Page 30 of Not Taken

I didn’t know if I would ever see Caleb again. They might let him heal and lock him up, before torturing him for the information they wanted. Or they might lose his files, and one day he would disappear, slip through the cracks so everyone forgot and no one could find him. Caleb was never fated for a happy life, but I could try to do something to help him. Though ‘help' was a pathetic word in this situation.

But Lacey was waiting for me. Even if she thought I was dead, even if she didn’t remember me, I had a family, I had a new life I could step towards if I wanted it. I could leave the Bureau, take Lacey with me, find somewhere to live away from violence where she would be truly safe.

Even if I was ruined. Even if I couldn't live without blood and death, with urges so dark I didn't know if I could live without killing. How could I expose her to such things?

But, like with Caleb, she brought me relief. Just a picture of her smiling eased my hatred.

My body screamed with the bleeding in my stomach and my broken arm, though I hid it well enough. All I had to do was tell them my ribs were broken and they’d throw me in the ambulance. I could stay with Caleb, protect him from whatever shit the Bureau might throw at him.

More and more arguments kept rising of why I should go in the ambulance, quickly drowned out by reasons I should get in the car, go to the Bureau, and finish my service to be with Lacey again.

My daughter, who was already safe, but the reason I started killing. Or Caleb, who’s life hung in the balance, who I hated and loved so desperately that both leaving and staying with him would break my heart.

Peace or Chaos.

Truth or a Lie.

“Agent Knightly,” Henderson said from behind me. “We need to go.”

He opened the back door of his car and stepped aside for me to enter just as an EMT jumped out of the ambulance. “We’re leaving!” she shouted before slamming the double doors shut, aiming for the driver’s seat.

“Agent Knightly?” Henderson asked, watching me in confusion. “Aren't you coming?”

I notched my head back, my chin lifting to absorb the endless wash of the open night sky above me, blurred by the sharp yellow fluorescent lines of the gas station and stinging tears, my heart burning at the choice laid before me.

My eyes slowly closed, blocking out everything but the red whirling flash of the ambulance, and the sound of the engine of Henderson’s car beside me.

Where was I going? How could I make a choice? Which path was I supposed to take when neither of them led me to darkness?

THE END.

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