I can't believe that I'm such an idiot. Why didn't I see this before? Like, I'm supposed to be able to read people, you know? Victor, the dick, Mansfield. He was just a cop. I couldn't understand why everyone seemed to swirl around him. LiAnne, Mac, even the Director. I mean really, why would two thieves want to hang out with such a stick in the mud. Okay, so the man can fight and has the cutest little pout, but seriously here? A cop?
Oh, the Director I could see. But why the hell did she make him her favorite? Vic is useful, but he's like a little boy. Half the time I think he's too stupid to get anything done right. But the Director likes results and he brings them in. I just can't figure out how he does it. He acts like such an innocent. I mean, you'd think he'd never had sex or something. Then again, from the look LiAnne gets on her face any time the act is mentioned, maybe he hasn't. But if Victor isn't sleeping with Mac, who is?
I guess I should tell you why I understand now. Victor would never ever hurt me. He would die to protect me. He won't abandon me.
He's breaking the rules for me.
I'm dying.
Victor's the only one who comes to see me besides the nurses now. The doctors have given up. I've been given a button to keep myself medicated. The Director sent down a laptop so I can play solitare and type up my last wishes. I wish I could talk, but the bacteria takes that away from you. At least that's what they tell me. The doctors say that if Victor hadn't been there, I probably would be suffering a lot more. I guess I should be grateful.
I'm not.
Well, not about that. I'm grateful that the Director's boy is disobeying orders. I've been cut off. The Director put out her vindictive hard-headed policy and no one dares go up against her. Except Victor.
I guess I should begin at the beginning.
It all started as a typical case. We went to the Director's office and settled around the table. Mac and Vic were taunting one another. Victor seemed to be in a good mood for the moment. His eyes weren't going "funny." They seem to go dead. I've only seen that look on hit men in the past and Victor is not an assassin even though he hangs out with some. He's not a thief, though he loves two of them. He's not a gangster although he nearly got caught up in a Family. He's not a cop. I don't really know what he is. I don't think he does either, but that's not really relevant.
Anyway, the Director started popping slides up onto the wall and I drifted a bit. I caught the gist of it. We were supposed to retrieve some stolen biological weapons. Vic's usually the only one who takes any of that stuff seriously. He even tries to understand the bacteria and stuff. The boy never went to college as far as I know and he tries to understand science that sets my head spinning.
I took the information she handed me and left as soon as she did, not bothering to read it. I scanned an address out. It seemed really strange that she'd be sending me and Vic rather than Mac and LiAnne, but I figured it was just the Director. I didn't wait for Vic. I figured it was just a simple in and out job.
I pulled out the fake ID that was in my folder and went up to the door. Things blew up not ten minutes after that. Some white coated bitch poured a vial of blue liquid down my throat while her goons held me. Victor busted into the middle of it. His guns flashed and people started falling around me. Blood ruined my pantsuit and my new Gucci shoes. That was over two-thousand dollars worth of damage to my clothes alone. I would have thought about killing the man, if there hadn't been such an awful burning pain in my throat.
He lifted my head very gently onto his lap and looked into my eyes. "Was it blue?" he asked. I nodded, too weak to do anything else. "Damn." He scurried to the refrigerator underneath one of the lab tables. He grabbed something, then he was there forcing me to drink milk. Freaking whole milk. He was right though. It made the burning decrease.
We must have made a strange looking pair in the surveillance pictures. I lay there in the arms of a geeky ex-cop. Me, the queen of fashion. Okay, that isn't fair. He wasn't exactly wearing flannel. He just looked like my old tutor. He wore the same jeans and white shirt. The thing is, I never once thought about it. It was, like, comforting to be there. I could smell leather, aftershave, and blood all mixed together with gunpowder. Vic felt warm and solid. I could hear his heart beat slowing down. The next thing I knew I was being loaded onto a gurney and the Director was snapping at the paramedics.
I woke up in the Agency hospital. There was a laptop and a note. "Goodbye. Your contract is terminated." It wasn’t signed. I turned it on and found that there was nothing but a word program, solitare, and the paint program on it. It didn't even have a CD player.
"Cheap bitch," I muttered to myself. Or, at least, I tried to. Nothing came out of my mouth. I put a hand to my throat. I couldn't feel anything wrong with it. The IV in my hand made me frown. It wasn't until I tried to sit up that the doctor came to see me for the first and last time. He was all dressed up in protective clothing like I was some alien or something. He spoke through a little speaker on his suit.
"I will make this quick. You have been infected with a bacteria. It will kill you in three weeks. The Director has ordered all personnel to cut off contact with you. We will work on creating a cure, however, I am not sure that it will do any good to you. I'm sorry, Jackie," he said, finally acting a little human. He left me then. It wasn't until Vic came to see me that anything got explained.
He didn't wear a field suit like the doctor, but he did have a mask, gloves, and scrubs on. "Hey, Jackie." He took my hand. "I'm guessing they didn't tell you much. They aren't sure if the bacteria is communicable or not. It was lab created. Just like it said in that file you didn't bother to read or have me summarize for you." He gave me a glare and it felt good to have someone treating me normally. "It will slowly eat away at your body. I know you probably don't need to know this, but that's why you can't talk. It creates an acid with it's excretions that has eaten away your vocal cords, just like lye would. That's what they can't seem to neutralize without killing their subjects. I'm sorry you ended up like this, Jackie. I'm sorry I wasn't quicker."
I shook my head at that and tried to smile at him. It wasn't his fault. But I know now that he'll never believe that. He's got it into his head that he should have been able to predict what I was going to do.
TBC