Operation 007 (SpyxFamily)

Ch. 18: Part Three

Anya sharply inhaled as doom crushed her soul into splintered remnants. As it incinerated the smallest piece of her spirit into nothing but ashen rubble, burnt by the sun she'd let herself bathe in for too long. The spy family she'd let herself live with for too long that had endangered all that had to be hidden.

She inhaled again, as the doorknob twisted like a knife in her gut and was pushed open. Inhaled a third time when Loid entered the apartment, his eyes landing on her staring back at him and froze in place.

The sudden quiet of his thoughts stopped him in his tracks. Instant silence consumed every braincell in a black hole. The sole understanding that Anya had heard every word, prevailing.

That Anya had heard every word. That Anya had head every word.

And then that left him too, replaced with a force of emotion that could've knocked Anya over. Filled him with nothing but pure alarm and urgency. The need to say something to dispel the horror forming on his daughter's face and calm the irregular breathing. The need to say something, but it was smothered in the resounding quiet that suffocated them. In the hush that spoke more than any word ever could.

They held the other's gaze as Loid failed to speak. Failed to form coherent sentences. Failed to disperse the painful tension that oozed in each surface and crevice.

One word that he managed to think clearly and absolutely, every other conception lost in a darkened vacuum.

"Anya." He said quietly.

Panic and adrenaline stabbed into her. A jump from her heart as it started again. The word, a catalyst to shoot up off the floor, the papers fluttering at the swift motion. A movement so sudden, it startled Loid into inaction as he watched her flee. As he watched her sprint down the hall to slam the bathroom door closed, harder than she meant to, and lock it shut.

Anya struggled to catch her breath where she leaned against it, chest pounding to send her heart into her throat and quickened further at the sound of Loid coming closer. There was a vague sense that Yor intercepted him when she exited the kitchen, the strange scene mystifying her.

Anya was too panicked, too distraught to understand their brief conversation that slid under the door in jumbled noise. The oxygen that was left in her lungs, stolen by the thought that he'd told her, as an abrupt, terrifying silence ended it.

Loid moved to pass by Yor and Anya shrank at the sound of him coming to stand outside the bathroom. She heard the light tread of his steps stopping not two feet away from her, the piece of wood separating them.

The rap on the door as he said her name again was quiet and laden with weight. "Anya."

An action that added to her overwhelmed nerves and brought her to tears. A reality her mind disengaged from in protection. A reality that was falling apart. A reality she heard less and less as noises faded. As sounds fell away into the distance.

She wanted to ignore that her body shook, that she was light-headed and unbalanced. That she needed to hide as she climbed into the bathtub and huddled in the bottom.

Her head was obscured behind her knees that she drew up, blocking her vision. Her hair tangled through fingers that clutched at her scalp. A fuzzy acknowledgement that even though her chest heaved and wracked, she couldn't breathe. A fuzzy acknowledgement that she cried, but made no sound. An acknowledgement quickly drowned in rejection of outside influences. Of anything that tied her to this moment in time. Of willful dissociation from the muted tones that emanated far off, indistinguishable nonsense drifting further and further away.