Agent (Book 1)

Chapter 38-Nolan

The words burst from my mouth, but they're weak. "You never knew Commander Pyle."

As I'd anticipated, all he does is chuckle once more. Good. As long as he's talking, I'm not dead. But even his words, careless as they are, have a way of hitting home with me, and I want him to stop talking about Commander Pyle. She's gone. Dead. And I never want to think about her loyalty again.

Every word hits me like a thunderstorm, blowing bits and pieces of debris straight through my chest. "You think I don't know Commander Pyle?" He says. "She egged me on! She didn't care about you or me. If she truly cared, she would've let me stay!" His voice has risen steadily, no longer amusing. In fact, I think he sees Commander Pyle in me too, because his face has turned deadly sour.

"How much I wanted to make her pay for that..." he whispers. He takes a step toward me, sending me scuttling back farther, pressing my back to the wall as hard as I can. A minute ago, he might've laughed at this display of fear, but his face is different now, red and fierce like a dragon, blowing his breath of smoke into my face. He lowers until his nose is only inches from my own, and the déjà vu hits like it never had before. "I know you. I know you know me too. It's not hard to figure out," he says.

"No one has ever been there for either of us."

I can't help it. My eyes close and I feel like screaming through my teeth, remembering Commander Pyle's final words to me, her warning of what this boy could do. If you are ever to encounter him, do not let his image sway you. He is a cunning boy.

But I don't need the Commander to tell me how ruthless he is. I've experienced it all first hand, the fists, the knees, the prey I was to the predator. The blood and the blackness. The death and the fear and the escape.

And to cower away now would mean he has won.

Unable to contain myself, my entire being is consumed with new rage, and I dive on him. He isn't expecting it, and I land on his chest, sending fists into his face, screaming as my knuckles bleed raw. There's a new part of me, a hungry part; it yearns for his flesh beneath my fingertips, to shred him, to cause him pain, just like he did me. I punch him like I've never punched anyone before. Not because it's my duty to take down the enemy. This is no mission.

I do it because I want to. 

My fists open new cuts in his lip, crack his nose, slice his forehead. I'm not thinking about stopping. I keep hitting and hitting until I feel as if I've transferred all my pain directly into his being. Tenor finally finds the strength to flip me off of him after several long moments, and wrestles my arms to the floor, kicking me in the side. I screech as his boot makes contact, and throw my feet around wildly, catching him in the side of the head. He falls back into the wall, dazed, before leaping back into action.

I think we both know, that in order to inflict some real damage, we're best not rolling around on the ground like maniacs. But, that's what we do. We roll over one another, sometimes punching, sometimes scurrying away to evade a hit, sometimes pausing as we try to regain our wind. I note the way he refuses to stay flat on the ground for more than a few moments.

    He lashes out at me with his elbow and nails me directly in the side of the head, sending me smacking into the wall. I cough and struggle to push myself up, when he slides over and gathers my shirt in his fists, pulling me towards him. I choke up more, desperately planning a knee to his gut, but find it useless. He throws me across the room with undeniable force, flipping me directly onto my back. 

    "You think these people have your back?" He says, wiping the blood from his face. It smears over his arm and drips through the cracks between his fingers. With a hand over my chest, I scramble back into the wall and push myself back to my feet, choking on my own saliva.