ARKEN

Surveillance

Creed wasn't there when the body was brought in in the coffin for everyone to see and take a moment, and he didn't care about that. He had only ever seen Walter Mayberry once, and the man didn't speak a single word to him. Instead, he was in Doctor Faye Willoughby's office again. After the news that Creed had had his second encounter with Henry Marsden, Doctor Willoughby wanted to see him again to find out how he was doing.

"I'm...good."

"Good."

"Yep...good."

"How do you feel about Henry Marsden now?" Doctor Willoughby pushed her glasses back into proper position on her face. With the other hand, she scribbled some things down on her notepad.

"I feel fine..."

"Your choice to spare him...to hold a gun to his head and then decide to spare him and take him into custody, that's not what was expected."

"Was I supposed to kill him?" Creed repositioned himself on the couch in front of Willoughby, watching her eyes go from him to the paper and back to him.

"No...only if you wanted to."

"Well, everyone else around here is pissed at me because I didn't kill him."

"He killed a number of good men. They're in pain, but they'll get over it."

"Like Mayberry?"

Doctor Willoughby paused and glanced at a potted plant on the right corner of her desk, then resumed, "Yes. Mayberry will be replaced, and business will resume as usual."

Creed quietly watched her write until he couldn't take the silence anymore, "I wanted to kill him..."

She looked up at him, ready to listen some more, "Go on."

"I wanted to kill him really bad. I wanted to make him suffer for killing my team...but in that moment when I had the gun trained on him, Cordell telling me to do it..."

"And?"

"...I started to think of something I told someone once. That...you can't let vengeance get in the way of justice. It might feel good in the moment to put a bullet in his brain, but I would regret it afterwards."

Doctor Willoughby wrote some more observations down. Creed watched the pen jitter back and forth as if trying to escape from her hand, "So...am I good to go? Am I clear to leave?"

Doctor Willoughby put the pen down and watched Creed across the room, "You know, Mr. Creed, I never requested that I see you again after you dealt with Henry Marsden. Clearly, you wanted be here."

Creed sat dumbly for a moment, trying to recall. She told me she wanted to talk with me again, didn't she? I remember it so clearly. "Well, I guess I'll be going. Thank you, Doctor Willoughby."

Creed stood and left the office, returning to the ground floor of the other building just in time to catch Commander Kerzing as he was leaving. They had taken away Mayberry's body and the members of the crowd were dispersing.

"Sir."

"What is it, Creed?"

"Now that this business with Henry Marsden is over, I'd like another assignment."

"I seem to recall you have an assignment, Russell Newlin is still on the loose, along with the other escapees."

"Yes, but they're all vanished for now. I'd be happy to drop everything and go after them should they surface, but I don't believe I should waste my time waiting around here or chasing down cold leads."