Make Me Ch. 03: Observation

"Can I touch you now?" She asked, barely above a whisper. She cleared her throat. "Nothing sexual. I promise." She added quickly.

I drew in a deep breath and nodded. Anna reached down and took my hand, the one that had moments before been buried deep inside me and pulled me to my feet. To my surprise, instead of stepping back, she pulled me into a full-on hug.

"I'm glad you look out for Bri." She said, not letting me go. "She needs both of us in her corner."

I found myself leaning into her, taking in her scent, some heady flower I was familiar with but couldn't name, with an undertone of cocoa butter subtly heating it. I could damn near hear the New Orleans Jazz riffs playing off her, it was like being embraced by an entire southern summer morning, a thick warm blanket of heat and home.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and hugged her back. "You smell like Louisiana." I mumbled, my head still spinning from what happened.

For a moment she stiffened and her breath quickened. She pulled back from me enough to look me in the face.

"What did you say?"

I blinked, confused at her reaction and trying to remember what inane thing I'd mumbled.

"Oh." I said as it came back to me, "Nothing. You just...are you from Louisiana? Your accent...and something about your perfume. I have a couple close friends from Lafayette."

Tension that had risen in her face eased.

"You are remarkably perceptive." Anna said, grinning and stepping back, giving my shoulder a squeeze before letting go. I missed her touch as soon as it was gone, and alarm bells started ringing somewhere in my head. Oh, now you go off, I thought, Were where you for the last hour?

"You want some tea?" Anna asked, "Maybe I can give you a ride to your inter-" She cut off her speech and reached out and grabbed my forearm suddenly, cocking her head like she was listening.

"What is it?" I whispered, sensing that she was trying to hear something.

She gave her head a quick shake and raised a hand, letting go of me and signaling for me to wait there. I did, my brow creasing in confusion as she slipped into the hall. A moment later she was back, moving silently and she knelt and reached under the bed and pulled something out. It looked like a suitcase, but it was metal, with a flat pad on it instead of latch or lock. She pressed her finger into it, and I blinked in surprise as a little light blinked, and the suitcase clicked softly. She opened the lid and pulled out a fucking handgun, but not a regular one like you see in pawn shops or whatever, but like spy movie James Bond style long barreled hand gun.

I could have sworn we were in Mission Impossible when she slid the clip on, the sound it made clicking loud compared to the silence in the room. She spun on a silencer, I knew what it was from the movies, of course, who wouldn't? Then she drew in close to me, so her mouth was near my ear.

"Somebody is here, and it's not Bri." She said, walking me back towards the wall. "Stay in here, away from the windows, and be ready to run if I call you. If I yell your name, you just keep moving no matter who what you see, get outside, don't touch the car, or the bike, just hit the sidewalk and run until you are somewhere very, very public. If you've got shoes in here, put them on now."

I felt everything inside me go cold. "What? Why? What's happening?" I whispered, but she silenced me with a look and a finger to her lips.

Then she was gone. I stood there, stunned, for a long moment. What the hell had just happened? I was snooping, My brain recapped for me, then watching a sex tape of my sister, then letting her girlfriend watch me come, and now Anna has a fucking gun and I might have to run for my life? What the hell? That suitcase...is that an honest to god finger print reader?

My eyes flicked to the gun case, and I noticed something still in it. I stepped closer. It was a small butterfly knife, pressed into an indentation in the foam. I snatched it up, dropped it into the pocket of my sweats, and started digging through my suitcase for some socks and shoes. I found a pair of running shoes that I use at the gym on the rare occasion I made myself go. I had brought them thinking I could check out a gym or two in the area, maybe trick myself into going regularly somehow if I took the job.

I laced them up with unsteady fingers, having to try more than once to tie each shoe, finally settling for knotting the laces and tucking them into my socks. I grabbed a sports bra, and was wondering if I'd have time to put it on. If Anna yelled for me to run just after I took my shirt off, would the delay be too much? I stuffed it into my pocket. I could stop and put it on somewhere. In a restaurant bathroom or something.

"Hey." I nearly jumped out of my skin and spun around. Anna leaned against the door, casually, one foot tucked behind the other, gun tapping absently against her thigh. She was looking past me, a trouble expression on her face. Who the heck held a gun absently? Like it was a half empty beer bottle or a cell phone or something. It was a fucking spy gun!

"What's happening?" I asked, my voice as unsteady as my hands.

"Whoever it was is gone." Anna said, looking irritated and upset, she strode forward, disassembled the gun, and dropped it all back in the case and clicked it shut.

"Anna, what the hell?" I started.

"I'm sorry." She said, her voice betraying something I couldn't quite figure, something intense like grief, but that didn't make much sense at all.

Anna pushed passed me towards the closet. She reached up to the shelf above the hanger rod and pulled down what looked like motorcycle saddle bags. They thumped heavily on the floor.

"Tell Bri..." She trailed off as she stuffed the gun case into one bag, squeezing it between several rolled cloth items. The way the clothes were rolled up reminded me of Frank, and how he kept his towels rolled up like that. I thought it was an army habit.

