“Will you be fine on your own?” Andrew asked on his phone as he pulled up to the curb.
“I’m fine Drew,” Natalie responded in a playfully annoyed tone. “I’m able to handle myself.”
“It’s just– I still owe you for that time you paid for dinner in Toledo.” Andrew pleaded. “I guess it would be better for you to tag along.”
“Look, I don’t want to be a third wheel. And this is your brother. From what you told me about him you two need some private time to catch up. Besides, I brought a case of shows I have been meaning to catch up on.” She replied with an implied answer, “I’ll be busy with my own things.”
Andrew, as displeased as he was with her response, respected her wishes. “Alright, I’ll send you a message if it goes well, if not, send for my next of kin.” He joked with her.
“Oh relax,” Natalie responded, “the most he could do is hit you. I don’t even think he owns a gun.”
Andrew chuckled as he said his goodbye and hung up on his partner, hoping things went well.
From the door of his SUV to the front door, Andrew thought about how he would begin talking to his estranged brother. ‘How would I start? How will he respond?’ and ‘Should I bring up he could buy a new car instead of driving the same beat up sedan?’
As he hesitantly knocked on the door he couldn’t help but hear a soft female voice inside. Andrew began to wonder who this was. ‘Is John married?’ he asked himself.
The door opened part way as the eye of his brother looked straight at him for two seconds. The door closed slightly as a chain rattled.
“Come on in.” John said to his brother hoping that things would go well.
Andrew entered to see the strangest thing. He saw a woman with hair as pink as a rose and eyes wide and blue as a lake looked straight at him. Her appearance was familiar to him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
John noticed he was staring at her with curious eyes. “Andy,” he called to him. “Have a seat.”
Andrew fell out of his trance as he sat in the recliner aimed at sofa. “It feels good talking to family again. I wanted to call you for the funeral, just to get to know you then.” He tried to get a conversation started, however he felt worse as he went on. His mind was filled with the idea that this moment could make or break his relationship with his estranged brother.
John seemingly wasn’t paying attention to the conversation as he went into the kitchen. With an emotionless face, Andrew grew worried with the thought that John was trying to avoid the conversation. Andrew looked at his feet thinking about his dead father, his anger growing as he looked up at John. After some deep breaths, he let the matter go as he focused on the important matter on hand, his brother John.
John walked around the kitchen table with a bucket of ice and beer and plopped down on the couch as he gestured with his hands wide open. “You wanted to talk, let’s talk.”
“Right,” Andrew focused on his brother as he broke the silence with one question. “What happened to you after Lucia died?” He started getting a grim look in his face. “You tried to fall of the face of the Earth.”
John took in a deep breath and sighed as he reached for a bottle of beer. “I grew to hate the people around me after that incident. You remember what happened. I believe the FBI did their own investigation after the evidence was corrupted.” He answered only hoping to get it out of the way.
“How did you cope with it Juan?” Andrew continued to poke at his mind.
“I chose to believe all men were out for their own interest and went along with it,” he stated as he took a sip from his beer. “The money helped, but I couldn’t spend it all. I felt it was the key for a new start away from the assholes that sent me to jail.”
“How much was it?” The question brought on some irate looks from his brother. Andrew looked over to the woman who was awkwardly cleaning the table behind John.
John held his beer and looked straight ahead. “Listen.” He said in an annoyed tone. “I don’t know if it is your FBI training, or just some awkward social deficiency, but you do not interrogate family. You have been asking questions to get information out of me and hoped you would get into my mind. I don’t want you in my mind, and I don’t like the questions you are making. Can you ask something else?”
Andrew felt clumsy in his way of questioning. “Sorry, I just do a lot of interrogations at work. I sometimes forget, even with my family.” He excused himself as he hoped to get on his brother’s good side again.
John took a sip as he tried to accept the apology.
Andrew felt he needed to change the subject. “So, uhh... Julia and I had a kid four years ago.”
“That’s nice,” John said as he drank from the bottle. “What’s her name?”
“Emily.” Andrew replied, “She saw a picture of you and asked why we look alike.”
John looked at him with displeased eyes and replied, “we don’t look anything alike.”
“She could notice the similarities. She’s smart.” Andrew tried to make the conversation brighter.
John wasn’t having it. He continued to look at him and think of thoughts other than his.
“It took me years to realize that woman wasn’t my mom...” Andrew started. “I, uhh... figured out in high school what he did to you guys.” his hands trembled, “He lied so much, about mom, about that woman, and, and about you.”
John looked at him worried. His confession created an uneasy feeling with him.
