Ace sat stolidly in the mechanic's lobby, studying a chip in the dingy tile as thoughts raced in his head. It was like he had two choices--to obsessively ponder escape routes and tactics, or to stare emptily at some insignificant spot. What he wanted was to relax. Across the room was a bored teen flipping through his phone, oblivious to the conversation being had opposite him. The lanky guy's face screamed boredom, even as his eyes scanned his phone. Distantly, Ace was envious. Why couldn't he be like that, even for a second? Relaxed, casual, even bored. He looked at Eleanor. Was that a blush? Of course it was. Nothing got by him, after all.
Finally he spoke, his voice soft and full of doubt. "I don't feel like the good guy. Good guys don't sleep with a gun and have ties with apparently clandestine organizations. Or something." And he didn't. In fact, the more they found out, the stronger his fear became that he was someone awful. He didn't want to be--he wanted life to be quiet and stable and to be able to have relationships full of trust and to make that paranoid part of his brain quiet. But he couldn't. Ace feared instead he would only get deeper into chaos as they unearthed this mystery. Right down the rabbit hole, never to come out again.
"I don't know about Dominic..." he admitted plainly. "I want to." He gave a kind of ironic, mirthless laugh and said, "He knows things and I want information. If it's a setup, it's a good one. But something tells me it isn't. And I want to trust him but I'm frankly not ready to. Not fully. I've told you about my instinct, that gut feeling that's been keeping me afloat this whole time? And it's reeling when it comes to him. He's connected to something bigger, something...awful," he admitted darkly, trying to put a word on the feeling in his chest. "And still, I'm drawn to him. I mean if we were friends, that would be a big thing, you know?" He gave a defeated sigh. "I just don't know."
The two waited. They waited longer, and longer, until Ace was fidgeting in his seat. Somehow he knew that the repairs being made would not have taken that long to complete, and that made a little seed of worry blossom in the pit of his stomach. Something is wrong. That felt silly. They were mechanics, not assassins. And yet...why wouldn't that feeling go away...? His anxiety began to show as it worsened and his eyes were very sharp, almost piercing as they scanned the room like lasers. Still, he did not vocalize his worry until he saw a man in the garage that did not belong there. His fidgeting stopped and he sat stock still, back straight and head craned to see through the little window. A man wearing jeans, a light blue button up shirt and a tailored jacket had come in and was speaking to what Ace guessed was the owner. He couldn't hear them over the whine of air tools and clanking of wrenches, but he could see from their posture that they were speaking in hushed tones. The man was too clean cut and well dressed to be an employee, and he did not have the body language of a customer. Nor did he have a vehicle.
"We need to go," He said suddenly, eyes unmoving from the new arrival. "Now." His tone was firm, confident, and assured--not at all like it was when he was conversing with her usually. His training was speaking now, not him. As Ace fell into what he had dubbed in his thoughts to be 'work mode', the confusion of his amnesia fell away and suddenly everything made sense. Everything he did felt right. He knew what he was doing.
Ace stood, taking her hand in his and making a show of going for the door, which the two men in the garage noticed as he had hoped they would. They began to move quickly and Ace whispered quickly, "Go outside and walk fast, take a right. Keep walking until I come get you. I'm gonna get that bike first." And then he slipped away, backtracking towards the door to the garage. Ace opened it fast, moved fast, thought fast. His gait was so confident that none of the other mechanics knew there was anything amiss, but he was spotted by the two men--the owner and the clean-cut stranger--and then things escalated.
"Hold on a minute there sir," the mechanic began as he approached him, but Ace quickly put a hand to his face and pushed him aside. The poor man was too flustered to do anything else, and by the time he had collected himself, he realized he was out of his league.
The stranger was on him next. "Stop right there," he barked. Ace did not heed him and made for the bike instead. The man flashed a brass badge that Ace recognized as FBI. "FBI! I said stop!" And when Ace didn't, the man took it upon himself to take a pistol out from under his jacket.
That was a mistake.
Like with the mugger, Ace just moved. He reacted so fast that he didn't even know what he was doing until after it was all finished. But his hand was on a large wrench and it sent the metal sailing at the man's face with considerable force. The man instinctively tried to flinch away and block with his hands, which gave Ace time to close the gap. He lunged to his right where the man had been on an intercepting course, one hand shot chillingly accurately out to the other man's gun-bearing wrist and twisted violently with a sickening crack; the gun clattered to the ground as the man gave a short cry of pain. Ace continued the twist, forcing the man's arm behind him uncomfortably while putting pressure on his now broken wrist, then with his free hand he snatched the man's hair in his fingers and drove him into a support beam forehead first. The guy went limp in his grasp and Ace wasted no time in snatching his federal ID before leaping onto his bike, turning on the ignition and peeling out of the garage.
