With a Pull of a Trigger

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Weaponized Words

Words: noun, it was a unit of language that native speakers could identify. They were often used to express emotions, tell events, make promises, but at the same time, break promises and trust that was so hard to build. Some words were used to sugarcoat actual happenings; some were used as weapons, deigned to find an opponent’s weakness and attack it constantly, even when the enemy was on his knees, pleading for mercy.

It wasn’t really her intention to make it sound so sadistic and cruel, but that was reality, and she knew it well. Words were among the numerous weapons of a spy, and it was a great weapon if one knew how to use it well. When a spy was down with no other weapon, words were what a spy resorted to, and it was their only hope.

One should really not underestimate just what exactly words could do; after all, enemies were brought down, friends were lost, lovers were left behind, and fantasies were built on the slightly shaky foundation that were words. Lies were made and said, alibis were created and presented, and agents were trained to kill. Life went on, deaths occurred, words remain.

Perhaps it wasn’t really a good idea to lie to him, but she had no other choice. In her line of work, agents often found out that love took a backseat compared to their job the hard way. It wasn’t rare for her to hear of agents quitting because of how their job almost destroyed the life they were build, and it most definitely wasn’t rare for her to learn of lovers dead because of the enemies the CIA had. It wasn’t rare for her to hear of CIA agents taking the coward’s way out and killing themselves, and it most definitely wasn’t rare for her to hear of agents merely existing because of the need for revenge. Vengeance was what often kept the CIA running, but most of the time, agents couldn’t be trusted because it wasn’t always definite that those agents would want revenge against the people who killed their loved ones, than the CIA itself for making them agents.

It really wasn’t her intention to make everything sound so gloomy and dark, as if the world itself was forced to exist without the sun, but she couldn’t help it. This was her mind. Those were her thoughts. If her mind was an actual place, it would perhaps be a haunted house, or maybe a serial killer’s home filled with hidden corpses. Agents, after all, weren’t taught to be optimistic, but rather, realistic.

And at that point, really, all she could see was one way out of the situation she was in. She was being realistic, and she knew that running off and just merely ignoring him would never be a good idea.

The CIA had taught her a lot of things. To be a coward wasn’t one of them.

“Samuel, I am so sorry.”

Blood roared in her ears. For a moment, a mere second when she thought about all the possible outcomes, it was only her and Samuel, sitting with his back facing her and drinking scotch. After the words finally came out of her mouth, everything around her finally made their way into her mind. She was suddenly aware of the music the orchestra was making, the chit chat of the guests, the clinking of the glasses, and the sound of Samuel taking a deep breath before slamming down the empty glass of scotch on the bar counter and raising his finger to indicate a refill. She steadily made her way to the barstool beside Samuel and sat down, putting her purse on her lap and surreptitiously wiped her suddenly sweaty palms on the skirt of her dress.

“Cabernet Sauvignon please,” said Reini as the bartender put a new glass of scotch in front of Samuel. The bartender nodded and quickly went to go and get her glass of red wine. Reini crossed her legs and faced Samuel, putting her hands daintily on her lap.

For a few moments, tense silence took over them, making Reini squirm in her seat. Then, Samuel bowed his head and spoke.

“So you had the gall to come here and pretend,” he stated somewhat bitterly. “What I don’t get is that I thought you loved me—”