Miss Parker

I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me. Staring at Jarod, my mouth probably gaping open, I made a decision that, despite reasons against it, I knew to be irreversible.

Who would possibly kidnapp Broots, I wondered, before the answer came to me. Mister Raines, Lyle, my father… I just had to make my pick since there was absolutely no shortage of villains here.

I took a deep breath, then crossed over to the kitchen sink and opened the cupboard beneath it. Jarod watched as I took out a jar of chocolate cookies and unscrewed the cap. A second later his hand closed around mine, covering not only my fingers but also the car keys now dangling from them.

“You knew where they are?” he asked, mildly surprised.

“Smart of you to hide them where the most calories lurk,” I told him calmly, looking into his worried eyes.

“You are going to leave?”

I nodded. “Just let me do it. You know that you cannot prevent me.”

He sighed and we both knew that I was right.

“I don’t want you to go,” he started a half-hearted attempt at convincing me. “This is about the most obvious way they could choose to get hold of you.”

“Not if I am smart,” I disagreed. “Do you have a gun?”

He slowly let go of my hand and shook his head.

“It is too dangerous, Parker. If you don’t worry about yourself, at least worry about the baby.”

Damn, he knew how to make me sway.

“Jarod, Broots was the only one who was ready to believe me and stand by my side. And this is the Centre we are talking about. They are going to kill him! There’s no way I’ll let his daughter grow up without her father due to my being a coward.”

Jarod shook his head again, but less determined and rather tiredly.

“But I am coming with you.”

“I guess I am supposed to go alone,” I said and made for the door, the metal of the keys warming up inside my clenched fist.

His hand went around my upper arm and he turned me around gently.

There was no room for arguments when he said: ”And I don’t care.”

Thomas

I had been doing lots of different things in the past. In a way you could say that I was some sort of Pretender, too, because I never visited a City twice, but always knew everyone from the corrupt major to the roughly charming mafioso running the pizza place round the corner. But before the Centre sent a troop of hitmen to force me into returning their money to them, I had always considered my work for them the coolest job I’d ever had.

Now that the first thing I saw of Parker were her incredibly long legs exiting the car, I perfectly remembered why. Well, it had almost been too easy back then. I had been warned that she could be a real bitch and everything and that she had always preferred an obedient boytoy to a real relationship. The fact that her father had told me about the hidden room behind the wall upstairs had come in handy, of course. The fact that a skinny girl like her could be lured with Chinese food, however, had come as quite a surprise. And there she was now, her cheeks flushed by the cold air and the look in her eyes very determined. Damn, I had forgotten what a hot chick she was.

I wasn’t surprised by Jarod making an entrance. When I had first met him it had been almost comical how he had tried to subtly talk me into meeting Parker- quite the coincidence. Well, at least I knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t allow the woman carrying his child to meet a kidnapper on her own.

Broots, whose neck I had casually wrapped one arm around while the other hand held my gun against his temple, struggled weakly but a slight shove made him freeze. Poor pathetic little guy. I felt almost sorry for him, but some people are born to be tools. And Broots was one of those.

“Hi Parker! You look incredibly beautiful!” I yelled, truthfully, as she approached across the snowy parking-lot I had chosen to met her on. She walked slowly and carefully, but when she heard my voice, she looked up from her feet and stared at me, then suddenly slipped.

Jarod was at her side quickly and steadied her. She looked quite dazed. Maybe pregnancy dizziness. How cute.

Broots gave an anguished howl. He had probably realized what he had got her into. In his fear caused by my firing a warning shot into his direction earlier had convinced him that it would benefit his health if he called her.

I smiled at how I had taken a look at Sydney’s cellphone and found Jarod’s number right away, which he had saved under the alias “Jay” definetly lacking some of the imagination I usually associate with psychiatrists.

“I’m really sorry that I have to do that to you,” I told Parker and was surprised to realize that I meant it. She had been sweet during our relationship and the desperate tears she had shed for me while she had waited for the ambulance had been very touching. She didn’t react to my provocation, but stopped opposite me.

“Let him go,” she demanded and I shrugged, shoving the trembling guy into Jarod with reasonable force. With one swift step I had crossed the distance between me and Parker and held her in my grasp.

