Operation 007 (SpyxFamily)

Ch. 28: Part Two

"Hmm. . ." The director rumbled distrustfully and pressed the button unconvinced. His unflinching stare bore into her and she wanted to hide away. "Are you sure?" He challenged staunchly and even if she said yes, she felt like it still wouldn't be enough.

Anya nodded anyway.

"Then why are you crying for them?" Kai was predictably ungiving and he held himself coldly, from his carefully neutral expression and firm stance, to his accusatory gaze that peered down at her with icy displeasure.

Anya didn't know how to stop it. She wanted to, but her mind had been overruled by emotions and inconvenient bodily responses.

She had no answer, and she couldn't pull herself together to assuage him.

He pressed the button again.

Through her parents, Anya felt the electricity surge and tensed as she tried to block it out. She didn't know how else to convince the director she didn't care and her parents couldn't keep going on like this. They were nearing the end of their tolerance and Kai would keep going until he was satisfied with Anya.

"These people are not your family, Anya. Who are they?" Kai said.

This was too hard, it was too hard. She didn't want to say goodbye. She didn't want to forget them and it hurt. He wanted her to be indifferent to them and she struggled to even fake it. She knew she shouldn't have gotten so close to them, let them become such a big part of her life, and she was paying for it. They were paying for it. What was she supposed to do? She didn't want to let them go, she didn't want to. She didn't want them to die and be forgotten.

But they would die and she couldn't handle it. She balked at the thought, her future without them and she didn't want that either. She didn't think she could survive her memories of them playing over and over when they were gone, when she'd be left without them, and it ground her heart into the dirt.

No one.

Kai wanted her to forget, her love for them left behind and she hated that it really might be better. To let the memories fade where they couldn't hurt her, where they couldn't remind her every day of what she'd lost, of what she'd held dear, of what she would never get back.

That's right.

They never should have been her parents in the first place. She shouldn't have dragged them down into her mess of a life. They didn't deserve this. She shouldn't be growing attached to people. They should have been strangers from the start. She should never have met them.

They should have been safe.

"No one." Her voice trembled and something in her was dimming like a sun setting for the last time with no moon to replace it. She didn't know what to do other than to accept the truth and her spirit was withering. There was no getting out of this, there was no way Kai would accept less than what he demanded, there was no hope, and bleak, crushing grief strangled her as it shackled her to the floor.

There was nothing she could do, no argument she could give, and nothing she could say that could convince Kai to let the Forgers go. They would die, they would be erased from her life, her memories, just like Kai wanted and Anya would be here forever.

"Who?" He said again.

"No one." She said softly and she didn't want to feel anymore. It just made it harder. There was no room for them in a place like this, for a person like her. She wanted to hide from them where they couldn't reach her. She couldn't deal with this otherwise.

"Again."

"No one." Her voice rasped quietly as she descended further into a pit of resignation and depression and tried not to think about what she was saying. She just wanted this to stop, she wanted it to stop.