Clipped Wings

Chapter Five

•Avalee•

My fingers trembled as I tapped on my home screen, trying to bring my shaking thumbs to the bright green call-button that blinked unavoidably against the otherwise empty Recent Calls column. I could almost feel my stomach twisting itself into tight knots as I heard the shrill hum of the phone's ring. Once. Twice. Three times it chimed until I was certain he wasn't going to answer at all. But Moriarty lived to be unexpected.

"Avalee, honey. You're calling past your bed time." He said in a mock-motherly voice that caused me to scowl. "You've kept me waiting for far too long. I'm extremely disappointed in you."

"Your patience must be worse than mine, Moriarty. It's only been six minutes." I replied as calmly as I could manage. I found that it was actually a great deal easier to keep my cool when I didn't have his big, empty voids staring straight through me.

His growl echoed through the phone reciever. "What did I say about calling me Moriarty?" He snarled as he dropped his feminine voice for a much darker, Irish one.

"Something that doesn't apply to me," I said back without a trace of emotion in my voice. "As much as your ego would like to argue, I'm not too afraid to say your first name. I just know that there aren't any consequences for calling you by your last and, in all honesty, it just flows better than Jim."

"Those are dangerous words to say to a man with the power to end your life in the most creative way possible." He snapped back.

"I thought you already did?" I said with fake innocence as I reseated myself on the park bench, crossing my legs and dropping my arm across the backrest.

"Oh no. Killing off Avalee Hugh for undercover work and giving you a fake alias for business isn't even in the same context. Even though the doctors claimed you dead, your eyes still see the world around you and your heart still beats on in your chest." I heard his light laugh on the other end of the line. "Oh I would make sure that your eyes stopped seeing long before your heart gave way to something as relieving as death. It would be a really funny thing to watch you scream. I've never seen you in pain. You hide that part of yourself so well from me it's like a game trying to get any sort of emotion out of you."

Somehow I had managed to forget how commonly he brought up torture. It was if it was something as ordinary as the weather to him. "Okay, point taken." I sighed. "Just get a move on. I have other obligations besides phone banter. What's this call for?"

"Ooh you're always so pushy, Ava!" He whined like a kid. "I'm being sociable. You should try it for once. Break your all work and no play façade. It would really suit you."

"I didn't die to be social. I died to continue my work in peace..." The vivid memory of watching the dummy that was identical to me in every way--including DNA--be mutilated by a staged car accident suddenly resurfaced. I shivered. "...and you're making it really hard to do that."

"Peace is overrated." He hummed before his vocal cords jumped to say. "Oh! Does your little goon still call you Ms. Renée?"

"Gopher? Of course! Gwyneth Reneé is my name... And one that you repetitively refuse to adapt to," I replied sharply as I messed with my tangled clumps of hair.

"Eh. It doesn't suit you, darling. Your mother knew what she was going when she named you," He said in a bored tone that was scarcely heard over the sound of clinking dishes and a microwave going off. I tried not to laugh at the mental image of Moriarty warming up a Hot Pocket while doing phone negotiations. He sighed for an unknown reason as he said, "The name Avalee sounds almost as beautiful as the woman it belongs to."

"I think having death threats and compliments in the same conversation is unprofessional."

Moriarty laughed. "I just speak my mind, Ava."