The Avenger

As the facts clicked into place, Jack berated himself for being the worst kind of idiot. He wondered if his subconscious had deliberately tricked him. But he hadn't known an Olivia Gant. Only Livvie Morse, at a time when the sun rose and set in a fourteen-year old, too-skinny girl with doe eyes and a haunted look.

Had the organization discovered Professor Gant was the same girl from Jack's childhood? Impossible to think the Judge wouldn't check every small detail. No coincidence then that they ended up here together. But why?

He looked around the room, at the desk, the bookshelves, the order surrounding Olivia. If he had any decency left, he'd march out the door and leave her to her neat, organized life. But Invictus training was too deep. He told himself he could use their former friendship, use her for the mission. After all, that was probably what Warren intended all along.

Yeah, the Judge knew exactly what he was doing when he sent Jack to California.

Olivia seemed to recover, stood, and braced her knuckles on the desk top. 'Answer me. Say something.' Her voice was ice even as it rose several decibels. 'Why are you here?'

She stumbled over the last question, but he suspected the urge to shred him to pieces lay just beneath the cold, composed surface of her perfect face. He tried to look unaffected, despised himself for thinking that if she'd forgiven him, his task would be easier.

'I came to see you,' he said simply after staring at her another long moment. He sat down and laid his Invictus badge on the desk.

Her brilliant eyes widened, and for a moment she looked confused. 'Invictus? You're with the government?' Her eyes cooled even further.

'I've risen in the world,' he joked with a wry twist of his mouth. 'I have friends in high places.'

'Oh, those friends.' She drew the words out, giving them a lethal edge as understanding dawned on her.

Jack shrugged. 'See, you already know why I've come.'

She'd refused the Invictus offer twice, he remembered. He should move on to a backup name on the Judge's list and leave her the hell alone. But now that he'd seen her, he couldn't and realized he didn't want to.

'Knowing you, I'm surprised you rejected Myron Higgins' offer,' he said.

'You don't know me at all,' she snapped, her eyes level and unreadable as she sat down heavily.

He shrugged again, conceding. 'Maybe not.'

'And really, Jack,' she continued sarcastically. 'You don't see why I'd like to avoid living other people's nightmares?'

'Livvie…' he murmured, and Olivia heard the chagrin his voice.

Collapsed in her chair, she felt light-headed and disoriented, but deliberately forced out the helpless feeling and sat up straighter. She searched the face she barely recognized. Took in the height he'd grown into, the weight he'd gained, most of all the darkness that surrounded him.

She'd thought he was dead, had mourned for him.

His rugged face had lost the gentleness of boyhood, the soft mouth and kind face that he'd once had. Now the harsh facial lines spoke of experience and pain, and the faint lift of his lips failed to soften the calculated look in his eyes. Maybe he was dead, after all.

She cleared her throat, afraid to trust her voice as suspicion wormed its way into her mind. Avoiding his dark, penetrating eyes, she stood and stepped to the window overlooking the grassy campus quad. 'Jackson Holt, a government agent.' She hated that his name on her tongue was still a warm satisfaction. 'You bastard.'

When she turned from the window to face him, the prickle of unease at the back of her neck increased and a warning chill slipped down her spine to meet the squiggle of distrust.

'How did you find me?' She infused her words with sarcasm. 'I take it you didn't stumble on me in the yellow pages.'

'Were you hiding?' His large body shifted in the plastic molded chair as he flashed that slow smile she remembered.

She crossed her arms and leaned against the window sill, dug her fingers into her palms because she wanted to rake them across his face. He acted as if she were a casual acquaintance he'd run across by accident. As if they hadn't once meant everything to each other.

She reminded herself they'd been little more than children. What had they known of love and loyalty? By sheer will she forced a casual tone into her voice. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of knowing how much his unexpected visit upset her.

'There's no way I can help you or your organization.' She stared into those hard obsidian eyes as she returned to her seat and folded her hands on top of the desk.

'Even if I fill in the last seventeen years?' he bargained.

She wanted to snort, but since she'd never snorted in her life, she remarked, 'What would be the point?'

'Right.' He contemplated the tip of a polished shoe crossed over one long leg. 'Well, I'll have at it then.'

She lifted her brows and remained silent, an action she'd found very effective in quelling students.

'I've just come from Maryland,' Jack recited. 'Sent by the Invictus Director. It's critical that you lend your expertise in a government matter.' He spoke the words with such little emotion that they acted like a wet slap in the face.

She frowned, concentrating to remember the letters she'd gotten and dismissed so easily. 'That Higgins fellow,' she said flatly, 'sent you all the way across the country to recruit me. To use me.' She laughed without humor. 'What a waste of your valuable time, Jack.'

'Livvie – '

Olivia held up her hand like a traffic cop, barely controlling her fury. 'Don't call me that name. Don't.' She swallowed hard, feeling the sick rush of warm water fill her mouth and hoped she wouldn't throw up. She took several deep, cleansing breaths. 'You're the one person who knows I have enough fodder for bad dreams.'

'Roger,' he said quietly.

She nodded imperceptibly. She'd concede that much, but she wasn't going to let him use that careless charm to worm his way back into her life. She felt her cheeks color. She wasn't going to let him love her and abandon her again.

Jack leaned across the desk. 'Roger was a monster and he deserved the worst kind of punishment.' He paused, looked down at his hands. 'And I'm sorry for… what happened.'

But it was Jack's betrayal that hung between them, not Roger's fumbled attempts to molest her. She let him see the accusation in her eyes. The distrust, the rancor, the long-simmering desire to retaliate.

He shoved out of the chair and examined her massive rows of books lining the right wall, his back angled toward her. 'But that doesn't mean that the man we're chasing should get off. He's a monster too, and we need the kind of help only you can give us.'

'You think I owe you?' Her voice sharpened with disbelief.

He erupted in a quick shot of anger. 'Hell, no, Olivia. You don't owe me a thing. I'm the one that left.'

She smiled grimly. 'That's right. You did.' She walked to the door and held it open in dismissal. 'But that's ancient history that I have no intention of revisiting.'

Olivia stood by the door long minutes after Jack had left, feeling as if she'd fallen down a rabbit hole and everything that appeared one way, wasn't what it looked like. She felt relieved, she told herself, as if she'd escaped a seismic tidal wave.

Gathering materials for her next class, she couldn't stop thinking of that long-ago summer she'd turned fourteen.

Her mother never kept track of her so Olivia escaped the house as often as possible, particularly when Roger began drinking. Jack and she and Ben were always together. Like three peas in a pod, her mother had claimed derisively. The guys had taught her how to pitch quarters against the school's brick wall, shoot marbles with a steelie, and hit cans at fifty paces with a.22 rifle. Self-defense, too, because Jack knew how much she needed protection from the monster.

She smiled sadly at the distant memory and glanced at her watch. Scooping up her lecture notes, she stuffed them into her briefcase and hurried out the door. She almost bumped into Ted Burrows, reminding her uneasily of his unsolicited call this morning.