"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."- C.G. Jung
Chapter Twelve
"I'll have a Tall Cinnamon Dolce Latte," I said, as I stepped forward to the counter with bills in hand. On second thought, barely glancing at the menu, I added, "Actually, make that a Grande."
The girl behind the counter nodded, cursorily making eye contact, before grabbing the appropriate sized cup and asking, "Name?"
I hesitated for a minute - there were reasons why I rarely ever dropped by in places like Starbucks. There was always that moment where I had to pick lying or telling the truth, and neither were preferred choices of mine. The truth would put me in a tight spot - I wasn't fond of the idea that my identity would be out in the open for the world to see, written cursively on a coffee cup - but the lies would keep my soul up at night.
When someone coughed behind me, however, a split-second decision was made. The same one I made time after time after time.
"Julia," I told her. She nodded, visibly relieved that I didn't waste any more time answering and provided her with a name that was both easy to pronounce and spell.
Handing her the exact cash, I moved off to the pick-up line, drifting in and out my surroundings and thoughts. In fact, I was so unusually out of tune with reality that despite my name being called over and over again, I remained unfazed, lost in my own thoughts. Now, granted, the woman who made my order - Olivia, as her nametag informed me - was calling out a pseudonym that I had created on the spot and wasn't used too, but still. As an agent in charge of innocent lives, on a mission to save the city, I should've been more focused and I was, typically.
Perhaps, that is why when I felt someone sneak up behind me and tap my shoulder, I jumped higher than I would have under normal circumstances.
"I think, that's you?"
I turned around, my heart lodged inside my pharynx, with the wheels in my brain turning at a speed faster than light, full on expecting to see a chainsaw-wielding lunatic, or Blaze, - same difference, right? - but instead found myself looking at a familiar face.
"Are you alright?" she asked, perhaps noticing the blood drain from my face in those few seconds my brain concocted millions of possibilities.
I swallowed harshly, the veins in my neck straining. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"You sure? You seem a little tense."
Dry laughter fell out of my mouth. "No, I'm fine. I just thought you were someone else." Before she could get in another question, I leaped forward to the lady delivering my drink and claimed my fake name.
"Sorry, I'm Julia," I said, reaching for the drink. She smiled at me in that I-don't-quite-believe-you-but-okay manner and told me to enjoy my drink. Giving her one of my own cryptic smiles, I walked away towards my (now) companion, who looked just teaming with questions.
Before I could even try and formulate a response that would subtly change the subject and quench her curious thirst, she asked, "Did you think I was Blaze?"
Looking around with slightly widened eyes, I grabbed her by her forearm and pulled her away from potential eavesdroppers and said, "Can you not?"
A hand on her hip, she pulled her arm back and insisted, "Did you?"
I tried to use my psychoanalytic skills to determine just exactly why she was hell-bent on questioning me - I really did! - but my energy had been all used up earlier with my partners-in-crime, during brain-storming and I wasn't in any mood to answer questions that I didn't have the answers to. Not until I had a sip of my drink, at least.
With that in mind, I raised the cup to my lips and savored the cinnamon-ness of the drink. It was exactly what I needed at this time of the day. Especially since it was only the second day of the week and I was already on the verge of death.
"Yes, Beta, I did. Happy now?" I said, once the warmth of the Latte had warmed my insides. It felt like an embrace and only God knew how much I needed that in my life.
"Zah-my-rah?" A man behind the counter called out, Beta's name falling awkwardly off his tongue, like a tongue twister.
I felt blessed for the distraction as it put an end to the next question she had been just about to ask me. As she tore her eyes away from me and towards the man repeating her name with different pronunciations, as if the correct manner of saying it would magically make her appear, I took the time to inform her of my plan.
"I'll go find us a table." The second she replied with a curt nod and moved to grab her drink before her name could be butchered more than it had already been, I made a swift escape to a secluded corner all the way in the far back of the place and languidly drank my Latte in silence. This brief moment proved to be rejuvenating and I didn't know whether to credit that to the magical drink I was almost done with or the distance between me and Agent Beta.
Nevertheless, as I saw her approaching, her eyes searching for me in the busy crowd, my body longed for me to slip past her and order another round. Clinging to the logic, however, and the fire burning inside me - curiosity was toxic, to say the least - I tethered myself to my chair and raised my hand up to catch her attention.
Acknowledgement shone off her face as she briskly walked to the table I had selected and sat down across from me. Placing her own drink - a Tall cup of Iced Tea - on the table, in front of her, she said, her words a little breathy, "Finally! I almost thought you ran away."
I took another sip of my drink, becoming increasingly agitated with the fact that it was dwindling in volume. "Well, I'm still here. Just like we talked about."
Her eyes locked in on my face, hastily surveying the dips and curves of every inch of my face, as if she was a facial-recognizing scanner, before they finally landed on the tilt of my lips. "You're upset."
