Chapter 12
Scarlet was having a very good day.
She had an footrunner from the agency, a very good friend of hers, basically spouting information that she needed to know.
Sure he was strapped to a chair with a gun pointed at his head in an abandoned warehouse, but technicalities.
“Tell me where the heads of the organization are,” requested the Gray Man, very nicely if Scarlet had to say anything about it.
“No,” said Jorge Ramone, the footrunner.
“You get one more try Ramone, where are the Somnilites?” the Gray Man’s grip tightened on his gun.
“Where are they? Just a little town called fuck you,” spat the man in the chair. Jorge had never been creative with insults, but Scarlet though that that was just bad.
“Wow, he left you with an opening, you could have done a lot more with that,” she called from where she was leaning on a stack of crates.
“Shut up, you psycho bitch,” Ramone hissed. Really just unoriginal, childish even.
“Do the opposite, you stubborn dickhole,” she called back in the same spirit, perhaps a bit more playfully.
“I’m going to count to five, then shoot a bullet into your foot, unless you release the information we have asked you for. Whether it’s the only bullet I put into your body, you can decide,” This was Scarlet’s cue, because whether or not Ramone knew it, there were no bullets in the gun. It was Scarlet’s job to put up a good enough show to make Ramone think there was.
It was a lucky break that she was such a drama queen.
“Might as well do it Gray, he ain’t talkin’,” Scarlet said, stalking over.
“You wouldn’t,” The man snivelled “I’m your only piece of information,” Ramone defended, quite arrogantly if you asked Scarlet. Still, a measure of fear became clear in his voice.
“One,” was all the Gray Man said.
“You’re our only piece of information right now. More can be acquired,” Scarlet laughed.
“Two,” was all the Gray Man said.
“From where? After you took me, they’ll never let you in again,” Ramone, Ramone, Ramone always overestimating his own worth.
Self-esteem goals! Called a voice in the back of her head that sounded kind of like her old gym-going, smoothie-drinking college roommate.
“You think I don’t have people on the inside? I wouldn’t waste all my resources on a simple foot soldier,” Of all the lies that scarlet was telling Ramone, this was true.
“Three,” was all the Gray Man said.
“Please, you wasted your only visit to the base on me, I had to be important to you somehow,” He was right about that, but Scarlet didn’t let it show on her face, instead, she let out a large laugh.
“You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? Except that wasn’t my only visit. They do rotate out the workers every month, them and their strange rituals, I have about six visits to base left this year. Not to mention my inside agents. You are convenient, but in the grand scheme of things, insignificant,” Scarlet didn’t mention it would take several months to re-integrate and that she didn’t have that kind of time.
“Four,” was all the Gray Man said.
“Would you look at that? Your time’s almost up,” Scarlet said, sending a smile back at the Gray Man.
“Please, please don’t do this, I have a family, I have children,” He didn’t. He knew that she knew. This was a last ditch effort born out of desperation. Scarlet immediately lost a lot of respect for the man.
“ We both know that isn’t true, so are you going to spill or are we going to have to give you more incentive,” Scarlet said, gesturing to the bulletless gun. She was getting desperate.
“Fi-,” started the Gray Man.
“Fine, I’ll talk, I’ll talk,” whimpered Ramone, his former bravado gone.
“That’s a good boy, now tell us where your supervisors are,” Scarlet purred, immensely pleased with herself.
Ramone steeled himself, as if betraying his organization was as hard as getting shot in the foot.
“They’re in-,” Ramone never finished his statement. A red dot appeared in the middle of his forehead and then he slumped forward. Dead.
Scarlet dropped to the ground, hands covering her head, startled by the sudden gunshot. The Gray Man’s head snapped up, searching along the upstairs level, searching for the gun that had shot her informant. Scarlet got off the floor and followed suit. She caught a sliver of movement, a black cloaked figure heading out through the roof.
Scarlet was having a very bad day.
“Damn it, Damn it, no no no no no,” This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was not supposed to happen.
“It’s not your fault,” the Gray Man started, misreading her frustration.
“It is my fault, of course there was going to be a sniper, of course there was. I didn’t factor this in, and now they know what we want, and we don’t know where we’re going,” They had stolen the rest of the plan.
“Well we can’t focus on that now,” The Gray Man said, trying to rationalize, trying to salvage the plan. He didn’t realize that he couldn’t fix something that wasn’t yet complete. “what are we doing to get one step ahead?” Ah Gray, always the optimist.
“Don’t you get it Gray?” Scarlet moaned, brushing angry fingers into her hair.
“We can’t, they know everything,”
“They don’t, not yet,” it didn’t matter, they couldn’t stop the sniper, they had no weapons on them right now.
