Olivia
I make it to the safe house hidden in the back of an old alleyway. I put my finger on the scanner, and it asks for voice recognition. "Name?"
"Agent Olivia Link." It makes an error sound and turns red. I tilt my head in confusion.
Ooooohhhh Todd, you big mouth.
"Try again. Name?"
"Agent Olivia Reed."
"Welcome back, Agent Reed." The machine answers back and unlocks the door. I walk in, making sure to close it behind me. As I walk into the safe house, I see a bunch of computers, TVs, desks, filing cabinets with a bunch of government material from ages ago.
Nobody is here but me. The giant screen flicks on in front of me, and my boss's picture comes up. "Good morning Agent Reed."
"Good morning Agent Lacey; how'd you know about my name change? Todd, are you there?" I say with a stern look.
Agent Todd steps into the camera frame, "Sorry, Liv, they asked why I got you a marriage license." I shake my head at him, waving him off.
"It's fine, Todd. Lacey, how long will this take? I'd like to get back to my wife. Why isn't González dead?"
She sighs, "The bullet went through her spine, but her men got to her before we did. She's heavily guarded at a hospital in Colombia."
I sit in the chair and breathe deeply. "So you want me to finish the job?" She nods, and I'm extremely pissed. When I came here at 18, I was supposed to be protected and stay behind agency walls. But during my training, they saw how good I was with weaponry, thanks to my dad, and took advantage of that.
They trained me to become a field agent. They had me hack into her systems, watching her every move and staking her out for years... just to kill her when I had the chance. Shit that they could've asked anyone else to do, not some scared 19 year old they ripped away from her family. They made me into a killing machine, a machine I'm glad wasn't around my family and Rayden. My thoughts go back to my wife, "How long?"
"Just a couple of months, unless you get it done sooner. Completely neutralize the threat, and you're free to go back to your family."
I keep silent. A couple of months away from Rayden seems like nothing compared to five years, but I still hate not being able to talk to her, so I have to get this done quickly. "There is something else." I look up at her, waiting for her to continue.
"Although we do not appreciate you getting hitched behind our backs, we understand why you did it. We kept tabs on Rayden as much as you did for the last five years. Don't think your morse codes and silent phone calls didn't go unnoticed." I sigh into my hands, knowing she's probably pissed.
I hear a noise behind me as if wheels are turning, and a drawer pops open. I look down to see what's inside, and my eyes grow big. "Are you serious? I've been asking for one for five years, Lacey. Why now?"
"That's why five years. We took you at 19, and not once did you try to leave. You accepted your fate and stayed with the agency even if it meant leaving the woman you loved behind."
I pick up the cell phone. "The agency is granting you and your wife your own stealth phones to communicate with each other. Under one condition, though."
I roll my eyes. There's always something else with them. "Continue working for us."
"I'm not working in D.C. Agent Lacey."
"We're not asking you to. The analyst on your father's team is retiring. After this mission is complete, join their team in Miami, and you can stay with your family Olivia. You're one of our best recruits, even if we forced you to work for us."
"Pay raise?" She stares at me blankly. "Right, never mind. Okay, I accept. When will your men be picking me up?"
"Transport was alerted the moment you step foot in the safe house; they should be there in about an hour. In the meantime, that phone is encrypted, messages and calls cannot be traced. There will be an alert though, if someone tries to intercept your calls. Pay attention to that."
I nod my head. "See you in a few hours, and Olivia?" I hum a response. "Congratulations," she says, and the video call ends. I fall back into the chair and swing around in circles.
I open the phone and dial Rayden's number. It's been 3 hours since I last saw her and I miss her so much already. The phone rings for a few seconds before she answers, but she stays silent. I laugh, "Hi, baby."
"Hi." I can hear a hint of sadness and relief that I'm calling her again. "Um, this phone showed up at my door 2 hours ago and... I didn't know if it was a trick or not." I giggle into the phone.
"It's not a trick, Ray; it's the agency's phone."
"We don't have long, do we?"
"Actually, we have as long as you'd like," I say.
"What do you mean?"
"Looks like us getting married actually worked. They granted us stealth phones, so our calls remain completely hidden."
"No more 60-second calls?"
"No more, baby." She laughs, but I can hear her sniffling.
"Ray, don't cry."
"Shhh, I'm not crying... just allergies." I chuckle at her. "I just miss you, Olivia. We barely got time together before they snatched you back. Did they say how long you have to be gone for this time?"
I get quiet. "A couple of months."
"Okay," she whispers on the other end. "I'll wait for you."
I laugh into the phone, "You better! I might very well be carrying your child after the night we just had."
"And morning," she adds, joining my laughter.
"Speaking of that, how'd it go with the family? I saw them walking in when I was leaving."
She sighs into the phone, "I might have yelled at all of them." I roll my eyes.
"Ray, please try harder to control your rage. You've always had trouble with that."
"I just lost my wife for a second time for god knows how long, Olivia. Forgive me if I felt bombarded by all their questions at the wrong time."
