Cody McFadyen - Shadow Man

"I could've killed you," I whisper.

"Naw." She smiles again. It's still a little bit sad, but some of the mischievous Callie shines through. "You were aiming at my leg."

"Callie." I say it as a reprimand, albeit a gentle one. "I remember." I hadn't been aiming at her leg. I'd been aiming at her heart. She leans forward and looks me right in the eyes. "Smoky, I trust you more than I trust anybody in this world. And that hasn't changed. I don't know what else to tell you. Except that I'll never talk about it with you again."

I close my eyes. "Who else knows?"

Silence. "Me. The team. AD Jones. Dr. Hillstead. That's it. Jones clamped down on it pretty hard."

Except that's not it, I think. They know. I can tell she has something else to say.

"What?"

"Well . . . you should know: Dr. Hillstead is the only person who knows about your reaction to finding out today. Aside from Jenny and the rest of the team."

"You didn't tell AD Jones?"

She shakes her head. "No."

"Why not?"

Callie lets go of my hand. She looks uneasy, a rare thing for her. She stands up and paces a little. "I'm afraid--we're afraid--if we do, then that's it. He'll decide you can never go back to work. Ever. We know you may decide that, anyway. But we wanted to leave the options open."

"Everyone agreed to this?"

She's hesitant. "Everyone but James. He says he wants to speak to you first."

I close my eyes. Right now, James is the last person I want to talk to. The very last.

I sigh. "Fine. Send him in. I don't know what I'm going to decide just yet, Callie. I do know this--I want to go home. I want to get Bonnie and go home, and try to figure this out. I need to get my head straight, once and for all, or I'm done. You guys can follow up on AFIS and the rest of it. I need to go home."

She looks down at the floor, then back up at me. "I understand. I'll get it all into motion."

She walks toward the door. Stops and turns back to me as she gets to it. "One thing you should think about, honey-love. You know guns better than anyone I've ever met. Maybe when you pointed your gun at me, you pulled the trigger because you knew it was empty." She winks, opens the door, and walks out.

"Maybe," I whisper to myself.

But I don't think so.

I think I pulled the trigger because, at that moment, I wanted the whole world to die.

J AMES WALKS INand closes the door behind him. He takes a seat in the chair next to my bed. He's silent, and I can't read him. Not that I ever could.

"Callie said you needed to talk to me before deciding whether or not you were going to rat me out to AD Jones."

He doesn't reply right away. He sits there, looking at me. It's exasperating.

"Well?"

He purses his lips. "Contrary to what you probably think, I don't have a problem with you coming back to full and active duty, Smoky. I don't. You're good at what we do, and competence is all I ask for."

"So?"

"What I do have a problem with is you being only halfway." He gestures at me lying on the hospital bed. "Like this. It makes you dangerous, because you're unreliable."

"Oh, please eat shit and die."

He ignores me. "It's true. Think about it. When you and I were in Annie King's apartment, I saw the old you. The competent one. So did everyone else. Callie and Alan started to defer to you again, to rely on you. Together we found evidence that would have been missed. But then all it took was a letter and you collapsed."

"Little more complicated than that, James."

He shrugs. "Not in the way that matters it's not. Either you are back all the way, or not at all. Because if you come back like this, you're a liability to us. And that leads to what I am willing to agree to."

"What?"

"That you either come back fixed, or you stay the fuck away. If you try to come back still screwed up, I'm going straight to AD Jones, and I'll just keep climbing until someone listens to me and puts you out to pasture."

The fury in me is white hot. "You are some arrogant prick."

He's unmoved. "This is the way it is, Smoky. I trust you. If you give me your word, then I know you'll keep it. That's what I want. Come back fixed, or don't come back at all. It's nonnegotiable."

I stare at him. I don't see judgment or pity.

He's really not asking much, I realize. What he's saying is reasonable. I hate him anyway.

"I give you my word. Now get the fuck out of here."

He gets up and leaves without looking back.

W E LEFT INthe early morning, and the flight back was a silent one. Bonnie sat next to me, holding my hand and staring off into the distance. Callie spoke once to let me know that two agents would be posted at my home until I said otherwise. I didn't think he would be back now that he'd tipped his hand, but I was more than happy to have the protection. She also told me that AFIS had come up empty. Oh, happy day.

I am boiling over inside, a big mess of harm and confusion lit by little starbursts of panic. It is not the emotion overwhelming me, it is the reality. The reality of Bonnie. I glance at her. She unsettles me even more, responds by turning her head to give me a full, frank look. She regards me for a moment, and then goes back to her stillness and that thousand-yard stare.

I clench a fist and close my eyes. Those little panic starbursts glitter and burst and crack.

Motherhood terrifies me. Because that's what we're talking about here, plain and simple. I am all she has, and there are many, many miles to go. Miles filled with school days, Christmas mornings, booster shots, eat your vegetables, learn to drive, home by ten, on and on and on. All the banalities, big and small and wonderful, that go into being responsible for another life. I used to have a system for this. The thing was, it wasn't just called motherhood. It was called parenthood. I had Matt. We bounced things off each other, argued about what was best for Alexa, loved her together. A large part of being a parent is a constant near certainty that you are screwing it up, and it is comforting to be able to spread the blame around. Bonnie has me. Just me. Screwup me, towing a freight train of baggage while she tows a freight train of horror and a future of . . . what?

Will she ever speak again? Will she have friends? Boyfriends? Will she be happy?

I realize as my panic builds that I know nothing about this little girl. I don't know if she's good in school. I don't know what TV shows she likes to watch, or what she expects to eat for breakfast in the morning. I know nothing.

The terror of it grows and grows, and I am babbling to myself inside and I just want to open the hatch on the side of the plane and jump out screaming into the open air, cackling and weeping and--

And there's Matt's voice again, inside my head. Soft and low and soothing.

Shhhh, babe. Relax. First things first, and you have the most important one out of the way already.

What's that? I whimper back to him in my mind.

I feel his smile. You've taken her on. She's yours. Whatever else happens, however hard it is, you've taken her on, and you'll never take that back. That's the First Rule of Mom, and you did it. The rest will fall into place. My heart clenches at this, and I want to gasp.

The First Rule of Mom . . .

Alexa had her problems; she wasn't a perfect child. She needed a lot of reassurance, sometimes, that she was loved. In those times, I would always tell her the same thing. I would cuddle her in my arms, and put my lips in her hair and whisper to her.

"You know what the First Rule of Mom is, honey?" I would say. She did, but she always answered the same way:

"What, Mommy? What's the First Rule of Mom?"