Originally published in Houston Baptist University's Corners in November 2016.

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“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been… two years, I think, since my last confession.”

The penitent speaks with an Irish drawl that slurs her words. Her soft grey eyes are fixated on the ground; her hair - normally beautiful, flowing blonde - is unkempt, a result of her sleepless previous night. The screen keeps a visible barrier between her and Father Murdock, but had she been facing him, he would have seen her hands that won’t stop fidgeting and legs that won’t stop shaking. In her hands is her rosary, beads as green as the hills of her homeland with shamrocks sparsely decorating the surface. She runs her thumbs over the cross at the end, fingers brushing against the figure of her savior.

This church isn’t her home church; this country isn’t her home. She is a stranger in these lands, but she needs an ear.

More than that, she needs the help of her Father to calm the storm inside of her.

“I’ve…” she takes a breath, holding it in while she tries to form her words, “witnessed a murder, Father, and I—” All at once, the wind is knocked out of her lungs, and she shudders, choking on the unfinished sentence. Tears form in her eyes; she wipes them away with her sleeve while futilely trying to even out her breathing. “I can’t. I-I just can’t, Father, I’m sorry.” Had she not been seated, her legs would have collapsed out from under her.

She must look absolutely mental to him right about now, walking into a church she’s never been to before, trembling like she just came off of the streets. Nothing like the person she was when she first landed in the States days ago.

Father Murdock’s voice drifts over from the other side of the screen, calm and soothing, “Relax, my child. Take your time and breathe.” He starts counting off seconds between her breaths, guiding her until she has a normal, slow pace again. Silence falls as they both go quiet, and she retreats into her mind again.

“I-I can see it in my head, clear as day, Father. A man d-died, and I… couldn’t stop it. I didn’t stop it. I could’ve, I swear. And- and his killer is still at large. Christ, I just let him go.”

“Language.”

She chuckles, softly, not because of amusement but because the reprimand thankfully grounds her back in reality again. “I’m sorry, Father.”

There’s a long pause, and for some reason, she wonders if Father Murdock has left to try and phone the authorities. It’s absurd of an idea because she can still hear him breathing on the other side, but… that’s what she would do, in his shoes.

“Are the authorities aware of this murder?”

She shakes her head, unsure, but he can’t see her, anyway. When she speaks, her voice cracks, raspy and quiet. Solemn. “We are the authorities, Father.”

*****

“Tell it to me again.”

“Quinn, we already—”

“I don’t want you making a bloody mess of this, Sullivan. Tell it again.”

Sullivan takes a breath and focuses her cloudy grey eyes on the restaurant visible from her passenger seat window. “Every day for lunch, Brady calls that Thai place across the street, so today, we’re interceptin’ his call and makin’ a delivery in their place. I’m gonna take the call, you’re pickin’ up the food. Then, you’re gonna drop it off to me, and I’ll… I’ll finish the job.”

“Wasn’t so hard, was it?”

She scoffs, rolling her eyes at her partner. Quinn was a tough guy – a roguish, lone wolf James Bond type, someone Sullivan had the pleasure of knowing from only an arm’s length for the past two years. They worked in drastically different ways, which had made her wary of him requesting her assistance for this assignment at first. Sullivan played by the books, always. She kept her gun close, but always pointed down unless necessary, and her morals closer. Quinn was usually pointing his gun at something else, on the other hand.

In the name of the game, though, he’d been running the field far longer than she had with nearly two decades of experience under his belt. Quinn outranked her in every way, so she supposed she shouldn’t be so critical of him.

Still, she is, for one very critical reason.

“Are you absolutely sure we have to do this?”

They’d been in the States for seven days, now, and in those seven days, Sullivan had poured over every piece of intel Quinn had on Brady’s case. Raymond Brady had a plethora of crimes in his file, mostly centered around human trafficking and arms dealing, but he’d led Quinn on a chase that was nearing a year long. The Road Runner to Quinn’s Wile E. Coyote, figuratively speaking.

“’Course, I’m sure. This is my case, Sullivan, we take him down my way. Argue any more and I’ll have someone up top breathin’ down your neck for the next year.” The stern look Quinn gives her – amplified by the fact that his eyes are so brown they’re almost pitch black – sends chills down her spine, so she resigns her protest with a short, but loud, huff.

