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LOOK bantha_fodder I FINISHED IT I FINISHED IT I FINISHED IT
TITLE: If Strangers Meet
AUTHOR: daygloparker
FANDOM: The Pretender
PAIRING: Jarod/Parker
CATEGORY: post-apocalyptic (BUT OF COURSE)
RATING: R
SUMMARY: Everyone deserves a second chance.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: For anr and our little Pretender ficathon back in, oh, say, August? Yeahhhh. Belated but complete! Happy New Year?
---
This place was probably always just a shitty diner in the middle of nowhere.
It's late January, and the snow on the ground is grey now. Parker parks her black sedan in an embankment of trees behind the low building, very aware that the vehicle's shiny new paint and chrome detailing would make an attractive find on the black market. In the diner she knows how she appears to the patrons - clean, sleek, healthy - so she takes a booth in the back but is sure to keep her eyes on door.
Around her there are low murmurs and the clanking of silverware in the kitchen, and you might not even realize this place was a hot spot for local arms dealers and illegal trading if you didn't look hard enough. But Parker knows where to look: two booths down, someone's hand is slipping an envelope of cash under the table.
She has to repeat her order twice when the waitress finally shows up and the woman writes painfully slow when she finally does get it. Her hands are soft, nails perfectly manicured; Parker wonders who she used to be, before the world ended.
Parker looks briefly out the window, seeing nothing but her own reflection, and when she turns back to the door Jarod has already slid in across the table from her.
"You're a hard man to track," she remarks.
Jarod smirks. "I try."
The waitress brings her slice of grapefruit, and Jarod orders a coffee. The waitress' hands are shaking as she pulls out her pad from her apron. Parker snaps, "He just wants a fucking coffee, you don't have to write it down." Jarod tries to smile reassuringly at the woman, but it doesn't help, and she scurries away to the kitchen with her head down.
"It's probably her first day."
"Good for her."
"Try to be nicer, Parker, restaurants are a luxury in these parts."
She swallows a piece of grapefruit, tasting it for the first time in months. "I don't have time."
"Probably not." He reaches into his jacket, pulls out a manila envelope. "If you're in such a hurry, maybe I should have just left these taped under the table and been on my way."
"You didn't know where I was going to sit."
Jarod grins. "Didn't I?"
Parker snatches the envelope from him and he just laughs. At the door, two trucker drivers bluster their way into the diner - at least they look like they could have been truck drivers, maybe in a previous life, when there were still trucks to be driven commercially - and when one of them catches Parker's eye it leaves her feeling unsettled. Her free hand brushes against the gun in its holster by her side, just in case.
"So where are you off to now?" she asks Jarod, just for the hell of it.
"Boston," he replies. She almost believes it's true.
When the waitress returns, there's a napkin tucked neatly under Jarod's mug. "Parker," he says tightly, nervously. He slides the napkin across the table and Parker sees what's been written hastily on it: 'GET OUT.' She looks up to find the waitress, only to see her disappearing into the kitchen.
Jarod throws a dollar on the table for the waitress (of fucking course), and with Jarod's envelope safely stowed inside Parker's jacket pocket they slide easily out of the booth together. At least it seems easy. Halfway to the door, someone shouts after them; Jarod's hand on her back is now pushing her rather than guiding. A plate breaks behind them. There is scuffling and then Parker can't miss the unmistakable sound of a gun barrel preparing to fire.
The last few feet to the diner door are a dash. It jingles casually when they push it open, and then suddenly there's a terrible explosion right by Parker's ear. She ducks instinctively in the outdoors and bits of broken glass fly at her - they're being shot at, she realizes, and the window was the first victim. She fires back, having drawn her gun without even thinking; she hits the bastard in the leg, and when he stumbles down the small concrete steps, she shoots him again. He doesn't move after that.
The second guy is close behind, and when he takes aim at Parker, the shot that kills him comes from behind her: Jarod. He is still pointing his weapon at the empty space even when the guy is dead and on the ground. And then he takes a deep breath and lowers it, replacing it in his jacket.
Parker runs a hand along her cheek and finds small drops of blood on her palm, probably from the flying glass. She can feel something warmer on her temple, too. Jarod's kneeling beside one of the men, looking for identification, which he finds in a small leather case in his pocket.
