The Memories of Night | 18+

𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗲𝗻

𝗔𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗱

≫ ──── ««•◦ ✪ ◦•»» ──── ≪

I froze when I reached Steve's landing.

Because standing in front of his door, was my mother, I would recognize her curls anywhere. I had always wanted them. Steve's arm banded around my stomach, pulling me against his chest as he assessed the situation. "How did you know?" I asked, watching my mother turn around, and the heartbreak on her face made my stomach sink. She was always more tender towards me, came and saw me when I went through the program and tried to bring me some sort of comfort. I would never forgive her for sticking me through the hell I was raised in, for making me a killer when I never wanted to be. But I gave her credit for trying to remain a positive role model in my life. She didn't need to know I would never see her as anything less than a monster, but that's a conversation for another day.

"Director Fury said you were recovering here, I was trying to find the courage to knock."

Find the courage. Lead pooled in my stomach, and if Steve wasn't holding me up, I would've fallen, straight to the ground. Because if she wasn't demanding my attention, it was because something bad had happened. "Is Agent King alright?" She knew I was talking about my father, and when she nodded a bit of anxiety released from my shoulders, but I held onto Steve's arm anyway, needing the reminder that he was here, that I wasn't alone anymore. "Then what brings you to Washington Agent Director King?" Yeah, my mother was the woman who assigned us to the program, her official title was something way different, but she liked the sound of Agent Director so that's what I've called her since I was 7. Not mom, not mother, just agent, or agent director. I was practically an orphan, without the dead parents. They were just absent.

"I need you to come to Headquarters."

"Why?"

My mother didn't say anything, just stood staring at where Steve was stroking the exposed, bruised skin of my stomach. I hadn't realized how much that touch was soothing me from a breakdown. But he pressed his mouth to the back of my head, and the way that he tensed made me realize, he had figured out why my mother needed me to cross the Potomac and head back into Virginia for a trip to the FBI Headquarters in Quantico, the same base I was trained in secrecy at. "They need you to identify a body." He whispered, and my world came to a screeching halt.

"Who." It was a soft demand, because if I raised my voice, it would shake, and I would be charged with misconduct, I'd be disrespecting my chain of command, but when my mother just stared at me, blank-faced, the same face I had received when she questioned me for seventeen days over Hunter's death, I screamed at her, "Who! Tell me who!"

I didn't care about the shake in my voice or the fact my hands were trembling when I gripped Steve's forearm again. I just cared that the woman in front of me finally looked into my eyes, and instead of answering my demand, she let out a stuttered breath. "What did I tell you about getting involved with superiors?"

I was trembling, anger was rolling through my body and Steve had to hold me tighter because I was trying to get to my mother, to slam her into the door, to scream in her face, to do anything, anything at all, to release the twenty-six years of anger I've built up. Instead, I let Steve hold me tight, I let his lips rest on my temple, and I leaned back into him. Because my mother had no say over my life, she didn't at seven when she handed me over to the program, and she sure as hell didn't at twenty-six, when I've been alone my whole life. "You lost your right when you signed me over to monsters," My words came out sharp, and she recoiled, good, I fucking hated her, I hated her and my father, and the agency that made me this way, "Who the fuck do I need to identify?"