Emotionally Compromised (Emotionally Compromised Series) (36 page)

I stand up from my desk after doing a fresh line of coke, and turn around to where Jeremy is tied to a chair against the back wall of my lab. We've finally reached the end, and it feels good.

"I was wondering when you were going to grace me with your consciousness."

Jeremy still manages his trademark board meeting, hard-lined grimace as he forces his heavy head upward to look at me.

"What the hell is this all about, Marcus? I don't understand why I am here."

His tone irritates me. It's so like him to have no idea about the pain he has caused people.
Fucker.
"Is it really that hard to figure out, Jeremy?"

I watch him pull on the restraints that I MacGyvered out of electrical wires. I thought they would dig nicely into his skin if he resisted. To think, I didn't
believe I could do this.

Slumping in momentary defeat, he shrugs. "You're losing it, Marcus."

"You'd like to think that, but you've driven me to this point. Don't you see?"

He shakes his head
, sighing at my words, pulling once more on the restraints. "Please don't tell me this about a fucking girl. When did we ever let that get in the way?"

Furious at his words, I grab the nearest item
—a large beaker filled with some unknown blue substance—and fling it across the room, letting it shatter and spill over the wall next to him. "I never did anything, Jeremy. You did. If anything, you're the one who let her get in the way. And when I say her, it really could be filled with a variable, like girl x. You're wondering how it got like this? How I got so mad? Well, maybe being duped by your best friend more times than you can count can make a person a little resentful."

Jeremy
seems to be finally fully coming to. He manages to sit up straight as if my words have piqued his interest. "Is that how you feel? That I've been duping you all these years? What about being part of my family?"

"You mean the family that you also don't appreciate." I pointedly grab the object in my pocket.

It's heavy for a small pistol, but of course, it's small enough to have been harbored in Adessa's purse for who knows how long.

Jeremy sputters, "M-Marcus, what the hell are you doing with a gun? You don't know the first thing about those things. You're gonna kill somebody."

I let out a laugh, and as it echoes off the sterile walls, I begin to think it sounds nothing like me. "That's kind of the point, asshole."

He tenses as he watches me take a few steps closer to him, and all I can
think is,
This is it. This will be my glory, on top of everything else.

"Marcus, this isn't you. I'm sorry for everything I've done
. I never real—"

"Realized that you hurt people? You're a selfish prick, Jeremy!"

"I am fully aware of that."

His tone bothers me, and I wave the gun in the air. "Shut up, Jeremy. Your charm will get you nowhere. Lucky for me, I am all too used to seeing you flash those pearly whites and get what you want. It's over for you. You need to suffer. You never suffer!"

I can see the beads of sweat forming on his brow. I watch a drop of sweat drip down the side of his face.
I'm winning!

"
Is this really all because of me? I don't buy that. You have always blamed everyone else for your problems."

Jeremy's
words ripple with a fierce heat through my veins. I walk over to him and punch him square in the nose. I lean in close to watch the blood drip over his upper lip, and let out a chuckle. "How's it feel, Jeremy?"

"What, you asshole?"

"Pain. How does the pain feel?"

He lifts his head to make eye contact with me, and he spits blood off to the side before flashing his bloody grin. "When are you going to grow the fuck up, Marcus? How is any of this going to solve anything? Killing me? Engineering this disease? Killing all those innocent people? When it is all said and done, you will still be the same cowardly piece of shit, unable to take responsibility for your actions."

I punch him again in the same spot, and I hear a delightful crack. I could get used to this sort of satisfaction. Then something hits me. "How do you know about the disease?"

With the mixture of my high and the dum
bfounded realization that Jeremy knows, I stumble backward, putting ten feet between my ex-best friend and me.

"I know everything, Marcus. I know you tried
to have me killed. I know whom you're selling your disease to. I know what you are planning on doing."

My fiery nerves turn ice
cold in an instant, and my emotions take a nosedive as my body shifts to an uneasy panic. "W-what did you say?"

