Of Wolves and Spies

Chapter 4

Shock.

Shock and awe and rage were all that Lizzy could see on Michael's face as he stood there, frozen, glaring at her from across the room. Even though she had expected this reaction, she couldn't help but feel that every wave of sizzling anger was like a knife to her heart. She had known that he would be angry, and hurt, but to actually feel those emotions emanating from him, pushing at her, was much harder than Lizzy had thought that it would be.

But the worst thing of all, was the way that he looked at her. Like he didn't know her, like she was a stranger. But more than that, too. More intense, more than angry. Almost like he hated her, and that was almost more than she could take. She could deal with his anger, she could battle his rage, and withstand his disappointment and hurt. But his hatred? The thought that he might hate her had never crossed her mind; she was not prepared for such a violent reaction from him. She had not prepared herself to see hatred shooting at her from the face of the man that had been the centre of her world, the man she had loved more than life itself, the man that had professed that he would love her until the day that he died.

It just about killed her.

It seemed to take a while for the information to sink into him, the fact that he was a father and had in fact been one for the last eights years. But she could see the moment that it did because the look of sudden shock was smacked onto his face and it seemed that all of his anger just flooded out of him like the air from a pin pricked balloon.

Although to be fair she had broken the news rather indelicately and as such he was entitled to flopping down onto the nearest chair with a face that seemed to be in a contest with a cadaver on which could be paler. To be honest, the corpse seemed to be winning. In fact, the shock of her recent revelations seemed to cause Mike to appear almost comatose.

After several minutes, Lizzy found herself worrying when there seemed to be no sign of a response. No protestations, no acclamations of condemnation or scorn. No opprobrium or censure for her conduct. Just silence.

Cold, unforgiving, pitiless silence.

As though her observations were a dare to fate, Michael raised his head and looked her right in the eye. The red flames dancing in his gaze spoke of pure, unreasoning anger and its intensity shook her to the point where she nearly took a step back. It took a lot of strength to restrain herself from enacting any form of retreat in the face of a predator.

It took a moment for Lizzy to realise that her instinctual response had been because that was exactly what Mike looked like, what he felt like. A predator who was intent on destroying its prey. In this case, she was the prey. She had, in his mind, not only abandoned him under the pretence of death, she now came back to him seemingly from the dead only to inform him that it was only because the child that they had created, a child whose existence he had had no knowledge of until this moment, was not just in hypothetical danger from just about every government agency this country has to offer but has actually been taken.

"Our daughter? We have a daughter? You hid my child's existence from me? What gave you the right to make that decision, hey, what gave you the right to steal eight years of her life from me? To keep her from me?"

Knowing that it was just the shock and pain talking did nothing to help the shooting pains in her heart that resulted from his hurtful accusations that he flung at her with all the intensity and the accuracy of a bullet fired from his pistol.

In that moment, at that very second, she almost wished that he had shot her instead. She suspected that it would have hurt a hell of a lot less than this.