She Will Persist

34

Cal

Death does more to the living than it does to the ones it takes. A sharp absence of a presence so cruelly robbed from this earth reminds the survivors that our lives are glass. That there may be more forces that can break us than preserve us.

I read somewhere that it isn't the death of someone that hurts the most, but the reactions of those who loved them.

We don't use the "L word" at the agency. Maybe it's because we all think love is overrated. Maybe it's because we're all afraid to love again, because we all knew how bad it hurt when it inevitably ended. Love is caustic, stinging and tempestuous even before it's gone.

Axel disappeared after they took her away. No one saw him for about a week. Lautaro and Lucky looked everywhere for him. When Harrison came back from Boston, not five seconds after we told him about Adira did he sprint up to the roof of the tallest building on The Street, returning with his best friend less than two minutes later.

I almost decked Axel when he quietly admitted that he hadn't eaten or slept for almost a week. Except I'd seen grief before. I knew what it was like too. You completely forget about yourself and all natural functions because you're so wrapped up in that cloud of... numb. So I understood why he hadn't eaten or slept. As a doctor though, it didn't mean I was happy about it.

Jinx came to the agency every few weekends, when she didn't have a "ridiculously boring and infuriating project to bullshit." She claimed that she came to see all of us, but Harrison's new style of popping his shirt collar up to cover any possible bruises underneath proved my opinion otherwise. She didn't pressure Axel to rejoin society either. He kept to himself, only ever speaking with Harrison, and even that was rare. When he wasn't off alone somewhere, he was either fighting or drinking.

Like the rest of us, Zach had been leaving Axel alone, but after the 21 year-old bashed Hunter Martin's head against one of the cafeteria tables so hard he bruised the other agent's skull, Zach been trying to give him something extra to do that didn't leave him free to give agents concussions. Our Director's solution to Axel's newfound social problems: join me on the welcome committee.

The new recruit was an 11 year-old boy named Edjer, a Kurd from southeastern Turkey that a couple of agents on a mission in Syria picked up a few days ago. No parents. Little English. Not much formal education. But he was a brilliant fighter, had a strong sense of will, and had no family to take care of him. Exactly our type.

Axel's hands were deep in his pockets as he walked down the carpeted corridor of the second floor dorm rooms towards Edjer and I. His uncombed brown hair had grown longer since he came back from his last mission a few months ago, and so it defied gravity and fluffed upwards, and then curled back down a little. His stopped a few feet in front of us.

"Hello," he said, in a stronger tone than his defeated physique suggested he could. His voice sounded weird. I hadn't heard him speak in a long time. "Edjer?" He asked the young boy who was standing beside me. Edjer nodded, nervously curling a bit of his dark hair behind his ear. "My name is Axel." He gave him a small smile. Axel definitely hadn't been his usual self recently, but he would never just be mean to a new agent. He remembered how difficult it was.

"This is where you will sleep," Axel pointed to the dorm room door we were right next to.

"Thank you," Edjer said.

"Don't be saying thanks just yet, you haven't met Director Patterson," Axel said.

Edjer just blinked and then shrugged his small shoulders up to his ears.

"Doesn't speak a lot of English," I reminded Axel. I pointed to the door again, encouraging Edjer to open it and investigate for himself what his new living space would be. There was a box on the only open bed in this dorm and the 11 year-old started to look through it.