Page 57 of Double Shot

“I guess, it wasn’t reallyrealuntil…”

“Until you were washing the blood off?” he asked quietly.

“No,” I said softly, burning with shame at… I don’t know, that it wasn’t the blood, but a picture on the news? “The photos, on the news…” I confessed, trailing off.

He reached over the low wall with his other hand, the one closest to me already tangled with mine. I looked up and he smiled at me sweetly, caressing my cheek.

“You’re not like Lach and you’re not like me, Poppet. You’reyouand you feel however you’d like about it. However, do not lose sight; that man was pure evil and the lot of us did the world a great favor by ridding it of him.”

“I know,” I nodded, and Ididknow. Malmaison was one of the monsters and you shouldn’t feel bad about slaying the monsters but here I was and Idid. I looked past Conan to Kyle who was watching one of the in-flight movies on his television screen, his headphones in his ears as something exploded on the screen, a small smile playing on his lips.

“I don’t understand why he was the way he was when he came back to us this time,” I said frowning slightly.

“Ah, that I may have some insight for,” Conan said.

I looked back to him and he looked almost apologetic when he said, “The Comedown is typically something cathartic, Love. When the catharsis is in the slaying, the comedown looks a little different, yeah?”

I jolted slightly as the implication sank in.

“You mean he enjoyed,” I dropped my voice to a whisper that could barely be heard over the engine noise of the plane, “killing that Nazi fuck so much he didn’t need a comedown?” I asked.

“It would seem so,” he said with a precision nod. “Were I in his place, I am afraid it would have been much the same.”

I swallowed hard and looked past him at Kyle again.

“I don’t know what to make of that,” I confessed and he nodded his expression guarded.

“Take all the time you need with it, Poppet.”

I looked up at him and tilted my head slightly, scanning his face and finally deciding this closed-off ness was a mildfear.

“Don’t think for a minute thatIwould think about leaving either of you,” I said squeezing his hand tightly. “You’re my everything. The both of you.”

He smiled and it held such a relief, as he raised the back of my hand to his lips.

“Cor, I love you,” he said and I smiled and felt the burden my soul contained lighten at those words.

“I love you more than words can say,” I said simply.

I tried watching a movie, fidgeting in my seat. Conan alternated between sitting with me and using the plane’s available Wi-Fi, which was surprisingly excellent, to work on his reclaimed laptop. He typically reserved this work for when it was his turn to be in the window seat.

I tried to sleep again, I really did, as the light dimmed outside the raised window coverings and finally within the plane itself as people laid their seats back into beds, but I couldn’t.

Conan slept in the window seat and Kyle beside me, but all I could do was lay on my side and watch them.

The longer that we were in the air, the more tired I became as the minutes and hours slipped like grains of sand through an hourglass, the moreemotionalI found myself.

I watched both my men sleep as I struggled to reconcile the girl that I had been with the woman I was now and it waswork… I suppose all growth is painful to a certain extent, but I could do with a little less pain lately and goodlordall I wanted was some damnsleep, which remained so elusive I could cry.

That’s what happened as we crossed the Atlantic on the final leg of our journey, the cabin darkened in deepest night. I lay and watched my two men sleep and I cried. I wept with tiredness, with a deep emotional and mental exhaustion and it was my light shaking as I was wracked with silent sobs that woke Kyle, his hand still twined with mine.

“Hey,” he said roughly, stretching his other arm out, arching his back. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” I told him which was true. “Everything,” I said which was also true. I sniffed. “I don’t know.”

“Oh, baby. C’mere,” he reached out motioning for me to come over the low wall into his laid-out seat and I sniffed.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to.”

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