Freeze (The Jewel Project #4)

29.2|| When All Walls Come Down

Jimmy walked towards Kyle's room, a newspaper crumpled tightly in his hand. The feelings inside him were like an all consuming avalanche he had no control over. Anger, sadness, fear, exhaustion, back to anger. Loneliness. He'd never felt more alone, more trapped inside his head, inside his body.

Sam still in a coma with no improvement and without any medical solution but to wait it out. Tom completely destroyed and borderline psychotic. Freider, yelling at them, running off to heaven knew where. Herrison coming back empty handed after searching for Billy for over twenty four hours.

It had been twenty four hours and he was more lost than ever. Time was a distorted mess which no longer meant anything to him.

And then there was the paper. The Agency's supposed reward for almost dying, for losing family.

He stopped in front of Kyle's door and banged his fist against it, then he started bouncing on the balls of his feet. Even if he was exhausted, every time he tried to wind down, grief would take over all other feelings and he couldn't face that. He still needed his wits, to be strong for everyone else.

Kyle appeared in the threshold, looking as exhausted as Jimmy felt.

"Hi, can I come in?" he asked. His voice had come out robotic, but he didn't see the point in forcing some life into it.

Kyle moved out of the way and let him in. "What's up?"

Jimmy made his way to the desk and sat on the chair in front of it. Kay sat up in bed, watching him curiously, wearing Kyle's band t-shirt.

"I hope I didn't interrupt anything," he said, his voice just as robotic.

Kyle sat on the bed with difficulty and shook his head, and Jimmy decided to believe him, so he tossed the paper at him. Kyle caught it without difficulty and smoothed out the first page. Kay came up behind him to read over his shoulder.

Jimmy leaned back, already knowing what they'd see. It was a French newspaper printed in English and the story on page one was Chenonceau - War zone! joined by a pretty a picture of the castle in its former glory days.

"Explosions are news and the police were involved, so this isn't really surprising," Kyle said, passing the paper to Kay.

"I guessed that much. We pretty much destroyed that old, historical hallway. But that's not the issue." Jimmy started balancing on the chair's hind legs to divide his focus to something less aggravating. "Herrison gave me this paper as a reward. The agency is apparently very satisfied with our work and with how subtle we've been during the operation, so they gave us this." He nodded towards the paper.

Kyle frowned and it was obvious he liked the idea as much as Jimmy did. "Please tell me their reward was to cut our names out of this whole thing."

"Not even close. Turn to page six."

Kay complied and Kyle scooted closed to have a look. Jimmy turned back to the ceiling, suddenly longing for another cigarette. Or something much stronger that would numb him out.

Kyle swore under his breath when he realized just what the Agency had done. Their story continued on three pages and was filled with pictures of them and a bullshit story about their tragic lives and what humble little heroes they were. Jimmy hadn't read the article, he couldn't, but Jessie had given him a breakdown of the essentials. Snitch Gravel was mentioned, the feud in their family, their heroic resistance against what the press called a hidden terrorist, and their performance during the first mission.

Names, photos, everything.

"Some favor! We're practically a walking target now," Kyle growled, pulling away.