In the end

Chapter 38 - Decided

~ Sarah POV ~

I must have cried myself to sleep because I woke up still clutching a handful of the pictures I had taken with me. Also tangled in my fingers was the locket my parents had given me for my 10th birthday. It was the last thing I had of them so I never wore it, just kept it locked up with the other parts of who I really was. Their pictures were worn and faded from the years I had spent touching their faces but it was still them. My mothers curls, the exact colour of the sand near our house. My fathers eyes when he laughed. There were still mine. No one could ever take that from me.

I couldn't think straight. Sleep had done nothing to calm me down or help me figure out what to do. I was just starting to put myself back together. Maybe I was freaking out for nothing. I mean all that was years in the past of course he'd moved on. God how selfish and egotistical was I to think he'd still care about me. There was noting special about me.

Now that I let myself remember her I couldn't seem to lock him back up again. So I let it happen. I relived every single moment I had with him. The smell of his skin, the roughness of his face when he didn't shave for a few days. It was the smallest things that I found myself remembering clearest if all. Except for how I felt when I was in his arms. How warm and safe he made me feel. Leaving didn't change anything at all. All this time hadn't made the tiniest bit of difference. Nothing would change how much I still loved him.

~ Jared POV ~

I kept pacing then length of the room desperately trying to make the images disappear. I wanted to hold her in my arms and never let go. I wanted to be the place she could turn to for safety and comfort. I still didn't understand. Why did she leave me? I had been looking for answers and now I was left with so many more questions. My resolve quickly faded when my eyes fell on the table, the contents of the folder still scattered across it. I sat back down and picked up another handful of pages, I tried to prepare myself but after the things I'd learned I had no idea what to expect.

There was a half dozen more reports from INTERPOL and local police but there didn't seem to be any new information about the murders. There were a few pages from NIS that drew my interest. They were more recent starting in '05, a lot of the text had been blacked out and there was a big stamp over the page labelling the information as classified. I grabbed my laptop and started searching for National Intelligence Service. 15 minutes later I sat back with my mouth open and my mind in a whirlwind of disbelief. Basically the NIS in Greece was equivalent to the CIA. There was tons of websites detailing stories of espionage and black ops and terrorist cells. That's when I got it, when I finally found the answers I so desperately craved. I understood the fake names and the disappearances. Her parents had been spies.

~ Sarah POV ~

I sat curled into myself, my arms wrapped around my knees. My laptop was open on the bed next to me, paused on his face. I had already made my decision, now I was trying to fight away the blinding terror I felt imagining the difference way this could play out. God I had been so stupid to think I could leave this all behind me, that I was strong enough to do this alone. In that moment I realized that I had always known it would elf this way. That I would go back to him. He had changed me and I couldn't go back.

I got up and went into the bathroom, forcing my eyes to the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot and puffy and the bones of my cheeks were sharp and unnatural. Hysterical laughter burst from my throat, I had stubbornly held on to idea of being 'fine' for so long I hadn't even noticed my life fading away. All that keep going, stay alive bullshit I had running through my head like a mantra and I had been the one killing myself. I showered and did my hair for the first time in 3 years. Unfortunately I didn't have any makeup to hide the darkness under my eyes or the sickly  hollows of my cheeks. I focused entirely on my breathing so I wouldn't have time to think, grabbed what I needed and left the place that I stupidly had thought was my sanctuary. It had taken a flash of blue eyes on the street to figure out that all this time, it had been my prison.