Obsolution ✔

Chapter 12

Everyone was asleep.

Not Sam. She lay in bed staring at the ceiling. From the other bed, Damon snored. Sam turned over with a sigh. There was a choice to make, but she couldn't make it, not yet.

In the room next to her, she heard Ty crying. He'd been crying for the last few nights. Crying didn't come naturally for him, Sam knew firsthand.

He must really miss Jennifer.

She expected him to miss his wife. Although, she didn't expect Ty to miss his wife so much. Sam remembered all the good things about Jennifer, but she also remembered all the bad things. In Sam's view, the bad outweighed the good. Losing Jennifer wasn't a loss.

Then why did Sam feel so guilty about it?

She missed Jennifer like Ty did. And they weren't the only ones.

"Mama!"

Helia was crying for her mother for the fifth night in a row. Then came the sounds of Ty opening his door, his footsteps plodding in the hallway on the way to Helia's bedroom.

"Hi, sweetheart." Sam heard Ty's muffled greeting to his daughter.

"No, Mama! Want Mama!"

"I know." Ty sniffed. "Daddy's here. Come on, honey."

Ty shuffled back to his bedroom, with Helia in his arms if the wails in the hallway were any indication.

After Ty closed his bedroom door, Sam picked up her interface and got up from the bed. The call she had to make would wake up Damon if she stayed in the bedroom.

Sam didn't want him overhearing, because he would try to stop her. And she didn't want anyone to stop her, because her mind had finally been made up.

~*~

Sam met the Agents in the deserted parking lot at Good Time. She got there first, by bike. She shivered in the cold of the pre-dawn. Her shivering increased as she recalled the crime scenes she had ridden past. The first one had been an old scene; yellow crime tape hanging in tatters around the pre-school building. A week before, Sam had seen the school shooting on the news, with all of the violence experts asserting, "Had every teacher and student been armed, the tragedy could have been averted." The next day, stores had sold out of guns and ammunitions.

The second scene was fresh. Two black cars sat in the movie theater parking lot, the agents that belonged to them sipping on their coffees as they surveyed the latest civilian shooting spree. One of them waved at Sam as she passed by. In response, she flicked them off. She felt a pang of fear, like they might jump in their car and pursue her. Instead, the agent laughed, and Sam's breathing returned to normal.

Minutes after her arrival at Good Time, a Prominent car parked near her bike. Agent Crendan and her partner got out. There were no smiles on their faces, nor were there frowns. If Sam had to describe them, she would have called the agents blank.

Both of them sauntered over to Sam, their faces unyielding, not even a softening of the features to greet her.

She didn't mind speaking first. "Is she with you?"

Agent Crendan's blank slate cracked into a grin. "That's not how this is going to work."

Only a minute had lapsed since the agent's arrival, and already, Sam knew she had made a mistake in coming.

"You expect me to go with you, not knowing if you're going to follow through with your end of the deal?"

Agent Crendan allowed her partner to answer. "It was never a deal. You were always going to end up in Agent custody. We're simply adding a bonus to make the transition a smooth one. It's up to you whether you trust us to return the woman or not."