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When she goes to sleep, (when she’s finally able to actually go to sleep), she dreams of hot burning tears, the faint smell of cologne and sweat and the cold barrel of a gun pressed underneath her chin, a strong finger on the trigger and a voice, so soft yet so deadly, telling her to sign the fucking paper.
When she wakes up (when she’s finally able to wake up from her nightmare), she wakes with a gasp, as if there is a pressure on her chest, constricting her breathing and she recognizes a panic attack when it comes.
(It’s odd, she thinks, when she’s able to get her breathing under control, how a panic attack ignites the same feeling as being shot at while in her Kevlar vest.)
You are no wolf, his voice is always in the back of her mind, haunting her, taunting her, telling her the truth that so many people refused to tell her.
No, she muses, she is no wolf. But she makes for a very good coward.
Sedona is nice. It’s small. It’s quiet. It’s nothing like what she’s used to and she spends her days answering pointless calls of lost cats and sometimes the calls of someone too drunk to know how and when to shut the fuck up. There are bar fights that her colleagues will roll their eyes at and there are fights they’ll break up only to laugh about later at the precinct but she won’t smile with them and if she does, it’s small, only to show them that she’s still somewhat human.
(They don’t know anything, her colleagues. They don’t know anything and she doesn’t know whether to envy them for their ignorance or to hate them for it.)
Reggie messages her every day, calls her every Wednesday and makes the trek up to Sedona every Friday.
Reggie likes Sedona and he thinks that Sedona is good for her, good to her. She nods absentmindedly, because Kate knows what Reggie really thinks. He thinks she’s gone off the deep end, he thinks she’s seen shit she’ll never come back from. (This is all true, but when he broaches the topic of why she moved so suddenly, she shrugs and will tell him it was time for a change, the lie falling easily from her mouth.)
She doesn’t tell him about the gun underneath her chin, she doesn’t tell him about the tears or the nightmares and she doesn’t tell him about her and Alejandro’s conversation prior to, during and after she signed her soul away. Mainly because she knows Reggie and she knows Reggie would do something stupid, like try and find Matt and Alejandro and then he’ll try to act the hero, because that’s who Reggie is and who Kate never could be.
The thing is, they barely scratched the surface with who and what Matt and Alejandro really are and what they really do and Kate is not afraid to admit that she sometimes looks behind her when she’s walking from her car to her apartment, or when goosebumps erupt on her skin suddenly or when someone stares at her for too long. She’s terrified that one day, one of them will come into her life and blow it apart like they did before. And Kate thinks she can only have so many breakdowns before she completely and totally fucking loses it.
She’s afraid that one day, one of them will come into her life and offer her another chance at playing this fucked up game of law enforcement with them and she won’t have the guts to say no.
(Her ex-husband always told her that this job would kill her.
She’s starting to think he was right.)
She declines dates. They seem like nice enough guys and the ladies at work always vouch for them, but the last time some guy was a nice guy and the last time someone vouched for someone, that nice someone wrapped his hands around her neck and tried to kill her.
So, Kate’s been on the driest spell of her life.
(One night, the ache becomes too much, and she could feel the stifling breeze from the open bedroom window, she bites her lip and lets her hands trail down her body and underneath her cotton panties. At first, it’s little mechanic movements and advice she remembers from discarded Cosmo magazines dated years ago, when she actually gave a fuck about her potential sex life, and then she starts to get into it and even enjoys the little flicks and rubs. She writhes against the thin bed sheets, breath coming out heavily, panting as her hands move faster and her fingers become slicker.
It happens all at once, she bites her lip too hard and the taste of metallic blood floods her mouth, she closes her eyes at the pain, a wolf howls in the distance and Alejandro’s face and his dark eyes flitter across her vision. She arches her back and explodes, her mind going numb, body trembling with the aftershocks of what happened.
Kate rips her hands away from her and stumbles into the bathroom, bumping into walls and barely makes it to the toilet when she vomits everything in her stomach. She immediately tears at her clothes, heaving for breath as she turns on the water and stands underneath it, trying to forget about what happened and what triggered her orgasm. Because, Kate has seen a lot of sick shit in her life, she’s done and taken part of a lot of sick shit, but fantasizing about a guy who held a gun to her and haunts her every fucking movement, is low, even for her.
Kate has never hated Alejandro and the clusterfuck he made of her life more than she does at this particular moment.
Kate thinks she hates herself even more.)
Kate hasn’t touched herself since.
