We’ve already gotten instructions from CORE on Mom’s cover story: a horrible car accident while overseas on an assignment. The car crash is just another lie I’ll have to repeat over and over again for the rest of my life. I don’t know what happened to her body. I get nauseous every time I think about her rotting away in some shallow grave on Torres’s property or decaying at the bottom of the sea or reduced to ashes in a fire pit. That’s the part that will keep me up at night.
Mom’s not the first Black Angel they’ve lost. She won’t be the last. I know CORE and the other operatives are doing everything they can to find Torres, but as each day passes, I already feel their intensity, their determination to find him and bring him to justice starting to fade. I’m not naive. This won’t always be their top priority. Soon there will be new missions to complete, new hostages to rescue, new terrorists to take down. Elizabeth Hillis, her strength and kindness and bravery, will be talked about in hushed tones. When people speak of her, they’ll call her a hero. But eventually, people will forget and her death won’t be remembered as a horrible tragedy, a great loss for the agency and for the country, but just another casualty of the business.
But I won’t forget. I won’t forget the look of horror in her eyes as Torres pulled the trigger. I won’t forget the blood and the tears and the lashings and the beatings I know she endured. I won’t forget the love she gave me every day, the good she could have done in the world if he just would have let her walk away.
I close my eyes, flashes of her flood my mind. Mom in her robe the night before the last mission. Mom kissing my cheek as I finish the last bite of my breakfast. Mom pulling me on her lap as she braids my hair into two long pigtails. I think about Mom’s favorite picture of us that she kept on her nightstand. I’m about five years old, sitting on Mom’s lap, my hair freshly braided. My mouth is open and my almond eyes are so squinty, they’re almost closed shut. I’m laughing like a maniac. Mom has her arms wrapped around me, her cheek pressed up against mine. She’s smiling so big in that picture. I wonder what we were laughing about. And I wonder if I’ll ever feel that happy again.
My mind pushes away each memory, knowing I never will. A tear slides down my cheek as that missing piece of me surpasses throbbing and crosses over into piercing pain. For me, the world will never look as colorful. The moon will never seem as bright. My laugh will never be as loud. My smile will never be as wide. Santino Torres took away the most important person in my life. And without her, he’s stripped away every piece of me that was good.
But there’s one thing he can’t take away. He can’t take my anger. He can’t steal the rage that’s beginning to flicker at my core. For now, it’s just a spark, but soon it will be a flame, then a fire, then an uncontrollable inferno. Torres doesn’t know it yet, but when he pulled that trigger, he signed his own death certificate.
I’m coming for you, Torres, my mind whispers. I’m coming.