Her skin smelled sweet and I had to resist the urge to bury my face in her neck as I had done when we had been together.

“Bastard…” she hissed between clenched teeth as I pressed the gun into her temple and let my fingertips pointedly brush her stomach.

“Be careful, Parker,” I warned, but she just turned her head towards me and while her lips almost touched my neck she whispered: “You be careful.”

And then I saw stars as her fist came up. The blow against my chin had been so severe that for a second I was disorientated. The next thing I knew, she had kicked me in the leg and hit me in the head again. I tried to grab her, but she was too quick for me.

“Serves you right!” She said, wrestling the gun out of my hand. “Attacking pregnant ladies is not exactly gentleman’s behaviour.”

I felt myself slip on the frozen ground as she shoved me, but was able to catch my balance.

Everything had happened so quickly that I didn’t reach Parker before she had already beaten up Thomas with surprising strength. I guess the fact that she had surprised him had also come to her aid, but as soon as I was by her side, he was already lurching towards her again. She was surprised and as a result the gun nearly dropped from her hands. I ran forward and brought my body between her and him. Parker retreated, the gun wavering in her hands as she remained staring at Thomas whose front teeth were covered in blood.

“Take the car and leave, Parker. I’ll take care of…” I was interrupted by Gates’ attempt to strangle me and could only gurgle at her. Still she understood me and grabbed a still panting Broots by the sleeve, dragging him into the car with her.

Having received another blow, I became impatient and, despite my initial rejection of senseless violence, hit back.

Broots

The car began to fishtail on the frozen ground as Miss Parker hit the accelerator even harder. Still expertly maneuvering the vehicle towards the highway, her eyebrows came closer together in concentration.

“Quit goggling at me like that, moron!” she suddenly snarled, not taking her eyes off the road. “I just saved your sorry ass and I just don’t feel like wrapping the car around a tree anytime soon.”

As far as her behaviour was concerned, this could have been a normal day months ago, when we’d still be hunting for Jarod.

“Shouldn’t we go back and help Jarod?” I asked her, as soon as we had hit the highway.

“Actually we should,” she replied warily. “But Jarod talked me into a major guilt-trip on the way here. Going on all about how I should leave the heroics to him- for once.”

She sighed.

“But he’s right. You’ve exceeded the number of fistfights a pregnant woman should get into… it being zero-“

“Oh come on, shut up!” she snapped, but slightly better-naturedly than usual, then turned her head. “We’re heading to Blue Cove so I can rip my sorry excuse for a brother apart.”

My heartbeat quickened. Had my initial response been correct?

“Miss Parker!” I exclaimed, marvelling at her vicious grin. “Good to have you back!”

My furious desperation had even made me google “amnesia” and reading about loss of memory and identity due to major shock had made me shake my head. What on earth could make a person feel so desperate that they would commit emotional suicide and shut out their memories alltogether? To give up their whole life? And would a reminder of that most horrible of moments serve to bring back what had deliberately been lost by a part of the brain that instinctively knew that the mind wouldn’t be able to bear the burden?

With my first gaze at Thomas Gates all these questions had been answered at once. Up until now, memories had been returning in scenes or fragments, gradually coming back to me and playing inside my head as if in real-time.

This time it hit me like a slap in the face.

I had been scared by the memory of my miscarriage, the pain and the heartache- but this had been downright frightening. It felt as if someone had flipped a light switch and suddenly everything was back.

When I had closed my eyes the moment I’d slipped on the ground, falling with the terrible knowledge that Thomas Gates was the root of all evil that had happened I hadn’t known, but a second later, when I’d opened my eyes again, safely held by Jarod, I’d suddenly had all my memories back.

And there were these strange two Miss Parkers inside me again. The old one and the new one, more gentle, more understanding and madly in love with Jarod. None of these two seemed to be me. Or fit me. Like a pullover that you owned in two wrong sizes and thus didn’t want to wear.

But my determination hadn’t ceased and it had been pure bliss to hit Thomas in the face with all the force I had in me. And that was a lot.

I remembered now how the doorbell had rung. I saw clearly in front of me how the door had revealed Thomas, standing there with a lopsided grin. I could also connect the weird dream I had woken from thrashing in my bed with Jarod’s worried face hovering over me.