I turned my head to the side and stared into nothing in particular. "Wouldn't you be?"
She sighed softly in a you're-being-needlessly-difficult style before she grabbed her drink with one hand and slurped through the large straw. "You shouldn't be."
Something in her tone tipped me off. Facing her, I asked, "Why? What did you find?"
Her face flushed with excitement, her cheeks pale-pink colored, as she bit her straw with the ends of her pearly teeth and dug through the pocket of her beige trench coat. One part of me admired her choice of fashion, her physique that allowed her to pull off any kind of style, and her innate beauty, but the other part of me wondered how exactly she was living in just a thin trench coat, regardless of how flawless it looked on her. There was a striking difference between her and me. For I, on the other hand, was bundled up in a kale-colored, puffer coat that I had conveniently bought from Macy's on a lazy Saturday afternoon, which ended up making me look a good fifteen pounds heavier, and a cozy black hat, with a shawl-type scarf wrapped around my neck.
I could've passed for an average middle-aged woman, while she looked like belonged somewhere in the high-fashion streets of Paris, being bombarded with paparazzi.
A few seconds later, she plopped a few letter-size photographs on the table with their face down and slid them towards me. To me, it felt like we were conducting an illegal drug transaction. I could only imagine what it might have seemed like to onlookers.
My curiosity peaked, I gathered the pictures into a pile and pulled them close to my body before turning them over. It was good thing that behind me was only a wall, providing me with a bit more privacy. Nonetheless, it was starting to quickly occur to me that we had chosen an inappropriate venue to discuss these kinds of matters.
The first photograph I laid my eyes on was black and white. Zoomed into a face of a man, I could not have deciphered the location it had been taken had it not been for the signs in the background that stated Terminal One or Two. I analyzed his face - nothing much had changed. His dark, sinister eyes were covered by large shades, but I could feel their presence even through the picture. He had a scraggly beard growing, grey and white in color, but beyond that, I could not isolate other features of his face. He had worked hard to blend himself into his surroundings, and a simple glance at the photo told me that the photographer must've had to work extra hard to even get this image of him.
"That was at the O'Hare International Airport," Agent Beta informed me, as she saw me quizzically glare at the photo.
I raised my head, and glanced her eyes. "Illinois? What's he doing there?"
She shrugged. "Beats me. Probably trying to get as far away as possible from here is my best guess."
That could be true, but I knew, or at least liked to imagine that I did, him also. Blaze was not the type of person to fly by the seat of his pants. His every move was calculated - just when you thought you were one step ahead, he threw a bowling pin your way, making you realize that he had never been behind to begin with.
"He wasn't there for long though," she added.
I skimmed through the next few photographs. "Paris, Belize, Germany, Australia."
It dawned on me. "He's on a bloody vacation!"
She swirled her drink with one hand, watching the ice-cubes melt and collide with each other in the midst of milk chocolate-ness. "Right? It sure seems so."
The sixth photograph showed him outside of the Louvre in France. Again, his head was down, his eyes covered, his face shielded with an object - this time a phone. There was something amiss here and I was desperate to find it.
"The guy's been traveling the world like a dying man fulfilling his bucket list. Last we saw him in USA, he was in New Mexico - you guessed it - leaving the country again. For all we know now, he could be in Russia, but sources tell me that he's being closely monitored by the FBI," she said, taking a sip of her drink afterwards.
"Is he now?" I asked, putting the photographs down, face down. "So, why hasn't he been caught yet?"
She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "Apparently, I found out that he's being used."
That was news to me. Blaze was not the type of person who could be used, or manipulated. As a matter of fact, it was him who was more likely to utilize other people for his own advantage.
"What do you mean? - How so?"
"Well, it turns out that by keeping track of him we're basically figuring out everyone he's connected to. Drug dealers, suppliers, the whole nine yards. It goes all the way to the international level - do you have any idea just exactly how many people are involved?"
"I can imagine," I said, picking up my own drink. I tilted my head backwards to try and get the few remaining drops of sugary goodness to fall into my mouth, but instead I found only air. Scowling, I placed the cup back on the table, albeit a little harsher than I intended too.
"The FBI's placing a game of hide-and-seek, then, with him. Kind of like catch and release."
She nodded. "Exactly. I don't know exactly what they intend on doing with the information, but I'm sure they'll let us know if it's something huge."
I scoffed. "Yeah, no. I highly doubt that."
"Why?"
I glared into my coffee cup. "Intuition."
She tried to get me to explain myself, but I wasn't interested in doing that. Instead, I asked, "Are they not afraid that he'll pose a threat to our national security? I mean, he was only the leader of a NYC drug-dealer gang, but I'm sure he had some connections, somewhere."
"After all," I added. "He was best friends with Opaque - the biggest national security threat the FBI's had ever seen."
She shook her head. "I don't know about that, but I'm sure if he did pose a threat, they'd do anything to get him back. Even if that means involving the CIA."