"Tell her whatever she needs to hear." She said, pulling out a white envelope and tossing it on the bed. "She can take what she wants from the house, but she can't stay here. She needs to be out by sundown, and she shouldn't leave anything behind that could hint where she's going." While she spoke, Anna checked the contents of the bags.

"What?" I said again. "What's going on? Where are you going?"

"Don't know." Anna said. "Couldn't tell you if I did."

"You can damn well explain what's going on." I said, "Is that a go bag? I don't get it, are you ... what are you running from?"

Anna stopped and looked up at me, and I noticed her eyes were wet, her expression desperate and heartbreaking.

"I thought I was free of them...my...old employers don't seem to want to let me go. Someone just sent me a message. I gotta get out now, get ahead of them. You and Bri need to leave too."

"Your ex-boss?" I said, glancing again at the neatly rolled clothes and the military grade gun case tucked into it. "As in the US government?"

She blinked in surprise at me. Then suddenly my back was slammed against the wall and her arm pressed against my neck hard enough that I saw stars and my vision tunneled. I gasped for breath as she growled in my face.

"Who the fuck do you work for?" My hands scrabbled at her arms, weak from shock and lack of oxygen. Her body pressed firmly against mine, keeping me pinned.

"Who. The fuck. Do you work for?" She asked against slowly.

"Mmnn!" I groaned, struggling to make words form in my brain, anything to make her stop. "Atlanta...PD..." I managed to get out.

"What?" Her grip loosened. "What could they possibly want with me?" She asked. "I don't even have Atlanta connections."

I gasped for breath. "I just...I don't." A sob escaped me, and I didn't even have a sense to be embarrassed by it, I was so confused. "I'm just a contractor. Cyber security. I have no idea what's going on."

"Shit." Anna swore, stepping back slowly, then watching as I slid down the wall, my legs too weak to hold me up anymore. "You're not a goddamn agent or a mole. You're just a very, very perceptive civilian."

"You fold your clothes like Frank did. It's an army thing I think." I said, resisting the urge to rub my throat.

"Hm." Anna said, not really confirming anything for me. She turned back to her bags, flipping them shut. "I'm sorry I scared you. I'm...fuck I really have to go."

"Will you please tell me what's happening? When will you be back?"

"I had the car put in Bri's name after her old Honda died. She can sell it or whatever. She probably shouldn't keep it."

"You're leaving-leaving?" I asked. "Just like that, someone makes a noise in your house and you're just gone?"

"I have an attorney who will handle whatever Bri doesn't want to take." Anna said. "He'll be by tomorrow for whatever is still here." She pulled the bags up over on shoulder, they hung awkwardly but she seemed to handle the oddly distributed weight with ease.

"This is gonna kill Bri." I said, forcing myself to stand and meet her eyes. I felt an old, bitter anger rising in me. "This is going to kill her and you know it."

Anna scrubbed a tear from her cheek. "Yeah." She said, her voice hoarse. "That's exactly what I'm afraid of."

"You have to at least explain yourself to her." I said, my voice softer. "If you leave like this...she really won't recover. She strong but I think she..." I trailed off, searching for anything I could say to talk some sense in to Anna, to get her to tell me what was going on, anything to keep her from vanishing. I had a feeling if she vanished, we'd never see her again. "You're her person, you know? Other than me, she doesn't have people like that."

More tears streaked down Anna's face. Anna didn't strike me as a crier, she wasn't cold or anything, but she seemed so in control. It was unsettling seeing her like this.

"Fine." She said, wiping at her face roughly. "Get that camera."

A few minutes later, we'd set up the camera on a tripod, I sat just off screen, while Anna was centered.

"It's recording." I said.

"I can't say much, I think this might make it worse, Cassidy."

"Impossible. Just talk."

"Okay." She looked at the camera. "Bri, baby, you know I love you. And I know how much you love me, but I can't see that I deserve it." She was crying again. Good lord there were more sides to this woman than rhombicuboctahedron dice.

"I thought I could outrun my past, start fresh." She continued, "I thought I could just collect art and work out and read books and be happy. But it was all so empty. I took classes, bought my dream bike, had one-night stands in fancy hotels, but everything was empty. Then you showed up, delivering my mail in those blue shorts that look cheesy and stupid on everyone else but so damn good on you...fuck. Listen, I'll tell you what I can. I used to have a different life, a different name. I was the same person just, not. That me is dead. Not like, figuratively, literally dead. There's a death certificate, a folded flag on my parent's mantle, a bland white gravestone somewhere in the midst of a thousand other bland white gravestones back east. MIA. Missing in Action. After awhile, they presume you dead.

