’s train of thoughts appeared to be something entirely different. The wide-eyed, pleasant woman incepted an idea in his brain, that he was more than willing to follow; the one of an illusion of a choice. He was constantly juggling between “Straight for damnation” and “I can wrestle this”, never setting it as possible to actually abandon his addiction altogether. “The one you are holding in your hands is fine,” A small nod accompanied the uttered sentence as a heightened level of a confirmation, not entirely sure how would a different brand of whiskey aid him anyhow, “I hope it does not taste like rat poison, though.”
Her green eyes stared into her half full glass of some draft beer that Hadleigh couldn’t remember the name to. It felt like her head was splitting into two, skull cracking, skin tearing and it was all due to the coma that the raven-haired trainer had been in. The doctors said that over time the headaches would lessen, but at this point, Hadleigh was calling fucking bullshit. The doctors also informed her that her memories may come back, but yet her past was still like a blank canvas. Was it disappointing? Some may say it was, but at times – at times Hadleigh was grateful for the blank canvas. It gave her freedom. Freedom to rediscover herself, New York and the world she lived in.
Bruised knuckles softly knocked on the wooden counter, trying to get the bartender’s attention as her eyes were drawn to the front door of the bar. Her mind putting a name to face – Mitchell. It had been some time since the trainer had seen the lead interrogator.
Can I have a whiskey? No ice, please, Mitchell had asked the bartender right before Hadleigh was handed an ice-cold Bud Light. It was a cheap beer, but it was one Hadleigh found she liked, unlike the dark draft beer that she had just tried. Trying to re-figure out what she liked and didn’t have been both entertaining and fucking irritating to her. However, that was her life now.
“Mitchell.” Her voice is a little raspy from yelling at the trainees all day. A small smile greeted the fellow member of the Diamonds as she moved her black leather jacket and wallet to give him room to sit next to her if he so wished.
Seeing as there existed no pattern in the manner he chose the bar he found himself in, there was no need to assume that he would encounter a face familiar in a crowd such as; as somewhat of a surprise, he recognized the features of a fellow Diamond member, dark-haired woman by the name Hadleigh. Mitchell immediately responded to his own name being uttered and tried his best to assume a chameleonic kind of a role, to at least staple a ghost of a smile on his face instead of looking like a soul tormented viciously for over two hundred years.
The truth was, the past few weeks to him rang with Hell’s bells – and he was more and more convinced that Hell was not a location, a place you end up after you die, but that it was nothing more but a state of mind. There was not a need for torture devices to make the brittle bones crack; humans were perfectly capable of breaking on their own, and in doing so, they performed the devil’s work much better than he could. The chance meeting between the two Diamond members managed to put onto him an additional layer of confusion – he wondered whether or not Hadleigh was aware of how absent he was. “Hadleigh,” he responded back by the utterance of the woman’s name, reciprocating her own manner of addressing him. Usually, people addressed him by his last name (It was far more common to hear “Clayton” than his first name, to be honest), unless it was Isabella, who was his right hand, “I did not think I would see you here,” He confessed, feeling slightly dizzy about the situation. Truth be told, the man did not expect to see anyone that belonged to the gang, however, he had to play the cards he was dealt.
Everything around him is illuminated in the shades of violent orange and suffocating red, the lighting of the bar definitely serves as a change to what he was accustomed to previously – the comforting darkness of his own apartment. Mitchell’s movements toward the place next to Hadleigh are hesitant – it directly reflected him not being sure whether or not he was to regret leaving the area of his comfort. Once he sat down, he felt the chatter of the crowd fall into the background, which instantly makes him feel secluded, thus, more secure. As the bartender brings him his order over, his eyes make some sort of a target out of the glass – the alcohol in it he perceived as a mind-numbing medium. Suddenly, he felt more at ease with being where he was. “Expecting anyone?”
Isabella braced herself for a straightforward, yet vague response. It was something she expected from most people—after all they did their best to mask the truth from her. Like she knew them, they knew her and find it difficult to divert her attention elsewhere. She is observant and quick on her feet with keeping the interactions going, even if her companion chooses to be closed off. Respect was something that needed to be earned, but at the same time she knew when to reciprocate that notion and leave them be. However, in this case with Mitchell, she wasn’t going to let him off her case that easily. Not after the month they’ve been having with David’s captivity and how both sides were going to move forward from there.
For the most part, Isabella had been holding down the interrogation division during her boss’ absence. Of course Devlin was there, but she didn’t want to overwhelm him with so much work, especially with his own personal issues that he’s been going through. The weight of what they do needed to be in the hands of someone who’s stable and can endure the long hours, has the capability of being patient, calm and collective on what to do next. Taking on the ‘minor’ responsibility wasn’t new to Bella, especially since she’s worked closely alongside Mitchell.
