Locket

Frustration boiled under the surface as Garret listened to Nate. He understood the words, but didn't understand how people out here functioned - outside the Agency. He might as well be on Mars with an alien race. The way these people worked just didn't make sense to him. There was structure, but it was built on what couldn't be seen and he didn't get it. What was the point if he was going to get in trouble no matter whether he told the truth or not? What difference did it make?And how could he trust them when they never would give him the benefit of the doubt anyway?

He was ready to just drop the whole thing, move on and walk away, when Nate stepped in front of him. Stopping short, he stared Nate in the eye, anger flashing in his gaze. No one blocked him like that - no one. His muscles tensed and he stood taller, his hand gripping his backpack strap tightly as his fingers curled into a subtle fist. He was going to reject any more talking, but when Nate's final words hit his ears, he froze.

His grip on his backpack flexed, and he maintained his defensive stance. There was more than anger there now, though. Nate had struck a nerve - a nerve that had been buried years before.

For the longest time, his eyes remained locked on Nate. Even when another car passed, he didn't flinch. Eventually though, he found his voice - which came out with an eerily icy edge. "I came to fight a war, thinking I could win. It was arrogant of me and I see that now." He was a square peg trying to fit in a round hole, and chipping off his corners was too painful. He'd failed at his attempt to be with Victoria, and that's what had driven this entire thing in the first place. Without that, he had no purpose.

"There's no possible way I can fit in here, and I couldn't care less whether anyone thinks they're worried about me." His jaw tightened. "I didn't come here to make friends."

Finally shifting his gaze, he started forward again, shoving past Nate with his shoulder. As he did though, his eye caught a shiny object on the side of the road, half-covered in gravel. He wouldn't normally pause, but something drove him to stop and bend to pick it up. It was a very battered locket - probably lost here weeks ago, according the scuffed silver plating and broken chain. But as the worthless piece of jewelry rested in Garret's palm, all he could see was Cassandra's locket...the one he'd taken off her body...the one he'd given to Victoria that fateful day. He'd been ordered to kill the mother of the woman he loved. And that...that is why he hated the Agency. Hated Medridge. Hated his entire life. His fingers curled around the shiny trinket.

He glanced back over his shoulder to Nate. "I'll come back on my own terms," he commented gruffly. "Leave me be... I want to be alone." Adjusting his backpack, he started forward again, letting the locket fall from his grasp to rest again within its grave of dirt and gravel.