“A man came into my club one night,” she began, “and he came with a lot of money. A lot of money, Victor—for a private dance he paid me more than I’d ever see in a lifetime.” Marina lowered her head in shame. “I started sleeping with him—for the money, of course. I’d never done anything like that before; sure I danced for money, but I’d never degraded myself like that.” She paused, took a deep breath as if to release the memory by way of her lungs, and went on.

I sat and listened, and with every word, I wanted to help her that much more.

“After two weeks,” she continued, not looking at me, “the man—he said his name was Brant—well, he started to change, became more aggressive with me, even slapped me around. But I wanted that money; I probably would’ve let him beat the hell out of me as long as I kept seeing that money.”

“What did this ‘Brant’ do?” I knew that was not his real name as much as she did.

Marina glanced over, but could not look at me for long; she began to nervously move her fingers about within her lap. I reached over and moved her hair away from her shoulder so I could see all of her face.

“He came to my house one night,” she said, “and told me that my life was no longer mine, that from that night forward it belonged to him. Of course, at first I just thought he was an obsessed maniac—I had a few guys come into the club who I had problems with; one even stalked me for a while before he pissed somebody off and got himself shot—but Brant, I found out real quick that there was something different about him, and that he was much worse than any of those guys.” Her breathing began to quicken, and she stared straight out ahead without blinking. “He reached into his briefcase and took out a few pictures. My mother watering her plants. My little sister in California walking to her dorm.” She looked at me again, and this time held her gaze firmly. “They were the only family I had.”

“Had?” I asked, thinking the worst.

Marina nodded. “My mother died last year—cervical cancer. My sister is still alive, but…”

She looked away again, down at her hands, her trembling fingers interlaced.

“But what, Marina?” I rested my palm on her back; her skin was warm. “Tell me.”

She swallowed, hesitated, and then worked up the courage.

“I’ve been talking to her—in private, of course—and I told her, in a way that no one but she would understand, that her life is in danger. We made plans to go on…vacation, if you know what I mean, but really we just want to leave the country. Go somewhere they can’t find us, and start all over”—she turned to face me fully, took my hands into hers and squeezed—“and I know you can help us start over, Victor. New identities, all of that stuff.”

I shook my head, looked away.

“Marina,” I said, “we cannot be having this conversation; if they find out—”

“They won’t.”

I knew that was not true—they already knew.

She jumped off the bed and crouched in front of me, cupped my cheeks in her hands. I could not help but look into her eyes and let her speak; I could not help but listen to her pleas and continue to fall deeper and deeper into a hole that my subconscious mind knew I would never be able to crawl out of. Because I did truly care for Marina. I spent months visiting her. She was easy to talk to, and she understood my struggles without having to know exactly what they were; she gave me advice, knew all the right things to say, and I never told her anything about what I did. Marina was to me more than just my friend—she was my lover, my conscience, and my only link to the outside world in which I craved. I was not in love with her, but I wanted to be, and I was not ready to give up the relief and excitement and anticipation I felt when I knew I was going to see her again.

But I knew I had to. What I wanted did not matter.

She began to gasp for air; her slender, womanly hands reaching, grasping for anything, her fingers digging into my neck as my arms tightened around hers. I could not look at her; I somehow shut my ears off to the desperate sounds she made as she struggled in my hold. I squeezed tighter. I could feel the breath from her nostrils rapid and shallow against my arm; the violent beating of her heart bursting through her jugular vein; the life slipping from her like water slipping through my fingers.

I held her limp body there for a long time, staring into her dead eyes, mourning her life and her beauty and her innocence that I stole from her.

“I am sorry, Marina,” I whispered. “I am sorry…”

Carefully I laid her body on the floor, and I sat back down on the bed again, with her at my feet. Killing Marina was, at that point in my very short life, the hardest thing I ever had to do.

My cell phone rang on the nightstand. As I knew it would.

“Faust,” I answered.

“You did the right thing,” the voice on the other end said. “I thought I’d have to send someone in and deal with her—and you—myself.”

“Was this a test?” I asked.

“Actually, no,” he said. “But her house has been bugged since day one. I’ve been listening to the conversation. I always do.”

It was a significant detail that I should have remembered—all Safe Houses run by The Order are bugged, or were at least supposed to be—but because of Marina, and how easily she clouded my judgment, that detail completely slipped my mind on this night when she started talking. How could I have been so stupid to forget such a thing? How could I have gone so far in The Order only to come so close to letting a woman destroy everything I had gained? But the second Marina said the name ‘Brant’, the memory came back. And I knew that what I did to Marina could not have happened any other way. My and Marina’s relationship, whatever kind of relationship it was destined to be, was doomed from the very beginning.

“Pack up and check into a hotel for the night,” my mentor said. “Report to me in the morning; Vonnegut has a new job for you in Los Angeles.”

“What about the girl?” I inquired about Marina.

“A Cleaner will be sent in after your car leaves,” he said. He paused and then added with a tinge of humor in his voice, “Are you all right, Faust? I know she was an irresistible woman, but this is the way things are.”

“Yes sir, I know,” I said. “And yes, I am perfectly fine,” I lied.

“Good,” he said. “Well, I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

“Wait—I am curious,” I said, stopping him.

“About what?”

“Why you chose the name ‘Brant’. You always use the same one.”

He chuckled.

“It was the name of the first man I ever killed,” he said. “No other reason than that, really—it’s sort of like a trophy. Why did you choose the name ‘Victor’?”

I paused and said, “Victor is my real name.”

“Ah, I see,” Brant said. “Well that’s as good a reason as any. Pack up and leave the residence, Faust; the body ain’t gettin’ any fresher.”

I set the phone on the nightstand. I spent another ten minutes with Marina, apologizing to her in my mind, before finally getting dressed, grabbing my belongings, and leaving the tiny house in the Oregon wilderness that was the only place I felt at home since I was a boy and was forced into The Order.

Apollo shakes his head and smiles.

“And why did you kill her?” he asks, already knowing the answer, but wanting Izabel to hear it. “It wasn’t because you thought you were being tested, was it?”

I give only Izabel my attention, because as hard as this is for me, she deserves to know.

“I knew that Marina was telling the truth—I saw it in her eyes, I felt it in her touch, heard it in her words. The truth is that I cared about her…too much.”

Izabel does not appear to blink for a long time; she just looks at me, and I cannot read what it is in her eyes. And then finally she shuts them softly and takes a deep breath. And I know—I know that she is disappointed, that she is hurt, not because I cared about a woman other than her, but because I killed that woman, and why I killed her.