Good morning everyone I hope you had a fantastic weekend and are recharged and ready to blaze into the last week of August. So timers set and let’s jump into the first prompt of the week.
This one sort of evolved as I was writing it. I think I would need to go back and see if I included too many elements or if I like the tangled network of them. But for now, I’m okay with the Monday prompt.
Monday, August 25th: I know this won’t be easy for you.
“I know this won’t be easy for you,” he said.
Helen tried not to frown at the tone. She was already fitted with various mostly invisible electronic devices designed to send anything said to an off-site recording device so she kept her mouth shut. There were some things that didn’t need to be recorded for posterity. Or court cases.
‘Besides his smarmy condescending tone should be self-evident.’
She let it slide and started shifting her thoughts to the meeting ahead. He frowned at her lack of response.
“You shouldn’t be nervous,” he said trying again. “We will be with you every step of the way.”
“Your mock concern is touching,” she replied, unable to help herself. He pulled back slightly blinking rapidly in surprise. She knew that they didn’t actually care if she was injured or killed in this operation. All they wanted was the information.
She was happy to provide it for them. Her reasons had nothing to do with them. She cared as little for them as they did for her.
Helen left the room while the agent was still trying to figure out how to respond. ‘Apparently I’m supposed to believe his concern,’ Helen thought as she closed the door and headed down the hall. As she walked she wondered if there were sincerity classes agents were supposed to take so the people they dealt with felt they cared.
She knew he thought of her as a rat.
Even if she was temporarily his rat.
The fact that Jedson thought of her as his rat as well was something she found darkly amusing. As she descended the stairs she wondered if they knew, Jedson and the Agent, that they had exactly the same mindset.
‘They probably wouldn’t believe it.’
They were more alike than she suspected wither wanted to contemplate. Each wanted to know what the other was up to in an effort to further their own goals. Each was willing to think her expendable. Jedson got her sister Alice killed and Agent Hobson used her sister Theresa to try and trip up Judson getting her killed in the process.
Helen hated them both equally.
‘Which is why I agreed to help out Agent Matthews.’
Judson was a problem and Agent Hobson wanted to take him down. But Agent Hobson wasn’t exactly squeaky clean either. Agent Mathews and a second team was recording everything because there was the believe that Hobson took the information gleaned and used it for his own personal use. Some of that information came from Tereasa’s death.
Helen decided she didn’t much like Matthews either but she felt she could either help bring the two men who got her sisters killed down, or die in the process along side them.
She reached the street and tried to put her more fatalistic thoughts away. Her anger still burned brightly but she knew until she walked into the meeting sight she was relatively unobserved. She would pack her anger away before she had to talk with anyone. Helen turned as a van pulled up. Tires squealing and door sliding open. She saw the dart gun, turned and felt the sting. She fell but was caught. As darkness descended she thought, ‘This wasn’t part of the plan.’
Ten til Midnight 