Two days after my visit, we were informed that three idiots had been released from the hospital. Their parents had been advised to separate them, and given the fact that they were physically okay, there was no reason for them to continue remaining in the hospital. The only thing that had physically been wrong with them had been their penises which required surgery to drain the blood. However, it had been too late for the doctors to save the functionality of the appendages. The doctor's actual advice had been for them to be taken to separate psychiatric facilities, but the guardians of the idiots, just like my parents, valued their privacy and image above the health of their children. They were, however, receiving therapy sessions from the comfort of their home. I found myself once again in Sunshine's debt.
Ever since I had opened up to her, she had gone above and beyond in ensuring that my plans came to fruition. In the course of our scheme, I learned that she had an extensive network of people who had no qualms about dealing in illegal schemes, which was how we managed to keep track of the boys. From the moment they got admitted to the hospital, an investigator of sorts had been with them. He had also been willing to break into their apartments and plant cameras and sound transmitting devices all around their homes for an additional price. I had also visited Mercy, Claire, and I's mutual friend, who had been more than happy to hack into the boy's devices for free. This meant that I had access to everything they did with all their devices, and as long as they were in their apartments, we could watch them.
I allowed them to settle back into their homes on the first night. I used the shared connection on the clone phones Mercy had given me to set a morning alarm that would belt out Shepard's tone. I waited for them to fall asleep, which did not take long given that they were all on sleeping pills. As soon as they fell asleep, I lowered the temperature of the air conditioning, which they had thankfully connected to their phones. I wanted to see how much they could take before becoming crippled by their insanity. Sunshine's guy at my behest had tainted some of the groceries they had bought the day before they were released. I was not going to stop until they broke one way or another, and I was going to have a front seat. After a scrumptious dinner, I went to bed a little happier than I had been all week.
Bullets whizzed past us, barely missing me. I tried my best to remain alert to the sounds while keeping my eyes on my baby, who was trying her best to maintain the punishing speed we were running at. She was athletic and could hold her own in hand-to-hand combat. Just like every other agent, she had been trained for a year before being allowed to go into the field, even just as support personnel. When we got out of that compound, I would have a few choice words with our handler. I had repeatedly told him to exclude my baby from any potentially dangerous mission that had higher chances of backfiring. He had laughed in my face, but after a few less-than-ideal encounters that ended with his face multicolored, he had gone out of his way to replace my support when the risk was higher.
She turned a corner, and my heart dropped the few seconds she was out of my sight. I sped up, grabbed her arm, and dragged her along, unwilling to accommodate her any longer. I would rather she break a few bones instead of having her life brutally taken in a foreign country. She stumbled as I dragged her along, but steadied herself without slowing down. I had her yell as her weight shifted onto me, but I ignored her cry; wounds or breaks could heal, there was no recovery from death.
I almost cried with relief when our getaway car came into view. Robin drove right up to us and slowed down only long enough for us to get in before he peeled off. I closed the door of the moving car before turning to my baby, only to realize she was unconscious. My heart dropped to my soles for the fifth time that day. Frustration quickly welled up in my chest, but I pushed it down. I swore never to cause her harm in any way, but I had broken her ankles that were both red and swollen. Were we normal people, we would have been going to the hospital; then again, if we were normal, we would not be in this situation. I know Robin was driving us to the safe house where there would be a doctor waiting. He swerved to avoid an oncoming truck. I could not even yell at him to go faster, he was already breaking every traffic rule, trying to put as much distance as possible between us and the gang that had ambushed us.
To be fair, we were the ones who had gone out of our way to kill them; to us, they were nothing more than a nice fat check. I could not fault them for defending themselves, we were the ones to blame for being ill-prepared. Although I did not know why they had been sentenced to die, I was certain the next time we met none of them would walk out alive. If for nothing else, for making me injure my fragile baby.
As soon as we arrived in the compound, I did my best to gently carry my baby to the clinic area while going as fast as I could. I left her in the care of the resident doctor before making my way to the main office. I could not go back and punish those men but I could at the very least ensure that this screw up never happened again. I threw the office door open and stormed towards….
I had an amazing gift of tuning out my reality when I was in the middle of a fantasy. Under normal circumstances, one would have to physically shake me to bring me back to the present. That morning, however, my body reacted faster than my mind could comprehend at the odd sight that stood in front of me. When my mind finally caught up with the situation, I did my best to lift my jaw from the floor where it had fallen. I had seen and done plenty of things, enough to assume that nothing could shock me. However, seeing sunshine standing in my door frame balancing a breakfast tray in one hand and a bottle of wine in another with nothing more than my oversized t-shirt, trying her best to be seductive, floored me.
I had never seen Sunshine in anything shorter than a knee-length dress, and I had been under the assumption that she was trying to hide her scars underneath her long dark clothing. She did have scars littered all over her body, but nothing too shocking, nothing that was as apparent as the one on her face. She was smiling a coy smile that only added to my confusion, but not as much as the want that shone through from her eyes. I had an inkling that she might be harboring feelings for me; I would have to be both blind and deaf not to notice. I had never in a million years thought that she would make such an open and direct play. To say I was at a loss would have been a gross overstatement.
