Part 4: Rise

“Hell is yourself. And the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person“ - Tennessee Williams

I’m not sure how long I was asleep. I’m not the type of person who sleeps much to begin with. But for the first time in more than fifteen years, my sleep was not plagued by the terrors of my past. What woke me up was the feeling of the SUV’s engine being turned off. The second the vibrations in the floor boards stopped, I was awake, and alert. I looked out the window and saw my cabin Merlin had gotten us there safe.

We walked to the door, and as I was opening it I said, “Oh yeah. There was a slight ... Complication, with Caplain” I didn’t have to elaborate much, because as soon as I opened the door, we were ducking and dodging as the girl from the hotel started throwing anything she could find at us. A lamp, books, and even the pillows from the ratty couch in the living room came flying at us from out of the darkness.

Somehow Merlin found the light switch, and as soon as the lights came on, the girl froze. She had the long overcoat she had been wearing at the hotel wrapped around her body, and from the looks of it, not much else. Her eyes popped open in fear as they landed on me. “You about done?” I asked calmly. “I told you I’d be back.” I gestured to Merlin “This is Merlin. She’s a friend. Merlin, this is the complication I mentioned.” Merlin looked back, and forth between us, a small smile tugging at her lips. I couldn’t quite place why, but that smile made me happy and yet afraid at the same time.

The next three days were as much of a trial for me, as my time in The Foundry. It seemed the tasks of opening the cabin would never be done. We needed food. We needed clothes. This being my fallback location, the only thing I had ever bothered stocking were weapons, hidden safely in a secret cache. The caretaker had to be relieved temporarily. And the whole time the girl from the hotel avoided us both like we had Ebola. During all of this, deep within me, the Monster raged. No Mason! This will weaken you! You won’t survive this!

And yet the small voice was there as well. They need you Mason. You are doing the right thing. Please Mason. Saving them may save us as well. I don’t know why, but every time I heard that small voice, I couldn’t help but listen to it.

On the third night at the cabin, my dreams were dark. They haunted me from the past with an intensity that tore my mind raw. I’m not sure how long I slept, but it couldn’t have been very long. The only light in the room came from the small lamp in the corner of the living room. Before my senses could be cleared of sleep, I saw the figure on the sofa next to me. With a strangled growl, I reacted. My instincts for survival overriding all else. My K-Bar resting on the table near my elbow suddenly in my hand. I almost acted on my first impulse, and drove the blade home. But stopped when I finally saw that it was Merlin, sitting in the chair, watching me sleep. And again, the Monster screamed in outrage.

Merlin just smiled as I put the knife back on the table. “I used to love watching you sleep Mason.” she whispered in that breathy voice of hers. Her eyes were the softest I had ever seen them. I could see the tension in her shoulders as she spoke. I was unused to seeing her in a vulnerable situation. The feelings it inspired in me were very confusing.

“What do you mean Merlin?” I saw her smile fade slightly as I said this. I could tell there was something she wished I would say. But fucked if I knew what she needed me to say.

“You don’t remember me do you Mason?” There was definitely a tinge of sadness in her voice. “Not Merlin. You don’t remember the little girl who used to bring you peanut butter and jelly when Marius used to make you sleep on the fire escape? The little girl who gave you a blanket when it rained to help keep you warm? You don’t remember me?” There were actually tears in her eyes as she spoke. And suddenly the memories crashed into me like a hurricane breaking on a shore.

I was nine years old. The wind off the Hudson River was bitterly cold. November of 1996 was proving that this winter was going to be brutal. I was sitting on the steel grating on the third floor of the housing projects Marius had moved us into. Shivering from the cold. And suddenly she was there. Her little corn rows framing a sad face. The light sea green eyes welling in concern as she placed a grubby Little Mermaid blanket over my shoulders. I remembered...

“Tasha...” I whispered the name as tears I had not shed in fifteen years started rolling down my cheeks. Her name was Tasha. And for most of my life she had been the only one who had ever shown me kindness. Without thinking. Completely ignoring the Monster’s roar. I pulled Tasha into me, wrapping my arms around her. I buried my face in her shoulder and wept. I felt the soft warmth of her arms wrap around my neck. Holding me tightly as her cheek nuzzled against my hair.

“That’s right Mason. I spent so many years looking for you.” I felt her arms tighten further. “I was so afraid I’d lost you Mason. I never forgot the promise I made to you on that fire escape. I never stopped looking for you.” I could clearly remember, the little girl she was, on the fire escape. Wailing my name, as the police stuffed me into the back of their cruiser. I remembered the last words I heard from her as I was driven away. Promising me she would find me. And I tightened my arms around her again. This was the first promise anyone had ever made to me, that had been kept.

We sat and held each other for hours. Tasha holding me close as we cried into each others shoulders. When the tears ended we talked. I sat and listened in awe as Tasha set fire to the guilt I carried for more than fifteen years. “Daddy was one of Marius’ regular customers. And when he didn’t have enough money, he would give me to Marius.” She wiped tears from her eyes as she spoke. “That day, when you knocked on our door. Mason, you saved me! After the police took you away, I finally had the courage to tell someone about what Daddy and Marius were doing to me. I told one of the officers. When you killed Marius you saved my life Mason.”