Quinn nods and chuckles, satisfied with her submission, “That’s the spirit.” He unbuckles his seatbelt and gets out of the car, pausing to give her her last orders before he takes off, “Alright, I’m heading to place Brady’s order, just to speed things up. Don’t let him make you over the phone. Text me if anything changes.” With that, he shuts the driver’s door and strides off to the Thai restaurant, the image of a seemingly casual man just going to get some lunch for the day.

If only.

Sullivan pulls her phone out of her pocket and taps at the screen nervously. This mission isn’t new to her, and it definitely isn’t her first kill, given how long she’s been with the Directorate. Still, this doesn’t sit right in her gut.

The phone rings, causing Sullivan nearly hits her head on the roof as she jumps in her seat, startled. Shoot. Go time. She answers, forcing her voice to be steadier than she feels in her heart, “Uh, Mali’s Noodles, how may I help you?”

There’s a brief pause on the other side of the phone, and Sullivan starts praying in her head, hoping that he isn’t stopping because of her accent. They’re both Dubliners; it’s definitely not hard to tell one another by voice alone.

“I’ll have my usual – one order of Pad Thai, no peanuts, extra spicy. I’m just across the street in the Lakewood Apartments. 229.”

“Alright, sir,” she pauses, sensing her voice about to break. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Quinn’s keys still in the ignition. If she just tells Brady the truth now, she could help him make a getaway. “Uh…” No, no, she can’t botch this up now. Just… just focus, Bree. “Total’s gonna be, um, $8.64. Your food’ll be ready in about 10-15 minutes, sir.”

He thanks her, curtly, and hangs up. At the dial tone, Sullivan puffs out a loud sigh of relief and puts her head in her hands, dropping the phone at her feet. Her breathing is shallow, borderline hyperventilating, but this isn’t even the hardest part of the job yet. Father, please forgive me.

*****

For a single room with two queen-sized beds, they’ve made quite the mess of it within the day of settling in. It’s hardly been five hours since their plane landed, but already, there’s papers and folders strewn across both beds, all over the floor, and in stacks on the lone coffee table.

Sullivan sits in the middle of the clutter, her features drawn into a frustrated scowl. At this point, it might as well be how her face permanently looks, given how much of her time she’s given over to her work. “Look, hear me out, Quinn. He’s not… doin’ anything wrong, y’know?”

Her partner paces back and forth, as restless as she feels and uncharacteristically so, given that she’s the one with half of her life in shambles from constant anxiety and the contradiction of working international security and having chronic homesickness. He’s… fine. Snappy with her and possibly burdened with what she suspects to be an unresolved superiority complex, but fine.

“You wanna toss our orders in the gutter? Jesus Christ, are all you Dubs langers like this?” Quinn grabs the closest folder to him off of the coffee table and flings it across the room, scattering the papers inside in a frenzied arc. She counts this the fourth time he’s done so and is just sweetly thankful that he keeps aiming for the bed instead of straight at her. Getting him any more irritated might do the trick, though.

“I’m not bein’ a langer.” The word feels foreign on her tongue, and Sullivan finds it immeasurably ironic that of all people to be working with, she’s stuck with a Corkonian. Half of the slang from his mouth – usually meant to remind her of his superiority – goes straight from one ear to another for her, and his attitude doesn’t help the matter. “But you know I’m right. We don’t need the Yanks followin’ us home and breathin’ down our necks just ‘cause we gave them the slip on their own soil. Just… talk to whoever you need to talk to so that we can avoid a diplomatic incident and arrest him.”

Quinn pauses his pacing and looks down at her, eyebrows quirked, with his hands resting on his hips. A dominant posture. Superiority complex, indeed. “That easy, huh? Well, gee, Sullivan, I shoulda just let you take point on this. Do my work for me, and I’ll sit back and enjoy the view.”

Her scowl deepens, and in a moment of impulsivity, she throws the file in her hand right at him, but the paper weighs next to nothing so it flutters uselessly to the ground before it even gets near his legs. The act itself is definitely insubordination if they were acting professional, but professional grew a pair of legs and jumped out the window before they even left Dublin Airport. “Oh, piss off, man, he doesn’t deserve this. You can take him out when we’re in Ireland, if you’re really itchin’ for it, but the Yankees’ll look at us like we’re just as much terrorists as he is. We gotta play by their rules.”