—Home.
Isabella frowned, “Must be nice.” she dryly commented as her attention diverted to the martini that was being delivered to her. Once she had it in her hands, she took a huge gulp of it, before setting the glass back onto the bar counter and turning her body to face Mitchell. “So you’re telling me this whole time you were home?” A light hearted laugh escaped her lips as she clasped her hands together before setting them on her lap while sitting up straight. Now this she found interesting. “So what have you been doing? Aside from the occasional sleeping, eating, pissing and shitting. Binge watching Netflix perhaps? Picked up a hobby?” She may sound like she was out of line, but she was simply asking for the truth. Mitchell’s absence was certainly a great concern for her and it didn’t help that she was left in the dark for not knowing where and what he was doing. Lying was a trait that she definitely was good at, therefore having to reassure the rest of the interrogation team that there was nothing to worry about when she herself didn’t even know if it were true was an excellent lie that made it all convincing.
“David’s back.” she immediately replied while her expression dropped into a serious one. She then turned her body back so that she was facing the bar and resumed drinking her martini. “Scarlett, Darcy and I were part of the extraction team. No casualties, we got in and out.” She tightened the grip on her glass, before letting out a tired sigh. “He’s pretty shaken up, but he’ll survive for the most part…Don’t know how Wren will handle the fact that he had given up information.” With an unamused look, Bella looked over at her boss and said, “Aside from the team questioning where the hell you’ve been and me trying to cover your ass, so far that’s the major thing that you missed.”
Only when he heard Isabella’s dry response to the word home did Mitchell realize the weight of his words and as a consequence, his conscience was jolted back into the spinning reality. There he was, sitting in the bar, sticking out like a sore thumb, with an incorporeal facial expression offering little to no evidence to his most trust associate on why he was smitten off the face of the Earth for the past few weeks. He dared not look at Isabella; not because he was afraid of the wrath, fury or anger that he believed she was harboring for him, but because home probably was not an option for her. Home was probably an abstract term in the period of his absence to her. A rather new thought was introduced to his unobstructed, usual flow of the mind: for the first time in weeks, he placed someone else above himself. His eyes were still closely fixated upon the brim of his glass, silent as he was preparing to face whatever it was that was awaiting for him in Isabella’s eyes.
Disappointment, disapproval, anger, rage, the endless list of negative feelings arranged systematically in his mind – sentiment upon sentiment, Mitchell began to realize that it was exactly what he deserved. The progression of his drug abuse made only a fertile ground for abysses of self-worth, for weakness, a particular set of qualities that the man did not find easy to tolerate in the people that he surrounded himself with, and yet there he was, feeling as the exact embodiment of it all, of what he found easy to render null and void before. Upon hearing Isabella speak, there were things that he was surely unprepared to find – was that… shock he was hearing? His peripheral sight allowed him at least a glance at the woman’s movements, and he saw the veracious articulation of her feelings. It was no exhibition or a show – whether they liked it or not, the two of them knew each other, perks, movements, habits, quirks and all, due to spending a certain amount of time over the past years together, working aligned – he knew that it was her purest expression of disturbance. The irritation displayed by her would have made him chuckle, it certainly did make him feel a little lighter at the heart yet at the same time, it bore along a heavier counterpart – he did not expect her to be concerned. Guilt kicked in as if it was injected by a carefully stung syringe, clawing at his skin and he knew, then at that very moment when he detected genuine concern that he was, in fact, doing something more of a collateral damage. He insisted on the demons that plagued him being wholly personal, hidden – not to other people of course; his addiction was there, ubiquitous as air – yet he failed to see how this could possibly affect his professional career. The people around him. “Netflix? No, no…” He snorted out, the reaction immediately followed by an immense itch in the area of his nose, “I was…” What? Merely dwelling in the lair of his addiction, purposefully committing his body to it, would be the correct answer, “I had a few things to sort out.” He was aware of the fact that Isabella asked the questions that she had to ask, not because she solely wanted to stick her nose into the realm of his privacy, and he respected that – hence the choice of kinder words that he spluttered out. It was not much of an explanation – hell, it was nothing, thin air, he was aware, but it was the best he could do. For now.
David’s back.
