M.A.D--Mutually Assured Discovery

The Shadow engulfed us and took me to that familiar place, the plateau that I had taken Daniel to within the World of Shadow.

It was not a comforting place to take Mrs. Al Farhan to, but I didn’t want to comfort her just yet. We had some...issues...to work out first.

You see, one of the secrets that I had learned from Daniel, though by no means the most explosive or the most important, was that Mrs. Al Farhan was a direct descendant of Drake’s. She had discovered this strange fact by accidentally touching his skin with her bare fingers back when she had worked with him on that archaelogical dig in southern Iraq.

Ever since that time, she and Drake had become as close as Drake allowed anyone to be with him. She had assisted him in searching for those items he had so desperately wanted from the ancient and buried ruins near Ur, while he did everything he could to assist and protect her with his extensive contacts within Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Of course, this relationship was the very reason that Daniel did the vile things he had done to her, and was the reason that he had her seized again by the band of thugs I had just disposed of. She was to be his last bargaining chip in the event that the negotiations between Drake and him broke down...until I screwed that up for him.

I had been careful in picking her up so as to not present her an opportunity to touch my skin with her fingertips, since I knew that was how she accessed her own Talent. This plan had worked fine up to this point, but fell apart as I tried to put her down in a way so as to not cause further harm to her damaged body.

As I knelt to put her down, the duffle bag shifted awkwardly, forcing me to catch myself from falling on her. This provided her an opportunity to reach out with one small hand and touch the leather like skin of my face.

Her Talent was powerful, irresistible. For the briefest of moments, I felt the sheer terror of having my most private self being laid bare...just as Daniel had felt when he realized what I had been doing to him. But unlike Daniel, I had the power and the Will to close off that portal, although not before she was able to gain significant insight into who, and what, I was.

Realizing that I had cut off her access to that knowledge, she took her fingers from my face, keeping her eyes locked on mine. I finished setting her down before placing the bag down and then settling to a seated position right in front of her.

We sat there in silence for many minutes, each assessing the other. Having only spoken a few sentences between us, we already knew more about each other than most married couples learned in a lifetime.

It was an awkward way to begin a conversation.

She broke the silence first. “You are sworn to kill him.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “Yes.”

“Yet, you saved me from those animals. Why did you come for me?”

“Once I learned those crimes were still taking place, I couldn’t let them continue. This is the place, right here on this very rock, where Daniel Bernstein paid for those and many other crimes.”

She looked away for a moment, surveyed the small barren plateau, and picked up one of the expended glowsticks. She looked back me, tears flowing down her now wet cheeks. “Thank you.”

We sat in silence for a few more moments while she wiped her face dry with one sleeve of her tattered robe. She then took a moment to remove her hijab, which surprised me. Her hair was unkempt and dirty from what looked like at least a week without washing. She ran her fingers through her long, dark hair, seeking in vain to smooth the tangles.

When she gave up on making her hair presentable she looked at the equally dirty and tattered hijab and sighed, setting it aside. She looked back at me with a strength and a resolution that I found surprising and asked, “So, what will you do with me now?”