The roar of an engine caught up with Eleanor and the bike skidded to a stop beside her; Ace waited only for her to climb on behind him before he sped the bike away down the street, taking a long weaving path in case anyone managed to follow. No one did. Still, he went at this for about half an hour before he was convinced that they were safe and pulled into a dark, quiet parking garage.
Ace was off the bike immediately, pacing in the nearly empty floor. He hadn't yet spoken to her or explained anything, but even as he paced, his left arm and hand contorted repeatedly and erratically in a way that was not conscious or intentional. And eventually even his pacing stopped and he looked like he'd stepped in glue and was trying to take another step but couldn't. His green eyes were empty as he twitched rhythmically.
And then, suddenly, he was back, running his controlled fingers through his hair and taking deep breaths. He did not appear to know or acknowledge that he'd had another spasm.
"I just...moved..." he said finally, his tone distressed. "Just like that thug. It just happened. I didn't know what I was doing, I just did it. That guy was FBI. And I had him down and out cold in something like five seconds flat. Eleanor..." he was shaking his head, fear in his eyes. "I can't be a good guy. There's no way." He finally realized he had the man's ID in his pocket and took it out, unfolding the leather wallet-like holder to find a very genuine, very unmistakeable FBI badge and an ID of one Tristan Bryston, a federal investigator. Ace handed it to her. "I think this guy was after me. In fact, I know he was."
---
Tristan awoke to paramedics. They were checking him over while he lay on a cold concrete floor; he could see their blue-gloved hands moving across his still-unfocused vision. With a mumbling cry, he sat up quickly in a panic but was firmly pressed back down to the ground by a female paramedic, who then started waving a flashlight in front of his eyes. "Hey there, can you tell me your name?" She asked him.
Irritated, he groaned, "Tristan Bryston, FBI. Where'd he go? I gotta--"
"Not on my watch Tristan," she offered with a smile but a firm tone. "Your guy's gone and you're in bad shape. You can call for backup if you want, but from what these guys are saying about what happened, I don't think it'll do you any good. You, however, need medical attention. You can see alright?"
"Wha--yeah--but--"
"You allergic to anything, Tristan?"
"Cats. But--"
"Is there anyone you'd like us to contact for you to let them know where you are? We're going to take you to the hospital."
Surrendering under the firmness of her tone and the pain that was beginning to come into his awareness, Tristan shook his head. "I'll call my supervisor later. What...happened, exactly?"
The paramedic looked concerned. "You don't remember?"
"Mostly. But it happened fast and I'm just a little...foggy on the details."
The owner of the shop came into his view then, kneeling down beside him. "That guy must have seen you because he came in all of a sudden and as soon as you pulled out your badge and gun, he was on you like ugly on an ape. I mean like...fast...Threw a wrench at your face and broke your wrist, then bashed your head on that beam there. And then the was gone. Like a ghost, just gone--and the girl he was with."
Tristan gave a small, humorless laugh but regretted it as the pain in his head flared. "I can't believe I got bested that easily. Tell me I at least fought back..."
"You didn't have time to, man."
Tristan pondered this as a bottle of soda was put to his lips and he hesitantly took a few shallow sips. He really didn't want to drink anything, but the paramedic kept insisting that he put a little sugar back in his system to stabilize him. "Well now I know. I found my guy."
He hadn't been sure for a while, but this confirmed he was on the right track. He was familiar with the name Norman Caldwell, so when the name came up on the report of a meter maid who had seen the motorbike and written up a ticket to the registered owner, Tristan contacted her and told the locals not to tow It--Just in case they came for it. He himself had gone to check it out and, upon seeing the bike was malfunctioning, told the tech department to watch for a bike with that info going into a garage somewhere. He was right. It had, and clearly the proper owner had come with it. He'd hoped when he called the shop and told them to stall until he got there that he could surprise the guy, but he was very, very wrong.
The paramedics, once he was stable, guided him over to the ambulance, but he stopped them midway. "I need my gun and my ID," he told them. The other EMT, a male, retrieved the gun carefully, but that was all he brought.
"I didn't see an ID, sir."
Tristan's heart sank as he sat down in the back of the vehicle, his wrist splinted and his head throbbing. "Shit. He's got my badge."
Tip jar: the author of this post has received
0.00 INK
in return for their work.