Femme Fetale

Fourteen

When I get to the suite, Parker isn't there. I go straight to the phone and dial the number for room service.

"Room service," The breezy voice on the other side of the phone answers.

"Hi, I want to order dessert." I tell it, looking over the menu beside the phone.

"Sure, what would you like." It takes me a second, and as I read over the desserts, my mind bugs out.

"Get me one of everything," I sigh, too tired to pick any one of the desserts listed.

"Certainly, it'll be up in the next half hour."

Click.

They didn't sound surprised at all. I wonder how often people just ordered everything on the menu. Probably not that often. I shrug it off and flop down onto the couch, slipping off my heels. I lay my head on one of the cushions, and am swept up in the smell that always seemed to accompany Parker. He had slept here last night, of course it smelled of him. I groan and change pillows, though it did little to get his scent out of my head. He was still burrowed under my skin, and I had no idea how to get him out from there. I wrap my arms around myself and just stare at the sheepskin carpet, wondering how on Earth I got here.

My ex-fiancé wasn't even my ex-fiancé in a way. To him, I was nothing more than a mission that needed to be completed. All those times, all those moments that I can't get out of my damn head were only lines being fed to me by him. He was my cocaine, addictive and with one hell of a comedown. So severe I was still feeling it. Except this one had my heart under siege instead of my head. But just like an addict, I need to get clean. Chase these demons from my life. Which is much easier said than done.

I don't know what is worse, really. The fact that everything had been a lie, or the fact that I had been so damn blind to it. It wasn't like me, to let my guard down so much. But I'd known him since the moment I left Bogotá, back when I had nowhere to go and no one to trust. I can't really blame myself, no matter how trained I'd been at eighteen, he'd probably had just as much experience as me back then. After all, there was something in him that I recognized within myself as well. This lost feeling, of belonging to nothing, of being attached to nothing. Leaving the Cartel was like leaving my family. They'd cared for me since my family had been massacred. Fed me, clothed me, loved me. But I couldn't live like them any longer. Without some semblance of a conscious, without any set of morals. Killing for no reason other than being paid is not my style, though it might seem that way. Which is why I meet my clients before I take on a mission, or at least understand what it is they're after.

It takes me a second to realize that there's a knocking on the door, and I slowly get up and open it, my body drained. Dessert is exactly what I needed at that moment. I open the door and three waiters walk in, each wheeling a little trolley. All the danishes, the tarts, the cakes, the cookies and ice cream. It makes my mouth water and I'm not sure how I'll be able to eat it all, but I don't care. I wave a hundred at them, then set to work on the first trolley.

The first thing I grab is a chocolate mousse cake. I sigh as I sink into the couch, savouring the sugar. It's probably around half way through the second trolley that I begin to fall asleep. My eyelids feel heavy, so I place the half finished raspberry and lemon tart on the coffee table and put my head down on the cushion to my left. Within seconds I'm asleep.

For once in a long time I don't see the broken bodies before me. I don't see the bloody mess. Instead I'm completely invisible, standing in a crowded train station a bit similar to Grand Central Station. Everyone is rushing by, talking and laughing and chatting and I'm stuck in the same spot, unable to move, and unable to be seen. People walk through me, couples kiss nearby and families say their goodbyes.