"I know everything, Marcus."

I shakily bring up the gun, pointing it at Jeremy, and realize that I've never pulled the trigger of one. It feels so final, so deadly. Fear creeps into my psyche, wondering who else knows if Jeremy knows. I watch the shaking barrel pointed in Jeremy's direction with blurry vision. "It's not over for me. It's over for you, Jeremy!"

As if entirely accepting defeat, he shrugs, looking solemn. "If it makes you feel any better, maybe I have this coming. Right now, I don't care about dying. I am just sorry for whatever made you do whatever it is you think you're doing. You're a good man, Marcus
; you're just lost. Get a grip, buddy, and get this all over with. Right now, I would gladly take that bullet between the eyes if it knocked some sense into you, and between you and me, since these are my last moments, girls fucking suck."

I become baffled at the situation, drowning with anger at the same time. Jeremy's chivalrous tone irks me to no end, because I realize in that instant who I am. No, I don't want to be.

I run my hand through my greasy hair, shaking the gun at his words, frantic, noting that my breathing is heavy and rushed. "I'm not the villain here, Jeremy!"

"Then who are you? What do you want?"

A whimper escapes my lips as I rub at my temples, and I gasp for a burst of air. In my stupor, I hadn't realize that my vision was blurry because my eyes won't stop watering. I become flooded by all emotions of the spectrum, frustration being the driving force. I clench my jaw, take a deliberate step back, brace myself, and point the pistol in his face. His eyes widen once more as if he understands that I am serious.

My body becomes racked by barely
contained sobs, but I will not let myself go. "I wanted to be loved, ya know? I wanted people to care. I wanted people to see me. No one ever saw me, and the ones that did would rather see you."

I hear a gasp from Jeremy. "I didn't know
."

My arm falls as a singular sob escapes my lips. "Of course you didn't. You never took the time to look around
, but that isn't going to fix this, Jeremy. If I'm caught anyway, I should do this world one last God damn favor." I raise the gun to Jeremy's face. "I'm sorry, but I've had enough of this pain, and you need to know what it feels like. I feel like I am dying every day. Lucky for you, you'll only feel it once."

I spring back at the sound of the door of my lab door swinging open. I make eye contact with the sculpted face of Alex, and she has a gun. My face moves through the emotions of the situation.
What the ...?

In that split second, I grasp, in its entirety, what was happening and what has been happening all along.

That is when the only shot is fired.

I
Knew It

ALEX TURNER

The strangest thing happens when I hear that gunshot fire. It is like time freezes, allowing me a singular moment of reflection.

I don't know what compelled me to do it. Maybe it was the stark look in Marcus's eyes that had me, for the first time in my career, delay a shot and reevaluate my aim.
Who would have thought?

Running in on Marcus mid-sob, with pain riddled all over his gaunt features, while at the same time letting his eyes take in the sight of me
—
still in appreciation
—I couldn't kill him. But I wasn't going to let him get away with any of this either.

Jeremy is still the most important thing to me, and Marcus is a sad, lost soul
, bouncing through life searching for a purpose. The pain on Marcus's face looks like how my insides feel. A depressing mess of awful. I was sympathetic for the first time in my life.

There have been moments in my career where I had to hope my instincts were right, and this was one of them. I didn't want to kill Marcus, but he had his gun pointed at the one person I love, and with that
, my gut told me one thing: Marcus is a coward who would never kill anyone.
Kill himself? Yes. Others? No.

Killing someone takes a certain type of person. Marcus is not a killer.

I have killed, and will continue doing it as long as it is my job. We all have our reasons, and mine are personal. That moral fiber that makes you feel compassion for your fellow man is somewhere deep inside me, but finding it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack of raw human. Maybe this assignment has changed me. Maybe now I understand what life has to offer, and its value.

Don't get me wrong, I'd kill for the one I love
. Hell, I'd kill for what's right. I do what you don't want to do, but what is necessary. Yeah, I know it's awful, and callous of me to say, but you're safe, aren't you? Cushioned in your suburban life, living free.
You're welcome
.

