Almost Forgotten

Chapter 19: Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn

It's the start of us, waking up, come on. Are you ready? I'll be ready.

"Going where?" I clench onto the robe as the drops of water wet down the trail from one room to another.

A loosely tied towel is all there is on top of his wound mottled skin. A dry hand goes through thick wetness as he opens the closet buried into the wall. "I will not sit and wait for the FBI to arrest me again."

The last word is spat curtly and I the shivers on my body cage it in the place as the memories flood the little left of sanity behind my eyes.

"Landon?" I call out, hand tight around the gun as my eyes try to get adjusted to the dark motel room while the creaks of the door make my ears bleed.

My finger is immediately on the trigger, hand up when I hear a familiar click and the room's lighting itches my eye.

Not for long as the man in the question shows up in my vision, as well as sitting at the line of my barrel.

The breath is caught in my lungs as he sits in the chair leaned on the opposite wall, crossed legs with a gun of his own in his hand.

His eyes don't search for me, still focused on the weapon in his lap as my leg shuts the door behind me, still pointing the gun at him.

Neither speaks, silence thick as the storm on the outside dares to shatter down the glass window right next to his head when I stop in my tracks in the middle of the room as he lifts his head.

The look in his eyes is distraught.

"Meredith must've called you hours ago." I speak, sensing he would never be the one to drop the rock in this drowning sea.

"She has." he quietly says, leaning back.

Landon Thorne. The leader of the largest and longest lasting gang on the west lands of the world. The criminal that always managed to get away from being in the hands of the law.

Until now.

Landon Thorne, the ruthless murder, looking at me, the mole in his organization who would sneak into his bed and play a loving partner while stabbing him in the back, with such tenderness and sadness.

"Why didn't you leave then?" the words are calm, even though I wish I could scream it at him, scold him for being this thoughtless and careless and-

"I wanted to know if it was true." he says, setting the gun to the side as he tilts his head. "So is it true Miles?"

The answer is choked out of my throat. "It is."

A laugh escapes his lips, broken and painful as his eyelids fell down along with his head. His hands are knotted in his hair when in the distance familiar sirens start coming closer.

They are here.

"An undercover cop." he whispers, staring at the floor. "I could never see that coming."

"You should have." I say, placing my own gun back in my pocket as he abandoned his. "You know what and who you are, things like this are nothing uncommon in your life. It happened many times before."

"Not like this." he catches my eyes as another broken voice with a cruel laugh escapes him. "There was never one like you."

I swallow down the past. "This is different. They don't know where you are. I didn't tell him anything."

He pulls out a box of papers, along with an already ready suitcase when he speaks. "Even if that was true," he glances at me as he opens the box, "your little friends can track down that call."