Christmas comes and goes. New Years comes and goes. She drinks when she’s not working and orders takeout every other night.
Her mother still lives in Buffalo and she’s sick of the snow and winter and she wants to go away. Kate has the vacation time and whatever is left of her sanity, so she tells he mother that she’ll go with her. Anywhere.
Her mother is gleeful and Kate rolls her eyes, picturing her clapping her hands. “What about Mexico?” Her mother asks, blissfully unaware of how her daughter on the other side of the country stills, her heart pounding, blood freezing in her veins. “I hear it’s beautif-”
“No.” Kate says harshly, memories of decapitated bodies, getting shot, murder and fucking chaos reigning in her mind. “Not Mexico. Anywhere but Mexico.” Kate is practically begging, tears stinging her eyes, but unwilling to let them fall.
Her mother is silent on the other line, and then hesitantly, she asks, “Kate? Darling, are you…is everything okay?”
“I’m fine, mom.” Kate breathes out. “I’m fine. Just…not Mexico.”
Kate can almost see her mother nod. “Well…” she ventures, “We can go to Cuba now, how about Cuba?”
Kate blinks and nods. “Cuba sounds good.”
Cuba is hot and Kate spends the first day in the sun and the next six days in the shade trying to recover from her sunburn. Her mother takes pity on her and chuckles when she rubs aloe vera on her back while Kate mumbles about the fucking sun. “I told you to use a higher SPF.” Her mother says. Her mother is not shy to pull out the ‘I told you so’ card.
“It was SPF 50.” Kate says exasperatedly. “I didn’t think I was that white. I live in fucking Arizona.” As if that’s supposed to explain everything.
She can feel the cool gel squirt on her skin and she feels her mother carefully rub her burns. “But you don’t sunbathe. You hardly go out in the sun if it’s not for work. That doesn’t count, Katie.”
Kate grumbles and lies down on her stomach, watching her mom through half-lidded eyes. She can hear the people and the splashing of the pool, she can hear different languages spoken by different people, all trying to escape the winter or whatever life threw at them that made them want to escape.
“Kate,” her mom speaks after a while and Kate hums in response, “why did you move to Sedona?” There is no accusation in her voice, no telltale sounds of prying too much into her daughter’s life. Her mother is good that way. She never pressured her to tell her anything she didn’t want to and she never judged her for her actions and always, always, stood by her. Kate wonders what her mother would think about what she did. Would she be ashamed? Would she pretend to understand? Would she change the subject? Would she care that her daughter is a fucking coward and that when it counted, when it really counted, she lost sight of her morality and signed her soul to the devil in disguise?
You should move to a small town, somewhere the rule of law still exists. You will not survive here. You are not a wolf, and this is a land of wolves now.
Kate’s breath gets caught in her throat. “It was time for a change.” She says the same thing she tells everyone who asks her that question and she only feels a little bit bad for lying to her mother.
Her mother stares at her and nods slowly, letting the topic rest.
(Kate releases a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.)
Her last day in Cuba, she bumps into a Cabana boy. It sends empty glasses flying and shattering and Kate starts cursing quietly. “I’m so sorry.” She says, guilt eating at her conscience and already she’s trying to think of a hundred ways to make sure this guy doesn’t get fired. “It was my fault.” She says, eyeing the manager that comes at the sound of disruptive noise. “I bumped into him. It was my fault. I’ll pay for the glasses and…” she trails off and gestures to the mess. She bends down and helps pick up the big shards of glass, waving off the manager when he tells her in broken English not to.
It’s the least she can do.
The manager leaves to get a broom and she looks at the Cabana boy who is staring at her and he gives her a half-smile that she returns. “I’m sorry.” She apologizes again. “Lo siento.” And because she doesn’t want to keep referring to him as the Cabana boy in her head, because she is not that type of person, she asks in what little Spanish she knows from high school, “Como se llama?”
He blinks at her and a wider grin stretches across his lips, surprised at her Spanish. “Alejandro.” He says.
Kate can’t help it. Of course she can’t help it, but she laughs because life obviously fucking hates her. “Of course it is.” She mutters. She looks at him and he’s staring at her strangely, probably thinking that she’s rude or fucking crazy and she may just be both. “Alejandro.” The name sounds wrong when she’s staring at this kid in the face. He’s all-wrong. He’s not tall enough. He doesn’t have the facial hair. He doesn’t have the broad shoulders and the quiet rage that always seemed to simmer underneath the surface. He’s just a kid trying to live, where Kate is a woman trying so hard to just survive. “I knew someone named Alejandro.” She tries to explain her reaction.