He flips it open, looking back up at her. "You or me?"
"What?" she snaps, still breathing heavily.
He shows her the dead guy's ID: The Centre, along with a picture of him looking far better dressed than the way he died.
She hesitates. "You. Of course."
Jarod leans back on his heels before standing. "Of course," and then he hands her the identification. Parker glares at him before throwing it back on top of the dead guy. It doesn't matter anyway. Jarod points to her forehead, and with a deadpan voice he says, "You're going to need a doctor for that one, I think."
And then he's gone, walking into the woods behind the diner and disappearing in its shadows. She deliberately does not follow him.
Parker gets halfway to the place where she stashed her car before she wonders if the Centre's been tracking her the entire time. A GPS tracker on the bottom of her car, maybe. Instead, there's a car in the back of the diner's small parking lot that looks exactly like hers - a Centre-issued, black sedan, the way those two assassins got here. Without caring who might be watching, she smashes in the passenger-side window to let herself in.
The drive back to the private airport is cold. Parker's convinced that the attendant on the private runway is surprised to see her pulling up.
*
The next three days are quiet. Sydney asks where she was, and Parker lies to him without caring if the excuse is believable (it's not). Broots asks why he couldn't stay in contact with her while she was gone, and she lies to him, too. Even if those men were just after Jarod, she still doesn't know who to trust.
The envelope stays locked in the safe in her bedroom, unopened.
And then Jarod sends her a package: a teapot and a rare box of Earl Grey, with a note that reads, 'Greetings From Boston, J.' Parker crumbles it into a ball and throws it away.
*
A year ago, there was an explosion and this massive wave of energy, and when the day was over, nearly all of human civilization had been reduced to simple tools and a handful of wagons and bicycles. Today is a Friday and it's been one whole year since it happened, but this isn't the kind of anniversary anyone's likely to celebrate.
Parker lives somewhere new these days; smaller, on only one floor, and closer to the Centre. It's safer this way, safer at least from the outside world. Her heels still make the same sound on the Centre's marbled main corridor. The Centre will never change.
Jarod still finds a way to slip in and out.
"Comfortable?" she asks, because he's got his feet on her vintage Italian leather sofa. It was expensive even before it was one of a kind.
He only shrugs. "You know, this thing could literally feed an entire city these days."
But Parker ignores this, and hangs up her coat in the front closet.
In the kitchen she pours herself a drink; scotch, Lagavulin, and not that cheap fake shit you see on the black market, the real kind. "I haven't looked at them yet," she calls back to him, anticipating his next question, "You might as well leave." She has no reason not to have opened the envelope in her safe; she can't really explain it. As an afterthought, she grabs a second glass from the cabinet.
When she returns, Jarod is flipping through the books on her coffee table. "If that's what you want," he says, but then she's handing him his glass of scotch, so no, it's evidently not want she wants.
They toast to nothing and drink in silence. He's watching her the way she's seen him watch the outside world, and she hates it. She doesn't like being studied by Jarod. Quietly, he says, "Tell me to leave."
She finishes her scotch. "Leave."
But he doesn't. He doesn't move an inch. They're both too old for this game. "Cute," she remarks.
"You're in danger." Oh, she thinks; hardly a revelation these days. "Those two men in the diner, they weren't after me and you know it. I think someone knows."
Parker decides not to challenge the underlying facts of his argument. "And you're going to, what, protect me? Gee, Jarod, I'm flattered." It's been a year since the world ended, and she has covered her fear and anger and despair with (even more) cynicism and ignorance.
Jarod reaches for her hand, the one not still holding an empty glass, but she moves away before he can ever reach her. In the kitchen she discards her glass in the sink, and only in the room's lonely space does she allow herself to be afraid for five seconds. Deep down, she realizes, she's always known. It was only a matter of time.
Jarod is still on the couch, and Parker makes her way to her bedroom at the end of the hall. In the darkness she unbuttons her shirt. She counts to five (one, two, three, four, four-and-a-half, four-and-three-quarters-), and when her eyes have become accustomed to the darkness she closes them. Six, seven, eight, nine- and then Jarod's behind her, arm around her stomach and lips kissing the spot where her neck and her shoulders meet. His fingers slide her the strap of her bra down her arm, and he kisses each spot where it's been.
