Guys, Lies and Deadly Spies. (rewritten)

9- Death Like Sleep.

That night I woke up soaked in my own sweat, grabbing at my chest frantically for the bullet wounds I was sure had pierced my flesh. Instead I felt my heart hammer against my ribcage at a rate so alarming I was convinced I was having a heart attack. Quickly, I grabbed the bottle of water on my bedside table and gulped it all down, trying my best to quiet the blood rushing through my veins.

It all felt so real. Even as I closed my eyes to wipe away the sweat, it was still vivid as day. Out of all the nightmares I'd ever had, this was the worst one yet; old memories toying with my emotions as I lay helpless to the madness in my head. None of the medication the Agency had assigned was working and Valak's stupid plan to get me out of the execution centre had caused nothing but unnecessary stress.

A sudden knock on the door had my blood frozen stiff.

"Blayze? Everything okay in there?" Trent sounded concerned.

Quickly, I draped a silken nightgown over my shoulders and opened the door. "Hey."

"Hey, you alright? I heard some loud noises coming from in there and I know for a fact you're not screwing anyone so..."

"I could have been masturbating," I suggested, though my voice couldn't execute the humorous tone I expected it to.

He cocked an eyebrow. "Does your model even come with private parts, ancient?"

I rolled my eyes, Trent was never going to quit with the 'ancient' jokes.

"I'm just playing around," he continued. "But on a serious note though, it looks like you've been having a rough night. I was on my way outside for a smoke, do you want to chill?"

If I stayed in this dark room alone for a minute longer I was going to be swallowed by my insanity. "Sure."

We made our way to the veranda, which just so happened to be my favorite part of the whole house. There were two hammocks slung up on palm trees and believe me when I say they were harder to get on than I'd predicted. The view once I was on it though was magical. Through the large swaying leaves I spied slivers of the moon and stars, the air was warm and fresh with wholesome gusts of wind blowing every few minutes.

Trent wasted no time sparking the joint and he took a few puffs before passing it to me. After my last smoke session I'd done a little research on weed and discovered that each strain gave one a different feeling and as I inhaled I wondered how different this one would be from the one before.

"This one is called Purple Martian," Trent explained. "It's meant to be relaxing and euphoric."

I was definitely feeling the relaxing part. I succumbed to the tingly sensation as it spread through my body, letting every muscle loosen against the soft hammock as it swayed repeatedly.

"Do you want to talk about what's keeping you up?" he asked.

"It's nothing you should worry yourself about," I replied.

"I'm not worried, just curious."

"Curious?"

"Yeah. What could possibly have big bad B92 so restless?" he wondered.

I chuckled lightly. "Her past mostly."

"Mh,"he murmured in realisation. "Believe it or not I have a pretty dark past myself."

I believed it. To be in the Agency, a dark past seemed to be a necessary component for an agent . There was a story behind why each of us was there, and more times than none it was an extremely depressing one.

"Really?" I asked urging him to further explain what he meant. Now it was my turn to be curious. Trent didn't strike me as someone with a a darkness inside of him, he certainly didn't act like it. Perhaps it's because I knew he'd never taken a life and what could possibly be worse than that?

"When I was nine, my parents were murdered in front of me," he confessed.

I sat up slightly to peep at his face. "You're... you're joking right?"

"I wish," Trent scoffed. "My father was involved with some dangerous people at work and one day those people got him into a lot of trouble." His voice suddenly got heavy and low, robbed of its usual upbeat aura. "They came into the house one night, kidnapped the whole family and took us out to some abandoned barn at the edge of the town."

He was actually being serious.

"I don't remember much from that night; the shrink called it dissociative amnesia or something like that. But I remember them being shot, I remember the barn being set on fire and being left there alone, tied up and drowning in flames."

It could have been the high, but I could practically feel Trent's sorrow as I would my own. It was a nasty vengeful feeling twisting at the pit of his stomach accompanied by a longing to have died in that barn with his parents. The darkness didn't do much to shield the pain on his face, he hadn't even bothered wiping the tears that trickled down his cheeks as he told his story. Instead he kept smoking, calmly, gathering his thoughts.

"So you see?" Trent said after a long pregnant silence. "You're not the only one who's past keeps them up at night."

"I'm sorry to hear about your parents," I said. I couldn't possibly begin to imagine how it felt losing a parent , I'd never known my mother and my father had been a raging piece of of shit but I genuinely felt sorry for him.

I was also glad he'd opened up to me about the whole situation before I'd told him about my nightmare, which involved a mission where I myself had killed a child's parent. Even though I hadn't done it in front of the child, I'm pretty sure he wasn't going to be so sympathetic.

"It's alright," he replied. "It was a long time ago. Anyways, do you want to talk about what's on your mind? Those nightmares aren't going to go away by themselves."

"They actually do," I lied. "It really wasn't anything big."

He could tell I was lying but he assumed it was because I was no good at opening up, which wasn't a lie at all. I couldn't tell if he was high or being genuine when he said "If you ever want to talk about anything, just know you can trust me," but I appreciated the gesture.

"We have a long day tomorrow, I think I better head to bed," I said after a while.

"Same," Trent croaked but neither one of us moved a muscle.

The weed had rendered our muscles so out of order we couldn't stand to save our lives. Instead we silently lay on the swaying hammocks like corpses in coffins, yielding to the power of the plant and falling into a deep, deathlike sleep.