“Parker,” Thomas had simply said and my world had collapsed. My head had been spinning, my fingers cramping into the side of the door, had been hurt by a loose piece of wood that had made them bleed. It had felt as if someone had turned back time, but back then he had been supposed to take me in his arms.

Now I was shivering.

“Oh my god… How…? How…?” I had stammered, mind clouded over with the severe battle of happiness to have him back and fear of what that meant. He’d led me inside and sat me down on my couch, then told me that the Centre knew that I was planning to escape to not be forced to carry out their plan. He’d shaken me roughly, reminding me of how my life worked: “You are not going to leave. You will do as you have been told. There is no future for you. Am I not the symbol of that?”

He told me that our relationship had always been a farce, that they had been paying him to get me pregnant. I had not understood. Why they wanted Jarod’s and my child I realized, but why Thomas’s? He had sneered at me in a way that had broken my heart, then told me that the Centre regarded it his fault that I had lost his baby because of the manner he had staged his death in. They had taken the money from him and would only return it if he’d convince me that I had to go through with the Centre’s plan. Even back then, in my dazed state, I had known what they really paid him for: To break me. They had known that with him alive and the only proper relationship I’d ever had being a lie, my will would be broken.

What they hadn’t expected had been my mind’s reaction. Obviously they had believed me to be stronger than I really was.

When he’d left I had started to cry, then fallen asleep and woken up to the insecurity of not knowing whether I had dreamed him having been there as I had often in the past. Sometimes I had even imagined that I had seen his spirit. I knew now that I’d been wrong. So wrong…

Before I’d known it, I had grabbed my handbag and made for my car, the upstairs window still wide open and the wind blowing in. I had hit the accelerator, not consciously choosing the road that led to Broots’ house. Finally there I had thrown myself onto him, aware of the fact that he was probably the only man who’d ever really loved me. Well, except for Jarod whose affections I had not been able to admit to myself even then.

He’d held me and I had still been unable to convince me of the fact that everything would be fine. I had fled again, got in the car again and hit the city. In a frenzy I had had my hair dyed blonde- as far away from the former color as possible -as far away from me as possible-, I had bought clothes that I would not have even looked at before, but even looking different hadn’t helped. I had never felt that desperate in my life. Suddenly everything seemed dark and the prospect of acting according to the Centre’s plan inevitable.

And then it had happened, my mind had shut down and while still on the fast lane, my memories had slipped away. Not one by one but all at once. Then, terrified at the idea of not knowing who I was, I had lost control over my car. And I had cherished it in a weird way. Maybe the last conscious thought that had remained from the old Miss Parker.

Finally now, with regaining my memories, the control I’d lost that moment in the car had returned to me and I had relished it while physically lashing out at Thomas- the reason for all my sorrow.

Suddenly our car is hit. Miss Parker swears while I cry out in surprise. Once again we slither on the snowy ground and even a Miss Parker has troubles to keep the car steady. She manages for about a minute until we heavily hit the crash barrier. Once the car has come to a halt I bend over Miss Parker who is groaning.

“Is the baby alright?” I ask and realize that same moment that she has taken her hands off the stirring wheel when the crash has seemed inevitable, to protect her stomach instead.

“I think she’s okay,” she says, very quietly and, one hand still on her stomach, feels for my arm. “You okay, too?” she mutters.

Another car, presumably the one that has caused our current situation, has pulled up next to us and out steps Lyle, all smug and well-groomed. He opens the door and peers in.

“Well, hello!” he greets us cheerfully. “What a surprise! My beloved sister and her lapdog. Or shall I say laptop, computer geek?”

I seriously don’t know where he picks up these dumb jokes. He probably makes them up himself. Maybe to make people wonder so they don’t realize right away that he has now reached into his coat pocket and produced a gun.

“Now, Sis. We’re going home.”

Miss Parker has no choice than to get out of the car, but obviously Lyle has classically underestimated me. I jump out of the car and run towards them to save her.

A second later a shot rings in my ears and I explode with pain. I watch the snow turn an ugly red around my fallen form before darkness descends upon me.