The Awakening of Angel Ch. 17

We went into the bedroom and I retrieved a pair of pajama bottoms from his dresser and tossed them at him. I climbed into the bed while he dressed and then he climbed in as well. Roxie had been watching the whole process with great interest.

"Ok Rox, you can go to bed now."

"Wait Roxie!"

She stopped in mid-step.

"Hey, she never listens to anyone but me."

"Well things are changing I guess. Could she please sleep with us on the bed? I'll feel even safer if she does."

"She never has but I guess it's okay if she wants to."

"Come on Roxie! Up here with us."

Roxie needed no coaxing and leapt from across the room and landed heavily in the middle of the bed. She then moved to the foot and in the middle and curled up. I pulled Tillman close to me, kissed him on the forehead and we both quickly drifted off to sleep.

17 Aug 10:42 AM

Circe

We had slept late and had an even later breakfast. I was determined to let Tillman control the agenda and so we had made small talk this morning. Now I sat opposite him on a couch in his private study. He seemed jittery and unsure of himself so I was dreading how this might go down.

"Ok Angel, you have been through a lot and you deserve answers, so I will be truthful one hundred percent and will answer every question, unless of course there are security classifications involved."

Previously I had held most of my emotions in check because of the circumstances, but now they boiled, well simmered, to the surface.

"Well for one, what the hell just happened? At first I just thought it was one of your exercises."

"No, regrettably it was real. Over the past ten years we have been systematically hunting down and wiping out a particularly nasty terrorist organization. I won't tell you the sorts of things they've done because, well, because you don't need the images in your head. Suffice to say that these animals gave animals a bad name. They were sub-human. Various teams were deployed to take them down but my team was particularly good at it and we accounted for about 75% of the kills. This made us the prime target for them. We were okay until an idiot at the Pentagon blabbed and released our identities and the terrorists got a hold of some of my people. We took some of the bad guys out but the rest got away. Intelligence said that they had fled the country, which we believed, until they took you."

"Was this the same group that got your fiancée?"

He was truly shocked and the very life seemed to drain out of him.

"How did you know about her?

"I just know. There are lots of people who care about you, myself included, and we are worried about you. What were these people going to do to me? Make me confess or something?"

"No, much worse."

"Kill me?"

Tillman got a faraway look in his eyes and tears formed in the corners. His voice and lips quivered as he spoke very softly.

"You would have been gruesomely tortured, abused in the most unimaginable way, and then slowly killed. It would have all been video recorded and distributed on the internet."

"But why, and why me?"

"To send message and to get back at me. To cause me pain and to try to get me to stop hunting them, or to lure me into a trap. They believed I cared about you so you became the target."

"Am I still in danger? Are there more out there?"

"No. That was the last of this group. We intercepted some conversations from other terrorist groups celebrating that this one had been wiped out. These bastards hate each other just as much as they hate the Western world."

"How did you find out so quickly where I was at? I wasn't there all that long."

Tillman paused and looked down at the floor. It seemed like an easy enough question but he was clearly uncomfortable and was actually squirming a bit.

"Tillman!"

"You're not going to be happy but please let me explain before you react..."

"Just tell me!"

"Well um do you remember the night in the dungeon where I put all the clamps on you?"

"Yes of course. They hurt at first but then I got used to them. What about it?"

"Do you remember sort of a sharp jab on your back below your neck that felt different?"

"Yes, but I just thought it was a clamp that went on different. Would you please just tell me?"

"I placed a very high-tech and undetectable tracker chip under your skin."

A veil of red descended over my eyes as my temper boiled over.

"What the hell! You put a tracker on me without my knowledge!? Who do you think you are? I'm not some expensive car or one of your pieces of military equipment!"

Then my mind raced to a new conclusion.

"Fuck you Tillman! I was bait wasn't I? All along I've been bait and you've been using me in your obsession to get vengeance against the people who murdered your precious Victoria! You didn't care about me one little bit from the beginning. I walked into your club and you selected me as just a piece of ass to use to lure those people into your trap! Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you to hell!"

I grabbed the book next to me and flung it at his face with all my strength. He didn't dodge or flinch and the spine hit him square on the nose, which immediately started to bleed. Tillman didn't even try to stop the bleeding.

"None of that's true Angel. I can explain if you'll just give me the chance."

"Fuck you and your explanations Tillman!"

I stomped out of the room and nearly tripped over Roxie who was laying on the floor with her head down and looking sad. Why didn't she attack me for hitting Tillman?

"Stupid dog!"

I ran out into the street and called a cab to take me home.

"Screw this shit! I'm done!"