Only the unknown frightens men. But once a man has faced the unknown, that terror becomes the known. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy. – Proverbs of Solomon

Briel felt inordinately grateful for the flurry of drops that fell from the hovering grey sky. If she had not had the hooded parka to hide her face, someone may have seen the flood of tears that fell from her eyes. Not knowing how even to deal with the fact that she cried, Briel could not imagine the travail of explaining to someone else the reason for her sadness. She had let herself fall: to naïveté, to wishful thinking, to her desires over her rational thought.

For the first time in her adult life, she had let herself believe a connection was worth the risk, and the risk had proven far worse than she had imagined. Because when it crumbled, it took her strength and a good measure of her determination with it. She had latched onto Nick Alexander with no real resistance, and he had been proven as damaging as any other person she had avoided since her parents died.

How many times had Briel struggled with regret for her repudiation of her family? She could not count, because even the thought sent her into denial - to the gym to train or the gun range to practice or even, in desperate situations, to the telephone to fill her mind with the trivial occurrences of someone else's life. If the thought of her family who had been cold and dead for seven years could drive her to such drastic avoidance, how neurotically would she have to repress the thought of a man, warm and alive, who she had assigned far too much importance?

She yearned for motion, anything that could leave the thought of betrayal behind her, but she could not just mindlessly run away; she had to follow her plan. For some unfathomable reason, the bus to Rouen dragged behind schedule, and Briel worked hard not to growl in frustration.

Of all the voices that could have broken into her distraction, the one that assailed her from across the city center seemed the most out of place, as alien as if it had come from another galaxy. The cold unreality of the emotions that washed over her sent her into a fit of anger, and she worked to gather her expression before the eyes that accompanied the voice could encounter her own. If he ever saw her cry...Briel couldn't imagine the response.

“Thank God,” Liam declared agitatedly. “I was afraid I would be too late.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Briel tried to feel more irritation than relief, but she had just lost her support, and Liam was at least a known entity. In fact, he owed his entire existence in her world to her need to foster denial, to ignore the deeper questions of life and just press through into her more superficial and easier to manage ambitions. His presence might seem suspect, but certainly he had better reason to know where she would be than anyone else – he had spent more time with her in her adult life than any other human.

Though she could not clearly view Liam's reaction, between the tumult of the rain and the blur from her dried tears, Briel caught a slight smirk cross his lips before his jaw tightened into determination.

“Let's get out of here. It's not safe,” he asserted, and grabbing her by the hand, he yanked her mercilessly back up the arched, cobbled road that she had fled moments before. With the rain weighing down the hood of her parka, Briel followed Liam blindly as he pulled her for a hundred yards and then dragged her onto a narrow pathway and into a courtyard. Scattered under her feet she spied hundreds of flower petals, battered victims of the torrential rain that had ripped them from their mothers. Briel glanced up at the beautiful little shrubs that rested in planters placed measuredly around the perimeter of the square, and she couldn’t help but sympathize.

Liam tugged Briel to a wall, protected from above by a shallow porch where vines covered and encroached upon the aging stones of the facade. Without ceremony, he pulled back her hood and began to kiss her, entrapping her between the wall and his body. Somehow, the heat from him burned through her parka and warmed it like a furnace, and for a few minutes, she indulged herself, conceding to his kisses as a therapy for her pain. Her mind finally interrupted the sensations, when his hand slid into her back pocket, and she leaned back.

“Liam,” she panted, “stop,” she commanded as she gripped his wrist and pulled his hand from her pocket.

His lips at her throat, he arrested his movement and laughed in his typical fashion. “I fly half-way around the world to rescue you, and all you can say is 'Stop'? That's not very nice, Briel.”

With a huff of indignation, Briel completely arrested her urge to indulge. Not going to manipulate me, bastard. “I'm running for my life, and you try to take advantage of me? That's not very nice either.” She responded icily.

As she had spoken, Liam had pulled away from her and now leaned casually against the wall to which he had pinned her. Though the posture appeared relaxed, Briel recognized the pose as an act, his typical attempt at play-acting concern. He usually followed the performance with a ramping up of whatever sentiment he had left for the moment before – anger, passion, intimidation.

“How did you find me?” she asked as innocently as she could manage. She was having trouble restraining a sulking manner, true disappointment gripping her at Nick’s betrayal. Liam, though, was in rare form.

