The Things We Do (Under Editing)

Laid Bare

I'd gone over this moment a hundred times in the short time since I'd decided to tell Matthew.

In most scenarios I came up with, he tried to arrest me on the spot and I had to convince him to wait until after we went after Wraith. In some, he went straight for his gun. I wouldn't be surprised considering how many times he's already pulled it on me.

The real Matthew apparently wasn't as on the ball as the version of him in my head. He choked on his water.

If I wasn't on the verge of a panic attack I might have laughed.

It turns out I didn't have to, though. He laughed for me as soon as he managed to clear his airways, head thrown back, the sound bouncing around the room.

He had a nice laugh. I wished I could laugh with him, that this was a normal gathering and that we were a group of friends making jokes to each other and having fun.

Kacie's kitchen is bigger and more open than mine, and suddenly I felt that space like a weight on my shoulders. It made the fade of Matthew's laugh into an uncertain chuckle more obvious. There were fewer corners for the sound to linger and hide.

The expression on Matthew's face when he realized that no one else was laughing was like he'd suddenly found himself on the wrong side of the bars at a zoo.

I watched his eyes, saw the tally he took instinctively.

Escape routes: 1, unless he could figure out how Elliot came in the window 40 stories up.

Potential weapons: his own gun, no knives in the kitchen, nothing glass or clay he could break. Kacie didn't cook and didn't like things that broke easily.

Cover: the kitchen island, the table if he could flip it. Everything else was too far.

Kacie really needed a smaller kitchen.

We couldn't have chosen a better place for a trap if we'd been planning it.

Matthew didn't panic. Three on one in enemy territory wasn't something he was going to take lightly.

But I needed him to see that that wasn't what this was.

I placed my hands slowly on the table in front of me, palms flat, and glanced briefly at my friends, hoping they'd take my cue. Thankfully, I have smart friends.

Still, no one relaxed.

No one wanted to speak first.

It had to be me.

"I understand the position you're in. It's your job to arrest me here. Take me now and listen to anything I say in an official interrogation. But right now, I need you to take a chance and listen first. There's someone out there that's a Hell of a lot worse than I am, and the only way to stop him is to work together."

Matthew held my gaze for a long moment, waiting for some indication as to whether I was lying.

I don't know what he found.

He turned his gaze to Elliot first, then Kacie, never moving his head. "I'll listen... On one condition."

"Granted."

The surprise on Matthew's face was clear. I hadn't even hesitated.

"You're not very good at negotiation, are you?"

"There's nothing to negotiate. You either listen, or you don't. And when this ends, I'll either find myself in prison, or in a grave."

Kacie flinched slightly at my words, but they meant little to me at this point. I'd known since the beginning that I wouldn't make it out unscathed. Wraith asked for fire, and the kindling is always the first to burn.