Page 53 of Factory Thief

“Goodbye, Victoria,” Jack says. He turns on his heel and walks off the porch.

I feel a cold stab in my heart as he walks away. I want to call him back, but I just can’t make myself do it.

Why should I bother, anyway?

If Jack wanted to do more than just walk out of my life, wouldn’t he do something about it? Or at least say something? Anything at all, other than goodbye?

I head back inside my house and stare at the walls. All this space has never made me feel so empty before.

What was it I said earlier? It never felt like home.

I remember seeing a stupid poster in foster care which read ‘home is who you’re with.’ Hell of a lesson to impart to a kid who lost their parents and doesn’t have any choice of who they’re with.

I’m all alone, again. I should be happy that the Factory isn’t hounding me any longer, but I’m not.

I miss Jack. I missed him the second he turned and walked off my porch and out of my life.

I know where he’s going.

He still owns the place where he had hidden the data.

If I want to, tomorrow, I can go there and talk to him.

No. What good would that really do me?

He would have said something if he was interested.

My phone rings, startling me from my reverie. For a moment a flash of golden hope warms my breast. I think perhaps it might be Jack.

I feel a swell of disappointment when I see it’s one of my contacts. He probably has a new job for me.

“Hello?”

“Vicky, baby, I heard you were back in town. Got the time to bone up on a little bit of history, if you catch my drift?”

That’s code for dealing with an art object of historical, if not metallurgical, significance. Often those jobs are easy money.

I only debate for a second before I take the job.

This is just the sort of distraction I need.

JACK

Every fiber of my being begs me to turn around and run back to Victoria, but I take the coward’s way out and just walk away from her.

I’m numb on my drive home, mind drifting in the past and struggling to find its way into the future. For two years, every moment of my life has been dictated by someone else. First, by the prison system, then, by my fugitive status and Victoria’s captivity.

Now, I’m free to do whatever I want, and, instead of doing so, I’ve taken the exact opposite action. I’m driving away from what I really want, out of fear of rejection.

It’s not until I park my car, get out, and push open the front door that I remember my place has been utterly trashed. When the Xtera thugs ransacked my home searching for the flash drive, they didn’t give a damn about what stood in their way.

I crouch down and riffle through the pile of sharp porcelain pieces which used to be my grandmother’s favorite tea kettle. Now, it’s just dust that chokes and hard edges that cut. I can imagine one of Livingston’s thugs snatching the kettle from the knick-knack shelf, peering inside hopefully, and then hurling the artifact to the floor in disgust.

Livingston. At least that little peckerwood is dead.

I try to pick up the pieces, both of the house and my life. Some things can be repaired, like the hole kicked in the drywall near the stairs. Others cannot, like the tea kettle, or the portrait of my great-grandfather ripped from the wall and bent over the safety rail.

Can I pick up the pieces of what lies between myself and Victoria?

---