It’s so far-fetched how adamantly she’s defending Brady, but in the past, she’s never had to take a shot without a good reason. A “good” reason is rather vague, but luckily – maybe on Purpose – she’s never had to dwell too much on that. A good reason has been civilians in danger. A gun pointed at her. Life or death situations. Quinn’s been monitoring Brady from across the ocean ever since the guy landed in the States, and he hasn’t done the slightest thing – trivial or not – to warrant choosing death.

But, maybe, she thinks, it’s time. Maybe she’s never had to think about pulling the trigger, but now she does. And if she has to choose between her orders and a man’s life…

“He doesn’t deserve this?” Quinn strides over to her, crunching hordes of paper underneath his socks, and kneels down, putting his face way too close for her comfort. His breath smells like the spearmint toothpaste he packed – cold and sharp, mirroring his tone. “Bree—” She flinches, slightly and immediately feels weaker for doing so, at the sound of him using anything but her last name. “This man is nearly two metres of pure evil, and he’s done nothin’ but make life a livin’ hell for some of the least deserving people on this earth. So, how ‘bout you go back home and look one of his victims in the eye and tell ‘em that they don’t get to feel safe just ‘cause you wanna be nice and fair.”

Her mouth falls open at that – the sheer audacity – and she’s utterly speechless for a moment. But, then, she snaps, her gaze as hard as steel. Sullivan is many things – loud, playful, warm, trusting – but Quinn easily turns her into none of those. And, most of all, he downright sets her off. “That’s not what I was gettin’ at and you know it, you tosspot! I wanna be ‘nice’ and fair because he has the God-given right to a bloody trial before you go off and stick one between his eyes. I don’t care what orders we have – he’s still a citizen like me and you, and worse, he’s legally a citizen in the States. You can’t just come here and pretend like none of that matters. Because his life does matter.”

The silence that follows has her foreseeing a phone call back to Ireland and subsequent unemployment in the next minute, but Quinn just chuckles in response, his voice still quieter but not as deadly anymore, “I’ve seen you take out men twice your size from metres away with the steadiest trigger finger, and you’re tellin’ me that suddenly you wanna start havin’ a conscience ‘cause he’s… what, not a danger to anyone right now?”

“I had a justifiable reason.” She doesn’t need to explain herself to him. Doesn’t need to prove anything, not after that insult.

“Yeah, and we have orders.”

*****

Quinn comes back shortly, and Sullivan is there to meet him, getting out of the car and simply grabbing the to-go bag from his hands.

“Everythin’ good?” Quinn asks, eyes scanning her face when she doesn’t greet him.

Well, no, but she’s not going to tell him that. There’s a blatant void of concern in his voice, which doesn’t surprise her. Quinn only cares about archiving a file that’s taken a year of his life. “Yeah,” she nods, shrugging noncommittally, “Just wanna get this over with is all.”

“Me, too, kid.” Quinn pats her on the shoulder, to which she flinches and draws away from his touch. If he notices – which, it’s pretty obvious – her mood, then he doesn’t comment. “Don’t’cha worry, it’ll all be done with soon, and then we’ll get on the next flight back to Dublin, yeah?”

Out of spite for the fact that they’ve both got two different attitudes going into this, she doesn’t answer his question but responds with a simple “Don’t call me ‘kid’.” He’s got that habit, like a condescending veteran, probably from being in the business for so long, but she’s only 12 years his junior and about two decades past being anywhere near an adolescent.

Quinn appears slightly bothered by her comment, finally, but he lets it go for the sake of time and hands Sullivan an earpiece from his pocket. “I’ll be listenin’ the whole time, alright? Just shout if you need backup.” As she sticks the earpiece into her good ear, the left one, Quinn reaches over and clips a small, subtle microphone to the inside of her jacket collar.

"Yeah, yeah, got it. Ain’t my first op, you knocker.” Sullivan sighs, patting down her pockets to make sure she’s still got everything she could possibly need. Her gun is safely holstered, covered by her jacket, and a silencer sits in her inner jacket pocket for when she needs it. As to not attract attention, naturally.

