A Gray Llove

For Her Own Good

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Lloyd blew past Suzanne and out of the mission comms center/dining room, gritting his teeth and limping. A bolt of pain rent his left ass cheek every time he moved it. He just dared someone to walk in his path – just someone – so he could take out a bit of his irritating agony on them. Of all the places to be hit by a tranquilizer, the CIA brat in Vienna had lanced him in the most humiliating.

Lloyd knew he would get a handle on this mission in short order – he was sure he could – but damn if it wasn't annoying how that Sierra Six had scrapped his way out of his grasp in Vienna. But Lloyd had resources hovering across Europe and a good part of Asia and Africa, just waiting for his word to take up their armored cars and automatics and head to a target. He would get Six.

First, he needed to do something about his ass.

As Lloyd stumped along towards his room, a shower, and a few more shots of bourbon, a flash of white caught the corner of his eye. Turning his head, Lloyd spied a pair of second-floor peons chattering nervously in a corner, their bright white "cue cards" for Sasha reflecting the ubiquitous chandelier light. As soon as they saw him look their way, both peons' faces tightened into scared, bug-eyed expressions. Instantly, Lloyd knew – something was wrong with Sasha.

The twinge in his ass forgotten, Lloyd stalked toward the peons, rising up to his full six-foot-plus height and casting a block-shaped shadow over their smaller figures with the breadth of his taunt shoulders. He bared his teeth in a crocodile smile down at the peons and they quivered. Lloyd normally would have laughed at that, but as something Sasha-related was currently on the line, he was pretty sure he was closer to snapping a neck than snickering. Lloyd let the peons stand for a moment – let them count their heartbeats and watch their minds spin frantically – before he asked in a low voice, "What happened?" The peons jumped in unison and exchanged a terrified look, as if prodding each other to speak first. Lloyd roared, "NO, no—look at me and fucking tell me what is going on!" In one quick wrist movement, his custom switchblade leapt from his pocket to his left hand to his right hand. He flicked it out so that the blade ran as long as his reach and swept it jauntily in midair just before peons' faces. Lloyd proposed, "Whoever speaks first saves their own skin. Go."

Now the peons opened their mouths and couldn't stop chattering, yelling above each other and tearing up as they stared at Lloyd's switchblade. Lloyd couldn't keep back his smile – and then the noise from the peons cheeping for their lives got too annoying, and the stabbing pain in his ass came back, and he slammed his hands over his ears. "SHUT UP!"

After they did, he pointed his switchblade at one of the peons, a young woman who was probably fresh out of one of the best med schools in the world. Lloyd didn't remember hiring her, but as those were his standards for whomever treated Sasha, it had to be right. Maybe she had fucked up and given Sasha the wrong medications and she had died of an allergic reaction...maybe Sasha had had to have some sort of freak emergency surgery and this peon had sliced her up, setting her back years again in recovery...there were so many things that could have gone wrong while Lloyd was away chasing Six.

After this peon confessed to whatever malpractice he was sure she had committed, Lloyd swore to fire the entire second floor staff and get new, sharper peons who knew what the hell they were doing with Sasha. The edge of his blade flashed as he gestured at the nurse peon to speak. "You. Now. What... is wrong... with Sasha?"

The peon blinked quickly, clearly frightened. Clearing her throat and grasping the dangling cue card, she managed to get out, "Nothing is wrong with Sasha, Mister Hansen." As Lloyd hissed and started to threaten something about knives again, the peon held up a hand and rushed, "She's just left her room."

"And you've moved the...the..." The second peon, a frail-looking bald man who looked almost too old to be anyone's nurse, clasped his hands helplessly together and glanced skittishly out of the corners of his eyes as he whispered, "...Fitzroys to the second floor. We don't think it will be a good combination." With a weary – nearly sympathetic— sort of look at Lloyd, the old nurse finished, "For anyone."

Lloyd could only snarl back, "Who moved them upstairs?" Drawing the knife up under the older man's chin, Lloyd enunciated carefully, "I gave exact instructions that the hostages be housed downstairs. In the north wing, with the high windows and a moat and four-foot-thick walls." It had all been specifically for the sake of keeping Sasha and Lloyd's work as far apart from each other as possible, but he wasn't going to say that out loud. The peon's jaw dropped and he squeezed his eyes shut as if he thought Lloyd was going to slit his throat right then and there. But that was no longer where Lloyd's mind was. Whirling on the younger nurse peon, he demanded, "Who lost her? Where is she now?"

The nurse clenched her fists, but Lloyd could still see them shaking as she insisted, "W-we're working on it! No one has seen her on the first floor yet, so we know she's upstairs..." the peon's voice faded to a croak as Lloyd towered over her and flipped his knife, blade-out, in front of her nose. "...in one of the rooms."

Lloyd caught his spinning knife in midair and cocked his head, feeling his lips take a sinister tilt. "Yeah," he began in a normal voice, "one of the rooms where some dipshit left Donald Fitzroy and his brat!" He bellowed the last, then snapped his fingers at the foyer and its huge staircase to the second floor. "If you don't find her before I do – and you'd better pray that's before she sees Fitzroy – you're going back to your alma maters as cadaver parts."

He stepped back to let the two peons bolt for the stairs, watching in disgust as they clattered away. They wouldn't be fast enough. Someone had to get between Sasha and Donald Fitzroy. If anyone was going to destroy that woman's trust in Lloyd, it would be that wily old bastard. The very first thing he would do would be to tell her exactly what was happening on the first floor. Then Sasha would...she would...Lloyd didn't know exactly what she would do. She would loathe him. That was certain. Even more than that – Sasha was vulnerable. Fitzroy was old, but he was CIA. He would do what was necessary to get away. If Sasha was in his way – if Fitzroy thought she was on Lloyd's side – she could get so hurt.

So where did Lloyd go first? After Sasha or after Fitzroy?

Lloyd glanced at the staircase, then huffed impatiently and began to shuffle towards the iron-grated elevator nestled on the other side of the foyer. Given the state of his lower gluteal muscles at the moment, it would be the faster way to the second floor. God, he hoped the meds would kick in soon...

Fitzroy would be his first priority. Lloyd had to trust that some peon out of the flock upstairs would eventually run into Sasha. The second floor was full of hallways, rooms, reception halls – like another maze to keep his two targets apart. Chances were that Sasha wouldn't find Fitzroy before the nursing staff found her. He would see her after he made sure Fitzroy was good and well beyond her circle of perception. That would mean a change of room for him, for starters – and then, hadn't one of the computer peons in the comms center given him a tip on Prague? Perhaps Fitzroy would have something to say about that. Lloyd would get to Fitzroy first and keep him busy. Kill two birds with one stone, as it were.

Above all, he would get the job done and keep Sasha out of it, for her own good.