Penmanship

Anna Parrish

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Act of Betrayal    

 

 

Lamentations 1:2 "...She has none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies."

Chapter One

Maggie heard him coming up the stairs, soft steps she shouldn’t have been able to hear, but then, her ears had always been her best quality. He was good with that silent stepping, but he stood no chance against those ears of hers. It was Ray, she knew, Ray with the tousled, chestnut curls and snapping, green eyes. She knew it was him from the pattern and strength of the steps. Sure enough, Ray came into the room, bursting through the door, kicking it open with one strong kick, gun held in front, ready to fire. She sat at the table, quiet, still, her hands on the surface, palms up. She knew better than to move. He would shoot; the state he was in now, that self-righteous state would drive him to it. He’d never think about it afterwards either. She had been that way once, one of the best BSI had to offer, second to only George Hall, even at her young age. Hall had been grooming her to take over for him. Maybe that was why...

What good would it do to dwell on that? Would it change anything? Would it erase the idea that she had betrayed them?

No.

Would it alter the past so that they looked elsewhere instead of at her?

No.

Would it make them believe her when she said she was not guilty?

No.

She wasn’t, but...

Her name was Maggie Graves. She was twenty-eight with short, dark hair, worn sleek to just below her ears. Her brown eyes, so normally full of life and vitality, now held only deep, dark depression. Though he saw the emotion, he didn’t understand it. It had never been in her eyes before.

"Hello, Meyer." There had been a time she had called him Ray, but that was before.

"I have to take you in." He wasn’t apologizing. His tone was cool, distant. That hurt worse than the charges placed against her she had always considered Meyer her friend.

Obviously, she was wrong. A friend didn’t turn against another friend.

"I know." Her voice was quiet, showing her exhaustion. She had been running for so long... so long, and she was tired, tired of running, tired of hiding, of waiting for them to catch her. She was glad it was over.

"Don’t try to escape; you’ll never make it," he warned. "There are men on the roof, men surrounding this building.

"Did that ever stop me from trying before?" she asked softly. The despondency was so obvious in her voice. She held up her hands, slowly. He looked at her, suspicious of a trick. She sighed wearily. "I’m tired of running, Meyer, tired of hiding, of looking over my shoulder. I want to get this over with." He clamped the cuffs around her wrist. "Where’s O’Brien?"Yeah, O’Brien, not Lewis, for O’Brien wasn’t her friend either. His words still rang in her ears:

"Where the hell is that bloody bitch?"

She had heard him the other day for she was hiding in the wall of the closet.

"Where the hell is that bloody bitch?"

Bitch... He had called her a bitch...

"He’s at the Culver house. We knew you’d be at one or the other."

Yeah, because she had placed those calls to them herself.

She didn’t ask about Hall - she knew he’d be at Headquarters, waiting...

For her... to be brought in.

Meyer pulled her up, shoved her forward, treating like one of the bad men they were always bringing in.

A friend?

No.

Not a friend.

He pulled out his Cell phone and clicked the transmit button.. "I’ve got her. I’m bringing her in."

The men outside, once her friends, were all silent. All of them stared at her with hard, unforgiving eyes.

She had betrayed them.

Maggie hadn’t but no one had believed her. The evidence was so overwhelming even her friends thought she had.

Her friends...

No, not her friends.

Friends didn’t turn against friends.

A small, bitter laugh escaped her. Meyer looked at her with sharpness, but she refused to meet his eyes.

Her friends...

"I wish I had betrayed them now," she thought as he shoved her in his car. "I wish I had. It would have served them right." She cursed them all, very bitterly.

At BSI headquarters, Meyer took her to an interrogation room, pushed her into a chair. . He unfastened the cuffs from one wrist and placed it around the metal rung of the chair and then left. Maggie sat there, waiting, knowing they were trying to psych her out. She had done the very same thing herself to many prisoners. The word, prisoners, sent chills up and down her spine. She was a prisoner, their prisoner. She knew every step they would take for she had used them herself, over and over, against others. She knew the hurt and the fear and the...

