With a Pull of a Trigger

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Summum Ius, Summa Iniuria

Before everything, before Eena’s death, before the whole mess with The Alliance, before Joshua, when work meant seeing Eena and Reini and being thrilled at the prospect of going places he never went to before to more or less defeat the bad guys and everything still had that slightest bit of spark, Greggory Van Kamp had been happy.

He had his friends who were so willing to drop everything they had on their plates at the drop of a hat and were willing to kill—or be killed—for him, his work that, back then, gave him so much happiness and sense of purpose, and he had his boyfriend.

He was 26 and he was content with everything he had.

He had just met Reini—an agent who was so good, she got into the agency at age 25 and had gotten promoted to junior agent status and to Cell Twelve in one go after merely two years at the agency—and he had been best friends with Eena since they met in Cell Twelve—he had been 22, and she had been 21—two people who were honestly the people he trusted the most when it came to fieldwork. Little did he know, in mere three years, him and Reini would be promoted to senior status, and in four years, Eena would soon be promoted too.

But all that didn’t matter.

What mattered was that he was 26, he was happy and in love with life and with what he did.

Not many knew this fact, but back when Greg had been 26 and so desperately in love, his boyfriend was one agent by the name of Charles Browne. They met in Cell Four when Charles was 20 and Greg was 21. Charles wasn’t even a junior agent, unlike Greg who had been a junior agent for a whole year already, but there had been whispers of promoting Charles to junior agent status because no one, absolutely no one, could deny the fact that he was talented. Greg had been so proud back then, because Charles was talented, and he was talented, and all was right with the world.

Greg was 22 when he was transferred to Cell Twelve.

People said that being transferred to Cell Twelve was a big deal, but honestly, Greg didn’t see the point. He didn’t see what most people saw in being promoted. All he saw was leaving his boyfriend alone in Cell Four and not being able to see him as often. What he saw were more work at his desk and more missions overseas and more jetlagged nights. What he saw was the fact that he would be transferring to a new Cell, uncertain if he would manage to earn a friend.

He met Eena, the darling of the agency, and he knew they would be best friends, fast. She had been allowed to intern at the agency at the age of 16—her mom and dad being legends of the CIA—and she had been promoted to Cell Twelve at the age of 18—the age of interns, not of junior Cell Twelve agents.

He had talked to her about everything, about being an orphan, about being taken under the care of Victoria Van Kamp who, as it turned out, was also one of the very best and had been friends with Eena’s parents, and about the older days, when he was still stuck with a family that couldn’t accept the fact that he was gay.

In turn, Eena told him about being alone before she got to go to the agency, about the things she had to hide from her classmates in her chosen university, about being the legend with no friends before she met him.

This was, of course, after the part when Eena had a crush on him.

Eena was 23 when she decided to take refresher lessons with Miss Vivienne Levalle. She met Reini there, and Greg happily listened to her stories, despite the nagging feeling in the back of his head that said he was about to lose his best friend to a woman he didn’t even know personally. Eena had just turned 23, the age of his boyfriend back then.