I smile at her, calling me her wife. "I know, baby, and I'm sorry."
"Don't be. Our fathers explained everything to me. I get it now... all of it." I nod even though I know she can't see me. "I told them about Junie." I keep quiet. I knew eventually we had to tell them, and to my surprise, I thought she would have told them sooner.
"Okay," I whisper, letting the pain of the memory cloud my mind.
***
I don't want to get out of bed. I don't want to eat anything. I don't want to say anything. I don't want to take a breath. But guess what? I have no option because I have a nagging girlfriend who will nag me until I get up. I can see why she does it. I can't allow myself to wallow in my sorrow. It's been three weeks since... I won't say it, but yeah. Actually, I'm not sure I'm ready to say that yet. I'm not sure when I'll be ready, but it's not now.
I've been asking a lot for sex. In a way, Yes, I've been trying to get pregnant again. The doctor told me not to have sex right after giving birth because I will be more likely to get pregnant again by accident. Even though we've been having a lot of sex, now that I'm thinking about it, I don't want to get pregnant. I can't go through this again.
As Rayden says, I can't replace her. I don't want to replace her. I want her to come back to me. Rayden appears to have her head on her shoulders, which is way better than me at this point. I've been wandering around like a zombie, and I've had the worst nightmares.
That's why every night, I lie here dripping in sweat as Ray tries to wake me up out of the horrible nightmares. She brought me to the living room to eat, and we ended up mixing a bunch of cereals because we didn't know which one we wanted. When Rayden noticed my milk soaking my shirt, she got curious and asked to taste it. So I pumped and let her try it. I'm not as brave as her. My breast leakage is a reminder of what I've lost, so I don't want to try it. I think Ray's just trying to make me laugh, and she was successful in that.
"You know I can't keep pumping, or my breast will never stop producing. I hate having this leak and no baby..." I stop talking when I realize what I said.
"Say it, Olivia."
I sigh and close my eyes, understanding that I have to accept it. "She's gone, Ray." A tear leaves my eyes. I feel her thumb wipe it away.
"Say it again," she whispers.
"Junie is gone."
"But?"
"But she's watching over us in heaven. She's our little guardian angel."
"Good," I sigh deeply again. She told me to recite it every night after she exploded on me because I didn't want to face the truth. I'm still not sure I believe it. I don't think I will ever. But, as she points out, I must remind myself of the truth.
She kisses my cheek. "Thank you." I open my eyes, and she's grinning. "What weirdo, why are you looking at me like that? "
"I've got an idea."
"Oh, Lord. You've got a lot of ideas tonight." It's actually about two in the morning, but neither of us cares. She dashes out of the room and returns with my diary. Since that day, I haven't opened my diary. Every ultrasound image is in there. Plus, the one, the nurse, took of Rayden and me holding her when she was born. I just can't bring myself to look at them.
She's sitting in front of me and opens the book. I look away, anywhere but there. I see her smiling in the corner of my eye, and I can't help turning my head to see what she's smiling about. She raises the photo to me, and I look away quickly.
"Liv"
"Please, no, Ray. I can't."
"You can. Come on. Look how beautiful June Bug was. We made a gorgeous little girl." I smiled at her nickname for her. She was a little larger than the size of Rayden's hand. She was small, but she was completely formed, just a lot smaller than the average baby at birth. I take the pictures for the first time and look down at them. My heart swells, and I want to cry, but I'm hit with a burst of happiness instead. She was so beautiful.
Rayden slides my diary, and I glance down at it. There is a list of things with her name written at the top. "What's this?"
"We are going to write everything down about her. Any time you think about her in the future, and it gets to be too much, we'll go through this list at the age she will be when we do it."
I sigh, "But she's never going to age Ray."
"She's going to age as much as we want her to. We're going to talk about her like she's here."
"Is this even healthy?" I roll my eyes.
"Is sleeping your life away, never going outside, never eating, never speaking healthy?" I shake my head no. "Okay, so as long as we accept she is gone, Liv, we can talk about the what-ifs. Junie may be gone, but her spirit is still here with us. So let's do it." I look down at the picture, then my diary, and nod once more.
"Okay," I whisper.
***
"Liv? You okay?" Rayden's voice through the phone shakes me out of the memory. I smile, remembering how much of a rock she was for me.
"I'm okay," I say softly. We sit in silence, and all I hear is her breathing. I sigh before shaking myself out of the funk. "Sooooo... fat bank account, huh?" I ask.
I hear her chuckle on the other side. "I'm surprised you didn't hack my accounts as well and find out on your own."
"I'm not a savage, Rayden. I couldn't care less what your financial status is."
"Good... because it all goes to charity. Sick kids, Orphans, LGBTQ+ community, Schools, Homeless shelters, and a lot more." I smile at how caring and soft-hearted she actually is under all that rage and roughness.
We continued talking until my transport arrived. I didn't want to get off the phone, but I knew I had to. Heaven, give me the strength to get through these next few months without her.