The Edge Of Justice

The Edge Of Justice Chapter 12

And here we are! New chapter of EoJ, specially written for NerdyNinja1. Enjoy, and please, comment your thoughts?

A few long minutes passed with my fighting to stay conscious; every time I breathed my side felt like it was on fire, cutting my breath short and making me gasp in pain, only causing more pain.

Finally, footsteps echoed behind me, and I swiveled on the chair to see what at first glance I thought was another Spectre holding the rifle that had saved my life. I looked a second time, more closely to see a few differences between their suits and this persons, and I blinked quickly, trying to clear my vision while the person reached up to his face, pulling the mask off. Green eyes that shone in the moonlight, and red hair that was muted in the darkness. I felt myself going under, and had time to voice a single question before I blacked out. “Katrina?”

“Christian,’ she nodded.

“That’s Sensei to you, young lady,” I growled, and then the blackness took me.

I came to with a dull whine pounding on my aching head. “Melissa,” I groaned, without opening my eyes. “That was a shitty dream.”

“It was no dream, Christian,” an unfamiliar voice answered, and my eyes shot open. A woman I didn’t recognize sat in a cream colored leather chair just opposite me in an oddly thin room. With one leg crossed over the other, she wore a black business suit, a lavender blouse peeking out between the lapels. Black hose with tiny holes in both knees came down from the barely thigh length skirt, disappearing into black high heels. A legal pad was balanced on one knee, held between her perfectly manicured fingers, while the other hand scribbled something with an expensive looking fountain pen. I reached to my shoulder to pull one of my throwing knives, but my hand passed through empty air. Katrina entered my field of vision then, her hands raised placatingly. “Christian, calm down. You’re safe.”

I stood to my feet, my hand instinctively going for my ninjato. Once more it was not there, and I looked down to see that my torso was wrapped outside my D-23, I had no weapons, and then everything came rushing back. Melissa and Haley being taken, Neal’s Spectre’s, the big one kicking me in the ribs, all of it. Just as I remembered the big one, a wave of pain seared through me and I gasped, placing a hand on my side. “You have two broken ribs and a concussion,” the woman on the chair said, looking up from her legal pad, her scribbling finally ceased. She gestured toward Katrina with a bored expression. “You’re very fortunate Ms. Anderson here figured out what was going on and put an end to the man who was about to kill you.”

“Anderson?” I hissed through the pain, turning to look at my student. “Your last name is O’Leary.”

“It’s not, actually,” a male voice said, and I turned to look at the front of the room, only then realizing the abnormally shaped room wasn’t a room at all, but the cabin of a plane. The dull whine was the sound of the engines, and I shook my head, wondering just what the hell was going on. The man’s head popped out from behind a wall, and I recognized him instantly, my eyebrows knitting as I pieced it together. “Prince, right?” I asked, sitting back down, groaning when a new wave of pain hit me.

“Good memory, Mr. Winters,” he said, coming from behind the wall, a stainless steel drink shaker in his hands. “It’s been ten years, and you still remember my face.”

“Eleven years,” I retorted, leaning back into the soft cushions.

Prince poured his drink into martini glass and added an olive, then sat in the chair next to the woman whose name I still didn’t know. “Allow me to fill you in then, and hopefully you can understand what we need from you, and what you need from us so we can help one another.”

I closed my eyes, and tried to take a deep breath, wincing as I did. “No point, I already know.”

“Do you now?” the haughty woman asked, disdain evident in her tone.

“Yep. Katrina is actually C.I.A, tasked with keeping an eye on me in case I ever went back to being Ghost. You’re his attaché and a bit more considering the holes in the knees your nylons and the fact that his zipper is still down.” She looked mortified, and he quickly zipped his pants while Katrina failed at stifling a giggle.

I pointed to Prince and continued. “He’s a pompous prick, better known as a special agent. You’ve been keeping an eye on Neal, who’s gotten smidge too big for his britches, and needs to be taken down a peg or two. We’re currently on a jet bound for Langley or somewhere near it, where you want to put me in a safe house to heal before unleashing me upon him and whatever organization he’s had the last ten years to build.”

I cracked an eye open to see Prince smiling while both the woman gaped at me. “You need me to do it, because for some reason or another you can’t get close enough, probably because you can’t find him. You also think that since he’s kidnapped my wife and daughter, I’ll be more than willing to help. And to top it all off, this isn’t MI-6, Prince. A vodka martini, shaken, not stirred is well beyond your level of sophistication and quite honestly, comes off as you trying too hard.”

Prince chuckled. “Now that he’s figured it all out, apologize to him, Kathryne.”

“I am very sorry, Mr. Winters,” she said, going back to scribbling in her notebook.

“Bite me,” I replied, still not opening my eyes. “Katrina, you grabbed my equipment before putting me on this plane, so do you mind giving it all back please?”

Now it was her turn to chuckle. “You’re gonna have to teach me how to do that,” she whispered when she passed me, going toward the back of the plane.

Prince’s voice broke through my thoughts, which despite my outward appearance, were panicked and frantic. “We will explain what we know of Neal once we get back, and once you’ve healed properly we can start running operations against him and his organization.”

“You’re forgetting one thing, Prince,” I said, finally opening my eyes and leaning forward, ignoring the protesting sting from my ribs. “I never said I would help you.”

Prince raised an eyebrow and his smile widened. “You’re kind of in a bind here, Christian. You won’t find him without the agency’s contacts or help.”

“It seems you can’t find him with the agency’s contacts and help, so what makes you think I need it?”

That gave him pause, the smile finally fading from his lips. “I guess you’re right,” he shrugged after a moment. “But there are things you don’t know that I do, and you will never find your family without the knowledge I’m willing to share.”

Katrina reappeared then, arms full of my weapons. Laying them on the couch next to me, she walked off behind the wall Prince had appeared from. I got to work rearming myself, feeling a bit less helpless once my Ninjato were finally back in their place. Katrina came back with a bottle of water for me, which I quickly drained. The intercom squawked and warbled, the pilot announcing that we would be landing soon and if we could please buckle up that would just make his day. I rolled my eyes, strapping myself into the seat, watching the others do the same.