Code Blue

Lexi vs. Two Way Mirrors

"There's someone here you should see," he replied vaguely, tugging me along a little quicker, to the point where I was almost jogging beside him to keep up.

I was out of breath when we finally came to a stop outside a wooden door. "Who?"

He didn't answer right away, pulling open the door and gesturing for me to enter. "Look."

Curious, I stepped into the observation side of an interrogation room, my heart stopping and my eyes widening when I saw Max sitting at a table on the other side of the two-way glass, staring blankly at a wall. "What's he doing here?"

It was so strange to see him this context. I'd spent the past few months living in his world, or at least trying to get as close to it as possible, that it was jarring to see him in mine. He sat under harsh fluorescent lights, his shoulders relaxed, his stubble grown out to nearly a full beard and his eyes dark from exhaustion. He looked so vulnerable, so afraid, so...human.

And that was a startling epiphany for me, because it would have been easy to categorize everything that happened on the mission as some kind of alternate universe and then return to this life as though nothing had happened. After all, that was how field agents normally dealt with the stress of coming off of an undercover assignment. But seeing him here, sitting in my place of work, just a few feet away, made me painfully aware of the fact that all of it had been real; that everything I'd felt for him hadn't just been a figment of my imagination that I would eventually just forget about given the proper amount of time.

Max was an actual human being. One that I'd fallen in love with and one that I'd hurt deeply in the midst of that process and whether I liked it or not, it was time for me to face the music.

"He turned himself in this morning," Evan replied softly. I could tell he was trying to gauge my reaction.

"Turned himself in?" I stopped breathing, thinking that it would break my heart if I now discovered that Max had been completely game for his father's plan this entire time. Part of the reason I'd fallen for him had been that he hadn't seemed to approve of the family business, his moral compass being much too rigid for that lifestyle. It would be such a tragedy if that had all been an act. "For what?"

"That was probably the wrong wording," Evan corrected himself, sending my impeding devastation. "He agreed to help us dismantle the rest of the syndicate now that his father is in prison."

I let out a small sigh of relief, mentally scolding myself for thinking that the fear in his eyes that night by the fountain could have been an act. "Really? The last time we talked about it, he didn't seem too into the idea. What changed his mind?"

That was a bit of an understatement. The last time we'd talked about it, he'd become enraged at the thought of what he considered to be betraying his entire family. I was intrigued to find out why that mindset had changed.

Evan shrugged. "Why don't you go ask him yourself?"

I contemplated the idea for all of two seconds before shaking my head. "I don't think he wants to talk to me."

"I'm sure that's not true," he reassured me.

"Trust me, Evan," I sighed, knowing that it wouldn't be joy that sparked in Max's eyes if he saw me again. "I'm the last person he wants to see right now."

"Lexi, I know this is hard for you," he spoke softly, "but you're going to have to face him sooner or later. Don't you want closure?"

Leave it to Evan to be rational at a time like this. I wanted to protest, but maybe he was right. Maybe I did need closure. Maybe finally confronting Max and having everything out in the open would bring me the peace I so desperately sought.