The Revelation

Chapter 7

ASHLEY

        I couldn’t get over the shock.

As I sat there in the car, opposite to Nora; looking at her; my mind was intermittently going numb and thinking about a thousand different things at the same time. My mind literally spun as it tried to process such thoughts coherently.

       The conversation going on inside the car sounded like a distant buzz to me as I merely sat there listening to it but not registering it. My mind would probably process it sometime later after it got over the initial shock. We were trained to get over our shock pretty quick; it was an important trait which kept us alive while on field, but all that skill and training wasn’t going to help me today. The expression on her dead face…that was going to sink in deep and would probably take its own time to recover from.

       I felt James turning slightly and looking at me, trying to read my thoughts as he looked at me right in the eyes. I shut my eyes, so as to avoid looking at James – to shut him out of my mind. I tried not to think…to make my mind blank and calm my thoughts down…but it was no use now. My mind was agitated…it seemed to have a mind of its own.

       I could see Nora’s dead body; the exact image branded in front of my closed eyes. She had been shot multiple times. The crimson blood soaked and merged with the red gown she was dressed in so perfectly that it seemed to be someone’s gruesome sense of humor. Her eyes, however, were the worst part—though they were glassy and dead and could no longer convey anything—it held too many of her dying thoughts.

         Her eyes were full of remorse and pain. It looked disturbed and shattered and seemed as if her final thoughts had broken her from the inside and that had killed her to a far greater extent than the wounds. It also held a tinge of sadness coupled with a plea for forgiveness. Her fair skin had become pale, her body rigid and her waist length red hair, which lay loose, was disheveled; giving her the overall appearance of a ghost.

         My mind flashed back to all the moment of victories we had shared after the many missions we had done together. Though those moments had been brief, it was few of the good moments in this part of my life. I had never bothered to know her even a bit—there was too much bitterness among us layered with mutual dislike but now all of it seemed meaningless.

     “How?” I croaked; my voice carefully controlled to conceal my anger…though I didn’t know what or who exactly I was angry at.  Everyone, including Nancy, turned to look at me. “How did she really die?”

       “Bullet through the heart,” Joseph stated in a matter-of-fact voice, though his eyes narrowed a little on noticing my tone. Was the concealed anger in my voice so apparent? Maybe it was to him.

        “You know fully well I am asking the reasons,” I continued, clenching my teeth; not bothering to keep the anger out of my voice anymore.

          “She died while on a mission,” Joseph said, carefully looking at me while he replied as if testing the limits to which I would dare go.

           Was he trying to provoke me? Well, it was working to an extent. All my own thoughts were colliding with the image of her cold dead body in my mind and it was making it hard for me to rein them in and be careful in what I spoke.

          “What—mission?” I asked, my voice loud but emphasizing each word.

          “Ash—” James said quietly, warning me; his voice so quiet, I knew only I could hear.

            But tonight I didn’t care. “You should have known that they would kill her if we entered tonight. She could have gotten herself out with whatever info she was there to collect. What was so important that you were willing to risk her?”