Shadow Killer

Thirty Two

"We never spoke about the conditions of your pardon, did we? Well you're wanted in almost over a hundred countries, so if you go anywhere you'll be arrested on sight. If you did somehow go overseas and come back, you'd be facing life imprisonment. The same for if you miss a mandated therapy session."

"Life imprisonment?"

"Yep, maximum security prison. Full time patrol in solo isolation."

"You never told me. Why didn't you tell me? I'm sure something as important as that should have been made clear in our first mandated therapy session."

"Ahhh.... If I'm honest I forgot. I didn't have to worry because I know you never leave your home."

I scoff, "that's not true. You shouldn't lie."

"It's the truth."

"Yet, I sit before you and not in the apartment."

"I suppose. You know you can call the apartment that you live in, home, right?"

Home. Where is home?

"It's not home. I have no home. I live there, with family, but it's not home."

"Then what is home to you?"

What is home?

"I don't know." I say with a shrug, picking up one of his random knick-knacks off his desk. A small crystal prism. "I've never had a home, so how am I supposed to know. I just know that its not where I currently live." I place back down the crystal to look at Dean.

"Some say it's where you feel safest, or where the heart is. Do you feel safe Posie?"

"I've never felt safe in my life."

"Not once?"

"No. I was kidnapped as a baby and then held prisoner by the Red Room, and then HYDRA. Niether places I felt safe, I mean how can you when you're taught to kill. I was a prisoner of my own mind for how long? You can't think that I would feel safe after all I've fucking gone through Dean? I know that that is all in the past, and that there is no danger now, but I have never had the privilege of feeling safe, and I never will."

"That's a lie."

"Fuck off."

Dean sighs, twisting his pen around his fingers, "that's a lie. One day in the far future, and I believe its more of a later rather than sooner thing. But one day in the far future you will feel safe. You can't see it now because you're still healing from your trauma. But there will come a time when you won't have to watch over your shoulder, or you won't wake up in cold sweat."

"That sounds more like a dream than something I will ever be privy to."

"It is reality. But I don't mean that the day you realise you feel safe means that you will forget all you've done and gone through. No one can ever forget, but it won't burn you like it does right now."

"It doesn't burn me." he raises an eyebrow, and I sigh, "I don't know Dean."

I have to ask Posie, what is the one thing you really want right now?"

What is the one thing I really want right now? How am I supposed to know?

"Surely there is something you want?"

"Life."

"Hmmm, that's interesting. Some would say peace or calm. Others might say to forget, or to have a decent sleep, yet you say life. I also find that interesting because you don't try."

I narrow my eyes, my hands both curling into tight fists as I stare at Dean, who watches me calmly. "You can go fuck yourself."

"Posie." Dean warns.