Page 62 of Trigger Happy Ending

The words taste like blood as I relive the darkest part of my past. The reason why the Agency crowned me the Bodysnatcher.

“I’m not sure what the body count was in the end. North of a dozen. There were three of them left in the end. Including the traitorous American prick who was responsible for the setup. Fucking double agent.”

I swallow and look down at my hands.

“I took a blowtorch to the one who built the bombs. He actually died quicker than I would have liked. I underestimated the pain and speed of the injuries, I guess. I still remember the smell of his flesh burning. It’s putrid. Actually made me sick. I threw up on his boots. Then I burned them clean off his feet. And then I burned his feet.”

“The second guy was the original target, the leader of the terror cell. I strung him up, too, and slowly stripped the skin from his body, inch by inch. Literally death by a thousand cuts.”

“And the third asshole—the American. I made him watch it all … He was strung up like a pig too. I kept him alive for three days and made him watch as I killed the others. That really fucked with his head. Then I carved the words ‘eye for an eye’ on his stomach. Once I’d had enough of his screaming, I shot him between the eyes. Then I burned the shack to the fucken’ ground and spat on their graves.”

I pause, remembering how I felt at the moment as I watched the shack burn to the ground in the middle of nowhere. I was numb, almost catatonic, hypnotized by the flames.

“Eventually, I was caught by the very people I used to take orders from, and honestly, I didn’t care. My life was over anyway. They said I’d ‘violated human rights conventions,’ and apparently, I’d made too much of a problem for them to bury it. They needed to make an example out of me. So they arrested me. Condemned me for becoming the very thing they created.”

Bitterness rises in my chest, and it takes all I have to swallow down the hate.

“I was cuffed, shackles on the ankles and all, hood over my head, and chained to a chair on a chartered flight out of the Middle East. I thought I was on my way back to America to rot in a military prison. So imagine my surprise when the hood was ripped off my head, and I found myself on a private jet sitting in front of a guy with a glass eye wearing a suit.”

“Agent O?”

I nod. “Yeah. He started talking almost immediately, saying my reputation preceded me and that he wanted to chat about my future. It was the second time in my life I’ve been offered a deal too good to refuse. Life in prison or become an operative for the Agency. In exchange, the charges would vanish, as long as I served them without question for however long they wanted.”

Raine’s hair stirs in the breeze. She closes her eyes like she’s letting the wind take something from her. When she opens them, she catches me staring.

“I actually said no at first. Eventually, after some discussion, it was agreed upon that I would serve as an Agency operative, completing ten assignments or ten years. Whichever came first. I don’t think they expected me to survive this long, honestly.”

Raine stills, it’s almost like a blanket of ice covers her body. “What?”

“That was five years ago. But this assignment with you? This is my tenth.”

The light in her eyes flickers and dulls, kind of like how a light bulb short-circuits before blowing a fuse. “What?”

“My contract with the Agency? It’s nearly done. This one with you is my last.”

Raine’s shoulders slump in a way I’ve not seen on her before. It’s similar to how a soldier looks in battle when they know they’ve lost. Defeated. She looks defeated.

“You’re going to be free?”

“Yeah.” I nod, realizing in this exact moment, this is about my freedom and not the fact that I’m a psychopath.

I grab a pair of chopsticks, snapping them in two. “How many missions do you have left?”

She pushes her sushi away, appetite gone. She’s packed it away along with the light in her eyes. “Too many.”

And just like that, the wall between us goes back up. It pisses me off that she gets to sit there and see underneath my scars, while barely showing hers.

“How many is too many?”

She tilts her head to face me. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what? Am I supposed to know or something?”

“I don’t have a contract with the Agency, Soren. There’s only one way out for me.”

“Which is?”

She levels a steely-eyed glare at me. “Death.”