Target

“Cylia, stop,” Gwenn says when I storm out of the interrogation room. I turn to her, furiously. “Don’t ever call me like that again, you hear me?” I snap. “Then what? Alysha? Ilsa? Whatever, listen to me, you have to stop acting like such a bitch. It’s Liam in there. How can you leave him alone when he needs you?” “He doesn’t need me. All this time, he played with me, pretending to care about me. He’s just like Anthony…” “He is not. The reason you’re still breathing at this moment is because Liam cares for you. He had more than enough opportunities to kill you, but he didn’t. He is nothing like Anthony.” I stared at her. “I won’t let this happen again.” I turn around. This conversation is over.

I don’t watch where I am going and only realize that my feet brought me to Liam when I stand right in front of his cell. Well, I want answers, however, I don’t know if I am ready to hear them. “Miss Parker?” a guard asks. “What are you doing here?” “I need a word with prisoner Payne.” I step closer. “And I would appreciate it if this stays between the two of us.” The guard frowns. “You know I can’t do that.” “Please?” He shakes his head. “Fine, just… give me some alone time with him.” The guard smiles a little. “That, I can arrange for you.”

My heart races, but I have to speak to him. “Hey.” I shut the door behind me and casually lean against the wall. Liam looks at me with big eyes. “But… I thought…” “I didn’t want to speak to you? Well, I don’t want to speak to you on record and I suppose that the answers to my questions are ones that you don’t want on record either.” I try to keep myself composed, but it’s difficult. My emotions are messed up. I keep telling myself that Liam is no better than Anthony, but my heart keeps rejecting this. At the moment, my reasoning wins it from my heart. I cannot just let this go. It has happened once, I won’t let this go unpunished a second time. “Why…” I start. “I explained, I have no choice! They have…” I gesture for him to shut up. “Let me finish. Why am I still alive? You’ve had plenty of opportunity the first night you stayed at my place and even more after that. You have even tried, but you failed.” His jaw drops. “What, you thought I wouldn’t find a fucking knife under my bed?” “I… I don’t… I couldn’t…” He clearly has no response to my question. “Well, I have a theory. I was you’re first female assignment. And you didn’t know what was the reason Conrad thinks I should be dead, am I correct?” He nods quietly, still scarred. “So, you thought you could play around with me. Unfortunately for you, when it became public, my bosses did some research on you. Most of the traces were hidden pretty well, I have to say that, but they made one fatal mistake that exposed you. They forgot to alter the phone records. Or maybe they didn’t do that on purpose, I wouldn’t know. One way or another, in the end, you didn’t have the guts to spill the blood of a girl.” He is speechless and scared. Honestly, I am a little scared by myself too. “But one important question remains to me. What made me different Liam?!” He stares at the floor. “Sometimes I understood Conrad’s choice. Once, he let me… kill a person that had hurt his daughter.” I remember that. Sascha was the girls name. She, Gwenn and I were really close when the two of us were still involved with them. One day she did not show up for school. It was not uncommon, but usually, she’d let us know so we could ditch class together. When I came home that night, I found her in my room, crying and covered in blood. Someone from a gang had taken her, beat her and left her for dead. A few weeks later, I heard that Conrad had tracked the group and send some people to take care of them. Apparently, Liam as one of them. “Some threatened him or the organization, so it was logical, sort of. But you… I couldn’t find a reason to justify this. What made you different was the innocence. And then I got to know you and… well… I fell hard.” He looks away when he says this. I shake my head. “Well, at least that means I played my part well.” I ignored the last statement and nod. “Well, guess I ‘ll see you tomorrow…” “Wait, I answered your question… and I need to know something.” I hesitate for a moment. I have no idea what he would need to know right now. “What do you want to know?” I bite my lip nervously. “How are you here? In the hospital, they said you had no chance of survival. I was there when you died.” I stare at him blankly. “I was never fatally wounded. The person who told you I was going to die, is an agent here. You met here, Kate.” “That’s why she was so familiar.” “And, I don’t know exactly how it works, but the lab has this creepy substance that can fake dead. Then, we’ve arranged some agents to plan my ‘funeral’.” “So your Leigh-Ann is not really…” “Oh no, she is. But she is the person that got me in this mess. Sort of. Depends on how you look at it. And I was actually at my own funeral. Again. Just not as the dead person. Again. I really should stop doing that.” Liam raises an eyebrow. “What?” “About one and a half year ago, I pulled the same trick on my parents, brother, family, friends. Only difference is, they still think I’m dead.” Why am I telling him this? “What?” “Long story, not for now. I have something to do.” That’s a lie, but it doesn’t matter. At the moment, I am reliving things I’d hidden well for the past eighteen months, two weeks and four days. It’s pathetic that I know this, but I will never forget that day, mostly, because I never got to say goodbye to my family. It broke my heart to see them crying over me, while I sat there in the back, alive and well. “Wait, who were you. Have I seen you?” “I am my own cousin.” Wow, that sounds really weird, creepy. I see Liam is trying to put it together. “You’re the blond girl…” he murmurs. “Applause, you figured it out. Now, I’ve got to go.” I use my card to open the cell and leave, before he can ask any more questions. I sigh. This was the stupidest thing I’ve done in… well, not my life, but a long time.

Notes

Hey, it's been a long time and well... I have lots of excuses, so if your interested, read them, if not, don't. And eh... I know it's late, but better late than never: Merry Christmas :). Today was the best day. I woke up, turned on the radio (top serious request) and woke up just before the played BSE. So I stayed in bed, opened the ap and sent a message to the station: woopwoop BSE is up next, and the DJ read it outloud and thought it was extremely funny xD. That was the random shit for today :)

And if you're still interested, here's my list of excuses why I was to lazy to update:
- I was working on this massive project which determines whether or not I can do my finals in May (basically, I have to hand it in and get a 5/10 score or higher). It resulted in 40 pages of blood, sweat and tears and 94.5 hours of research.
- My boss thought it was a good idea to let me work numerous Saturdays which I usually use for homework, which I had to do at another time...
- Greek and Latin is so much work :O
- I had to be social and shit
- Musical rehersals (tho I really hate our director... Why am I still participating???)
- MUN prep. Although, one of them, I heard the day before we went that I could join.
- Aaaaand, I kind of already figured the end of the story out, but now I have to fill the time in between...

That was about it. LY a LOT tho and hope you forgive me.