Caitlin Brooks: Grace Cameron

Chapter Twenty-two

Grace lay in bed, her tear stained cheeks lay against the pillow beneath her. She only slept when she cried herself to sleep. She didn't eat. She barely drank. She was numb. She didn't want to eat. She didn't want to eat. She wanted her daughter back. 
The first door clanged open and shut followed by their footsteps, then the second door clanged open and shut. Davenport stood in the doorway to her bedroom, the doctors behind him, waiting. 
"You need to eat Grace" 
"Fuck you" she bit despite the pain across her body. 
"We don't kill people Grace. You need to eat or we will be forced to feed you" he warned. 
"Let me die. I don't care anymore" she rolled over in the bed, her back to him. She listened to him close the space between them, then she felt the bed dip as he sat on the edge of it. 
"Its been five days Grace. I thought that you had more fight in you. I thought that you would fight harder for your boys" she rolled onto her back to look up at him, her anger rising in her. She stormed off to the kitchen, throwing open the cabinets she grabbed as many handfuls of food that she could before she went back into the bedroom and dumped it on the bed. 
"Is this what it's going to take?" she open the wrapper of an energy bar before she shoved it into her mouth, eating quickly before she grabbed something else repeating the process. 
"Fuck you!" she screamed at him "You don't know me! You don't know my kids or Cormac! You send agents to get into the beds of terrorists and don't expect dates and romance? I'm broken! Cormac is the only one that has shown me kindness, he cared! So fuck you" Grace shoved something else into her mouth, swallowing it down quickly. 
"You did a job that helped us to protect our home-"
"I have no home. Sad little Gracie all alone in the world once again" she kept eating, grabbing something new off the bed every time she finished what was in her hand "I was raped as a child. Fucking someone is easy for me but, with Cor, it was different. It wasn't sex, it was love. And you may think that he can't feel but he can, he did, for me, for his sons. This isn't a job, this is ending someone's life, because of you, because of this 'job' you now have three children without parents. Because of you, you have a lot of fucked up shit to fix. Congratulations" she faked a smile. 
"You have a choice Grace-"
"I never have a choice. If there's one thing I know about my life, I know that much" 
"Take your choice of assignments"
"Or?" 
"We move you to a black site, you vanish off the face of the earth" her eyes moved to the ground as she thought over her choices "I'll give you time to think about it" he rose from the bed and headed towards the metal door when her voice stopped him. 
"I want out" he turned to face her "I'll pick an assignment but I want out of this fucking bunker" he nodded. 
"Tomorrow. We'll get you everything you need along with a list of assignments" he nodded, heading back towards the metal door he left the bunker. The door opened and shut, the footsteps got further away, the second door opened and shut. Grace lay on the bed, turning her back to the door. 
"I'm sorry" she muttered into the emptiness, her eyes welling with tears before they began to fall, soaking the bed beneath her "Mommy's going to fight. I promise, no more giving up"

Davenport kept his word. The next day she was released from the bunker, she packed a small bag of clothes and the letters that she had written to the boys and Cormac. She moved to the door and waited for them to tell her where they would take her. 
"Hand over the letters" Davenport ordered, his outstretched hand waiting. She reached into her bag and took out the stack of letters, looking over the stack before she handed them to him "If you tell anyone about the bunker, if you tell anyone about the baby, if you tell anyone about your undercover assignments, you will be taken to a black site. Is that understood?" she nodded. He motioned towards the stairs, she followed an agent up an unfamiliar staircase, the unfamiliar sunlight blinded her as she climbed higher and higher. She paused in the doorway, her fear growing. She didn't know where she was going to go, she didn't even know what country she was in. She took a deep calming breath before she stepped over the threshold, her shoes touching grass for the first time in months. She turned her face up to the sun, feeling the warmth on her skin, it felt glorious. She opened her eyes, letting them meet Davenport's. 
"Are we still in France?" he nodded "I'll need money and a car" he slipped an envelope out of his jacket and handed it to her along with a set of keys and a phone. 
"Did you decide where you want to be assigned?" 
"No. I'll get in touch" she murmured before she got in the car and began driving. She didn't know how long she'd been driving, she didn't even have a route mapped out in her mind but somehow she ended up at the base of the mountain where her grandfather lives. She grabbed her things out of the car and began climbing, not stopping until she had reached the top. She knocked on the familiar door and waited. 
"Hi" Grace managed a small smile. 
"Grace? What are you doing here?" the old man took her face in his hands. 
"I'm sorry" she couldn't stop her tears from falling, she couldn't hold any of it in anymore. She was suffocating on her own pain "I'm so sorry" she cried harder, her words muffling against his shoulder as more tears came. She couldn't breathe. Her lungs burned, her eyes tightly pulled shut but it didn't stop the tears. She let everything out until there was nothing else to let out. She lay in a heap in the doorway of her grandfather's home. 
Home. I have no home. I have pulled myself out of dark places all my life but I couldn't save my children. I couldn't give them the life that they deserve. Always a failure, never a hero. Never saved.  
"Let's get you to bed sweetheart" Chester ran a hand down his granddaughters face, brushing the hair that had stuck to her wet cheeks out of her face. 
"I messed up, pop pop"
"I'm sure that you haven't. My girl always does what's right" 
"You don't know how fucked up I really am" 
"God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers" she met his eyes with her teary ones. 
"I didn't ask to be a soldier"