She rubbed her temple. The pain in her head was coming back, little by little.

Two hours later, George Hall came into the room, a folder in his hand. His pale blue eyes were hard, chiseled points of pure ice and rage. The lighting in the room revealed his receding hairline, the whitish blond mixed with the fading auburn. He was from Scotland, was George Hall He had been here long enough to erase most of his accent but when he was upset or angry, his Scottish accent came through loud and clear. She met his eyes and refused to look away. He saw the despondency but he chose to ignore it. His voice showed just how angry he was. "You led us a merry chase, Maggie."

"I’m here now."

"Because Meyer found you."

"Because I let him find me. You know me better than that." She should have said nothing.

He flung the folder down, scattering the contents. "How dare you! How dare you! You betrayed BSI, you betrayed Britain."

"No."

He only stared at her in disgust. "You betrayed my faith in you."

"And that thought bothers you worse than the other, doesn’t it?" she asked and then immediately knew she shouldn’t have. He struck her. She could feel the blood welling in her mouth. She swallowed it, ignoring the pain from the cut inside. She had spent the last eight years in his bed, and he hit her. Her heart cried out in anguish for she still loved him, God help her, though the sound of that agony never reached her lips.

He had hit her.

She would never forgive him.

She had shared his bed, his body, his dreams, and still, he had hit her. It ripped at her soul; it tried to shred it, but she lowered her face to hide what she was feeling.

He had struck her.

She finally murmured, "I was set up."

"Oh, aye? Every shred of evidence we have points to you."

"I know. That’s why I ran. I knew..."

"You knew?" he demanded.

She gave up. "I’ve already been tried and convicted, haven’t I? You’ve already judged me, haven’t you? Do whatever you have to... Mr. Hall." She would no longer call him George; she had lost the right to do that through no fault of her own. Besides, first names should only be amongst friends, and he wasn’t her friend.

Not anymore.

Had he ever been?

She doubted it.

"Yes, I will, but I won’t use pain against you. We both know it is nothing for you to weather pain, is it?"

"Calcutta," she whispered and he nodded. "We had a riot getting out of that one, didn’t we, sir?" Just for a moment, her face had lit up with the joy of that memory. That was the first time in his bed, her first time ever with anyone.

His anger flared up. He screamed, "Meyer!"

She lowered her head. Her pain pill, her last one, had worn off. The headache was back, horrible and unrelenting. Four months ago, the doctor had told her it was a tumor on her brain, a tumor in a very bad spot. It needed to come out, or she would die... in six months, she would die. Well, all she had left was two months now. Four months had passed since that day Thie betrayal struck right after that doctor visit, someone had set her up, and she had run. Maggie couldn’t go to another doctor, to a hospital, couldn’t have it taken out. Her breathing altered with the pain but she did the very best she could to hide it from them. She was dying and in a way, that would be a blessing.

Maggie was tired, so very tired. She wanted rest, she needed it. Just to lie down and close her eyes and not have to worry about someone capturing her. Well, death would take care of that, wouldn’t it? Maggie sighed. Maybe if she told them, maybe... No... What would she get from them? Support? Sympathy? Her death was no longer their concern. When they stopped being her friends, it all stopped, the caring, the need to share and be comforted. Let them do what they would with her. It no longer mattered. She wanted an end to this.

If she had looked up, if they had seen her eyes, if they had seen the pain, it might have made a difference to them.

Then again...

Things change, people alter, events twist, and this was a twisted moment in her life.

She wanted a finality to the whole thing.

So she could rest, so she could sleep without fear.

And death was the big sleep, wasn’t it? A final ending to the pain?

Yes, thank God, it would be.

Curly haired Meyer came in carrying a tray, a bottle and a needle placed upon it. He sat it on the table in front of Mr. Hall. Mr Hall filled the needle. She did not fight him when he took her arm into his. He jabbed with the needle, deliberately hurting her. She might have reacted had the headache not been there. But it was and she didn’t care how rough he got. It didn’t matter, not anymore.

She could feel the nausea began.

"Lord," she prayed, "Let there be an end to this. I’m so weary."