"You hear horror stories about people, particularly women, captured in combat, presumed dead, only to turn up years later traumatized and broken. Well that wasn't me. Not exactly. I was captured for about ten hours, a ways outside Kabul. Then I got away. But some idiot had already taken credit for my execution, posted an online video and everything. I went to a safe house, but it was gone, rubble. I hid nearby for weeks, but no-one came. Everything was...it was chaos over there, what we did to their country...we took a wrecking ball to a house of cards, and I was left in the middle of the mess. I ran, I took on other identities, names, crossed borders, and finally came home. I tried to report to base, but they thought I was insane and wouldn't let me on. I tried to go home, but my childhood home had been sold, my family gone. I tried get a job, anything, but I was dead to the world. I found work doing what I did best. Being dead. Being a shadow. Being invisible and doing the jobs that no one else can or will do.

"I don't know who's after me now, the military, one of the organizations I worked for after, ones that aren't supposed to exist, but do. The ones the military hires to do the things they can't send their own people to do. It's convenient having a dead soldier do your dirty work. No need for accountability. I did that for a time, but I just...I couldn't stomach it, I disappeared as soon as I could. They, they trained me to do that, and they trained me well.

"Anyway, someone's caught up to me, left me a message that I'm no longer safe. Nobody near me is safe either. They either want me to work for them, or they want me dead. I honestly can't say which I'd prefer. None of these people can be trusted, they will use any little thing against me, anyone. They'll use you. I can't protect you from them. I thought I could. I was wrong. Stupid and wrong."

Anna wasn't crying anymore, instead she looked determined, determined and furious.

"You get out, you hear? Get what you need, take whatever you want, take the money I left with Cass for you, I can always get more. Just go, get an apartment or something somewhere, and live. You don't need me ... that's a stupid thing to say. We need each other. But you're stronger than you know. You'll be okay in the end. Cut yourself some slack, and give yourself some credit, okay? Let people in. Date someone who can introduce you to her parents and who doesn't have a death certificate.

"Bri, I love you. I'm glad I knew you, and I'm sorry I hurt you like this."

Anna stared at the camera for a moment, then she stood ended the video, turning the camera off and handing the whole thing to me.

"Take it." She said. "Don't miss your interview. You gotta be here to take care of her, you know?"

And just like that, she left.

I called and rescheduled my interview for the following day. I tried calling Bri, but her phone was going straight to voicemail.

I packed my things. Noon rolled around. I packed Bri's things. I ate. Threw up. Brushed my teeth. Drank some tea. Three o'clock. Channel surfed. Called Bri over and over again. Five. Bri would be home soon. She was usually off by quarter after five. I booked us a room at a hotel, loaded stuff into the car.

Six O'clock came. It got dark. I didn't turn on any lights. I sat and waited in the dark. Listened to the occasional car go by. At nine I started crying. At eleven I was numb and too terrified to even think. At midnight I finally called the police, but when I told them my adult sister was missing that it had been less than a day, they all but hung up on me.

At quarter after midnight, my phone chimed. A text from Bri. I heaved a sobbing sigh of relief, and tapped in my code on my phone, opening the text.

Got tied up after work. Tell Anna she might want to come get me.

Confused, I stared at the text as if it would explain itself. Bri Lyft and Uber. And since when was she seven hours late coming home from work? I felt my throat tighten again. The phone buzzed in my hand and I nearly dropped it.

The next text was an image, a close up of Bri from the shoulders up. She was blindfolded, her mouth covered with tape, and a thick chain wrapped tight around her neck.

I searched the house for Anna's number, but instead, found her phone on the kitchen counter. Of course, if she was disappearing, she wouldn't likely take her cell phone with her.

After staring at my own phone for a few desperate moments, I tapped out a reply.

OMW. Location?

I didn't bother waiting for a reply, I didn't need one. I grabbed my laptop and flipped it open, finally coming to my senses. I should have done this sooner, and I would have if I hadn't been busy panicking myself into a weird stasis of some sort. I activated my private VPN, then logged into Anna's email and cell phone account, her password hadn't changed in years, and activated a locator app on her phone remotely. It took a little finagling, but a third-rate hacker could have done it. Hell, anyone with a password and access to a search engine could have managed it.

I found Anna's email, and hacked that as well. I had a great program I'd written myself for password decoding. I opened up a compose window, attached a screenshot of the text message exchange, then I attached a screenshot of the location of Anna's phone, a picture of her phone sitting on the couch, and then a link I created that would allow her to track both my cell phone and Anna's. I typed my name and phone number into the subject line, then sent the email, from herself, to herself.

I snapped the sd card from the video camera, tucked it into the side of my laptop, then slid the laptop into its protective case and into a small backpack designed to carry electronics. It contained all my gear already, like my own fucking go-bag. I could take the few little items in that bag and gain access to damn near any security system, database, or network in existence.

I didn't take anything else with me, left the phone on the couch, grabbed the keys from a key rack hanging by the garage door, and got into the little compact car. The only weapon I had was the butterfly knife that still sat heavy in my pocket. I'm not a weapons girl. I'm a tech girl.

But I'd do whatever I had to do to get Bri back. I'd failed her once, and I had no intention of doing it again.