“Aye, but it’s your first op with me, so shove it.” Jerk.

Gun. Silencer. Earpiece. Mic. Confidence. Dignity. She’ll have to get a rain check on those last two.

She can feel some of the irritation from their first day together bubbling back up inside her stomach, but God, they're so, so close to just being done. She shoves the ire deep, deep down, where she’ll hopefully never find it again. A few more steps and then she can… go home and forget all about this. Or about as much of it as her dreams will let her.

Quinn gives her a once-over and nods in muted excitement, “You ready?”

*****

The house itself is quite small and bland, compared to some of the higher end neighborhoods Sullivan’s seen elsewhere in the States. It’s a simple one-story residence. Pretty boring, if she were to share her honest opinion, given that the front lawn’s definitely seen better days and the flowers lining the walkway to the front door are rather… sad is the nicest word she can think of.

She knocks one, two, three times and is given an answer quicker than she expected. A young girl with a head of shocking jet black hair opens the door. Sullivan can confidently guess that the girl is roughly ten – the same age of Brady’s niece, Casey. She smiles at the girl, even though her heart is heavy and she feels like doing anything except being polite at the moment. “Hello there. Is, uh, your ma around? I’m lookin’ to talk to her.”

It hardly takes another moment before a woman – Katherine – bearing striking resemblance to Casey appears and shoos her daughter further back into the house. “Who’re you?” Her accent is noticeably thinner than her brother’s, a result of living in America for a lengthier amount of time, but Sullivan can still hear the inflection. Dublin, their shared home.

“I, uh, I’m a… concerned third party. I heard about your brother, and I wanted to…” She trails off, losing her confidence. Her chest feels empty without her rosary tucked underneath her shirt, but it’s too heavy to hold with her now. If it was appropriate, she’d laugh, hollowly, at the irony of her predicament. The changing of her rosary and the loss of her normally strong will.

“You wanted to pay your respects.” Katherine finishes, warily, eyeing Sullivan like she knows. And, to be fair, she most likely does. “Are you a Dub?” Yes, she does.

Sullivan mutely nods, pulling a folded envelope out of her jacket pocket, and adds, “And I wanted to make a, um… donation.” There’s a screen door between them, providing an extra means of protection to the house, and she motions for Katherine to open it so they can converse easier. When the woman does so, Sullivan hands her the envelope. “For the funeral.”

Katherine tears the flap open and glances inside, hiding her facial reaction to the monetary amount rather well. But, being trained as she is, Sullivan still catches the slight widening of her eyes before it’s gone. “Who…” Her tone is understandably incredulous. “Who’s this from?”

“Anonymous donor.”

At that, Katherine’s features turn suspicious. “And I’m guessin’ this ‘anonymous donor’ gave you a tip about Raymond’s death?”

“Anonymous tip.”

“Right.” The woman regards the envelope for another second then abruptly thrusts it back into Sullivan’s hands, her tone changing into a sharp sneer, “I don’t want Intel’s pity money. It ain’t gonna raise Raymond back from the dead.” She adds as an afterthought, “Ain’t gonna wipe you of your sins, either, if that’s what you’re coming here for.”

Man, there’s no such thing as subtlety anymore.

Calmly, Sullivan presses the envelope back into Katherine’s hands. She keeps her tone slow as to not end up passing her aggravation quota in just one week of being overseas, “That’s not why I’m here. I already- I already made my penance. I just… I wanna help. Take the money, please.”

A long pause follows. Sullivan’s dead sure she’s about to be socked in the face and about to see the inside of a jail cell, but then, Katherine sighs – loudly, resigned – and clenches the envelope in her fist, retreating back into the house. She slams the screen door and calls over her shoulder, “I don’t wanna see your face back here ever again, you hear me?”

“Loud and clear.” Sullivan replies to a closed front door.

*****

The walk up two flights of stairs to Apartment 229 is absolutely horrendous. For many reasons. One being that the building itself is fairly old, so the stairs creak repetitively and the sound is starting to grate at Sullivan’s nerves. Two being that she carries the instantaneous death of a man in her hand.

