A true spy has family and no friends. Either a person is worth dying (are thus family) for or they aren't worth knowing. It is never about blood, only trust and loving bonds. There is no intermediate, no casual acquaintances or partial loyalties. It is not "friend of foe," but "family or irrelevant." It declutters them. Frees them to follow their orders, to complete their missions.
Spies are an odd bunch. They learned to live rootless, able to transplant into the strangest of situations and still appear as normal as anyone else. I've been at this game so long I can only approximate what being normal is. I lost my family bonds at tough developmental stages. Instead of my connections to others getting deeper, as they naturally should, the universe cut them. So, I learned to walk alone, to love myself and, in time, to love a select few others. I can pick up, move, reland, rehome, because I was built different, injured to become stronger later. Normals can't be spies. Spies protect the normals. It's what we do.
Being a spy came naturally to Sabrina. As a child she had eaves dropped on doors, at bedtime pinning her best ear to the dusty boards to hear what the grown-ups had to say. As a teen she had known everything about everyone, always the goldmine of information. The only difference now was that she got paid a huge sum for her ability to gather sensitive intel and with her training she could also kick ass should it be necessary.
We've been in neutral gear for so long, falling so deep into our "cover" that we've started to act like we're really married. Then out of nowhere Jock gives me the double kiss, one on each cheek, the tiny pool of saliva freezing on both sides. It's the signal. Phase two of the mission has begun. He touches my face, pulls my blue woollen hat down over my pinked ear. As he does so I hear the voice of headquarters loud and clear through the tiny ear piece he's inserted...
Karissa had been a spy so long she no longer remembered what it was like to be herself. She was either the person undercover, roles she adapted to so well she became that other person in a way, like an alternative life. When she was pulled out she was the professional, giving reports and being debriefed. The girl she had been, the one who skipped stones into the winter ocean and crab fished each summer was all but gone.
Without warning the ground under-boot shakes and the cold November air is rent with a noise that leaves our ears feeling like they just exploded. Without a conscious decision to drop we are all on the chilled mud and rock, hands clasped over our ears tight. Julia is first to recover, and though all I can see is the profile of her face, I know it's bad. Her eyes are tilted upward and her unspeaking mouth is a perfect “o.” There is no colour to her face. She stands statue like before sinking to her knees. When I turn the sky that was blue just moments before is filled with black smoke, billowing upward in growing plumes. All that can be seen of the mountain though the dark veil is the lava that flows in thick rivers, burning a path as it goes. We can't out-run hot magma and it will burn everything in its path. Already Julia is digging a hole, not for herself but for the evidence we gathered on our mission. She's got it bundled with a GPS tracker and stuffed in tupperware. I get my shovel
Our best family tradition is saving one another, but I guess that's what happens when you're a family of secret agents. I've lost count of the number of times Jacob has saved me, and I him, but that's the way we choose to live. We could climb mountains, go fishing or ride horses into the sunrise, but we do best when we focus on our mission.
What can I say, he was my friend. Ally sounds so cold, as if it were a business arrangement or some alliance of convenience. We weren't either of those things. He had a place in my heart, and though he never said it the truth was in his eyes. I would have levelled armies to save him if I ever had to, or ever could, because I loved him. But then, friendship is a love, isn't it? It's a bond and what else are they? To everyone else, to the ones who look onward and make their own assumptions, each of them worth the same as their weight, we are allies.