He nods as if he understands. “Not nice?” He offers.
She frowns. Was (is? Is it is? Does she still know Alejandro?) he nice? Sure, he protected her, in a twisted way. He beat the shit out of someone for her. He tried to warn her, not outright, but cryptically and maybe that’s how he protected himself? Maybe that’s how he protected her? But then she thinks that he had no problem shooting her and God only knows what he did to that cop and what else he did. He had no problem breaking into her house and holding a gun to her. He had to problem telling her and showing her that he could her.
He also had no problem in wiping the tears from her face.
Her head is starting to hurt and she remembers the boy is still there, waiting for an answer, or maybe just waiting for the manager to come back with the broom. She blinks. “I don’t know.” She says. “No se.”
It’s about as close to the truth as she can get.
She spends the weekend in Buffalo with her mother and her father, staying in her childhood room and doesn’t recognize anything anymore.
She can hear her parents whisper at night. Her mother’s voice worried and her father trying to calm her.
“You gonna be okay, Katie?” Her dad asks her as he drops her off at the airport.
She takes in a deep breath and nods. “Yeah, dad. I’m going to be okay.”
It’s a lie and one that her dad knows all too well, but her dad is like her mom, in that he won’t push her. He presses a kiss to her forehead, tells her to take care of herself and watches as she goes through security. He’s still waving when she’s done, standing on the outskirts, next to people waving to their loved ones.
He looks worried, her dad.
She doesn’t have the heart to tell him not to. So, she waves back and climbs up the stairs to her terminal, seemingly more tired than she was before she went on vacation.
She’s just finished a late night shift, climbing up the steps to her apartment, fumbling with her keys, a half eaten burrito in her mouth and a large soda in her other hand. She makes it inside her apartment without dropping anything, settling the soda on the hallway table, inhaling what’s left of the burrito while shoving her pants down with one hand. She enters her room and takes out her gun, makes sure the safety is on and puts it on her bedside bureau while taking off her shirt.
It’s a bit cooler at night now but her apartment is warm enough that she can get away with sleeping in an oversized t-shirt. She unclasps her bra and picks up her discarded t-shirt from her unmade bed and slips it on.
It’s when she straightens out her shirt that she feels a presence behind her. She can feel her hair stand on its end and a shiver runs through her body. She still has her back turned to the rest of the apartment but she sees her gun on the bedside table. She hears a creak from the floor and she lunges for her gun when she feels a body press against hers, hands wrapping around her wrists, lifting them up over her head, pulling her body against his, turning her around to face him and then pressing her against the wall of her bedroom.
She closes her eyes, breathing in the smell of his familiar cologne and recognizing the imprint of his hands on her. She doesn’t even have to open her eyes to know who is in her room, in her house.
But she opens them anyway, silently begging and pleading that this is all a nightmare she’ll wake up from because this can’t be happening. Not again.
But when she opens her eyes, he’s still pressed against her, her wrists are still caught in his large hands and his eyes are boring into hers with alarming intensity.
“Kate.” He says and his voice is just as how she remembers it.
“Alejandro.”
He leans against her kitchen counter like he’s been here a hundred times, posture relaxed, as if her tense body doesn’t bother him at all. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe, she was just a blip on his (their) radar.
She doesn’t bother putting on pants, because this is her house and she will not be made to leave it. Not again. Her gun is still in her room and he leaves his on her living room table. A show of good faith, he tells her, with a sardonic grin that isn’t as sincere as she thinks he wishes it could be.
He’s wearing a dark suit with an even darker shirt and she thinks it’s so he can blend in with the night.
(They haven’t spoken since he let her go and she slumped against her bedroom wall, willing her body to not shake in tremors. He lets her wrists go, only to brace his hands on either side of her head, boxing her in until all she can see, breathe and feel is him. His cologne, the material of his pants against her bare legs, the heat of his body. He stares at her, as if trying to read her and she pretends to look at him but instead she’s focusing on the tip of his ear, anywhere that doesn’t bring her in direct contact with his eyes because she can’t. She can’t do this again.
It feels like hours, but could have possibly only been moments, at the most minutes, when he moves away from her, giving her space to breathe and he turns his back on her, making his way to her kitchen and she’s slammed with such a sense of déjà vu that she thinks all it would take is one little movement, one little inch to the left and her hand will be able to wrap around her gun and maybe she’ll do what she couldn’t do all that time ago.