Thankfully, Quinn hasn’t said a word to her since she went into the complex, but Sullivan’s sure that he’s monitoring her every step through the mic on her jacket lapel. It makes her a little bit calmer to not have to hear his voice during this. But only a little bit.

229 is at the end of a hallway that takes her two lefts and a right to get to, and the whole time going she’s trying to keep her breathing steady. Sullivan knocks one, two, three times and waits.

Raymond Brady answers the door, looking like a dead ringer for the photos she’s seen of him in his files. His black hair is dark but slightly graying with his age. Eyes blue as the sky with a few well-placed crinkles on the sides. For a national terrorist, he’s rather handsome. But looks are deceiving. As she’s about to prove.

“One order of Pad Thai, no peanuts, extra spicy. It’s $8.64.” She repeats his order back to him, monotonous. It’s the only way she can make sure her voice doesn’t hitch and blow her cover. Sullivan holds the to-go bag out to him, but her hand moves a bit too quickly. Too eager.

Raymond takes the bag and frowns at her, “You’re the girl on the phone. Never heard or seen ya ‘round before. You new?” Sullivan just… nods. Yeah, she’s definitely new. “What’s that accent? Dublin?” Mmm. Takes one to know one.

“Yes, sir, born and raised.”

He nods in approval and holds a crisp ten-dollar bill out to her. “Here. Keep the change. Least I can do for a fellow countryman.” Sullivan feels awkward taking it, but she does so, anyway. Raymond closes the door straight after, and she’s left standing in the hallway alone. Not a chatty one, he is.

Her earpiece crackles to life in her ear. <Don’t leave. Let those noodles to do their job.> Sullivan doesn’t respond out loud in case Raymond hears her talking, but she follows the order, lingering in the corridor and shuffling her feet. The walls are thin, so she presses her ear up to the door and focuses. There’s a plethora of undistinguishable sounds – Raymond’s telly, the air coming out of the vents, other residents in the adjacent apartments – but she waits. She knows what she needs to listen for.

It takes a good few minutes for it to happen, and Sullivan feels foolish for just standing in the corridor eavesdropping if someone were to walk by. But, then, she hears it clear as day. Choking and coughing, straight behind the door her ear is pressed against. She whispers into her mic, “It’s happenin’.”

Quinn’s response is swift. <Wait ‘til it’s over.>

Okay. She can do that.

The coughing continues, getting more strained. Sullivan can’t explain it, but hearing that… she shudders.

A chill bolts from one end of her body to the other.

Alexander Hamilton stares at her accusingly from the bill in her hand, and she curses out loud.

“Jesus Christ.” She crumples the bill, shoves it in her pocket, and rests her hand on her holster, giving a curt protest into her mic before taking off her earpiece. “Quinn, I’m out.” Sullivan tosses the earpiece onto the ground and crushes it under the sole of her shoe. That’s it. Finite.

Sullivan thanks God above that Raymond didn’t lock the door behind him as she pushes it wide open, knocking it against the closest wall. It loudly slams itself shut behind her. Her eyes scan the apartment, and she rushes over to Raymond, who’s bent over on the floor next to his couch, sputtering and struggling to breathe. “Your EpiPen,” she demands, “Where is it?” His hand feebly raises and doesn’t point at anything in specific, but it’s in the general direction of his desk so she hurries, yanking out his desk drawers and rummaging through them with reckless abandon, trying to find the way to reverse the damage she’s caused. The needle is in the topmost drawer; Sullivan preps it, tosses the safety cap and sleeve aside, and rolls Raymond onto his back. It’s tough when he’s still wiggling and coughing, but she eyeballs the 90-degree angle as best as she can and jams the needle into his outer thigh.

Her heart is pumping probably as bad as his is, but Sullivan forces herself to stay still and keep the needle in his thigh for a few seconds so the epinephrine can administer itself properly. She glances at his face, noting that over the next few minutes the swelling that was starting begins to dwindle slowly but surely. When Raymond’s breathing finally evens out, she tosses the EpiPen aside and puts a hand on his arm, hesitantly, keeping a soft tone, “Are you good?”