This doesn't happen often, and it never happens here. Parker imagines a thousand possible endings for this scenario, not the least of which being the result of some bug planted somewhere that she never discovered (there were seventeen originally). But then Jarod's hands have made it past her waist, and it's harder to concentrate now.
*
She'd never planned to tell Sydney about the incident in the diner - too many questions, too many risks of being overheard - but suddenly she finds herself asking for a status report on Lyle and then confessing her lie. It must be the inevitability of what's about to go down.
"This was a week ago?"
Sydney sounds disappointed. Parker stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray on her desk. "Yes."
He thinks. "You should have told me, Parker. You can trust me. Why are you telling me this now?"
She has nothing to say to that.
"Was Jarod with you?"
"I just thought you needed to know."
"Parker!"
"Enough, Sydney. We're done talking about this."
She still can't quite explain why she brought it up at all.
*
There are small communes in the Pacific Northwest where life has returned to normal, at least relatively so: markets in the center of town for produce trade, a decent school, some level of citizen protection against neighboring people. The ones in the mountains are particularly hard to keep an eye on (satellites aren't what they used to be), and as far as the Centre's concerned, even easier to slip into and stay undetected.
She sits by the window of the cafe, in plain view. Parker is sure that she hasn't been followed. The envelope is sitting on the table. Jarod orders coffee at the counter, and takes the seat next to hers.
"You called me," he says with disbelief, "Must be important." Parker doesn't answer him. "Is this about what's in-" but when he reaches for it he realizes that the envelope is still sealed. Still unopened. "What's going on?"
"I'm giving them back."
"But you asked for-"
The waitress interrupts him, setting Jarod's coffee down with a genuine smile.
"I'll do this my way," Parker states. "I don't need your help."
"You asked for my help."
"Moment of weakness on my part. Sorry."
"Stop."
"The world's different, okay? I'm sorry if this isn't what you expected."
Jarod leans forward, sliding into his familiar empathetic mode. "Tell me what's wrong."
She looks him in the eye. "Not here."
"Then where?"
Parker considers this.
In the bathroom, they argue for a while, and then Jarod has her backed into a corner - literally - so she does the only thing she can think of, and she kisses him. He tries to resist at first, knowing as well as she that this is a great way of avoiding talking about anything at all, but as she's pushing his jacket off he's un-tucking her shirt, his hips grinding against hers, and. Well, so much for that.
She gasps when he's inside her, not quite ready, fumbling for the edge of the sink to keep her balance but slipping, heels sliding on the crudely tiled floor, and right now Jarod's hand pushing roughly into her ribcage and thus keeping her body pinned to the cold, cold wall is about all that's allowing her to stand.
Keeping her up.
*
She follows Lyle into the parking garage, and hides behind a cement column. There's a driver waiting for him by his black sedan, because he's too damn important these days to drive his sorry ass around himself. She twists on the silencer and waits for the man to open the door for his boss.
It's easy to kill Lyle, easy because he's a terrible person who fucking deserves it and if their mother was still alive the things then he's done would have killed her. It's not quite as easy to shoot the driver, but she gets the job done.
*
Jarod has very distinct cologne. In the market, she is buying apples, and then he is standing behind her.
"He's dead."
She doesn't look up from the fruit in her hands. "Yes. He is."
He moves behind her, beside her. They are standing shoulder to shoulder, but they never make eye contact.
"It's not safe here."
"It is. Things have changed. It's a whole new world and all that bullshit." And all that bullshit.
"Then you're out?"
She waits. "Yes. I'm out." She's still got her Centre-issued weapon, but that's only a technicality.
The vendor smiles at Parker when she hands him her money, but she doesn't return the smile. Jarod's posture relaxes; he turns slightly in to her, and suddenly they're a couple instead of two strangers in a market. Parker ignores him, too, taking her change and her bag and brushing past Jarod to get back to the main aisle.
He jogs to catch up with her, falling into her step to stay side-by-side. "I haven't been able to reach Sydney. Have you?"
Parker pretends to mull it over. "No." She pretends to be sympathetic. "Everything was chaos. He's probably laying low until it all blows over."
