The rookies,
Jacob and David settled back eagerly to listen. The other three men exchange
glances that were hesitant.
“If I have to
pick it, all the little details will come out,” Edward warned, repeating
Alexa’s words to him when she’d wanted his voice telling a tale.
The three senior
men frowned, shifting uncomfortably. All the stories contained failures on
their part. They’d been new to Alexa’s way of doing things and accidents had
happened.
“I traveled with
Safe Haven.”
Five heads
turned to Billy in shock. Even Edward hadn’t known.
Billy leaned
back against the wall and began rolling a smoke. “I took a mission to find
someone and bring her to her father.”
Now there was complete
silence and no one looked away as a distant scream confirmed Alexa’s location.
“I was told it
would take years and it has. I needed it to,” Billy explained without embarrassment.
“By the time I make it back, the girl I want will be old enough, safe enough,
for me.”
“You’re from
Safe Haven?” Jacob questioned, stunned. “And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“I told the only
person I need to,” Billy replied without getting defensive. “She told me to
decide on my own about revealing it.”
“Why now?”
Edward asked curiously.
“Because she’s
sick,” Billy answered, glancing around as if for confirmation. “She needs us to
be together and we can’t if there are secrets this big. I feel bad for keeping
it so long. I’m sorry.”
Billy’s
humbleness drew a groan from the corner. “I wish you hadn’t said that.”
They all looked
to Mark, who shook his head.
“Guess I should
mention something too, then. I, uh. Well, I killed the President. It’s what I
was in the slam for.”
The door opened
and Alexa came in, pale and unruffled in the firelight. She closed the door and
removed her clock. “As you were,” she ordered when the silence stretched out.
Heads went back
to Mark-even Billy, who had thought he held the largest of their private
torments, their secrets.
Edward motioned
to Mark, “Can you say that again?”
Mark cleared his
throat. “I killed the president.”
Mark ignored the
surprised mutters and scowls. It was only the second time he had ever spoken
the words and liberation was still a new, exciting emotion to be controlled.
“Why?” Jacob asked.
Mark was the one he admired the most in this group.
It was what each
of them, except for Alexa, wanted to know and the silence hung while he searched
for the words.
“I couldn’t
stand the thought of it all restarting,” Mark stated. “At that time, I didn’t
think there was any way it could be better and I was so angry! The people I
worked for were destroying the world and there wasn’t anything I could do about
it. Then the war came and the president was gone. Replaced by succession and
yet, it wasn’t going to be different. The next puppet was going to stand on the
backs of those who came before, and keep ruining everything. And I had the
thought that if there wasn’t a president anymore, then maybe that could
change.”
Mark peered at
Alexa, who was still removing things from the cloak she’d hung up.
“I was a secret
service agent on the new president’s detail. I smothered her while she slept.”
“You’re talking
about Marsha Binton,” David exclaimed. “She was next in line for the presidency
when Carter died.”
“Yes,” Mark
confirmed. “She wanted to make slavery legal-especially males. She said we were
a danger to everyone.”
“She wasn’t
wrong,” Alexa pointed out.
“No,” Mark
admitted, glad when Alexa came over and sat down close to him. “But I’m a man.
I couldn’t let that happen. She had to die.”
Alexa placed her
hand over his and gently told him,” Murder is wrong. You murdered her. That was
very bad.”
Mark’s head
dropped and Alexa squeezed in comfort. “We’re all killers here, of one kind or
another. You spent years locked up in payment for that crime. Do you feel like you’ve
been punished enough?”
“No.”
Alexa sighed
tolerantly. “Then so you shall suffer more. No one here can forgive you until
you forgive yourself.”
“How can I?”
Mark demanded. “I murdered her!”
“Yes, and would
you do it again?”
He shook his
head. “Never. She was only a pawn. I would have gone higher and found those in
charge of pulling the strings. And I would have murdered them.”
“That would have
been an act of the bravest kind,” Alexa corrected. “Take off the head, my pets.
Without a head, the threat is no longer a threat.”
Alexa glanced
around. “Does it bother you to know this about him?”
All the heads shook.
Each of them had their own weakness, their own failures to atone for. Edward
especially understood.
“Good. Murder,
like all other things, has a place in the world. If he had removed the head, he
would be a hero. Because he cut off a tooth, he was a convict. The line between
hero and convict can be that thin, but there is a line. We will attempt to always
stay above it, but when we have to, we will abide by our own guidelines instead
of those around us. Nothing will keep us from this mission.”
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