Broken | Lucas North - Spooks/MI5 Story [Featured]

Chapter 15

The ones without the sounds gave her pictures, vivid and so real, the faces etching themselves in her mind.  The ones with the voices assaulted her ears with words that made no sense to Alexa.   They went on and on, words that conjured images of a knight chess piece again and again inside her head.  

Alexa fought to get away from them all.  There had been a reason why her mind had stifled such things.  She could see the light above her and she swam towards it, knowing it would be her salvation. 

When she broke free of the flashbacks, shutting the doors of her mind to the past that was left undiscovered, she let out a cry of agony, the sound of the bullet exiting the barrel of the gun a thunderclap that brought her back to the present.  As she opened her eyes, the visions were gone.

Alexa looked up.  

Mikhael was sitting in front of her, forearms on his knees, head bowed low.  He was listening to her, yet he did not look up to face her.  His massive arms were covered with tattoos and for a moment, Alexa could feel the sadness that seemed to emanate from his pores.  There were so many things that needed to be said between them now.  

Everything had just changed between them.  And Alexa’s mind began to fill up with questions.  But as she opened her mouth to speak, only one word managed to emerge.

“Sugar Horse.”

Mikhael finally looked up, his eyes sad.  Where he had been tattooed with the mark of a pedophile by the prison guards and prisoners, he’d applied caustic acid on them to erase them, melting the skin almost to the bone.  The acid had almost eaten through the joint of his jaw, and when he spoke, it often clicked in and out of place.  

Where once he had been a handsome man, someone who had resembled Robert Redford and thus earned the nickname “Kid” for his resemblance to the Sundance Kid, now there sat before Alexa someone that looked like  a man burned almost beyond recognition, his face a mass of melted skin.  

But Alexa recognized his eyes still.  In those eyes were hatred for the world around him that dared take away the one person he had loved the most, and the child he had helped bore into the world that he himself had created.  In those eyes now was a sadness whose depths Alexa dared not seek.  

“Sugar horse was the reason why you were taken in Paris,” Mikhael said quietly.  He was tired, his mind had reached the limits of his exhaustion.  Where hatred had dwelt upon seeing Lucas North leaving her flat that morning, a sense of relief had taken its place.  For she was with him now.  Safe from Arkady or anyone else for that matter.

“Your father learned about it, quite by accident.  They thought that by taking you hostage, your father would cough up the names.”

“And did he?”

Mikhael shook his head, smiling ruefully.  “You know the answer to that, matryoshka.  The time for pretense is over.  It’s time to wake up.”

“Mischa, what is Sugar Horse?  What are those names?”

Mikhael looked up at her.  What he had feared the most was true.  Alexa knew.  She had remembered, and he knew that with one moment of remembrance, there would be others.  And because of that, she would never be safe again.

“I don’t know,” Mikhael replied.  “But whatever those names stand for, it is worth killing you for.”

“Is that why Arkady is after me now?”

“Yes, but Arkady likes to play games.  He’s a chess player, you know that?  You are his queen, and your spy lover, Lucas North, is the king.  He thought you were dead for nine years, but then you started your foundation and became its spokesperson.  To him, you became the phoenix - one who rose up from the ashes.”  Mikhael laughed a humorless laugh. “One who must be killed before you managed to cough up your secrets.”