"Rumor has it, the Triumvirate's so paranoid, they've had each other at gunpoint for days. This thing isn't exactly going to 'blow over.'"
She turns to him. "But that's what you wanted."
"Yes," he replies, "it's exactly what we wanted."
Parker ignores the pronoun change. She turns down an alley, toward tables that sell fabric and handmade sweaters. "You could have called. Why are you here?"
Jarod walks in front of her, blocking her. She stops short, and at the last second pulls back her hand, which almost reached out to his chest. "Come back. Help me fix things."
She presses her lips together. "I'm out." She moves to the left and he moves with her. It's annoying. "You don't 'fix' the Centre, Jarod. You know that."
"The prophecy," he says, but says that she doesn't care anymore and manages to maneuver past him. At the table she turns over a few sweaters, examining their stitch work like she actually might care. She looks over her shoulders and he's a few feet behind her still, defeated and disappointed.
Parker pays for one of them, and then tosses it at Jarod. "You'll get cold up here."
"I don't-"
"There's a café two blocks north. Red sign, empty tables out front."
Jarod passes the sweater from leather-gloved hand to leather-gloved hand. The two of them stick out like sore thumbs here.
"I've got business to take of first," she lies.
Jarod buys it. He smiles at her and she smiles back at him. She remembers what it's like when he touches her, of his hand on the curve of her waist. She allows herself to miss it.
At the general store in town, she buys a bus ticket. She hates the bus, hates the way it smells and the people who ride it. She pays in cash, crisp large bills that make the clerk's eyebrows dance. Today, she is hiding from Jarod, not the Centre.
He'll never understand. It's a whole new world and there's no longer a place for her. It's by her hand that it's this way, having fired the first shot, and maybe that's why she doesn't feel restless, discontent. She is not running; no, she is free.
And Jarod's not the only one who can pick a lock.
---
if strangers meet
life begins-
not poor not rich
(only aware)
kind neither
nor cruel
(only complete)
i not not you
not possible;
only truthful
-truthfully,once
if strangers(who
deep our most are
selves)touch:
forever
(and so to dark)
-- ee cummings
TITLE: If Strangers Meet
AUTHOR: daygloparker
FANDOM: The Pretender
PAIRING: Jarod/Parker
CATEGORY: post-apocalyptic (BUT OF COURSE)
RATING: R
SUMMARY: Everyone deserves a second chance.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: For anr and our little Pretender ficathon back in, oh, say, August? Yeahhhh. Belated but complete! Happy New Year?
---
This place was probably always just a shitty diner in the middle of nowhere.
It's late January, and the snow on the ground is grey now. Parker parks her black sedan in an embankment of trees behind the low building, very aware that the vehicle's shiny new paint and chrome detailing would make an attractive find on the black market. In the diner she knows how she appears to the patrons - clean, sleek, healthy - so she takes a booth in the back but is sure to keep her eyes on door.
Around her there are low murmurs and the clanking of silverware in the kitchen, and you might not even realize this place was a hot spot for local arms dealers and illegal trading if you didn't look hard enough. But Parker knows where to look: two booths down, someone's hand is slipping an envelope of cash under the table.
She has to repeat her order twice when the waitress finally shows up and the woman writes painfully slow when she finally does get it. Her hands are soft, nails perfectly manicured; Parker wonders who she used to be, before the world ended.
Parker looks briefly out the window, seeing nothing but her own reflection, and when she turns back to the door Jarod has already slid in across the table from her.
"You're a hard man to track," she remarks.
Jarod smirks. "I try."
The waitress brings her slice of grapefruit, and Jarod orders a coffee. The waitress' hands are shaking as she pulls out her pad from her apron. Parker snaps, "He just wants a fucking coffee, you don't have to write it down." Jarod tries to smile reassuringly at the woman, but it doesn't help, and she scurries away to the kitchen with her head down.
"It's probably her first day."
"Good for her."
"Try to be nicer, Parker, restaurants are a luxury in these parts."
She swallows a piece of grapefruit, tasting it for the first time in months. "I don't have time."
"Probably not." He reaches into his jacket, pulls out a manila envelope. "If you're in such a hurry, maybe I should have just left these taped under the table and been on my way."