He knew that it would creep up on him, eventually – the dire need to crawl back to work, that the dormant part of his brain would eventually be bolted out of the self-imposed nap, yet the words that Isabella served him with triggered a particular tension that remained unfelt in a long time. Gave up information? A rusty alarm awoke in him; panic, yet not panic over the fact that his hands were shaking after few doses too much, it was rather a sleeping beehive of thoughts being poked at. “What the fuck?” He turned to her, finally being face to face. Once his eyes met hers, he knew that an apology and a thank you were long overdue.
The bathroom in HQ might as well be plated with Isabella’s name on it as it was usually her spot where she’d get ready instead of it being in the comfort of her own home. It’s the price she pays when both herself and her husband work in the same vicinity and decide to make plans together for date night. With New York’s traffic, the price of gas, and timing is of essence—there was no point in going back and forth, when they have the convenience of HQ’s resources.
Fixing her up-do, Bella allowed some strands of hair to fall in order to frame her face, before returning her attention to her make up. Just a few touch ups here and there, and she was all set to go. After packing her belongings, she made her way to her office and stored them inside, before taking her purse and jacket to go. Bella wanted to treat Ace to a dinner date since it was long over due. Any chance at normalcy that they could get, the two were willing to take up on it rather than allow it to pass by. While she was in the elevator heading to the lobby, the interrogator slipped on her wedding ring and pulled out her phone to see if he had messaged her.
And to her disappointment, he did.
“Dios mío.” muttered the brunette as she furiously typed a response. She wasn’t mad at him, if anything Bella was mad at timing, at the sacrifices they needed to make for their cause. She understood the importance of his role in all this, but it was times like this that it just wasn’t fair for the both of them. In no way did she ever make him feel bad for choosing work over her because she knew Ace and he would do anything to get out of it. She understood that on this particular day, she would have to suck it up and accept the outcome of it. Stuffing her phone into her purse, Isabella paced back and forth as she decided on what to do next. There was no way she was going to waste a perfectly good outfit since all that time and effort wasn’t worth going straight home. Therefore, after making a decision, she finally exited the building and took a taxi to the nearest bar for she needed a drink asap.
Upon arrival, brown hues scanned the vicinity for a vacant seat and once Bella found one, she mentally called dibs on it as she weaved through the crowds of people, before finally taking her seat. Noticing who she sat beside, Bella raised a brow and called out to Mitchell by saying, “Long time no see, glad to know that you’re alive and not MIA.” Removing her jacket, she then laid it onto her lap, before placing her clutch onto the counter and holding a hand up to signal the bartender that she was ready to order. “Vodka martini, please and thank you.” She noticed the jewelry on her ring finger and sighed as she decided to remove it and place it in her special case that she kept in her clutch, before returning her attention to her boss. “I’ll skip the part where I tell you how worried I was cause that’s a no brainer, but where the hell have you been?” she inquired as she narrowed her gaze. She respected Mitchell, but the long duration of his disappearance left her and the rest of the interrogators in the dark. Although they were capable of doing their jobs, there was only so much they could do and for the most part, they also needed approval—their boss’ approval.
The changing of the atmosphere did elevate his mood significantly; it managed to put him into some kind of a context, instead of him feeling as if he were palely loitering about and all while attributing no exceptional meaning to himself. He enclosed his fingers around the clear glass he was served whiskey in, he lifted it up effortlessly in air to motion a swirl and watched the liquid glide in a perfect manner inside of it, all while his thoughts roamed seamlessly. It was to be one of his good days, he somehow felt the striking contrast between his past few weeks and today; he felt the weight of aimless days and nights being erased, and although he was aware it was all temporary, it felt good. Bringing the rim of the glass close to his lips, his nostrils widened in order to absorb the familiar smell of the chosen alcohol – in all truth, Mitchell expected the smell to evoke a distinct level of abhorrence due to his liquor abuse and mixing with heavy narcotics lately, yet it went almost unnoticed (his stomach did react but it was a craving of a different kind; a signal that he had not eaten in a long, long time) and he was able to freely take the first sip of his drink.
Expectations paved paths for disappointment and disappointment only – there was an almost frivolous excitement in him, as he expected the caramel-colored liquor to burn its way down his throat, to ignite a fire in his lower stomach, to make him shiver or at least, move. There was nothing. Nothing but disappointment. The liquor went down to its destination, a shadow of a feeling that it once brought out of Mitchell (maybe the whiskey was bad?); an inch away from yet another brooding mission, he was pulled out just on time by a voice familiar and unexpected.
