Mystery Behind Amber Eyes

She was now sitting in her Passat driving behind a black Mercedes.

Classic and cliche, government car.

Jane glanced out of the corner of her eye at the amber-eyed man, who had yet to tell her his name. Not that she wanted to know, she was just tired of thinking of him as the amber-eyed man. Maybe she could come up with a name for him if he never told her.

Maybe an anagram of ‘amber-eyed man’...Rame? Yeah that could work. He will now be Rame in my mind.

So the newly christened Rame was looking out his window, obviously bored. It was completely silent inside the car and Jane couldn’t take it anymore. She flipped on the CD player and began to listen to an old mixed CD that someone had made for her when she was practicing forms in tae kwon do. It was supposed to help her with the timing or something, but she doubted it. She liked the music anyway. “Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett flowed through the speakers and made Rame jump.

He reached for the power button.

“If you touch that button, I will open the door and jump out right now.” His put his hand back into his lap. She noticed that he had a tattoo on his arm, or at least from what she saw when the sleeve of the coat pulled back when he reached out. Interesting.

“So what exactly is this place you’re taking me to?”

He looked over at her for a second before sighing.

“It’s a safe-house, but depending on what the boss says you might be trained to be one of us.”

“A secret agent?” Jane put fake enthusiasm in her voice. Rame chuckled.

“Something like that.”

Her life had been fine a few hours before when she had been sleeping and now there was the possibility of becoming a secret agent. It could have potential. She shook her head and glanced up at her new home.

“Your stuff will be moved here in a few days, so just make yourself comfortable and I’ll check on you in a few hours.”

Jane got out of the car after Rame had and took a good look at the house.

It was a nice two story home with a front yard and a backyard. Not that much different from her original house, except–

“Get down!” A man came out of the front door with a gun.

Rame pulled Jane down behind her car as the first few shots were fired.

“Get her to safety!” One of the other men shouted. Rame nodded and grabbed Jane. She got into the passenger seat of her car while Rame got into the driver’s seat. He put the car in reverse and peeled off. He turned the wheel and threw the car into drive as it skidded. He slammed on the gas and took off down the road. The sound of shots being fired becoming distant.

“Well that was a good idea, huh?” Jane asked sarcastically. Rame gave her a quick glare and she sighed. “Where to now, Captain Amazing?”

He didn’t answer her, but continued to drive. It was going to be a pleasant ride. Jane settled into the seat and closed her eyes, if he needed her, he could wake her up.

She was shaken awake by someone she didn’t recognize right away. Once her vision came into focus, she saw Rame bending over her. She stretched and yawned.

“Where are we?” she asked through a yawn.

“Somewhere that is definitely safe.” Jane looked around Rame and saw a small townhouse and in front of it was the beach and ocean. She remembered her parents for a second.

“Is my family safe?”

Rame looked taken aback by this question. “Yeah I got a call a while ago, when you were asleep. They were taken to a different location, but they are alive and well. Your dad wanted to tell me that Jason was okay?” He sounded a little confused by the last statement.

Jane was close to tears. So her new sibling was a little brother. She felt a tear roll down her cheek. Would she ever see him? Her entire situation seemed to fall on her as she sat in the car, Rame crouched next to her, the salty air blowing her black hair around. She began to sob and Rame looked at her helplessly.

“Um...Please don’t cry. I’m not good at this stuff. Just– can you stop? Did I say something stupid? I’m sorry. Um...” He reached out and patted her on the back, unsure. Jane couldn’t help but laugh.

“You’re pathetic when the shit hits the fan aren’t you?” His face looked surprised, then incredulous.

“I am proud to say that I don’t break down and cry when the stress piles on.”

“Oh, I am so sorry. I guess I should be used to getting tackled, chased, shot at, and having chloroform shoved in my face by now. Oh, wait, that all happened for the first time today.” Rame huffed in annoyance.

“You seemed to know how to handle yourself when I tackled you.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t think I would ever have to use the self defense moves I learned.”

She got out of the car and pushed past Rame. The water seemed like the best bet, the calming waves and all. Jane felt Rame’s presence as he walked up behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and hissed when she really took in his face.