"You didn't know where I was going to sit."
Jarod grins. "Didn't I?"
Parker snatches the envelope from him and he just laughs. At the door, two trucker drivers bluster their way into the diner - at least they look like they could have been truck drivers, maybe in a previous life, when there were still trucks to be driven commercially - and when one of them catches Parker's eye it leaves her feeling unsettled. Her free hand brushes against the gun in its holster by her side, just in case.
"So where are you off to now?" she asks Jarod, just for the hell of it.
"Boston," he replies. She almost believes it's true.
When the waitress returns, there's a napkin tucked neatly under Jarod's mug. "Parker," he says tightly, nervously. He slides the napkin across the table and Parker sees what's been written hastily on it: 'GET OUT.' She looks up to find the waitress, only to see her disappearing into the kitchen.
Jarod throws a dollar on the table for the waitress (of fucking course), and with Jarod's envelope safely stowed inside Parker's jacket pocket they slide easily out of the booth together. At least it seems easy. Halfway to the door, someone shouts after them; Jarod's hand on her back is now pushing her rather than guiding. A plate breaks behind them. There is scuffling and then Parker can't miss the unmistakable sound of a gun barrel preparing to fire.
The last few feet to the diner door are a dash. It jingles casually when they push it open, and then suddenly there's a terrible explosion right by Parker's ear. She ducks instinctively in the outdoors and bits of broken glass fly at her - they're being shot at, she realizes, and the window was the first victim. She fires back, having drawn her gun without even thinking; she hits the bastard in the leg, and when he stumbles down the small concrete steps, she shoots him again. He doesn't move after that.
The second guy is close behind, and when he takes aim at Parker, the shot that kills him comes from behind her: Jarod. He is still pointing his weapon at the empty space even when the guy is dead and on the ground. And then he takes a deep breath and lowers it, replacing it in his jacket.
Parker runs a hand along her cheek and finds small drops of blood on her palm, probably from the flying glass. She can feel something warmer on her temple, too. Jarod's kneeling beside one of the men, looking for identification, which he finds in a small leather case in his pocket.
He flips it open, looking back up at her. "You or me?"
"What?" she snaps, still breathing heavily.
He shows her the dead guy's ID: The Centre, along with a picture of him looking far better dressed than the way he died.
She hesitates. "You. Of course."
Jarod leans back on his heels before standing. "Of course," and then he hands her the identification. Parker glares at him before throwing it back on top of the dead guy. It doesn't matter anyway. Jarod points to her forehead, and with a deadpan voice he says, "You're going to need a doctor for that one, I think."
And then he's gone, walking into the woods behind the diner and disappearing in its shadows. She deliberately does not follow him.
Parker gets halfway to the place where she stashed her car before she wonders if the Centre's been tracking her the entire time. A GPS tracker on the bottom of her car, maybe. Instead, there's a car in the back of the diner's small parking lot that looks exactly like hers - a Centre-issued, black sedan, the way those two assassins got here. Without caring who might be watching, she smashes in the passenger-side window to let herself in.
The drive back to the private airport is cold. Parker's convinced that the attendant on the private runway is surprised to see her pulling up.
*
The next three days are quiet. Sydney asks where she was, and Parker lies to him without caring if the excuse is believable (it's not). Broots asks why he couldn't stay in contact with her while she was gone, and she lies to him, too. Even if those men were just after Jarod, she still doesn't know who to trust.
The envelope stays locked in the safe in her bedroom, unopened.
And then Jarod sends her a package: a teapot and a rare box of Earl Grey, with a note that reads, 'Greetings From Boston, J.' Parker crumbles it into a ball and throws it away.
*
A year ago, there was an explosion and this massive wave of energy, and when the day was over, nearly all of human civilization had been reduced to simple tools and a handful of wagons and bicycles. Today is a Friday and it's been one whole year since it happened, but this isn't the kind of anniversary anyone's likely to celebrate.
Parker lives somewhere new these days; smaller, on only one floor, and closer to the Centre. It's safer this way, safer at least from the outside world. Her heels still make the same sound on the Centre's marbled main corridor. The Centre will never change.
Jarod still finds a way to slip in and out.