“But they will,”
“So figure something out before they do,”
Scarlet figured that it was worth a try. She lowered her head and stopped talking for a minute, two minutes, three minutes. Ten minutes had passed before Scarlet had exhausted all the possibilities and her head snapped up again.
“We get the kids and go straight to the other side,” a pause. The Gray Man didn’t understand, which Scarlet knew, it sounded an awful lot like the old plan. “the long way,” She added.
“No,” the Gray Man said simply.
“We have to! It’s the only way that they can’t immediately kill us,” Scarlet protested.
“They’ll all die anyway!” Of course. He was always thinking about what he knew, who he knew. Never mind the people he didn’t know that were dying.
Scarlet sighed. She didn’t want to have to do this, but it was the only way. The lives of the few could never outweigh the lives of the many. “That doesn’t matter, not anymore, because they’re the only way this war is stopping,”
“I’m not willing to risk the lives of children to satisfy your need to prove that you can plan on the spot,” This annoyed Scarlet in the way that false advertising annoyed other people. She wasn’t getting what she was promised.
Still, she wasn’t going to quit because everything she planned had gone out the window. Even if Gray was bailing.
“You’re letting the fact that you care for these kids influence your decision, I need you to forget who these kids are for a minute and remember that we’re trying to end a war here, a big-ass war. Four lives aren’t going to matter when thousands can be saved,”
“Thousands might die anyway!”
Scarlet didn’t know what to say to that. She could only tell him why she was willing to risk it.
“The entire first part of the plan was precautions, and therefore unnecessary, the easiest way to move forward, no, the only way to move forward is to go through with a bumpier ride,”
“You say ‘bumpier’ like it doesn’t mean ‘more deadly’! I understand you have a god complex, but try keeping everyone else out of it,”
Something in Scarlet snapped. She lunged forward and grabbed the Gray Man’s collar to pull his head down to look him straight in the eye. Her heart started to beat quickly out of fear. She knew logically, he could have her off of him and dead within ten seconds, but he didn’t move.
“Look here, Gray, I don’t like this any more than you do but I’m not going to sit here and let this war go on because you fell in love, all right?” Scarlet hissed in his face. The Gray Man’s eyes sparked with interest and anger. She had struck a nerve. “Just because you left her to keep her safe doesn’t mean you’re all high and mighty now. You’re still responsible for this, and she will still die. You don’t get to question my judgement, because I’m the only one willing to clean up your mess,”
With that she let him go and started her way out the warehouse doors. She stopped halfway and slightly turned her head back. He still had to know what her plan was.
“I’m doing this, Dean,” Scarlet said softly, using his real name out of habit. “With or without you,”
There was a long enough pause for Scarlet to turn around and continue towards the doors, until the Gray Man’s voice called out.
“What happened to you Scarlet?”
Scarlet let out a bitter laugh. He always knew exactly what to say. She kept laughing out of sheer stress and grief and uncertainty until she was out of breath and then when she couldn’t breathe anymore, she kept going, expelling every breath she took into a laugh. She wanted to stop, but whenever she choked an inhale in, the only thing her body found it possible to do was laugh.
She felt arms enveloping her, allowing her legs to buckle, but keeping her upright. She knew logically that it was just the Gray Man, but in her head, it was someone else. Someone she hadn’t seen for a long time. It was a long time, years maybe, before Scarlet could stand on her own two feet again. She felt older.
“What happened to me? What happened to you?” Scarlet said emphatically as she pushed herself out of the Gray Man’s arms. He let her go.
“I came to you because you’re the best of the best, because you're supposed to be an emotionless killer,” She pointed a finger directly into the Gray Man’s chest for emphasis. But she lost her nerve halfway through the sentence, instead, she used the heel of her hand to wipe her cheeks.
She continued in a softer, but colder voice “knowing you beforehand was just a coincidence. If you’ve lost your edge, you’re of no use to me,”
“Fine… fine, what do we have to do?” His voice was grave. Resigned.
“Cheer up Gray, we’re going to see your girl a bit early,” Scarlet tried for a smile but she felt it looked condescending, she wiped her face clear of the expression when she saw that the Gray Man’s eyes had gone steely. It was a warning that it would do her good to not mention Maura Sargent again. “Yeah, I figured it wouldn’t help,”
Scarlet felt she wasn’t being fair. No, she knew she wasn’t being fair. She had to give him an out. “If you want to quit, to stop now, you can go, I won’t judge you, heck, I’d applaud you, but if you stay, you’re here for good. You don’t get to chicken out. You don’t get to question anything. Are you going to stay?”
The Gray Man just looked at her stoically.
“All right then. Let’s get to work,”