Chapter 19

I shook my head violently. I pointed at my jaw, neck brace and lifted my crutch and pointed at him. " Consider it your first training session." I couldn't believe what was happening to me. If he had almost killed me in the first training session, then I wasn't looking forward to the others to come. My life had suddenly been given a known expiry date and I didn't like it. I snatched a pen and pad of sticky notes and wrote. " will I get a chance to heal?." Under any other circumstance, it would not be a question to ask, but when dealing with the C.I.A, you are never guaranteed anything, so it's better to ask. He looked at me like a hungry lion analyzing his prey. " I'll give you a week. Nothing more." He cemented his cruel conclusion with an evil smile. The fact that I couldn't open mu mouth enough to talk shit to him pained me more than all of my wounds combined. I stood up and left. I ordered steak on the way and picked it up five minutes after I got home, only to realize that I couldn't chew steak.

I drove quickly to the grocery store and bought myself various flavors of canned soup. I heated one up and added my own selection of spices with a little assistance from the internet to make it consumable and drank it through a straw. I was in the middle of drinking my meal when I heard the front door open. I pulled out my gun and hid preparing for the person to walk in. I was not really in any condition to fight. I would shoot to kill and that was all. I was crouched and waiting. I jumped out and pointed the gun. It was Matilda. The agent supposed to be living with me. I nodded my head in aknowledgement. " Just returned fro a mission" I nodded my head back. She narrowed her eyes at me. " Broken jaw, huh?". I nodded my head. Pity passed over her face. " I know just the way to help you out." She turned around and went back into the kitchen. I sat a enjoyed the amazing smell coming from the kitchen.

In barely fifteen minutes, I had a hot meal in front of me. Matilda had made some kind of carrot soup with one of the canned soups I had bought. She watched me as an uncontrollable smile settled on my face. I thanked her for the meal and went to bed. Sleep was uncomfortable as hell. Whatever position I was in, my neck and other body parts refused to be comfortable. I finally managed to find an awkward position which my entire body seemed to agree on, but it was like half an hour after that the sun shone through my window to wake me up. I rolled of my bed as usual and immediately regretted. I lost balance and fell flat on the floor, my jaw making painful contact with it. I groaned and got to my feet. I stood in front of the mirror and examined myself. The bruises had already started to heal and my neck felt fine, but my jaw hurt.

Walking down the stairs, I could smell breakfast. My stomach rumbled, nudging me to hurry up. I couldn't believe it. agent Royce was sitting at the table eating. I growled and got his attention. He smiled in the most annoying manner. Before anything drastic could happen, Matilda came in with a plate of bacon. " Oh. You have already met my husband. I was confused. " Huh?" I couldn't say many words, but 'huh' was enough to express what I needed to. I remained where I was staring at the unlikely couple. I was waiting for further explanation. " We got off on a really bad tone, but I think we will become friends quickly." I heavily doubted it, but I was in no position to attack someone who would be seeing me everyday. I decided to quickly dash to Starbucks and grab a coffee instead of sitting down for breakfast.

I drove around aimlessly for an hour and a half before returning to the house. It was weird being friendly with someone who broke your face their first time meeting you. I soon realized that he was going to be living with us till my training was complete. I immediately became depressed. My life had become a series of extremely unfortunate events and each one seemed to be twice as bad as the previous one to say the least. The one place I had come to think of as safe, as a sanctuary had been compromised. I thought about my rather unfortunate situation for a while. If I couldn't defeat him, I might as well just try to make friends with him. Strategic alliances had always been a specialty of mine and it might as well be time for me to employ my natural talent to help myself out of my predicament.