“I really nailed you, didn’t I?” His face was starting to bruise in the pattern of a footprint on the right side of his face. His nose was covered in crusted blood and one of his eyes was black and green around the bottom.

She walked toward the house, motioning for him to follow. She was used to cleaning up cuts from her job. She worked at an after school program for elementary school students. Cuts and scrapes were always in need of a cleaning. To Jane, Rame’s injury seemed no different.

Once inside the house she looked for the bathroom and found a few black hand towels, she grabbed them. In the bathroom closet, she found peroxide and bandages. She walked into the kitchen and motioned for him to take a seat at the kitchen table.

Everything was clean, black marble. The light flooded in from a sliding glass door situated next to the stainless steel refrigerator at the end of the counter. It overlooked the gentle waves splaying on the sand that was the front yard.

Jane ran the towel under warm water and walked back over to Rame. He looked at her skeptically, but she rolled her eyes and dabbed at the dried blood on his nose. He scrunched his face and she sighed.

“If you scrunch up your nose it will hurt even more.” He immediately stopped, but he did take in hissing breaths every so often, tempting Jane to just move the wrong way just once. But she wasn’t that mean.

She doused a corner of the towel in peroxide and gave him no warning, instead she just placed it on and tried to hold him there as he attempted to jerk away.

“If you don’t want gangrene on your face I suggest you let this clean it.” Again he stopped moving.

“How do you know all this stuff?” He was having trouble looking up at her as she cleaned away the last of the blood.

“Kids,” she answered simply. He bobbed his head understandingly. Jane put the towel next to him on the kitchen table and looked at his nose. It was definitely broken and from all of the medical classes she took to better prepare herself for her job, she knew what she had to do.

It had to be set.

“Um...” she wasn’t exactly sure how to tell him that she had to break his nose. Again.

He looked at her, “What? What’s wrong?”

“It...well, it has to be set.” She let the statement sink in. His eyes widened and he cursed. “Do you want to go to the hospital?” His eyes shot to hers.

“No.” That one word made all of the dread in her stomach churn. Jane had never had to re-break a nose or any other bone for that matter. It wasn’t something she was dying to do, but unless this guy wanted his nose to heal like that, which she doubted, she would have to break it.

“Okay, um...hold onto something I guess and do you want anything to bite down on?” He shook his head. Jane placed her thumbs on either side of Rame’s nose, the rest of her fingers were splayed on his cheekbones to steady her hands and give her a firm grip. Her palms cupped his face as she looked into his eyes. She saw that he was gripping the table so hard, his knuckles were pure white.

“Get on with it,” he mumbled. He sounded as excited as Jane was right then.

“Alright. One– ” She twisted her thumbs, applying an enormous amount of pressure on either side. The crack of cartilage told Jane that his nose was back in place and would heal nicely. The curse words issuing from Rame’s mouth told her that it had hurt like hell.

“That was a dirty trick,” he stated. His eyes were tearing up in pain as he gingerly touched his nose.

“Leave it alone or I might have to do it again.” His hands dropped to his sides. He was a good puppy.

Jane smiled to herself as she turned her back on him to get the butterfly bandages out of the band-aid box. She went back to him and put the bandages on his nose to pinch the skin together since she doubted he would want her to stitch the skin back together.

What she didn’t notice as she concentrated on placing the bandages on his nose was that his hand was hovering over the small of her back, debating. He lowered his hand back to the table after the deliberation and he held in a sigh.

“Can you breath through your nose okay?” His answer was a nod. Jane picked up the bloodied towels and the scraps from the bandages and walked over to the sliding glass door to throw them out in the garbage pail on the other side of the fridge. The sun was low in the sky already. That’s what happens when winter gets closer and that was the only thing about the winter that Jane didn’t like. The shorter days.

She heard Rame get up and open the fridge to her left. He pulled out some chilled pasta and threw it into the microwave over the oven. Jane scoffed.

Rame glanced at her, “What’s your problem?”

She glanced at him for a second, “That’s your idea of a meal?”

He shrugged out of his coat and threw it onto the table. “Yeah, so what? Can you do any better?” Jane turned to him and peeked into the still-open refrigerator.

“Yes, I can.” He gave her a mocking bow, one hand extended toward the fridge.

“Be my guest.” She huffed and began to pull out ingredients.