The change is surprisingly fast for the fact that he was minutes away from an emergency room – and still, technically is if she doesn’t get him to one soon. One minute she’s got a hand on his arm, ready to help him stand and get to the nearest hospital, and the next, her back slams against the wooden floor, the wind knocked out of her lungs, and his forearm is pressed against her sternum. Her holster is empty, and she stares down the barrel of her own handgun.

“Yeah,” Raymond drawls, his voice full of malice, “I’m good, alright.”

In retrospect, this is looking like the last of the many bad decisions she’s made all week long.

“Oh, God, please don’t.” The words are out of her mouth before she can make them sound any less vulnerable and desperate. She definitely doesn’t sound like a trained killer right about now, at the mercy of a man who now knows… a lot more than he did ten minutes ago. “Look, I—”

“I know who you are!” His shout shocks her into silence as he presses the cold, metal barrel against her cheek; his voice lowers, getting angrier, “I thought movin’ here would get Intel off of my back, but guess I thought wrong.” He leans closer, and Sullivan closes her eyes, waiting for a sound or pain or anything, but there’s nothing.

Then, a clatter.

She opens her eyes as Raymond’s weight disappears. The gun is out of his hand – thrown metres away on his floor – and that same hand is now extended to her. Oh. She grabs his hand and scrambles onto her feet, her breathing shallow. “I-I wanted to help you,” she offers, uselessly, in an awkward statement, “Y’know, because I have my orders, but you… you’ve been here for months but you haven’t done anythin’, so I thought maybe—”

“I was startin’ over.” He snaps. “Was gonna move in with my sister next month.”

“I know.” Sullivan breathes out a sigh of relief that she didn’t even know she’d been holding. Well, she didn’t know. But she suspected, and that was why she fought so hard against Quinn. “I know you’re a good man. Or, well, were.”

Raymond scoffs. Short and bitter.

“You can be again. Just- Katherine can still visit you overseas. And- and Casey, too.” The mention of his family makes Raymond’s eyes flare, and Sullivan flinches back, hand scrambling for a gun that isn’t in her holster. Christ.

“Look—” She tries again, reaching underneath her shirt and taking off her rosary. Her hands tremble as she presses the beads into Raymond’s open palm, but the physical contact as he closes his fist around her rosary soothes her shaking. “You can be forgiven.”

He stutters, shaking his head in denial, “No, I can’t take this. It’s yours.”

“Think of it as a gift,” she replies, her voice persistent and insisting, “I want you to have it. Le do thoil.”

Raymond starts at her abrupt switch to Irish, and his features soften into contemplation. Acceptance. He reaches into his pocket and hands her his phone. “When I left, I handed control over to some associates. One-two-four-nine.”

Wow. And nobody had to die. “Okay,” Sullivan nods and pockets his phone, “Thanks, I guess.”

He stares at her rosary in his hand and murmurs softly, “No, thank you. Go raibh maith agat.” May you have goodness.

Sullivan never expected to be doing so, but she gives him a warm smile – her first since this whole mission started. “Tá fáilte romhat.”

*****

A funeral proceeds on a Saturday morning. The crowd is small. Too small to even be called a crowd. Katherine Brady, her daughter, and the priest from the church they had attended with Katherine’s late brother.

Many grave plots away, Sullivan watches from behind dark sunglasses, holding her coat tight around her body. Quinn is gone, left immediately after the bloody success of their mission and the subsequent shouting match that occurred between him and her. When she had come back to the hotel the night of Raymond’s death, drunk off of grief alone, Quinn’s belongings had disappeared. Her partner was most likely back home already, filing one mess of a mission report. Good riddance until she had to see him again.

Leaves crunch as someone comes up next to her, and she glances over to see a priest, probably in his thirties, maybe a few years older than her. He speaks, and she knows him. “I figured it was you standing here.”

“Father Murdock,” she sighs, “How’d you find me?”

He chuckles, shrugging plainly, “The news says a very sought-after Irish terrorist was caught in the wrong side of a gang shooting. It seemed much too coincidental that you, also Irish, came into Confession with a similar story. The true story, I assume.”

Maybe she’s really bad at hiding secrets. Or maybe everyone else’s got the upper hand on her.

“I- yeah. You got me.” She pauses. “When I go home, the first thing I’m gonna do is file a complaint. The system’s broken – our system’s broken. Our people are broken, Father… I-I am, too.”

