J. Redmerski - Behind The Hands That Kill

“Why save her?” I asked Morrison about Izabel. “Is she worth more alive?” I felt the warmth of Izabel’s blood all over me, soaking into my pants, into my bones; I swallowed hard and tried not to think about it, about her, and if that woman could get her to a hospital in time. If she would even try.

Morrison rose into a stand, towering over me; his bearded face stretched into a smile as I raised my head to look up at him.

“Most of you are,” he answered. “You. Fleischer. Gustavsson; you’re all worth double alive what you’re worth dead.” His smile grew, and he paused, studying me, and said, “But the girl”—he chuckled under his breath—“the price on her head is likely more than any hit you’ve ever carried out, Faust.”

Surprised by his statement, I stared up at him, long and hard and with tremendous curiosity. But before I could inquire further, Morrison shifted gears and threw the topic off course.

“I always knew you couldn’t handle it,” he said, shaking his head. “Attachments. They were your only weakness. They always have been, Faust, from the day you were brought into The Order, to the day you went rogue and left it. Your mother. Your brother. Marina. Artemis. Sarai…” He shook his head once more, a look of shame and disappointment spreading over his rugged features. “I have to give you credit though. You tried more than anyone I know could, to overcome the weakness, or to suppress it at least, but in the end it had more power over you than you would ever have over it. Should’ve been born into The Order; if you had, you’d truly be the unstoppable machine that most believe you are.”

Refusing to give him the satisfaction of a pathetic response—because he was right, and a pathetic response was all I had—I retained eye contact and said, “So then what are you waiting for? Why cuff me to the bar, rather than take me in?”

He smiled a slippery smile.

“I’ll get to that soon,” he said. “But first, I wanted to ask you something.” He shrugged. “You don’t have to answer, of course, but I’m very curious, and it can’t hurt to try. Right?”

I did not respond.

Morrison dropped the handcuff key into his pants pocket, slid his gun still laying on the floor, behind him, and then crouched in front of me again, but out of my reach; he sprang up and down momentarily on the front of his feet.

“Did you ever wonder why no one in The Order knew you and Niklas Fleischer were half-brothers?” He twirled a hand at the wrist. “I mean surely it had to be a question itching in the back of your mind.”

Still, I did not respond.

Morrison’s mouth pinched at one corner, and he looked at me sidelong. “Oh come on, Faust, just be honest and say you thought about it but never could quite figure it out—there’s no shame in the truth.” When he still did not get the response from me he sought, he sighed and pushed himself into a stand. “All of us know— you know—that nothing in The Order is ever as it seems. Of course, you, being higher on Vonnegut’s pedestal than any operative in history, you had every reason to believe that everything you thought you knew was exactly how you knew it to be. But you’re not stupid, Victor; you’re probably the most intelligent man I’ve ever known. And you damn-well know, somewhere inside that methodical head of yours”—he pointed at his own head—“that there was no way you and your brother made it through the most sophisticated spy and assassination organization in the world, flying under the noses of those who built it, without them ever knowing the truth about your relation.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, though I already knew he would not tell me.

Morrison shrugged.

“It was just a question, like I said.”

“You said yourself that I am not stupid, Morrison, so do not insult my intelligence with cryptic bush-beating.”

He smiled; the yellow-white of his teeth barely visible beneath his lips. But as I expected, he had no plans to alleviate the aching curiosity in me.

“I have a question for you ,” I said, turning the tables.

“Ask away.” He motioned his right hand, twirling it at the wrist.

“Just how in love with Marina Torre were you before I choked her to death?”

The smile disappeared from his face, and he stopped blinking.

Morrison rounded his chin; he used a cool smile to conceal the animosity.

“You heard Marina that night,” I began, “when she told me the story about when and how she met you. But when after a while she did not return the affection, you, like any deranged sociopath with underdeveloped people skills, turned on her, started threatening her, beating her, all to keep her in line and under your thumb.” (The skin around Morrison’s nose crumpled; he clenched his teeth behind closed lips. He wanted to kill me, but he could not. I was worth too much.) “I had no idea about your feelings for Marina then, but I figured it out later, after the night I slit Artemis’ throat.” On my knees now, I pushed myself toward him, as far as I could, so that he could see the look in my eyes; the cuff rattled against the bar; the knife beneath my leg, covered by the fabric of my pants, was as silent as my intention to use it. “You, Brant Morrison, are just like me; you are as guilty as I am; you are as flawed and weak as I have ever been, affected by the same attachments you accuse me of. I suspect that Marina was the first of many women with whom you confused obsession for love, and that Marina was the first of many who denied you.”

Confetti-like spots sprang before my eyes like bursting fireworks in a black sky; I fell backward against the bars; the left side of my face pulsed and throbbed. In the three seconds it took for the stun to wear off, I was still able to keep the knife hidden beneath my pant leg.

I opened my eyes, shook off the remnants of the blow; Morrison was standing over me. Right where I needed him. Patience, Victor, I told myself. Do not kill him yet, or the answers die with him. I knew it would not be my only chance to get him close if he moved out of my reach—my plan to shake him enough to get him this close worked faster than I thought it would, therefore it would work again.

“This isn’t about me,” he said, indignantly.

“No,” I came back, “it is not. However, it is about something . Everything is connected—we are all connected in some way; are we not, Morrison?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“I do not know,” I answered, doing a little bush-beating of my own. “It was just a question.” I smirked.

He sneered, and then stepped out of my reach again; fortunately, not because he realized that he was standing too close—the clouded expression of anger and perplexity in his face told me his mind was anywhere but where it should have been. I barely had time to wonder how this man could have been the one who trained me; how could I have turned out like I did, when he was failing every test I put to him? Was he simply slipping in his advancing age, forgetting the most basic of skills? Or had the student transcended the master? Oh, that’s right, I thought smugly, I transcended him a long time ago.

“You wanted to tell me something, Morrison. You would not have brought it up if there was not something you were itching to say. I presume it is something you have wanted to say to me for a very long time.”

“Is that so?” he said, with sarcasm. “And just what makes you think that?”

I nodded. “Because jealousy and envy are cheap suits made of flashy colors,” I said. “ No one wears them well, and every one sees you when you are coming.”