I didn't bother wasting my breath explaining why that would never happen in a billion years. Especially not for someone like Blaze.
She frowned when I didn't respond as she had expected. Her hand, the one that had been gripping onto her cold drink earlier, shot forward and engulfed mine in an icy-cold clasp. "Look, I know you're worried that he's leaving those cryptic messages to you, but going off these photographs and the information I found out, I highly doubt that it's him."
"If it's not him, then who do you think is leaving me notes under his name?" I asked. I hadn't wanted to come across cold and callous, but somehow that's exactly how it happened.
She grimaced, as if my question had personally hurt her. "I don't know, Angie. I really don't know."
"Then, why are you telling me that it's not him," I questioned.
Another sigh escaped her from between her hips, this time subliminally saying why-are-you-so-stubborn.
"I'm just saying," she said, explaining herself, "that it's possible, based on these photographic evidence, that it could potentially be someone else harassing you under his name."
Perhaps, but I didn't believe it one bit; and, from the look on her face, it was blatant that my skepticism was obvious.
"Look. If you want, I can look into a bit more and try to find out who exactly is leaving the notes -"
"No, I don't want you to do that," I said, declining her offer. "I can figure it out on my own."
She chewed on her bottom lip. "You sure? I totally don't mind doing it for you, you know?"
"I know, but it's fine. I'll handle it."
She was reluctant to drop the topic, but I was anything but. I had spent a good twenty or so minutes discussing with her on a topic I wasn't particularly fond of. There was nothing more that I wanted than to change the subject.
It took a bit more declining on my part and tad more offers on her side, but eventually we went from talking about my issues and fears to her life beyond the agency.
"How's your grandma?" I asked, recalling her sickly, old grandmother. Last I heard of her, she was still living with Agent Beta, but had required both daytime and night-time nurses to help her since her granddaughter was often busy with cases.
Her face fell, sadness painting her in a whole new light. "Eh. She's fine, I guess. She's been in and out of hospital as of late, though."
"What do the doctors say?"
She scowled. "What can they say? Nothing, but rubbish as far as I'm concerned."
"I take it that they haven't found out a proper cause for her ailments yet?"
"No," she shook her head, "they have. It's old age, they tell me. Nothing they can do about it."
I frowned. "That sucks."
"You said it."
That reminded me. "Is that why you've been so stressed and out of it recently?"
Her eyebrows scrunched together at the same time her eyes widened as if I discovered a secret of hers. Regardless, she shrugged me off. "Maybe. Who knows? There's just so much going on, it's kind of hard to pinpoint, you know?"
On the surface, it was relatively easy to take her for her words and naively believe that she was coping with it all in a healthy manner. I had spent a couple of years with her, however, and I knew that if her exterior was collected but hesitant, her interior was the complete opposite. I knew I had the tendency to bury my emotions deep inside myself until I eventually exploded in liquid fire, but she was far worse than me when it came with dealing with her problems. The only difference was, while I had her behind me, she had nobody.
If I was a volcano, she was a tsunami. We were both tainted people, darkened by our past and present, hounded by our future, but we had different methods in dealing with out insanity. If I was crazy, she was mad; and, I guess, that's what connected us when it was all said and done.
We didn't speak much after that, comforting each other in silence, but it felt like we found a whole another level to feel each other's emotion on. It felt like we had both just recently met and known each other for eons.
Familiarity, but newness. Discoveries and déjà vu. Friends, but strangers.
It was a dualistic relationship, but I was content with it. It was in this moment that I completely disregarded my own rules. I chucked caution into the cold, freezing winds and welcomed Agent Beta in with open arms. A part of me shivered, however, at the possibility of being betrayed, but only time would tell me if I had made the right decision.
With these thoughts nagging me, we both parted ways. She went back to the Headquarters to continue to tackle her case with the ever-so-anxious Agent Samuels and I called it a day and headed home. Throughout the ride home, the wheels in my brain kept moving at a steady speed, although much slower than before. I had a lot to think about, after all.
One thing that didn't cross my mind, surprisingly, however, or person, I should say, was Blaze. I should've been more guarded, regardless of how much Agent Beta tried to tell me not too, for had I been on the lookout, fired and ready, I may have anticipated his next move. As it happens, however, my Fate wasn't particularly fond of me.
The minute I tried to move on and occupy my thoughts with other meaningless thoughts like other people my age, a giant meteor fell from the infinite blanket of sky and shook my world up, down, and sideways. For outside my house, on the welcome mat right outside the front door, lied an envelope. It just so happened to be addressed to me.
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[A/N] Longest chapter so far! I can't believe I've already passed 30k words and I'm only on the twelfth chapter?! There's so much I've planned for this book, but the words are just slipping away from me. What do you guys think?
Should I condense future chapters and limit them to only events that are important to the plot line or are you enjoying reading side plots and Angie's rambling thoughts? Please let me know in the comments below. :D
I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading!
~Zamaryah