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted. He saves those crushed in spirit.”

“Psalm 34:18.” Sullivan has that one memorized, so she answers without missing a beat. Funnily enough, it’s one of the ones etched on her ribcage.

“Indeed. You couldn’t save this man, but you did what you could. God sees that. He sees your heart and your intention. Most importantly, he sees your remorse and your willingness to be better.” Father Murdock falls quiet, letting Sullivan process his words. “Just so you know, the seal of Confession still applies, but I must ask, what is your name, my child?” He offers his hand out to her, and she remembers mere days ago when another hand was in front of her. When she failed to save the owner of that hand.

She grasps Father Murdock’s hand firmly and shakes it. “Rachel Sullivan,” she says, “But I go by Bree.”

“Bree,” he repeats, “Peace be with you.”

Sullivan pauses. Breathes out a sigh of relief. “And also with you.”

*****

She’s just about ready to tell Raymond to grab his car keys so she can drive him to the nearest hospital after his EpiPen recovery when the door slams open. Sullivan whirls around and stops in her tracks at the sight of Quinn towering in the doorframe, his gun held steady in his hands. With a grim observation, she notices that his silencer is attached to his barrel.

Ah, the mic. On her jacket. Should’ve yanked that off, too.

It’s a useless action at this point, but Sullivan does just that, ripping the mic off of her lapel and tossing it to the side, just to spite Quinn.

Quinn laughs, a bitter, throaty sound. Man, she’s really ticked him off now. “Shoulda done that when you made the choice to defy our orders. You know what that’s called, kid? Betrayal.”

“The true betrayal’s the fact that you wanted me to kill a man who just wanted to start over.”

Sullivan wants her words to sound spiteful, biting, to show Quinn just what kind of man he is, but her voice wavers. She edges herself to the side, stepping in front of Raymond, much to his protest.

“Don’t do this,” he whispers, lowly, in her ear, “Your partner’s here for me.”

“I’m aware of that.” she murmurs back. But Quinn’s not going to do anything about it.

“Sullivan, move. That’s an order.” Quinn glares at her.

But she is defiant. There is only one person she listens to, and Quinn sure isn’t on that very, very brief list. “Sorry, sir,” she drawls, voice mocking, “But, no.”

She doesn’t hear the gun go off, not as loudly as it should, but she feels hands grab at her shoulders and push her aside. Sullivan lands on her side, yelling out in pain as her arm hits the ground the wrong way. Groaning, she rolls over and pushes herself to her feet with her good hand, adrenaline pumping through her veins. When she’s on her feet, she surveys the room as quickly as she can.

Raymond, bleeding. Quinn, gun lowered.

Gun.

Sullivan scrambles for her own discarded gun, fumbling with it before pointing it straight at Quinn, who hardly moves except to bark out an incredulous laugh.

“You wouldn’t. Not after the change of heart I’ve seen you go through in the past week.”

Well.

He’s not wrong.

She drops the gun, resigned, but still scoots over to Raymond, who’s slowly but surely bleeding to his death. She assesses the damage, and it’s clear. Sullivan has little medical experience, but Quinn’s a fantastic shot – especially at point blank. Raymond doesn’t have long.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, feeling the beginning of tears start to well up in her eyes, “I wanted—” She wanted to help. She just…

With the last of his strength, Raymond presses his fist into her hand and drops an object into her palm.

*****

The morning after Raymond’s funeral, Katherine Brady steps out of her house to retrieve the morning newspaper from her driveway but stops at the sight that greets her on her own walkway. She swears they definitely weren’t there the day before, but they sure are now. Where she’d come to neglect the bricked-off flowerbeds that were meant to spiff up her front lawn is new life.

Flowers. An assortment of them, bright and beautiful, and freshly planted, the smell of new mulch heavy in the air.

Katherine opens the screen door and hears a soft clink as something falls off of the handle on the other side and hits the ground. Curious, she leans over and picks up the fallen object and stares at it, noting its polished, clean, new shine in the sunlight.

It’s as green as the hills of a home she left long ago and as green as the grass where she buried her brother just yesterday. She runs her thumb over the design of a shamrock on every other bead and finds herself lingering on the small figure of Jesus and his cross.

A rosary, but not just any.