Scandalous love || Fitzgerald Grant

Crash and Burn 4

Huck sits at the dining room table, his blank stare locked on the goldfish swimming in slow circles in its bowl. The house is oppressively quiet. Across from him, Elizabeth watches, her gaze shifting between him and the fish, waiting for any flicker of movement or life in his expression. But Huck is as still as stone, his face unreadable. Without warning, Huck stands, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. Elizabeth immediately follows, instinctively on edge. They move swiftly into the next room, where Charlie lies on the floor, bound but alive, his breathing sharp and uneven. His eyes flash with a mix of fear and stubbornness, glaring up at the two of them.

"You know where Amanda Tanner is," Elizabeth snaps, her voice cutting through the thick air like a blade. "We need answers."

Huck crouches beside his toolbox, flipping it open calmly . His hands rummage through the tools looking for the right weapon. "I know I know showing up at someone's house is so tacky. But we really do need to talk about what happened to Amanda tanner. Okay Charlie" huck says as he gets closer to Charlie who begins to squirm.

...
Meanwhile Olivia and the crew are in headquarters sitting around the table. "Right there. Hear that? Those three soft thumps. They're there. Trust me." Harrison says pausing the tape making Andrew look over at Olivia . "Right there. Hear that? Those three soft thumps. They're there. Trust me," Harrison says, his voice firm as he pauses the tape.

Andrew, sitting across the table, glances over at Olivia, uncertain. She meets his gaze and nods. "Trust him," Olivia says, her voice steady, giving Andrew the assurance he needs.

"It's the sound of Lori pushing on the left rudder," Harrison continues. "But the pedal won't move. It won't let her go left."

Andrew frowns, trying to make sense of it all. "Why not?" he asks, his confusion clear. Stephan leans forward, jumping in. "The mechanism that controls the rudder—makes it go left or right—according to the mechanic, one of its parts was bent."

"It'd be like trying to make a right turn in your car, and the steering wheel locks up on you," Harrison explains further, his tone calm but urgent. Andrew looks down, absorbing the information as Stephan continues. "The mechanic mentions the bent lever in his report, but... that report is gone. Vanished."

Olivia turns to Andrew, her voice soft as she speaks. "This is good, Andrew. We can use this. It means Lori did everything she could to stop that plane from going down. It means it wasn't her fault."

Despite her words, Andrew's face remains tight with emotion. His eyes flicker with pain as he looks at Olivia, his voice barely above a whisper. "Then whose fault was it?" He questions. The room falls into a heavy silence. Olivia doesn't respond. She looks away, her jaw tightening as Andrew's grief hangs in the air.

"My wife is dead. 120 people are dead. Who's to blame for that?" Andrew's voice cracks as he speaks, his hands gripping the edge of the table. Olivia finally nods, her own silence an acknowledgment of the gravity of his words.

...

Back to Elizabeth and Huck who is with Charlie. "I don't want you tot think I'm doing this because I'm mad at you because I'm not. I'm not. You trained me but it was the agency, really. They... took stuff from me, and not just my name or my ability to ever contact my family again. I was young, I was fresh out of college, and they made it sound fun." Huck says as he puts gloves on. Elizabeth stands a feet away from them watching Huck do his work. "We had fun, didn't we? That's the problem. It's horrible and it's sickening, and just when you think you can't take any more, it gets fun. The U.S. government really knows its stuff, yeah? Something in you just falls away, and it gets fun. There's a high. It's good. It's so good, which is what I wanna remind you of... how good it can get. You think about that. Okay, I'm thinking about it 'cause I'm rusty. I'm sober. This is gonna be bad for me for a while, but I'm gonna push through the horrible and the sickening and then something's gonna fall away, and I'm gonna start enjoying myself. All right? And we both know... What an artist I can be." Huck says as he puts together the drill together.