Page 11 of Jericho

He threatened to kill us both. I have to wonder if that wouldn't be better than a lifetime of pain, manipulation, and stress from worrying if the next time he hits me, he'll take it too far. If I knew where Eli was, I'd make a plan to grab him and run. I'd never look back. But I can't even get an address. I should've listened to you all those years ago.

I pull my eyes away from the screen. This is the worst part of her emails. The sad princess is regretting her choices, and I guess I'm supposed to feel sorry for her.

But no. That's not right. She's using these emails as a sort of journal. As far as she's concerned, I'm dead, and no one is reading these. It's just a way to get her true feelings off her chest. Despite her betrayal, I don't think I have a right to be angry about any of it.

We all have regrets, don't we? Hers just seems to be on a bigger scale than a lot of other people.

I could wait around and argue with myself about the right course of action. I could listen to that voice in my head that has always warned me to proceed with caution so I don't end up with cement boots in the ocean, but I know it would only be a waste of time. I'm not exactly known for being someone who's unproductive when there's shit that needs to be done.

I grab my go-bag from my closet and head out.

"Vacation?" Jersey asks when I pass him in the hallway.

"Something like that," I mutter, my stride never slowing.

I consider my options when I get to the parking lot. Knowing I'd be faster on my bike, but I'm heading north and the weather will only get worse in that direction, I opt for one of the sedans. I enter the code I've been given into the lockbox attached to the wall of the cabin and lift the right keys from the hook. Hemlock will know which vehicle I took, and he may havea general direction I'm heading, but I'll leave the car and grab another before I get to Virginia on my drive up to Boston.

I realize the car is nearly out of gas, but I leave that up to disrespect by the last person who used it rather than an omen telling me to take a beat to reevaluate what I'm doing. I know it's not my business the trouble that Aspen is in. She made her bed, so to speak, even if at the time it might've been fear that drove that decision. I shouldn't concern myself with a part of my life I can't seem to get over.

But the argument in my head doesn't stop me from pulling away from the cabin and heading in her direction. The first hour of the drive, I convince myself that I'll just go and get a feel for things. I'll do a little digging and will probably see that things aren't as bad as she's making them out to be, but I know better. If the man is hitting her, then she's telling the truth. Her emails aren't a manipulation, because I'm dead, and even sadness from the prettiest woman I've ever met wouldn't be enough to bring a man back to life.

I haven't been back to the area since Damien left me for dead on that back road. The fact that I couldn't go to many places up north because so many people might recognize me from my time with Ivan's organization complicated a lot of jobs I've done for ICE. There have been times when people I knew from my past were sniffing around a job or there were links back to Boston, and I had to be pulled before I could get the intel I needed to take my mark down.

More than once I've been told I was a liability to the organization because I couldn't keep my dick in my pants. I can't count the number of times my handler told me I should've been fired years ago. It's what made leaving ICE and joining Cerberus such an easy decision. I stuck with the agency for so long because it felt like the only option I had. I put all of my eggs in thatbasket, knowing I couldn't make any further true connections with people in my life because one day I was Luke Gannon, the hired hand for a drug lord, and the next I could easily be Steven Hopewell, the illegal arms dealer looking to expand.

I'm never Nolan Parson, the man who got his nickname because of the risks he took in a city in the Jordan Valley of Palestine.

That man only exists in an oversized cabin tucked away in the Smoky Mountains that he shares with more than a half-dozen other men without real names.

I drop my pity-party attitude off when I leave the sedan behind in Roanoke.

I don't have any clue what I'll do once I get to Boston. I've relied heavily on the intel provided by others to get shit done over the years, and this isn't a situation I plan on getting any of the guys back in Tennessee involved in. These are ghosts from my past sneaking up, making it my responsibility to deal with, but it does leave me a little unprepared going forward. It isn't the first time I'll have to be resourceful, and if I have any luck and manage to make it out of this alive, I know it won't be the last.

Despite committing fully to seeing this through, I can't help the feeling of betrayal inching its way inside of me with every mile of distance I put between myself and the cabin.

It bothers me so much, that sense of brotherhood that had been forming in recent weeks, that I swing by a store, purchase a burner phone, and make a call.

"It's something from my personal life I have to take care of," I explain to Hemlock.

"I understand that, brother," he returns, making me feel a little more guilty.

I can't imagine what that man has been through in his life.

"Do you need any help?"

"No," I answer quickly.

"You'll let me know if you do," he says, offering even though he knows there's a very real chance I'll never take him up on it.

I appreciate the speed at which he offers it despite not knowing exactly what I'm getting mixed up in.

"I don't want to compromise Cerberus," I confess.

"Maybe there's a different way to handle all this," he says. "Just lay it out for me. We could get something together in a few days. Take care of it the best way it can be handled."

"This is something I have to do on my own," I assure him. "But I appreciate the offer."

I hang up the phone, dropping it in the nearest trash can before getting back into the car to finish the fifteen-hour drive to Boston.

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