Reaching out to brush the damp tresses from her face, he rested the back of his hand on her shoulder and continued playing with her hair. “Briel, you have been very irrational of late. And very careless.”

Briel did not want to listen to his lectures, especially since they matched her own self-recrimination. With a deep breath, she glared determinedly into the obsidian of his eyes. “I am kind of busy, Liam. What is it you want from me exactly?”

Again, the corner of his mouth lifted, “Don't you think you've attempted this foolish self-reliance long enough? The fact that I could find you is proof that you should have asked for help.”

“On the contrary,” Briel taunted stubbornly. “What makes me so good is that I can adapt to whatever happens, and I can do so more easily when I am alone.”

Unexpectedly, Liam grinned, sliding his hand behind her head and pulling her mouth to his, forcefully holding her to him for several seconds.

Finally fed up with his effrontery, Briel wove her arms behind his neck as if in embrace, then grabbed him firmly by the hair and wrenched his head back slightly. When their lips released, she pressed her cheek into his chest lest he attempt to reposition himself to continue his assault.

Though her gesture seemed aggressive, Liam laughed heartily at her outburst. “Oh, Briel. Do you really want to play that way? Fine. I like it when you fight me,” and he attempted to push her back to gain a better angle.

Determined, Briel clung to him to keep from a vulnerable position. He had always used her physical attraction to him as a distraction from important discussions, and because she never intended any serious discussion with him, it had not ever mattered before. At the moment, to let him distract her was to put herself in danger. “Liam,” she insisted. “This has to stop. If you want to talk to me, you are going to have to sit down and have a conversation with me. You are not going to persuade me by assaulting me.”

Liam scoffed amusedly, “Assaulting you? Briel, be reasonable.”

“If I let go, will you promise not to try to kiss me again.”

Relaxing his grip on her, Liam huffed a laugh and acquiesced to Briel's demands. “I would never kiss you if you didn't want me to, Baby.”

“Promise!”

“Fine,” he threw his hands out in mock surrender. “I promise I won't kiss you until we've talked about what happens next. How's that?”

Briel released her arms and backed away from him, her eyes fixed untrustingly on his amused smirk. “That will do for now. Why don't we find some place drier to talk?”

“Okay, but it can't be in too public of a place. You've been compromised here.”

“Compromised how?”

Glancing around the courtyard, Liam grabbed Briel's hand and began to walk again, barely giving Briel time to raise her hood. “Not here. I know a better place.”

Tacitly, Briel wondered how Liam knew anything about her hometown; still, she followed him. Liam led her up the narrow corridor past the ancient church and to a short, dead-end passage between the castle and a cliff that overlooked the valley nearby. Sandwiched between two shut-down retail shops, a bar sat partially underground, its yellow lamps pressing ineffectually against the thick, oppressive greyness of the day.

He led her down the four concrete steps and through the glass-front door, passing the first of several rows of tall café-style tables and opting for a small round booth in the back. In the front, a few locals parked in what appeared semi-permanent positions, watching the French football on the television over the bar and smoking various unusually-shaped cigarettes.

Though she cringed from the contact, Briel did not remove her hand from Liam's as they sat down, and he actually intertwined their fingers, placing both their hands on the table before them.

“I guess you got my message,” he asserted mysteriously. Briel had no concept of what he meant. “I was afraid that the phone wasn't right, since you had transferred so many times, but I hoped...” he trailed off, gazing across the bar and out the front windows.

“What are you talking about, Liam? What message?”

Liam leaned down to stare directly into her eyes as if he couldn't make out her meaning. “Briel, I told you that they would be waiting for you in Paris. Isn't that how you avoided capture?”

“That was you? I thought it –” Her breath sped as she considered her earlier conversation with Nick…not remember conversations we had…She had accused Nick of lying to her, and maybe he had. But what if, instead of Jase, Nick had teamed with Liam? Not all three, certainly. Jase had too much ego to deal with Liam, but would Nick? They shared nothing in common. Unless they are the jilted lovers club… “How did you find me?” she demanded aloud.

Instead of answering, Liam held something up in his hand.

Briel gritted her jaw when she saw what it was. Apparently, when he had slid his hand into her pocket, he had stolen Nick’s card. “Give that back, Liam. And answer my question.” She reached for the card, but he pulled it out of reach.