I had lunch with the three of them. To be honest with myself, it did bring back nostalgia for my family to be united once more. Even though family dinners had ever really been a practice in our household, the fact that we were all there together satisfied all our emotional wants and needs. Agent Royce, whose name turned out was also David was showing me a whole different side of himself. A side that I could actually begin to like. We ate... well they ate whilst I drank my meal. After dinner I went straight up to my room and left the couple to themselves. After about an hour of brooding, I decided to take out my frustrations in the gym. It seemed Agent Royce and I thought alike. He was already working out by the time I got there. I began my own workout routine without saying a word to him. Whilst running on the treadmill, I noticed he had paused his workout and was staring at me. I stopped the machine and returned his stare. " You know, it doesn't have to be like this between us right?"

I couldn't believe he had the nerve to say that. He was the reason I consumed all my meals through a straw, the reason after only an hour of running, my body ached. I sat down and stared at him. " Fine". He shrugged his shoulders. " It can be that way if you want. " Suddenly, I began to feel like the bad person. I didn't even remember growing a conscience. Turned out he wasn't the bad person I had tagged him as. He showed me a couple of new workouts and to my disbelief, I stayed and worked out with him and we left together in good spirits. I drank my dinner quickly and ran myself a luxurious bath with an excessive mounts of bath salts and bubble bath soap. I could almost feel my body working furiously to put itself back together.

I rested my neck on the neck support and closed my eyes. I took a deep breath and let it out. I lay there reminiscing. I played back memories that I had tried so hard over the years to suppress. The times before my father died. When we used to go fishing, paintballing, the few thanksgivings we had together, holidays, I even miss when he used to get mad at David, my other brother Kyle and I for fighting. It all changed one day when my parents returned from their usual 'business' trips. Well... only my mother did. She came back with tears shining bright in her eyes. I remembered the way she burst into tears when David, Kyle and I ran to meet her at the door. We asked her where are father was. She broke down again, telling us that he wasn't coming home. I remember the way everything stopped around me. David and Kyle began to cry, but not me. I went straight up to my room and called his phone.

A man's voice answered and promised me that he was going to bring my father to me the next day. I told him where our house was. I went downstairs to tell my mother and brothers that It was going to be okay, thinking I was going to surprise them the next day. I'm sure my mother saw me as brave for doing that even though I was far younger that my brothers. I helped her tuck them into bed and went to bed. The next morning, my mother and I were baking cookies when the doorbell rang. I followed my mother happily to the door, expecting to see my father. I did though. The man kept his promise. When she opened the door, there was no one there. Then my father fell onto the floor before us. I was in shock for a few seconds. I closed my eyes, shouting no, no, no. Just trying to erase the picture of the pale body of my father. The dried blood on his face, the way his mouth hang open, his eyes, once bright, now cold and lifeless.

By the time I came to my senses, There was war in the house. My mother was shooting vigorously as several armed men continued to pour into our house. She had flipped over the table and was firing from there with her right hand, whilst her left arm held me tightly, hugging me. That was when the tears started to come. Silent tears gradually became wails and screams. My mother held me tighter. She was also crying. I remembered her whispering into my ear. "It's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay." Eventually, the chaos came to an end as the sound of police, ambulance and fire truck sirens became louder. My mother and I sat in the wreckage, cuddling each other and crying. The policemen, along with the fire men and paramedics began pouring into the house.

We stood up when an officer came to us to ask questions. My mother was answering the questions. " Are the two of you the only people in the house?". My mother froze. She began frantically scrambling through the wreckage for the stairs, but she didn't climb. Two paramedics were making their way down the stairs with a body bag on a stretcher. David was following them shouting Kyle's name. I didn't need any explanation. It was obvious what had happened. Kyle was dead. My mother's screams filled the house as she shouted for her dead son. Her first child. He was only fifteen years old. He was dead. It was all my fault. I began to cry harder than ever. My mother pulled David and I into a tight hug. " H...he was telling me to b...b...be calm, and a man entered t...the r...room. He shot the g..." David stopped there. Everyone understood what had happened. " I'm so sorry." My mother apologized to us. " No mom". I cried. "It's my fault. I'm sorry" "No. You don't have to blame yourself Sam. " I shook my head. The tears fell harder than ever. " It was me. I told him to bring daddy."