Dancing With The Devil

Chapter 18

Alistair let out a little sigh and gestured for me to sit on the single bed in the tiny hotel room while he let himself tumble into the very cheap armchair. It was a surprisingly awkward movement for someone I had deemed to be so refined. Seeing the agent portion of him slip made me even more anxious.

"You haven't slept all night, you're probably exhausted. Maybe you should try and get some sleep; we can talk about all of this when you wake up." He suggested. I saw his eyes move to the candy bar that was resting on the desk near him.

"I'm not sleeping." I retorted tightly, "I don't think I could even if I wanted to." And I didn't want to have another piece of that relaxant until I was certain that he had my best interests at heart.

Alistair nodded slowly. I could see that he heard what I wasn't saying and knew it would be a battle to get me to give in now.

"I knew that something was wrong when I reported you missing and Smith decided that he needed to go after you himself. He's such an arrogant asshole that he thinks field work is below him. I can guarantee that if it had been anyone but you he would've laughed in my face when he found out, but that would've been his input for the case. You were a priority for him, beyond taking over my interrogation for the sake of giving me a massive headache. So I set out to find you, to do my own job but kept an eye on him. I thought if I solved the case before he did that I would get a promotion and a hefty raise because you and your friend were going to be one hell of a fight. I was right in that respect. I think I got close a couple times, but I wasn't close enough. You always managed to slip through my fingers. So I went after Sophie. She was new to this and didn't understand how important the little details were."

My hand flew to my mouth and I could feel my eyes widening with dread and horror.

"She's fine, I swear." Alistair soothed, clearly seeing my alarm. "I found her walking with some friends in a park. I don't think she was very pleased to see me; in fact she tried to beat the shit out of me so badly I think someone called the cops but we were long gone by the time they arrived. I took her back to her flat and I forced her to talk. She loves you a lot. I know that she wanted to keep your secret, but I convinced her to trust me and she told me about how you ran away from Anaheim. I didn't believe her, but I didn't have any other leads to follow.

"So I started to look into Josh. At first it was almost impossible to believe Sophie. I mean, his record is ridiculously clean. Everyone who has ever met him loves him. Even your parents love him. They still spend a fair amount of time together even though you've been missing for almost seven years now. He just oozes charisma and people can't help but follow him. I almost gave up after just one day of looking. Sophie was just messing with my head to buy you time to get further away. But then I found Josh's university pictures and Agent Smith was in a good portion of them."

"So? I met him at a party a couple of times, it's not like Josh isn't allowed to have friends." I pointed out. But hearing Smith's name made me shudder. The image of those lifeless eyes flashed through my mind.

"You're right, but it is strange that three weeks before your break in Agent Smith was moved out of the New York division and into the Toronto sector for no obvious reason. I don't know how much you understand about my work, but governments don't like to share agents. It's usually called treason unless it's done for intensive cases. Then I got Sophie to see if she could search that data base and find which cases Smith was on. That would at least clear up his portion of the issue. She couldn't find anything which is a massive red flag. If he was here for legal reasons it would've been disclosed.

"So now I have a friend who is claiming abuse, I have a girl who is running away from law enforcement- not like her money depends on it, but like her life depends on it- I have an agent who was transferred over for some unknown reason, but isn't actually working on any cases. I have an ex-fiancé with enough power and influence to make these kinds of things happen and I have a mysterious medical record under and alias that was longer than I would like to remember." Alistair explained, those sharp green eyes turning surprisingly soft.

"So you killed Smith because you think I'm telling the truth." I summarized.

"No, I killed Smith because the more I looked into his file the more disgusted I became at how few suspects ever made it to the court house. Not to mention missing evidence and a long list of identified causalities. He is one trigger happy son of a bitch. I knew that he wouldn't take all of your screaming and fighting. You would never make it back home to Josh. And if you did I wasn't sure how much longer you'd be alive either."

"You're crazy." I whispered, holding my head in my hands. I felt like the whole world had been turned upside down. The man that had been fighting against me was now fighting with me. "You killed a man. You killed a man that you think was Josh's hitman. Do you realize how much harder he's going to come after us?" I demanded.

Now it wasn't just me and Josh. It was Sophie, it was Agent Smith, and now, it was Alistair.

"If I hadn't followed you and Smith you could've been dead by now, I'm almost sure of it. And if you weren't dead already you would be soon enough. Your friend is an amazing tech and she can uncover anything and everything if she wants to. And what she dug up for me was a lot of missing person files that have loose ties to your fiancé. He's smart, never letting it get too close to him, but all I saw was a massive number of victims and a lot of people doing his dirty work."

I felt my mouth slip open in shock, my head spinning, "You mean, there's more than just me?"

"So many more. Not all of them are tied to Smith, but all of them go through Josh one way or another. You're just the first fiancé and the only one who has run away so you were the only one worth a public statement."

"This isn't your war." I said softly, suddenly thinking about Smith and the way he referred to Alistair as a rookie. Josh had just become so much stronger than I ever thought he could be. This was not something Alistair could handle.

"You came into my country. You made a company that supports the Canadian economy. You have thousands of employees that rely on you. You were seeking refuge from an awful human being. You are certainly my war."

"You hated me; you wanted to send me back to Josh right away."

"I didn't know what I know now."

"What are we going to do now? He won't give up." Panic was clenching at my heart. I thought I would be sick. My breaths were leaving my lungs in short bursts. My head began to spin and my eyes started watering.

"I know. I'm not sure what we are going to do. Sophie is working on this remotely and we're going to meet up with some people that are going to be able to help us."

"And Sophie is going to be safe?"

"Yes, of course." There was a hefty pause, his brow furrowed as he assessed me. "Aren't you going to ask me if you're going to be safe?"

"I lost my safety the day I agreed to marry him."

Alistair let out a small noise, seeming disgruntled by my response. He tossed me the chocolate bar.

"Eat some; it's the only way you're going to get any sleep now. We have a long journey ahead and I need you as functional as possible."

Alistair was right and I knew it. He was one of the two people who believed me and I trusted him. In addition to this I knew that I needed something to fight off the horrible feeling of impending doom and death.

I carefully nibbled on the chocolate until my raging thoughts turned to soft edged dreams and my eyes closed.