I thought,
not this one,
as I pulled the trigger.

Love is a powerful thing.

Marcus's yelp breaks me out of my long, drawn-out moment of reverie. He flies backward, falling to the floor, clutching his bleeding knee. He didn't even attempt to fire his gun. Marcus is no killer.

With everything coming back into focus, I find
myself satisfied by the howls of pain erupting from him. I may have shown him compassion, but it doesn't mean he shouldn't suffer.

I want to smirk, only because
, despite my brief encounter with compassion, I still think there should be pain. Fair is fair in my book, with what he has put us through.

With that thought, I fling myself forward. I kick Marcus's gun on the floor far across the room. Even though I let him live, I need him cooperative. I pistol whip him across the temple, rendering his sputtering body into silence as his upper half joins his lower half on the cool tile, surrounded by a growing pool of blood.

"Jeremy!"

He is slumped
in the chair, and he appears to be hyperventilating as he lifts his dumbfounded, bloodied face to mine. What shocks me the most, and has me wide eyed and scared, is that Jeremy is grinning at me. An ear-to-ear grin, as if the blood spilling from his nose, down his chin, and soaking his overpriced, designer dress shirt isn't a big deal at all. He looks to Marcus's unconscious form on the floor and then back at me. I'm out of breath at the sight of him. His grin is terrifying me.
Has he lost it?
I'm still hinging how he might feel about me over our last interaction, and seeing him bloodied with an obvious broken nose has me shaking in my agency-issued boots.

"I
knew it, you know?" he blurts out. Wide-eyed, I freeze to the spot, entirely confused.

I have said so many wrong things to him in the past twenty-four hours that I fear my own words. I whisper, "W-what?"

With utter confidence, he replies, "You love me."

Are you kidding me right now? He's being funny,
charming, and smug even now.
I love him.
This time I let my face reflect his grin, and not wanting to waste any more time, I blurt out, "I do. I love you."

His bloodied grin looks comical to me as he takes in what I
said. "Say it again."

I take a deliberate step toward him. I have never wanted to kiss him so badly, bloodied and all. "I love you, Jeremy, and there isn't a chance in hell I could live this life without you."

"And I love
you,
Alex Turner. I knew you'd save me. Well, I had high hopes, and you always seem to exceed my expectations."

How can he still be like this after almost dying
… for a second time? I am confounded with joy. Even in the face of danger, he still manages to be a domineering jerk, but I love him. I love his domineering jerkiness, his overconfident strut, his retaliatory words, and the way he loves me for the same reasons that I love him.

He's alive. I did it.

"Now, Agent Turner, do you mind untying me, or am I to pay for some unknown crime?"

I shake my head, trying not to laugh as I untie his restraints, setting him free. He stands up and wraps his arms around me in a tight embrace, his blood-soaked shirt
is damp against my chest. I need to clean him up ASAP, so I can kiss his perfect face and those pouty, angsty lips.

"Jeremy, what are you doing?"

He presses my body hard against his, as if I am the most precious thing in his entire life.
Well, I guess the feeling's mutual.

He answers, "I thought I'd lost you after our argument."

I pull away enough to look into his glacier-blue eyes, cupping his bruised jaw. "Jeremy, I am the one who should be saying that. I almost lost you. This is my fault."

Even as a bloodied mess
, I still think Jeremy is the most beautiful man I've ever laid eyes on, and because I love him, it all means much more.

He grabs my face, watching my watering eyes. "No, no, I knew you wouldn't let me go without a fight. It was just going to take some time. I'd do the same for you. In a way, I hope that
someday maybe I can save
your
life."

I laugh, trying my damnedest not to kiss him. It's simple, isn't it?
"Jeremy, you already have."

He
rewards me with my most favorite smile, the one crafted especially for me.

He is my normal. He is my home. He's alive. And I love him.