As Long As I Have You // A. Ghale

Confrontation

"Come in! I apologize for the austerity, I sent the help home. Chances are you two shot the on your way in." Pagan speaks, pouring a glass of wine.

"Now, to whom am I speaking? The son who returned to scatter his mother's ashes...or the lunatic who has murdered his way up to the top of my mountain. If I was speaking to the first guy, I would say sit down, let's be civilized, and enjoy some crab rangoon. Ah, we tried that before, didn't we?" Pagan says, talking to the both of us.

"So then you must be the second guy, who didn't listen and decided instead to join the other monkeys and start throwing. his shit around." Pagan says, specifically to Ajay. I only get madder with each passing second.

"We're not here to have a fucking family reunion. We want answers and we want them now." I tell him, and he gets defensive immediately as I do so. It was like he was running on autopilot.

"Not so fast, Delilah. I know about your little secret, that isn't much of a secret anymore, haven't you noticed? I call a do-over. You have two choices; shoot me, boring, or you could sit down, enjoy some food and I'll tell you everything you want to know." Pagan bargains, and I go for it. Ajay had learned his truth, it was time for me to learn mine. Ajay and I just glance at each other. I obviously wanted to figure out why the hell my father would work for a man like Pagan, and Ajay knew that.

"What secret? I don't know what you're talking about." Deep down, I knew that he knew the secret Ajay and I had kept for so long, from the Golden Path.

"Come on! You're showing. You're carrying the newest member of the Ghale bloodline. you're pregnant." I stop breathing for a second. How the fuck did he know that?

"H-how did you know that?" I ask him, glancing at Ajay and he was just as shocked as I was. I didn't know how the information got to Pagan, but I intended to find out.

"Nothing but a handy little microchip." Ajay and I look equally petrified and wonder if anyone else knows the information. There would be people who wanted me and the child dead...people like Pagan.

"So, what would you like to know?" Pagan asks us, as he eats a piece of his crab rangoon. I only think of everything about my entire childhood. There was so many empty holes inside of my heart that my father was supposed to fill.

"Why was my father working for you? Why wouldn't you let him come home? Where is he?" I ask, stumbling over every word of each sentence. I had practiced this scenario in my head a million times, but I never thought I'd find out like this, from a guy like this.

"Woah, my dear. Patience is a virtue. Your father, Gilead Carver, was a very useful man. He delivered well, very extraordinary work. But, he was distracted. So, I had his letters stopped being sent and led him to believe that I had sent you and your mother far, far away. I constantly threatened to kill you, and he would do anything I say, when I said it." Pagan said, taking a sip from his wine glass. I wanted to shove the whole fucking bottle of wine down his throat for what he has done to my family. He took my father away from me, my mother's sanity, and my childhood.

"You piece of shit." I say, tearing up. Ajay puts his hand calmingly over mine, but I stay upset.

"Listen, Delilah. I'm not finished. The reason he came to Kyrat was to kill me. He was hired by the CIA in the United States, as they thought I could pose as a threat to the Americas. But, I was able to stop him, by simply threatening him. He then helped me write 'newspapers' for the people of Kyrat as a way of spreading the word of the King."

"But, that doesn't make sense. My father sent me letters and he sounded like he was with the Golden Path, not with you." I say, questioning very letter I had ever gotten from my father. Everything I had ever thought about my father, was completely and utterly false.

"That's because he was with the Golden Path, and had been for a while. He tried to kill me, but I sent him to the arena. I watched him get ripped to shreds by a bengal tiger. I watched his blood scatter across the floor of the arena, I listened to his deafening screams for help as he took his last breath." A piece of my heart shatters, and I look at Ajay. He gives me the saddest sympathetic face I've ever seen. It made me want to run away and hide and pretend I don't exist.

"Fuck you-" I tell him, tasting the salty tears as they fall down my cheek and slip into my mouth. It was not what I had expected. I never thought that would be how my father would die. I never thought I couldn't grow old and still have my father around. I wanted so desperately for Pagan to lie, but why would he lie at this point?

"That's not very nice, now is it?" Pagan says, taking another sip from his wine glass. Ajay tried to keep me as calm as he could be, but I was too far gone.

"Well, let's not put it off any longer. Come on, and bring your mother, Ajay." Pagan tells him, and we follow behind him. I could tell that Ajay was getting tense, and I couldn't blame him. I would be too.

"You do realize that urn represents all that's left of the old Ajay. The pre-Kyrat Ajay. Once you spread those ashes all the ties you have to that previous life are gone. Well, you could do what I did after Mohan killed Lakshmana. Yes, your father killed your half-sister, and your mother killed him in return. I simply continued where she left off." Pagan had confirmed what. I had told Ajay before, I don't think it really hit him until it came from Pagan.

"All choices have consequences. I've given you Kyrat, but I'm keeping the helicopter." Pagan says, I smile and laugh, and Ajay looks at me funny.

I pull out my rocket launcher and shoot the helicopter down as Pagan flies away. If Noore, Paul, and Yuma were left to die, Pagan should be too.

"Delilah, what did you do?" Ajay looks at me, and just looks stunned. He gives me the look that a lost puppy would give an innocent bystander. He looked both surprised and relieved at the same time.

"Finishing what you started."