"Comfortable?" she asks, because he's got his feet on her vintage Italian leather sofa. It was expensive even before it was one of a kind.
He only shrugs. "You know, this thing could literally feed an entire city these days."
But Parker ignores this, and hangs up her coat in the front closet.
In the kitchen she pours herself a drink; scotch, Lagavulin, and not that cheap fake shit you see on the black market, the real kind. "I haven't looked at them yet," she calls back to him, anticipating his next question, "You might as well leave." She has no reason not to have opened the envelope in her safe; she can't really explain it. As an afterthought, she grabs a second glass from the cabinet.
When she returns, Jarod is flipping through the books on her coffee table. "If that's what you want," he says, but then she's handing him his glass of scotch, so no, it's evidently not want she wants.
They toast to nothing and drink in silence. He's watching her the way she's seen him watch the outside world, and she hates it. She doesn't like being studied by Jarod. Quietly, he says, "Tell me to leave."
She finishes her scotch. "Leave."
But he doesn't. He doesn't move an inch. They're both too old for this game. "Cute," she remarks.
"You're in danger." Oh, she thinks; hardly a revelation these days. "Those two men in the diner, they weren't after me and you know it. I think someone knows."
Parker decides not to challenge the underlying facts of his argument. "And you're going to, what, protect me? Gee, Jarod, I'm flattered." It's been a year since the world ended, and she has covered her fear and anger and despair with (even more) cynicism and ignorance.
Jarod reaches for her hand, the one not still holding an empty glass, but she moves away before he can ever reach her. In the kitchen she discards her glass in the sink, and only in the room's lonely space does she allow herself to be afraid for five seconds. Deep down, she realizes, she's always known. It was only a matter of time.
Jarod is still on the couch, and Parker makes her way to her bedroom at the end of the hall. In the darkness she unbuttons her shirt. She counts to five (one, two, three, four, four-and-a-half, four-and-three-quarters-), and when her eyes have become accustomed to the darkness she closes them. Six, seven, eight, nine- and then Jarod's behind her, arm around her stomach and lips kissing the spot where her neck and her shoulders meet. His fingers slide her the strap of her bra down her arm, and he kisses each spot where it's been.
This doesn't happen often, and it never happens here. Parker imagines a thousand possible endings for this scenario, not the least of which being the result of some bug planted somewhere that she never discovered (there were seventeen originally). But then Jarod's hands have made it past her waist, and it's harder to concentrate now.
*
She'd never planned to tell Sydney about the incident in the diner - too many questions, too many risks of being overheard - but suddenly she finds herself asking for a status report on Lyle and then confessing her lie. It must be the inevitability of what's about to go down.
"This was a week ago?"
Sydney sounds disappointed. Parker stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray on her desk. "Yes."
He thinks. "You should have told me, Parker. You can trust me. Why are you telling me this now?"
She has nothing to say to that.
"Was Jarod with you?"
"I just thought you needed to know."
"Parker!"
"Enough, Sydney. We're done talking about this."
She still can't quite explain why she brought it up at all.
*
There are small communes in the Pacific Northwest where life has returned to normal, at least relatively so: markets in the center of town for produce trade, a decent school, some level of citizen protection against neighboring people. The ones in the mountains are particularly hard to keep an eye on (satellites aren't what they used to be), and as far as the Centre's concerned, even easier to slip into and stay undetected.
She sits by the window of the cafe, in plain view. Parker is sure that she hasn't been followed. The envelope is sitting on the table. Jarod orders coffee at the counter, and takes the seat next to hers.
"You called me," he says with disbelief, "Must be important." Parker doesn't answer him. "Is this about what's in-" but when he reaches for it he realizes that the envelope is still sealed. Still unopened. "What's going on?"
"I'm giving them back."
"But you asked for-"
The waitress interrupts him, setting Jarod's coffee down with a genuine smile.
"I'll do this my way," Parker states. "I don't need your help."
"You asked for my help."
"Moment of weakness on my part. Sorry."
"Stop."
"The world's different, okay? I'm sorry if this isn't what you expected."
Jarod leans forward, sliding into his familiar empathetic mode. "Tell me what's wrong."
She looks him in the eye. "Not here."