I remained frozen, unsure of what to do or say, but not Sunshine, at least not her that morning. She walked up to me, confident and determined, long gone was my demure housekeeper, in her place was a shameless temptress. Her pitch-black afro gleamed in the sun, and her chocolate skin glowed like something out of a daydream. I wanted to say something, but my mind remained blank. My mouth moved silently, forcing me to use my teeth to restrain my lower lip to stop the useless movement. Sunshine's amber eyes drifted from my eyes to my lips, and all of a sudden I felt parched. With eyes fixed on my lips, she slowly leaned towards me, the gesture finally breaking my stupor. I moved away just as she came close to my lips, leaving us near our noses, almost touching. She took a deep breath, her eyes drifting shut as if savoring that breath, and held it for a few seconds before standing up straight.
"While you were here dreaming, I managed to catch quite the opening show. Your alarm went off exactly on time, and the boys, of course, started their day screaming their heads off. It was quite the spectacle." She signed after setting down the tray and bottle on my bedside drawer
She gestured for me to sit up, to which I complied and set the tray on my lap. She went to the other side of the bed, lifted the sheets, and slid in as if it were part of our normal routine. Her actions continued to send shock waves to my mind and mixed signals to my heart; meanwhile, she went about as if this was an everyday occurrence. Even her breakfast tray was atypical, consisting of spicy pork ribs, sausages, samosas, and some air-fried potatoes.
"Don't worry, the house is clean and all my chores are done, so I figured we could spend the day in bed drinking wine and torturing the boys. There is no heavy lifting involved, and they have all had the tainted water, so it promises to be a very entertaining watch."
"What are you doing?" I had so many questions, but that seemed like the most pressing one.
"Nothing," She signed with a blank face. I began thinking I was in an alternate universe. "Just so you know, I used weed on the pork and potatoes. I did my best so you won't be able to smell it, but it's there."
"No, seriously, what the hell are you doing?" My voice slightly rising, although she could not hear my growing frustrations, she was just reading my lips.
"You are great at ignoring the reality that doesn't suit you. Just pretend we are close enough to have a meal together in bed. I will not force you to do anything you do not want to. It's just a day, in the entirety of your life, a day is nothing."
It was the way she signed it with the same blank face she had when she told me she had added drugs to our breakfast that shut me up. Her lack of expression made me feel as if I was the one being unreasonable, as if I was the one acting out a character and crossing lines. I found it hilarious that she was gaslighting me into accepting her weird antics, and in my twisted way, I respected that. She had decided to go after what she wanted everything else be damned, so what if the object of her desire was her boss. I had long given up on my high ground as her employer, given the things that we had done together, and my brain refused to provide me with an adequate rebuttal, so I picked up a samosa instead.
Sunshine took my silence as acceptance, so she went ahead and set up my laptop on its stand so that we could watch it without straining. She picked up two pillows and positioned herself against the headboard right next to me. Although I was being cajoled into her plans, staying and getting high in bed did not seem like a bad idea. I was making good progress on my book, so I could afford to take some time away. One of our stars was talking to his psychiatrist, he had been the only one to reach out for help. The other two had locked themselves up in their rooms. One had rap music turned all the way up while the other one sat terrified on his bed, jumping at the slightest sound.
"He is going to try and kill himself," Sunshine signed before pointing to the one who sat paranoid on his bed. "I mean, look at those crazy bloodshot eyes. He is a few nightmares away from trying to end it all."
I found myself at a loss again. When she addressed my concerns about her alarming behavior, she wore a blank face that painted me the crazy one. Yet here she was discussing a man taking his life with a cheerful expression as if it were an interesting film. I hated to admit it, but this version of Sunshine scared me even worse was the realization that this was probably who she was. Her quiet and calm demeanor camouflaged the stark raving lunatic that she was.
"I mean…you are not wrong, but could you pretend that you are not anticipating it or that you are not enjoying watching them suffer." She gave me an incredulous look as if I had said the stupidest thing she had ever heard.
"Why would I do this if it wasn't fun? They hurt you, and they are now paying for it. Don't act like you are not happier seeing them suffer under your hands."
I did enjoy seeing them suffer, but watching Sunshine shed her stoic persona to reveal the potential psychopath underneath both scared and excited me. If both she and I were in the deep end with no qualms about directly contributing to people's demise, who was supposed to temper us? With no voice of reason between us, how would we know when we had gone too far?
My attention was drawn back to the screen, the effects of the acid in the water were now prominent because the one listening to loud music was arguing with his mirror. The standoff lasted for a few more minutes before he staggered back, only to launch himself at the mirror. Despite that, the mirror surprisingly remained intact, which the boy interpreted as a challenge. He was either weak or the mirror was strong, as it took a few more punches before shattering under his constant abuse. Now faced with a broken mirror that must have reflected a dozen distorted images, the boy admitted defeat, falling to his knees and covering his ears with his now bloodied hands. I had long since forgotten about my strange morning and laughed along with Sunshine. Our fun was interrupted by the arrival of his therapist, who was currently struggling to sedate him. The timid one had climbed into his closet after calling for help and did not come out until his therapist arrived. When he emerged from the closet, his face was bloody, from trying to scratch his face off.