I hugged her tighter, whispering thank yous as I felt the weight of my actions shifted. In the killing of Marius and Amanda, I hadn’t damned myself. I had saved the life of the first person to ever show me basic human kindness. I had saved this beautiful person crying into my shoulder.

“Tasha,” I whispered into her hair. “How did you find me? How did you become Merlin?” I needed to know how the little girl who used to cry when I was unable to allow myself to hug her, had become a wizard of the world of hired killers. I needed to know.

She looked down at me, her eyes bright and wide, as her finger gently traced the XIII tattoo on my right shoulder. “You were class thirteen of The Foundry.” She said it matter-of-factly, as she smiled sadly. I was shocked at her knowledge of The Foundry. As far as I knew it was a VERY tightly kept secret. “When CPS took me away from Daddy, they sent me to live with my Uncle Jerry. He had a VII in the same place.” Her smile lessened and the sadness in her eyes became painful for me to look at.

“He was class seven Mason. It took me years to figure out what he did. But when I did, he told me everything. He taught me how to run The Operation.” Her look became distant. I knew she was battling the demons of her own past now. And I pulled her tightly against my chest as she trembled. “For the first few years I thought we were doing good. Killing people who deserved it. Who would never see justice otherwise. But then I read the article about a family killed in a car bombing. They had no reason to die. The man’s business partner had simply wanted his half of their company.” She was sobbing into my shoulder now. “I had arranged their deaths. I didn’t know why he was a target. But I killed an innocent family Mason. They died because I set it in motion!”

Her arms tightened around my neck once again, as I felt her hot tears wetting the shoulder of my tank top. “It took me two years to set up The Operation. And my first Technician was you Mason.” The realization that she had come to me first, that she had spent two years trying to find me, shook the very core of my being. Inside of me the Monster let loose an earth shattering roar. A roar I completely ignored. “Uncle Jerry was a savage. He didn’t care who he killed. He felt nothing for any of them.” She explained gently to me. “He killed simply because he could make money from it.” Something told me I knew where this was heading. “He was your first contract Mason. Ever since I built The Operation, we’ve been working to make the things Uncle Jerry did right.”

Inside me two voices warred with each other. The Monster screamed in indignant outrage. What had once been the small voice trumpeted in triumph. I looked up at her in amazement. Her eyes were dazzling. And suddenly they were closed. Her lips pressed against mine. I was stunned for half a minute. The immediacy of the moment catching me off guard. And suddenly I was hungry. I wanted to taste those lips again. This woman kissing me, had been the only person to ever care about me. She had once told me, in no uncertain terms, with the conviction that only a child can muster, that she would marry me one day. And now here she was, sitting in my lap kissing me.

I surged forward, my lips pressing into her own. Our tongues wrestling for control. I could honestly feel the difference between this kiss and the only other person in my past. Mina’s kiss had felt good, yes. But this kiss ... This kiss felt as if it were long over due. I hadn’t even been aware of it, but it felt like this was something I had wanted to happen all my life. I let my hands wander up her back, eliciting a moan from deep in her throat.

We broke apart for a split second. A smile unlike anything I had ever seen, spread across Tasha’s face. Suddenly I was standing. Holding Tasha against me as her legs wrapped around my waist. Without even realizing what I had done, I backed her up against the wall of the living room. Her petite, firm tits pressing into my chest. Our kiss seemed re-energized by the sensation, as her nipples hardened, boring into my chest. There was an urgent insistence in her hands, as they eagerly tugged my tank top up and off of my body.

Her eyes burned with a hunger I had never seen in a woman, as her hands roamed over the muscles of my chest. And suddenly her lips were pressed against mine once again. I was nearly insane with the long denied desire for human contact. It wasn’t even a conscious action, as I tore off the buttons of the oversized jersey she slept in. They scattered across the room as I flung the shirt away from us. The feel of her flesh, hot, and soft against my own tore a groan of lust from me.

“I’ve been waiting fifteen years for you Mason.” Tasha whispered as her fingers raked through my hair. “Stop making me wait, and take me to bed already.” Her voice was fierce and hungry as she gently bit my left earlobe. Her fingers tightened in my hair as my hands roamed down her body, sliding down under the silky material of her underwear. I trembled and groaned as my hands cupped the smooth warmth of her petite, firm ass. I almost couldn’t believe that something that could fit so perfectly into my own hands, could be so full. It felt like it was right where it belonged.

I don’t recall the walk from the living room to, what had become, Tasha’s room. I don’t recall how we wound up on her bed. Shit, I don’t even recall how it was my boxers wound up in the corner behind her bedroom door. But what I DO recall, is kneeling on that bed taking in the absolutely amazing beauty of Tasha’s body as I slid her purple panties up and off the exquisite expanse of her slim, toned legs. Her skin was smooth, and glowed with a health, and radiance I had never seen in another person. The deep mahogany of her body reflecting the moonlight filtering through the window made me catch my breath.

My eyes roamed hungrily over her body. The Cheshire Cat smile that played at her full, moist lips. Trailing down her delicate neck to her firm mounded breasts. Her nipples, a dark milk chocolate, stood erect as her chest heaved beneath my gaze. Her lithe stomach hollowed as she followed my eyes, which finally took in the smooth, bare, plump expanse of her pussy. It was, beyond a doubt, the single most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Her erect clit stood proud above her swollen lips.