Page 20 of Iron Cross

“But you can’t bat for me now, can you?” I said quietly, feeling the hopelessness of it all.

So long as I was in hiding, I was useless to the cause I cared for.

Blink closed his eyes, exhaling through his nose.

“I know as well as anyone what falling for the wrong person can do,” he said, quietly, staring out the window. “I don’t fault you for it. It’s a failing we both have.”

I knew that.

I knew how his heart had broken, not unlike mine.

Did I consider us friends? I wasn’t sure. Not in the typical sense, I suppose. We didn’t hang out outside of work. I had no idea what his favorite color was, but there was a certain closeness with our occupation.

But his expression today was decidedly less collegial. It was the look of a man who had no faith in me, in my ability to fund our growing operations. It was the look one gives a person being phased out of the organization that you helped to build, because I was no longer effective. Soon, I’d be redundant.

“We’ll bring someone in just to help. For now. Okay?” Blink said.

But heblinked.Blink… blinked.

His reptilian eyes that always seemed to stay open but now he blinked rapidly as moisture coated the darkness of his pupils.

Then he broke his intense eye contact because he was keeping something from me. I could feel it.

Realization was slow, and painful.

“You can’t,” I said, my heart unexpectedly breaking for him. “You can’t go to her. She’ll just hurt you.”

“I have no choice.”

A small, mewling cry pulled my attention from my colleague, and the sad exhaustion re-entered my body as my pride, my joy, and my greatest burden cried for my embrace.

“Take care of yourself, Picasso,” Blink said, as he came to his feet, popping his collar up against the cold of my stove-heated apartment.

I didn’t respond as he opened the door.

“The call for my replacement,” I said, before he could slam it shut. “Is it from you? Or from the higher ups?”

His lip straightened into a flat line. I knew Andres “Blink” Lutkus.

He was the one who needed me phased out. Replacing me was his choice. It wasn’t the bosses I had never met, and knew nothing about - the hidden puppet masters of Paradigm. The betrayal was far closer to home.

There was nothing else to say.

“You’re already dead set on it, aren’t you?” I whispered bitterly. “You’re probably going to see her right now.”

Blink shut his eyes, just for a moment, before those unemotional orbs turned back to me. “It’s temporary.”

“Sure it is,” I whispered bitterly. “You’re probably looking forward to visiting her, you fucking moron.”

Blink wasn’t capable of looking confused. Reptiles weren’t built for expressions. But I assumed that’s what he felt.

“Let me know how it goes,” I said bitterly. When he made no move to shut the door, I screamed, “Go!”

“Go!” My son echoed, his face perplexed but serious, as he looked at Blink.

My mini man was turning into my own little support system, in his own way. He always backed me up.

“One day, you’ll thank me for what I’m doing,” he stated, flatly.

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