BARGHEST

Chapter Four: The Flint

"You changed your hair."

Naila frowns at him through her thick lashes, turning back to the road. Her car is a rusted old suburban, painted a garish coral color. Pink, like most of the things precious to her. Pink, like her hair used to be.

"I didn't think they would buy a CIA agent with pink butterfly locs," she says curtly, a wandering hand coming up to fiddle with the coiled brown ends. "But you better appreciate all this, because I really liked the style I had in before I had to take it all out."

Joseph watches the razor-wired fence of the prison fade in the rear view mirror, giving way to tall spruces crusted with snow. Naila's car swerves precariously on the slick road. Joseph doubts she's replaced her tired since he last saw her in person some five years ago.

"I really appreciate this, you know," he says awkwardly to her. He's never been the best with situations like this. Sure, he can concoct a treasonous plan to help government property escape, but talking to Naila has always been like walking on eggshells. He's too eager to speak to her, too cold in his morals. There's no balance he's ever been able to reach, yet she speaks with the confidence of someone who hasn't lived alone in the woods for twenty years.

Naila sighs, giving him an exasperated but warm look. She's wearing a smudge of glitter eyeshadow that makes her eyes look orange in the gray light. "I'd like to say I'm only doing it for the kids, but we both know that's not true."

"I'm sorry I haven't visited in so long. I guess I... lost my grip," Joseph says, scratching the back of his neck.

His hair has grown out, slightly curling at the ends, going gray in some areas. He remembers when they first met, the first time he laid eyes on that wicked smile and pink hair. He's always been a chubby guy, and if it weren't for his height he'd be almost cherubic looking. They made quite the pair in the break room where they'd share lunch, him wide and imposing, still muscular with youth, and her long and lithe like a ballerina. There had been days when it was easy to imagine he could make her stay with him, yet here now, twenty years later, she seems so far away.

"I understand how it works, Jo."

"But you were always better at saying no than I was."

She frowns, the warmth leaving her face. "Forty talked to me about you," she says. "She talks about you like you're her father. She idolizes you."

There's an unspoken sentence there. She idolizes you, and yet you're still one of the people that hurt her most. Joseph feels the heat rise to his cheeks, his mouth grow dry. This is the same thing he's been struggling with his entire stay in prison. It's been, what, a year? And he still can't get Forty's eyes out of his head. She was so bright and alive when she first came to the gray floor, so full of curiosity and intelligence. He was the one to take that from her. Bit by vicious bit, he stripped her of her personhood, only supplementing her with tiny hanks of kindness which she ate out of his hand like a starving stray. And she idolizes him.

"I'm not a good person, Nai," Joseph says shakily, trying to blink back the burning tears creeping at the edge of his vision. "And it makes me sick to think that she's loved me this whole time, when all I've done is hurt her."

"Tell me, was it actually your idea to get them out of the compound?" Naila asks calculatingly, watching his trembling figure with a keen eye.

His breath stills in his chest. Of course she knows. Naila has always been able to rip out his true feelings. "It was actually Karin's," he admits. "I was talking with her about how much I hated collecting the venom, and she just broke down. I swear I've never even seen her blink, and she just started crying in my arms. She said she hadn't been able to sleep since hearing Forty scream at her allergic reaction to the venom ports."