“Nick Alexander.”

Liam reached his other hand and held the card up between four fingers as if to examine it.

“Yes,” Briel hissed, glancing around her to make sure she wasn’t drawing attention. “Nick Alexander. It was a thing for a mission. Now answer the question. How did you find me?”

“I just answered you,” Liam grinned, flipping the card up between two fingers. “Nick Alexander.”

“He told you where I was?” she exclaimed. How many people had it in for her?

“Told me?” Liam scoffed. “God, no. I used this.” He held up the card again.

“A business card?”

“Didn’t it seem odd to you that this card had no actual information on it?”

Briel stared at Liam, her mind trying to make significance of his words.

“Nick Alexander. This card, Briel. It’s a tracker.”

At a loss, Briel blinked into the darkness. A tracker…had she accepted and facilitated the means of her own demise? Staring across at Liam, realizing how careless she her behavior during the entirety of the past month, she had to wonder exactly which monolith to her stupidity would effect her downfall.

“A tracker…” Briel echoed without strength.

“And it led me right to you.”

“So he didn’t tell you, he let you access the tracker?” Briel wondered.

Liam huffed a laugh. “No way. That was more complicated, and I needed an assist from someone a little more comfortable with computers. Fortunately, I had your desktop and the access it offered. There was lots of information on the team app, and it led me right to your buddy, Ted. From what my resource told me, it was fairly simple to hack his signal by reading the code of your exchanges with him.”

“Hack Ted’s signal?”

“Well, Nick, as you know,” Liam explained. “I knew you were lying to me. I knew there was someone else. I never understood what you saw in him.” Liam narrowed his eyes at Briel, and she read his obvious jealousy.

“If you’ve read my messages…” The thought made her blood boil. “…then you know that I had no idea who Ted was while we were communicating.”

“And yet, beyond reason, you continued to talk to Ted. Like you couldn’t help yourself. Because apparently, you have enough of a thing for Nick that even when you didn’t know who he was, you felt compelled to pursue him.”

“But not when I was with you, Liam.” She suddenly realized what it looked like, why the situation might stir Liam’s anger. “I didn’t connect again with Nick – even as Ted – until you and I had broken up. When I told you there was no one, there was no one.” Why was she explaining this to Liam? He had no right to anger over what had happened after they broke up, yet instead of grilling him for justification of why he had come across the ocean to find her, he had somehow compelled her to justify herself.

Liam smiled up at the dim chandelier. “I mean, there was someone. There was Nick. You were just in denial. And if I hadn’t warned you about the danger at the airport, your Nick would have fumbled you right back into slavery without giving you the opportunity to accept my help.”

Lowering her face to her hands, Briel stared at the tabletop. She hadn’t actually believed it, had just been trying to cover all her bases by cutting off Nick, but now Liam had confirmed it. “There was a woman in the airport,” Briel began.

“Yes. There was a woman. At least you saw her.”

“Of course I saw her. She wasn't very good, Liam. She didn't even try to intercept me. It's never been that easy to throw someone off my trail. I don't trust it.”

As usual, Liam responded with laughter. “Briel, you are incredible. You assume everyone else is as competent as you are, and it shocks you when they're not.”

“No, that's not true. This lady didn't even come close.”

“Then how did she follow you here?” he asked accusatorily, sliding around the booth and wrapping his arm around her shoulders. He pointed out the front window where a tall, feminine form stood silhouetted against the window panes. Briel unconsciously leaned against Liam in her surprise. “She's been following us since we left the courtyard.”

“Who is she?” Briel wondered in a hushed tone. She grew suddenly aware that Liam had leaned his face close to her neck, and she could feel his breath. Her anxiety restrained her from recoiling.

“Come with me,” he whispered, wrapping his arm around her waist and lifting her from the booth in one swift movement. Just before Liam pulled her into a corridor, the woman turned and Briel recognized her face.

“But that's Alodie. She wanted to meet me for lunch...”

“Sssh,” Liam commanded, and drew Briel to the end of the hall to a shadowed, unlit doorway. As they reached the door, Liam turned the knob and yanked futilely against its bolted resistance. “Just a minute.”

Reaching into his belt, he extracted the tool that the Team always used for picking locks and proceeded to open the door in about fifteen seconds. He then pulled Briel through the doorway into utter blackness.