With a Pull of a Trigger

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Catherine’s eyebrows were raised, and there was no doubt in Everett’s mind that she was intrigued. “Oh?”

“The agent’s name is Gil Baxendale,” said Everett. Whether he was confirming Catherine’s thought or not, he had no idea.

“Oh,” said Catherine, visibly affected.

Everett nodded slowly, before steepling his hands. “The reason why I called you here is because I believe you know the man himself.”

Catherine struggled to keep her breathing normal. Already, she could feel the walls closing in on her, like a cage to a trapped animal. Her grip on the armrests tightened, her knuckles whitening with the amount of force she exerted on the chair. “You know well that I know him,” she said, her voice dangerously low.

Everett was an agent—a damn good agent if his rank were to speak for him—and so he knew how to act. He wore innocence on his face like a refined man wore a glove. “Oh?”

Catherine closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. One, two, three, she counted. She counted until she could let go of the armrests and sit down properly. She counted until she could open her eyes without the red tint of anger around the edges. She counted until she could get her breathing under her control.

She opened her eyes.

“I spoke to you about him. I told you about that mission in Egypt. I told you everything!” said Catherine, barely able to resist shouting in front of her superior, “and this is how you repay my trust? Going after the very man I told you I might not even know anymore?”

Catherine didn’t care about Gil. She really, truly didn’t. The fact still remained that she was lying to herself, and not very well. She was still madly in love with infuriating man.

She lowered her voice. “You know very well that if you went for him, there will be a very large chance that you might have endangered him.”

Catherine looked at Everett and saw the moment of panic cross through his normally carefully-masked eyes. It was but a moment, but during that time in a cold office with tension rolling around her shoulders, one moment was enough.

“That’s why you called me, isn’t it? He was caught?” asked Catherine, paranoia seeping through her tone with every word that escaped her lips.

 Everett didn’t bother trying to hide what was written so clearly on his face, on his posture, on the way he acted in front of one of CIA’s finest. He nodded. “He has been caught, yes. However, he is one of their most important agents, so I can assure you that he isn’t dead.”

The assurance fell flat. Catherine wasn’t feeling lighter. She only felt the weight of Everett’s words on her shoulders, like a boulder she would never be able to leave anywhere. “He’s being kept by the organization?”

A curt nod and Catherine was cursing under her breath.

Really, that wasn’t much better than dying. Catherine knew and knew well how much various organizations had under their disposal.

“The Alliance has been having problems lately. The black market’s being cleaned through coordinating committees, and the fact that Helox Five has been stronger than ever, tying up loose ends into bowties and selling nuclear warfare faster than ice cream on a hot summer day doesn’t help matters. Baxendale, among many others, is indispensable.”

Catherine nodded. Her head hurt, her heart throbbed and getting air into her lungs was as easy as tap dancing on quicksand. Her eyelids closed, and even in the darkness, she swore she could see Gil being tortured, blood dripping down his arms onto dirty, tiled floor. She could almost hear his breathing, could almost hear his voice telling her to run.