As if knowing what she’s thinking, he twists his head and looks at her and she can see his gaze through the moonlight illuminating her apartment. She blinks, once, twice, then thrice and she staggers off the wall, grasping the doorjamb for support and stares back at him.
Her gun lies on the bedside table, untouched.)
“What do you want?” She finally asks, her voice is weaker than she wants it to be. It’s meek and she curses herself at what she’s become. At what he makes her become.
He looks around her apartment. “It’s a nice place.” He says and she knows he’s not just talking about her apartment that’s bare except for the necessities. She knows he’s talking about Sedona and how far removed she is from everything she once used to be. “Safe place.”
“Not safe enough.” She mutters to herself, crossing her arms over her chest, t-shirt riding up her thighs. She sees him glance down at the movement and then he looks away. She uncrosses her arms and tugs at the hem of her shirt. In hindsight, she probably should have put on pants but she didn’t want to turn her back on him.
He nods, as if conceding her this. “Glad to see you took my advice.”
If he’s trying to get a rise out of her, it’s working. She can feel fury build in her body. “Fuck you.” She hisses. “I didn’t have a choice. You…you…” she trails off and turns her head. You ruined me, she thinks desperately, you fucking destroyed me. “What are you doing here?”
He unbuttons his suit jacket and then sits on one of the chairs of her kitchen table. He pushes the chair next to him out and gestures for her to sit. Against her better judgment, she finds her feet treading against the cool hardwood and she takes the offered seat, aware only when she sits that they’ve been in this exact same position before.
He lets out a sigh when he sees that she’s sitting as far away from him as possible. “There is another job.” He says quietly. “Matt thinks you’d be good for it.”
There is a lump in her throat and she feels something like lead drop in her stomach. She would have rather he punched her. Or shot her, he seemed to be good at that. She has both wished and dreaded for this because she knows in her heart of hearts that she’s not going to refuse. Even though she should, she likely won’t. Maybe it’s because she’s glutton for punishment. Maybe it’s because she’s so fucking tired of Sedona and doing something that doesn’t matter. Maybe she’s a masochist.
She once told herself that it’d be a cold day in hell before she was ever by their side again. (She should have known that she was a liar.)
“Then why isn’t Matt here, instead of you?”
He shrugs and doesn’t say anything, instead looking at her with eyes that bore into her soul as if he knows her.
(And maybe he does, because he made her, didn’t he?)
“Matt’s busy.” His explanation is a lie and it’s not even a good one. But he’s still looking at her, as if challenging her to contradict him but she can’t because her voice is stuck in her throat and she doesn’t want to think about every single other reason why he’s here.
(Does she consume him as much as he consumes her? Likely not. Because in this life, she’s the only weak one. You will not survive here. You are not a wolf, and this is a land of wolves now.)
She intends on telling him no. She intends on telling him to fuck off because she can’t…she won’t go through this again. She will not be used again. But when she opens her mouth, instead of saying no, a “yes,” comes out. It’s small and a whisper but he nods, as if not surprised she’s agreed to this and he gets up. She stays seated, mind running a mile a minute and her heart pounding in her chest. He stays standing, looking down at her and she lifts her head and looks back.
His eyes are unreadable but he looks tired, haunted, even.
He takes a step towards her and puts his hand on her shoulder, pulling it away when she flinches. He doesn’t say anything else; instead, he takes his gun and puts it back in his holster. She catches a glimpse of another gun, one he didn’t take out, behind his back and her breath catches and she curses herself for her stupidity because here she was sitting at her kitchen table, weaponless and defenseless when he had a spare gun on him at all times.
He doesn’t give her an apologetic grin. He doesn’t make any excuses. He does continue to stare at her though as he straightens himself out and buttons his suit jacket back up. “Matt will be in touch soon.” And then he’s gone and it’s only when she hears the click on the door that she reacts and runs to the front door, jamming all the locks in place and sinks to the floor of her hallway, trying to breathe. Instead, she slams the palms of her hands on the floor and the wall, opening her mouth to let howling sob, reminiscent of a wolf she will never be, because she’s right back where she started.
She wonders if he hears her sob and she wonders if he even cares.
He likely doesn’t.
Because Kate Macer is just a blip on his radar. She is the means to the end. She is the pawn on the board and worse yet, she knows it. Matt knows it. Even Reggie knows it.
Alejandro knows it.
(It’s a cool night, she thinks, once she’s stopped sobbing and cursing herself, it’s colder in hell though.)