Psychosis

Chapter 43- Secrets For The Spies

Isabel shook her head and looked back at the ground, trying to formulate a plot. Her partner was in trouble, she knew that, but she also knew that this trouble was unlike anything she had ever seen before. She was used to dealing with monsters, and she knew that's what this was, but there was a certain detail that was trumping all of her expertise. But she had to figure it out. She just had to. For her partner. She again looked at the spy that was going to help her with her mission, and she wondered to herself if there was actually going to be any saving of her partner. Yes, Isabel was used to monsters, but she was used to them being on the outside. The monster she would have to save her partner from was inside the woman. And Isabel wasn't sure she could take it down without killing her partner in the process.

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Akilah took another sip of the drink in front of her, just hoping to erase the day's events from her mind. It had been hard enough when they had found that letter of Reid's, knowing he was smart enough to write out a perfectly eloquent goodbye letter without giving them a clue where he was. And then he had given them a clue, but most of them hadn't an idea how to crack it. But then Ciara, the only one of them who had an intellect even close to rivaling Reid's, figured it out. Akilah thought that only the uncertainty of not knowing where he was going would have been the hardest thing to deal with that day. But she was wrong.

The hardest part wasn't even the fear that rose up in her chest when they got to the warehouse, the fear of not knowing if Reid was dead or alive. The hardest part was when Ciara finally exited the warehouse with an alive Reid behind her, but on the way to the hospital, he started to really feel the effects of the overdose. Reid had struggled to stay awake the entire ride, and the hardest part of that day was hearing Ciara plead and beg with him to keep his eyes open, as she was afraid that if he closed them, he wouldn't open them again. Hearing Ciara so weak and vulnerable when she normally kept herself so stoic and closed off was hard. But that? That was on another plane entirely.

She had always been insensitive to death. She had seen it in her childhood, and she saw it in her job, so she struggled to figure out why the possibility of Reid dying scared her so much. Death had never scared her, and while she wasn't quite as indifferent to it as Ciara seemed to be, it definitely didn't bother her. But perhaps it was different when it was someone she knew. Yeah, that had to be it. No one close to her had ever died as long as she could think of. Her mother had died when she was two, but she really didn't know the woman. She didn't have any solid memories of her, just what her father and sisters had told her. So yes, that had to be the reason she was so scared. Because she had never experienced the death of someone close to her, and she hoped that she wouldn't for a long time.

A man sat down next to her and began to flirt with her, but Akilah gave him the cold shoulder, hoping he got the hint that she wasn't interested. Some men took the cold attitude she gave them as a rejection, while some saw it as a conquest, with her just playing hard-to-get, and him loving the supposed challenge of breaking through her icy exterior. Unfortunately for them, this was the only place she held that icy exterior. Anyone who knew Akilah knew that she was very open and honest about her emotions and opinions, sometimes too open and honest, according to others. It was only when it came to men who, at best, wanted a relationship, and at worst, wanted sex out of her that she became closed off. And that's exactly what she got every time she went to the bar.

Most times she drank at home, but on nights like tonight, she knew she had to get away from the apartment. Away from Ciara. Don't get her wrong, Akilah loved that woman. She was like the little sister she wished she had. Although, even though Ciara was 14 months younger than Akilah was, she so much wiser, and she knew that wisdom came from experience. Akilah had been through her fair share of shit, but she had a strong feeling her shit list barely held a candle to Ciara's. But still, despite having four biological sisters, Ciara still felt like more of a sister than they ever would be. But yet, sometimes she couldn't handle the pressure that that put on her.