The self-imposed trance that Mitchell was experiencing was cut off by the appearance of one of his closest co-workers – Isabella Lawrence. In all fairness, he was not eager to talk about anything that he was going through (a cycle of cravings and withdrawals that he so painfully wanted to grasp) but he did stumble across a feeling so strange upon Isabella’s arrival: embarrassment. Usually clean-shaven, or with a well-groomed stubble, Mitchell now looked way out of the ordinary for himself: he had a five days old scruff, his hair was untrimmed and he was pale in the face, almost ghost-like. Immensely thankful that she chose to ignore the obvious and approached him with an attitude that had no crap taking plastered all over her words, Mitchell decided that t was fair to be honest with her. “Home,” he muttered, his voice still raspy as a consequence of a few silent weeks; it was the truth – he did not move from the apartment for quite a while, “I should have notified you, sorry,” his half-assed apology was spoken a little quieter, because he did truly not know what to say and how to respond. “Did I miss much?” He asked, still staring in front of himself and not daring to turn and face Bella, not yet. Scared what he might find in her look, Mitchell decided it was better to wait it out. Ease into a conversation (it would help him readjust and maybe, just maybe gain some control and confidence over the situation that was slipping, and slipping away), try to sell his absence as a sick-leave or something, anything, even though he knew it would never work with her. Transparent was how he felt. As another sip of his drink travelled through his throat, he wondered if the liquid could be seen through the paleness of his skin.
The state of Mitchell’s apartment was habitually spotless – a clear reflection of the state of his thoughts, everything needed to be neatly organized and in its own place. It all went back to even pillows on the couch – they all had their own place. It spoke volumes about the man that lived there – an undenounced thirst for control, the need for immaculate organization and the desperate longing for the clarity of the mind – and yet, now, the apartment where Mitchell dwelled looked nothing like it usually did. Remnants of something that resembled food once upon a time were left to their own business of deteriorating on the counters of his kitchen, piles upon piles of dirty dishes clogged the usually impeccably clean sink, and the absence of light made the whole situation look grimmer than it perhaps was. The heavy curtains were knit together in a rush, allowing a shy stray of light in enough to illuminate the mess he made; just enough light to allow him to see how far he actually came.
He lazily emerged from his room, leaving behind the warmth of his bed sent a light wave of shivers up his spine as his feet touched the cold floor. The very sensations and the fact that he was still able to deduce between cold and warm served as solid reminders that he was still sentient, there, existing and aware, more or less, instead of devoured by the vicious cycle of habits that he had fallen into – his flirtation with cocaine had prolonged over the years. Was it finally catching up on him?
The perpetual grip of lethargy after a high began to feel like something so common to him, mundane, ordinary, something that he was ready to come home to, something that he was ready to grasp and not let go for a short amount of ecstasy. Ecstasy began to be debatable too; it was not as it used to be; all the symptoms were there: elated heart rate, feeling drunk on supremacy, an immense alertness, and no appetite for anything and an enormous drive to do things, but it just felt as a vague shadow of what it used to be. Was he getting too used to it? He was beginning to spiral down, he was losing control and all of it was visible in the place he called home.
Enough.
The word seemed to radiate through the man’s very skull and it interrupted his thoughtless stream of consciousness. Enough. He stopped aimlessly walking and hopping over empty bottles of alcoholic beverages that he had put in his system over the course of the previous week in his ill-lighted apartment. Enough, he heard the calling of his mind again – a familiar feeling, wasn’t it – he knew that it was one of many ups in his bumpy ride. Not a permanent one, but it made him more or less aware, finally, aware.
And just like this, he swiftly responded to the stimulations of his brain, to the sudden urge to walk out of the gloom-ridden space (he knew he’d come back to it; he knew there was no other way; and he knew he did not want to think of it now) and stormed into the closet, picking out the plainest of his corporate-white shirts, and a pair of black jeans (ordinary, normal, mundane, he needed to fit in, he needed to look just fine, peachy) and set himself on the way to the nearest bar. He headed to melt in the crowd of nameless, faceless people, to lose a little bit of his mind tonight, at least the heavy particles of it, in a meaningless discussion with an unimportant stranger. He pulled the doors of the bar apart and allowed himself to get acquainted with the atmosphere inside: it was not too rowdy (or maybe it was; he spent a vast amount of time locked away in his apartment – he was rusty with deciphering normality), the cool air welcomed his unadjusted face inside, and he remembered not to look so tense. It took him a moment or two, as he was approaching the counter, to readjust his facial expression – a statuesque frown that dwelled on his face completely deformed his face, aged him significantly, and it took an effort to pull it down in order to obtain something that looked more… relaxed. “Excuse me,” his hand lifted a little in the air in order to call the bartender; he cleared his throat immediately after uttering the words and realized that he had not heard his own voice in quite some time, “Can I have a whiskey? No ice, please.”
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