Burn Out *18+*

Chapter One

I was eight years old when I saw my first dead body. I knew all my life that I would be exposed to death, I listened to it at the kitchen table, saw it on my mother's corkboard. It was in my family. But I spent sleepless nights staring at my ceiling, wondering if one day it was going to be me who was photographed, splayed on the floor with chunks of my brain out. Or my mother. Or my father. Who would be the next victim? How would I be remembered?

Now, seventeen years later, seeing photographs of dead bodies had not gotten any easier. This wasn't a movie. This was real life. Each picture was a soul that had been lost to this world. The court room was quiet as the lawyer paced, moving slowly enough to show off the picture to its fullest extent. This time it wasn't a simple gunshot to the head – something I had learned was almost a blessing in my world – it was marks of pain, some healed, some new. Finger nails were missing. Teeth were broken. Bruises painted the skin various colours, but the skin was already the wrong shade, too pale, too sickly.

I knew Mark. He had been my mother's coworker, a successful man if there ever was one. The best of the best, they said. I had seen him receive award after reward, his tanned skin glowing, eyes sparkling. Now, seeing his face, I knew that it had been months since those eyes gleamed and his skin saw the brightness of the sun. Mark had been dead long before they had let him bleed out.

Beside me, sitting on a ridge wooden chair with her hands neatly folded in her lap and no expression on her face, was my mother. I had inherited her green eyes and dark hair, but I had not been able to inherit her ability to remain stone faced at a moment like this. That was her partner. They had worked on so many cases together. There had to be some kind of bond between the two of them. And if this could happen to Mark, it could happen to anyone.

Which meant that not even my calculating, steady mother was safe.

Everyone talked about closure coming when crime cases were solved. We knew the terrorist organization that had done this to Mark. We had a few of them in custody and they would be punished heavily – under the radar of course as the public did not need to know how the law could be twist against those who wronged us. But that wasn't enough. Knowing that a man had been murdered like that, knowing that it could be my mother next time, was haunting beyond the comfort that the law could bring.

"How are you doing?" I asked quietly as we walked down the steps of the courthouse. All around us were mournful agents, defeated and weak but silent. Others came together in times of pain. This crowd separated.

"I'm doing fine."

If it were any other person, I wouldn't have believed it. Who could look at pictures of their dead co-worker and hear horrific details from the autopsy and be unshaken? My mother. Her stiletto heels clicked on the concrete step and she thoughtlessly adjusted a cufflink on her left wrist with a sigh.

"It is a little sad though," she admitted. "He was quite good at his job. It's going to hurt the firm."

A little sad. It was a little sad to know that Mark had been beaten to bruising, had had fingernails pulled from his hands, had been jabbed with a hot poker, was left in a dark room for weeks on end, teetering on the brink of death before finally being given release.

"I'm not asking about the firm," I pressed when we hit the bottom stair. I turned to face her. Maybe a normal daughter would have taken her hands and held them, tried to connect with her. But we didn't really have that dynamic.

"It is a risk that we all take," she said with clear pride. I'm sure that others who were listening – because there was always eavesdropping among agents – would have echoed the same thing. "What happened to him was awful. But he knew there was a chance it could happen and he died honorably. We will be stronger and smarter because of it." Her chin was ticked up and her gaze focused. I think this was as close as she would ever get to truly mourning. But the moment vanished an instant later. "Dear God, it looks like your ride is here."