Brett Battles - The Destroyed

“Since I didn’t know where you were, I contacted Orlando,” Nate said. Orlando was Quinn’s girlfriend and sometimes partner. “She was reluctant at first to say anything. When I told her what Peter wanted, she said almost the same thing you did-‘But Mila Voss is dead.’ Only when she said it, I could tell she thought it was true. You, not so much.”

Quinn hesitated, then said, “How is she?”

“Worried about you.”

“She said that?”

“She didn’t have to.”

Quinn fell silent for a second. “Where was Mila seen?”

“Peter didn’t say. Only that if I didn’t find you as soon as possible, things could get very uncomfortable very fast.”

Quinn’s head drooped, and Nate thought he heard him whisper something. A curse, perhaps.

“Who is she?” Nate asked. It was something he’d been wondering since he’d talked to Peter. He’d asked Orlando, too, but she wouldn’t tell him. She did finally say that Quinn was somewhere in Thailand, but she didn’t know where specifically. She only had the name of a woman in Bangkok-Christina-and a code phrase that would let the woman know it was all right for her to tell Nate where Quinn was staying.

Instead of answering Nate’s question, Quinn said, “Do you have your phone?”

“Of course.”

“Get Peter on the line.”

Most mornings when Quinn had woken during the past few months, his only thoughts were of the classes he would be teaching that day. He wished it was the same this particular morning.

The previous fall, his work as a cleaner had nearly caused the deaths of his mother and his sister. The safeguards he’d put in place, the firewalls he thought he’d built between himself and them, had all failed. If it weren’t for his quick action and that of some of his associates-most notably Nate acting as bodyguard for Quinn’s sister, Liz-his mother and sister would have died. Nate had been shot in the process, and nearly died himself.

The realization that his work could so affect the ones he loved shattered the illusion of the life he imagined he’d created. He became mentally paralyzed, unsure if he could ever return to the dangerous life he was so good at, especially if it meant the innocents he cared about could be harmed.

For two months he did nothing but hole up at his house in Los Angeles. He returned no calls, pursued no new jobs. The easy assignments he’d already committed to, he gave to Nate.

It was a visit from Orlando that finally shook him loose.

“You don’t have to do this anymore,” she told him. “But you also don’t have to make any decisions now. You have the luxury of time. Take as much as you want. I think you should go someplace unfamiliar, where you can clear your mind. If you want, I can suggest a few, and use some of my contacts to line something up.”

He thought about it overnight, and when he woke the next morning with her in his arms, he said, “I want.”

He wandered for a few weeks after that, first visiting his mother in Minnesota, then spending a week with his sister in Paris as they continued to try and rebuild a relationship that had been broken for so long. After that he headed to Thailand, where the mysterious Christina had sent him to Wat Doi Thong.

In the first few months at the temple, he’d continued to have the same dream every night-though dream was probably not the right term. It was more like a sleeping memory. A hospital room in London. Nate asleep on the bed, recovering from his wound. Liz sitting beside him, holding his hand, then turning to look at Quinn who had entered a few moments earlier.

“What?” she said in the dream, and in the memory.

He took a step forward. “How…how’s he doing?”

Liz held his gaze for a second. “He was awake for thirty minutes. The doctors said that’s a good sign.”

In the memory, they talked about Nate-a neutral topic, less painful. But in the dream they would skip ahead, and he would find himself standing beside his sister as she asked, “Who are you?”

The question hurt more than she could have possibly realized. His fault, not hers. He’d hidden his true life from his family. Hell, he’d barely talked to Liz since she was a kid. He’d thought it was the right thing to do. He’d thought it would be best for her. But now it seemed so pointless, years wasted, the bond they once had destroyed. He wished there was a way to return to the relationship they’d had before, but as good as he was at visualizing all the scenarios in his work, he couldn’t see the way back to that. “I…I just wanted to…I thought…I thought I was doing…” He fell silent, knowing no words would ever be adequate.

That was the moment Liz could have pounced, and rightly ripped him apart. But her face had softened, and she looked at Nate. “When he woke he asked about you and Orlando. He said you were the two people he respected most in the world.” She turned to her brother again. “He said you always try to do the right thing.”

Quinn didn’t know how to respond.

Silence filled the room for a while, then she said, “I don’t know how to feel. About you, I mean. I hated you for so long. I don’t think I hate you anymore, but I don’t know how I feel.” A long pause. “That’s the best I can do.”

“It’s more than I can ask,” he said.

As he started to turn away, she put a hand on his wrist. He looked at her, and she at him. Then she fell against his chest, wrapped her arms around him, and cried.

He knew it didn’t change what she had said. The ordeal she had just gone through had been intense, and the man she’d started to have feelings for was lying in the hospital bed beside her, a bullet wound in his chest.

Yet for those minutes he held her, it was like none of the mistakes he’d made mattered. “I love you, Liz,” he wanted to say, but knew it would be too much.

He always wished the dream would end there, but it didn’t. After they’d pulled apart, Liz had donned her coat of armor again.

“I’ll need time,” she said as he turned for the door. “Maybe forever.”

That was where the dream ended.

But as the hot Thai months moved on, the dream came less and less, until he’d stopped having it at all. But the previous night, after Christina sent word that a man would be arriving to see him, the dream had come to him again, more vivid than ever. When he woke before dawn, his usual thoughts of English lessons and working in fields were replaced with memories of violence and death.

From the description Christina gave him, he knew his visitor was Nate. Yet when he saw his former apprentice, he was surprised. There was something older about Nate, his edges sharper and more defined. There was a confidence, too. While Nate undoubtedly had more to learn, he was now a professional who could stand on his own.

What Quinn also saw was a window into the world he was not yet ready to return to, a world he was unsure he would ever be ready for again. His assumption had been that Nate was there to lure him back. Nearly nine months was a long time to be away, so the attempt would not be unreasonable, but that didn’t mean he had to agree to it. His plan had been to make it clear to Nate he wasn’t going anywhere.

Then Nate had yelled out Mila Voss’s name.

Mila Voss. Seen alive.

Dear God, what was she thinking?

Quinn could hear the call ringing on the other end as Nate handed him the phone. There was a click, and a familiar female voice said, “Yes?”

“Misty?” Quinn said, surprised.

A pause. “Quinn.” He heard a smile in her voice before her tone turned serious. “I heard your father passed away last year. I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I understand Peter wants to talk to me.”