His voice began to break, “Grandma... told me about everything. The beatings... divorce... infidelity... and I grew to despise him.” he tried to get John’s attention. “I was proud on the day I moved out. I was glad I wouldn't have to see him again.”
John felt sorry for the broken man as he reached for a pillow and handed it to him to clear his tears. “Some family, huh.”
“So speaking of family...” he started again, “I see you’re married now.”
In a simultaneous jolt, the two housemates winced at the question. Andrew felt like he couldn’t get out of these awkward questions.
“Who said I’m married?” John’s face reddened as he shouted. “I haven’t dated since Lucia.”
“I just figured because…” Andrew gestured at Fluttershy as she hid behind her long pink hair.
John turned to her, his eyes wide as he realized what he was getting at and quickly responded. “I just met her last week.”
Andrew sat up as an alarm raised in his head. The picture from the first meeting came to him in a flash. “You said last week right?” he asked, “was it on Tuesday, perhaps?”
John darted his head at him in curiosity. “How the fuck do you know that?”
Fluttershy looked at him and moved away from the living room.
Andrew looked at her and inspected her movements as she hid behind the wall separating the kitchen from the dining room. “What’s your name?” he called to her.
“Why does it matter?” John tried to defend her.
“Because she is in great danger.” His expression darkened as he looked at her crouch behind the counter.
“What are you talking about?” John was in confusion over the event, “is she some witness or some high value target?”
“She’s an immigrant, from another world.” Andrew turned to John to see his reaction.
John had a quizzical look as he turned between the two. He began to breathe irregularly as a laugh came out of him. “You’re joking right?”
“I’m serious. She comes from another world, where horses are the dominant species, magical horses.” Andrew replied.
John continued to laugh, “how much did you pay her to say that shit?” he tried to talk between laughs. “Just this morning she told me some shit about being a pegasus and a place called Equestia or some crap.” John took deep breaths between his laughs.
Across the room, the two men could hear the stomping of a lightweight woman coming closer.
“How dare you,” she said with great anger, “you didn’t believe me the first time I told you, but you don’t believe it when it comes from a man who clearly knows more about it than you? And you call my home ‘crap’?” The woman stared angrily at John, who yielded to the dagger-like eyes aimed into his soul.
“Woah, Fluttershy,” John said softly. “Take it easy. I’m just finding this all hard to believe.”
Fluttershy covered her mouth in regret. “I’m sorry.”
“What happened. How did you meet her?” Andrew asked.
“I... I found her walking in the orchards north of here and I was stuck with her since.” John looked at him, still trembling from the loud girl.
“And you said her name was Fluttershy?” Andrew remembered.
The woman nodded her head.
Andrew thought of what would happen next. He worried the Agency would get to her before they are closed for good. He remembered the photos from his briefing of the torture they inflicted on their visitors. The thoughts were too much for him. “I need to make a call.” He said as he walked out the front door into his car.
He sealed himself in as he took out his phone and searched through the contacts to Natalie’s number.
“Hello?” She answered the phone.
“Nat’” Andrew responded in panic. “I found her.”
“Found who?” Natalie was confused.
“The girl. The one the agency is looking for?”
There was a silence on the other end. Andrew could only hope she was as surprised as him.
__________________________________________________
Oswald stood in front of the monitors as he paid close attention to the audio coming from the hotel room.
“Are you on a secure line?” Natalie asked as she stood from the bed and began to search the room with one hand.
“I’m in my car,” Andrew stated through the phone being transmitted via tapping device.
Oswald typed on his computer as he got the location of both ends of the call.
“Is your car tapped?” She asked him. She then got closer to the camera as she noticed a stray wire peeking out of the flower pot. She looked at the device and lifted it into the air.
Oswald reached to a button on the console with a look in his eyes that could kill a child.
“Keep her safe. We can’t let them get to her.” Natalie said as she stared directly into the camera, “they’re coming for you.”
As Oswald pressed the button, the monitor showed a flash come from under the bed before the camera cut out.
Oswald Got on his radio and dialed it to the troops feed. “Get the troops and go to one forty-five Amber Road. We got her.” He then looked at the location. “I’m going to get this one personally.”
__________________________________________
“Natalie?” Andrew tried to call as the phone went to static. “Natalie!”
As he gripped his phone a message came in from Headquarters. Andrew dreaded knowing what had happened. The message read ‘your partner’s device has been destroyed. We are sending backup to your location’.
Andrew fell into a quick depression as he tried to get himself to grasp what had happened to his partner. As he throttled the steering wheel he got himself together and let himself know he had to keep moving on. He exited his car and stampeded to the front door. He knew time for war had come.