Let The Rain Fall Down

Ghosts Will Rise

Standing at the door of a house I had gone to so many times in the past I couldn't believe I was so nervous. I could see Sarah moving in the main room – the room she insisted was for visitors and not us when we came over with bottles of wine, spirits and every intention of falling back out the door in the early hours of the morning. How did I go in there and tell her that the sweet life she had with Alex was in danger of being torn apart and we didn't know how to stop it. How did I tell the woman who had been a friend for so long that she was being followed, that we knew there were threats on her life that matched the ones on Chloe' and we knew how that had gone. Chloe should be dead and if the League had their way, Sarah soon would be.

I raised the brass door knocker but before I could let it drop the door had been opened and there stood Sarah.

“Took you bloody long enough Lucas, you've been stood out there for nearly fifteen minutes. Now are you going to come in, drink a coffee and tell me why my life is in danger or are you going to stand there and muse too much.”

Moving inside the well lit hallway of the Victorian town house, I saw Alex standing in the kitchen a glass of bourbon in his hand, frozen with the look of understanding in his eyes. He to knew why I was there. Sitting in the kitchen nursing the coffee that I'd taken barely a mouth of and began to talk, every word leaving my mouth feeling like poison for the two people who, like Dimitri, were more than friends, they were family.

“Sarah, we have had reports that you are being followed, that the League will not give up on the revenge they think they need. The reports were confirmed by Ruth a few days ago. You have been tailed by someone for nearly a month and yet, you have done nothing!

My children Sarah, my children were with you during those times. How could you be so foolish!”

She went to defend her actions, the realisation that she had made a mistake, then she was silent. Alex had moved to her, his arms around her shoulders as he whispered something before looking at me.

“I think Lucas we are all responsible for making stupid careless mistakes – even with the careers we all have and the knowledge that has given up to see that beneath the surface there is evil in many, we try to keep some naïvety of thinking we're invincible and those who are with us are too. Don't give me that look Lucas – the one that is so self-righteous, you are not pure of sin, none of us are.

Sarah made a mistake. She knows it now we move on and sort it all.”

I flew at him, every built amount of emotion came out as my fist connected with his jaw knocking his face to the left and the blood splatter on his cheeks. The fight got out of control as the anger Alex and I had both built up through the weeks of resentment, lies and betrayal came pouring out. He hit me with such force that I felt sick, as we fought I could hear a sound of someone screaming, it sounded so distant until I looked. There in the corner of her own kitchen was Sarah.

Sarah with a gun pointed at me.

“Stop this. Both of you stop this we need to do something other than kill ourselves there is too many people wanting to do that as it is. We are the three that the League know are still alive and we need to keep it that way. We need to plan something, ensure our safety and the safety of your children Lucas, Chloe would never forgive you if anything would happen to them..”

“... it wasn't me Sarah who drove through London with them in my car whilst being followed by these lunatics...”

“No Lucas, but it was you who didn't even know what your wife was doing! We're all like this because Chloe loves you that much she's willing to die for you! So before you throw stones, look at your own house!!”

We were getting nowhere fast. Sarah was right, how had I not known about Chloe, how had I not noticed that she was getting closer and closer to Harry – I had been blind to the obvious. Christ, I'd thought she'd had had an affair. I fell to the cold tiled floor as the tears fell once again, the cold façade that I had worn for so long crumbling away – this couldn't carry on, I had to open my eyes fully to what was going on around me. To get Chloe home I would have to lay my life on the lines. I mumbled an apology and began to lay out my plan to trap at least one maybe two members of the League that we were after.

* * * *

They were there, I could see the three of them as I got out of my hire car and moved up the steps. The red wig cut short now disguising me from the back and the work the surgeon had done on my face having changed my features just enough that I didn't look like myself, seeing my reflection in the glass though, there on the side of my face was the still red scar from the glass. I was changed permanently to keep Lucas safe. I knew deep down it was not my face Lucas loved it was who I was but I knew that every time I looked at the now many scars on my body I had been given thanks to the attack so many years ago and then the staged crash I would worry that he wouldn't love me for how I now looked – I wasn't his gorgeous girl any more. I was just one thing.

I was Chloe North and I was going to fight for my family and for this country till my last breath.

I felt a fool carrying the bag of cosmetics that I had with me to help with my disguise, I just prayed that if I had been followed by one of the gentlemen of the League they hadn't realised just who they were following. I had to hope as well that whoever answered the door wouldn't react too much to seeing me here. I knew it was a terrible risk but Ruth had insisted that I should be here to explain what I knew and what I could do to help – what Alex and Sarah didn't know was that their house had been checked and cleared of all surveillance, a team had gone in on my orders and discovered every room had three sometimes four pieces of hearing devices in it. What was terrifying was that they were high end surveillance, as in MI5/MI6 equipment. We were working against our own.

Then I heard it, the sound of Lucas and Alex fighting – the yells of anger and denial coming through the front door, I had no choice but to get into the house and stop it before it got out of hand. The key Sarah had given me was in the lock before I knew it and I just stood in the hallway silently, now afraid to make my presence known as fists and cruel words flew back and forth. They talked for a while afterwards – Sarah having taken a gun to remind Lucas just where he was, the woman was brave, I was his wife and I wouldn't do that when he was angered, you just never knew how he would react. As I stood there I realised that this was all my fault, I had kept my secret for so long that when it had had to come out it had destroyed everyone and everything I had ever known and ever loved. Lucas was different – the façade that protected him was now destroying him, my children were desperate for me and Aeryn, God Aeryn knew the truth but couldn't talk to anyone apart from Lucas and he was keeping it together by the skin of his teeth if the fight with Alex had been anything to show for his thought processes.

The sounds stopped and instead there was quiet talking as I moved into the room and felt three pairs of eyes on me. I knew they weren't expecting to see me, I'd argued with Ruth all night after I'd left Lucas in that safe house that this was a bad idea that they would hate me. Would worry that I'd brought the League and their murderous intentions to the door of two people who were like family to me.

“Hello.”

Five letters that resulted in silence then Sarah advancing on me with a face like pure thunder. I think I heard the slap on my face before I felt it. Lucas and Alex were staring at her open-mouthed. I knew why she'd done it, she'd begged me not to come to the house, to risk everything that Harry and I had worked to stop happening so many months and years before. I'd lied to them all for so long, I wasn't sure I knew who I was any more – I wasn't Chloe North photographer any more, I wasn't even Chloe North spy within MI5 I was lost and I was scared of falling down the rabbit hole any further. She pulled me into a tight embrace, whispering that she had missed me that she was sorry and that she was furious I'd risked my life coming here.

“He's my husband, you're my friends and I have a plan.”

We sat into the early hours discussing and arguing about everything until it became clear that I wasn't going to give up – Dimitri would go in as the foppish nouveau riche boy and once he had the information the three of them wanted and needed I was going to rise from the grave.