"Then where?"
Parker considers this.
In the bathroom, they argue for a while, and then Jarod has her backed into a corner - literally - so she does the only thing she can think of, and she kisses him. He tries to resist at first, knowing as well as she that this is a great way of avoiding talking about anything at all, but as she's pushing his jacket off he's un-tucking her shirt, his hips grinding against hers, and. Well, so much for that.
She gasps when he's inside her, not quite ready, fumbling for the edge of the sink to keep her balance but slipping, heels sliding on the crudely tiled floor, and right now Jarod's hand pushing roughly into her ribcage and thus keeping her body pinned to the cold, cold wall is about all that's allowing her to stand.
Keeping her up.
*
She follows Lyle into the parking garage, and hides behind a cement column. There's a driver waiting for him by his black sedan, because he's too damn important these days to drive his sorry ass around himself. She twists on the silencer and waits for the man to open the door for his boss.
It's easy to kill Lyle, easy because he's a terrible person who fucking deserves it and if their mother was still alive the things then he's done would have killed her. It's not quite as easy to shoot the driver, but she gets the job done.
*
Jarod has very distinct cologne. In the market, she is buying apples, and then he is standing behind her.
"He's dead."
She doesn't look up from the fruit in her hands. "Yes. He is."
He moves behind her, beside her. They are standing shoulder to shoulder, but they never make eye contact.
"It's not safe here."
"It is. Things have changed. It's a whole new world and all that bullshit." And all that bullshit.
"Then you're out?"
She waits. "Yes. I'm out." She's still got her Centre-issued weapon, but that's only a technicality.
The vendor smiles at Parker when she hands him her money, but she doesn't return the smile. Jarod's posture relaxes; he turns slightly in to her, and suddenly they're a couple instead of two strangers in a market. Parker ignores him, too, taking her change and her bag and brushing past Jarod to get back to the main aisle.
He jogs to catch up with her, falling into her step to stay side-by-side. "I haven't been able to reach Sydney. Have you?"
Parker pretends to mull it over. "No." She pretends to be sympathetic. "Everything was chaos. He's probably laying low until it all blows over."
"Rumor has it, the Triumvirate's so paranoid, they've had each other at gunpoint for days. This thing isn't exactly going to 'blow over.'"
She turns to him. "But that's what you wanted."
"Yes," he replies, "it's exactly what we wanted."
Parker ignores the pronoun change. She turns down an alley, toward tables that sell fabric and handmade sweaters. "You could have called. Why are you here?"
Jarod walks in front of her, blocking her. She stops short, and at the last second pulls back her hand, which almost reached out to his chest. "Come back. Help me fix things."
She presses her lips together. "I'm out." She moves to the left and he moves with her. It's annoying. "You don't 'fix' the Centre, Jarod. You know that."
"The prophecy," he says, but says that she doesn't care anymore and manages to maneuver past him. At the table she turns over a few sweaters, examining their stitch work like she actually might care. She looks over her shoulders and he's a few feet behind her still, defeated and disappointed.
Parker pays for one of them, and then tosses it at Jarod. "You'll get cold up here."
"I don't-"
"There's a café two blocks north. Red sign, empty tables out front."
Jarod passes the sweater from leather-gloved hand to leather-gloved hand. The two of them stick out like sore thumbs here.
"I've got business to take of first," she lies.
Jarod buys it. He smiles at her and she smiles back at him. She remembers what it's like when he touches her, of his hand on the curve of her waist. She allows herself to miss it.
At the general store in town, she buys a bus ticket. She hates the bus, hates the way it smells and the people who ride it. She pays in cash, crisp large bills that make the clerk's eyebrows dance. Today, she is hiding from Jarod, not the Centre.
He'll never understand. It's a whole new world and there's no longer a place for her. It's by her hand that it's this way, having fired the first shot, and maybe that's why she doesn't feel restless, discontent. She is not running; no, she is free.
And Jarod's not the only one who can pick a lock.
---
if strangers meet
life begins-
not poor not rich
(only aware)
kind neither
nor cruel
(only complete)
i not not you
not possible;
only truthful
-truthfully,once
if strangers(who
deep our most are
selves)touch:
forever
(and so to dark)
-- ee cummings