Cradle of evil

By Ronja Tyren

For those looking for action and excitement, this is the reading for you.

From this stunning growth story, you'll notice how big a person can grow when giving the opportunity and being genuinely brave. Tessa, an ordinary woman, leaves Finland to New York to be invisible and to get rid of the unpleasant stamp on her forehead. Disappointed in her relationship, Tessa fears losing the ability to love, so a real break from past life is necessary. Saying; "Beware of what you hope for, because your wishes may come true" is true, and Tessa's life changes completely.

Earlier, Tessa's life included the tasks of a teacher of art in Finland, and a quiet little hometown where the wolf moved in the hordes. Slowly but surely, Tessa's life in New York is dipped by former agent Steve, accompanied by the deadly dangerous psychopath Ali. Luckily for everyone, the package also includes a charmingly sharp-tongued agent, Ricky.

Ali´s lunatic, all-destructive tentacles are global. In order to overcome them, Finnish perseverance, persistance and sincerity are required. It is these traits in Tessa that ultimately are noticed also by Russia's Special Forces.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: Jun 14, 2019
• ISBN: 9789528090076

Ronja Tyren

Ronja Tyren on julkaissut ensimmäisen teoksensa, Kun kotona ei ole tilaa, vuonna 2015. Pahuuden kehdossa keinutaan julkaistiin vuonna 2019 ja teos August-Aurinkoleijona on julkaistu vuonna 2020.

Book preview

Chapter

1.

That woman is going to shoot me, I thought, when I felt a gun on my head. I was on my knees in a musty smelly room with concrete floor, and my hands were clasped behind my head. My gaze was to the floor.

I looked, however, the woman who walked back and forth around me. This was not the first time someone was trying to kill me, but this time it was a woman who was very beautiful. She spoke in a surprisingly gentle tone of voice. Even though that what she said did not contain any gentle words.

-Your partner is going to be killed, he is certainly being tortured. I won´t bother, I was thinking just shoot your brain to decorate the wall.

I was repelled by the idea, but somehow I had to get away from this situation, and therefore I´d have to kill her.

It was such a waste of a beautiful woman. Someone like her should be in another kind of work, not swinging with a gun, and especially not the wrong side of the law.

I heard the click from the gun, and at that second I acted. I had to fight to get the gun away from her.

When I managed to do so, I shot.

It took only one shot and she was dead on the ground. Lifeless, all bloody faced, no longer a beautiful woman´s body. Not even a moment I felt sorrow or pity, I was just wondering how and when her life had gone wrong.

-You chose the wrong guy, I said to the dead woman. But who was I to judge anyone? I certainly was not a bachelor of dreams, even if I was acting on the right side of the law. This kind of life was not a treat to any woman, I had already noticed. One second I thought, I did not enjoyed this myself.

In this lifestyle, there was not a shred of sense. Dead body was like watching me, and I decided that if I could get me and my partner out of here alive, where the hell we were, I would start a new, different life.

I got up and went directly to the door and opened it quietly. I looked in each direction and when I didn't see anyone, I left the room with a gun in my hand.

Down the hall was the staircase and I assumed that on the opposite wall would be a door. I hoped I was right, because I wanted out of this strange building.

The corridor was endless stale air, and I noticed a lot of doors. Ricky could be behind any of them, but I didn't take the risk to open any of them and get both of us shot.

I felt like I was in a movie like Saw, and soon I'd have to saw body parts off myself. It felt unreal to go along the corridor, which was nothing more than a dim light and a dusty, stale air. I assumed that this awful place was once one of the old slaughterhouses, or an old mental hospital. I knew deep down that I was very, very far from home.

Suddenly I heard gunshots. I stood still and listened to more gunshots and sounds that would came after them, like running or screaming. My gun was ready to spit out the burning, muscles ripping, deadly demons and I listened carefully.

I stood still just to hear everywhere and everything from my spot.

Someone ran upstairs and shouted:

-You fucking junkies! Steve, where the hell are you?!

It was Ricky, my partner and my friend, who shouted.

Thank God he is alive!

I started running towards the staircase, and a likely door.

I looked quickly up at the staircase. Ricky was coming from that direction, judging by steps.

-Ricky! I'm down here! I shouted and I turned towards the door, which fortunately for us was actually there. I figured that there would certainly be some kind of vehicle outside, that could get us out of here. I did not care if it would be a tank, but I was going to get the hell out of here and start a new life. A taste of freedom in my mouth I rushed out through the door and at that moment, what I saw, I was stopped dead.

-No way! Hell no! I yelled, and I could not believe my eyes. Water! We were surrounded by water as the earth has completely lost under it, just plain damn water!

I started looking for a boat. I tried to stay low so nobody could see me. Just in case if someone stayed alive in that strange institution.

After a short searching I noticed that there was no boat, but suddenly my eyes hit a lump.

I started to walk hunched towards it, and when I was closer, I noticed that for this lump had been built its own landing area. What I saw was a helicopter.

I watched the handsome size of the chopper and decided to get us home with it, even if I'd fly all the way backwards.

Having no idea how the chopper is controlled, I went to sit in the cabin to wait for Ricky. I didn't want to waste a second, only wanted to get out of here as soon as possible, and alive.

I had already briefly acquainted with my new vehicle and suddenly I heard Ricky swearing:

- Damned venom mouths! All those nuts should be sent into space forever! There in space they can float and think was it worth to kill their own mother, or in general: anyone! And was it worth to fuck with me! A black hole will swallow those that karma can´t hit!

Ricky climbed into the passenger seat and I noticed his bloody hands. In fact, he was pretty much completely covered with blood.

– What the hell? I asked.

– Those pigs took my left hand thumb, index finger and my biggest love: the middle finger. They cut it off like a piece of cake, Ricky replied. He began to be pale, so this thing should be in the air as soon as possible.

– I am glad that it is you who is right, at least mostly, Steve.

They threatened to cut off all my fingers, unless I would give names to them, or information about the two of us. I'm sure they knew anyway who we work for. They just wanted to see some blood.

Ricky pointed to the information which I had given to Ali. A drug king, whose territory and connections were already so extensive, that the world will need soon new lands, if that man would not stop his evil ways. I had infiltrated to work for him, and when he began to trust in my abilities, I recruited Ricky in.

Of course I lied everything about Ricky, including his left-handedness. He was not, obviously, very grateful about that issue. He had already got along better with his right hand for the past 35 years.

I listened to Ricky at the same time when I started running the chopper up.

–I shot those bastards enlarged brain out. They got off far too easy if you ask me. No information about Ali, I have not seen that coward anywhere. Probably he is already out of this godforsaken island.

I looked at my partner, my best friend and I said:

– I shot his wife, Ricky.

The chopper got quiet, really quiet. Silence can really absorb everything: breath, breeze, even the sound of helicopter blades.

Ricky looked at me and he came off even paler, if possible.

–Are you crazy? Do you have any idea what you've done? You will be nailed like Jesus was nailed to the cross, do you understand?!

Ricky trembled in his seat.

–That woman was about to shoot my bald spot on the wall for decoration, do you understand?

– THAT woman is Ali´s TREASURE! Do you realize that? He is going to make you pay for this!

–That woman tripped over her own arrogance, so Ali will do.

– That woman had chosen her husband herself, Ricky snorted.

I looked at my friend with concern, and said that now it is the time to fly away and take him to the hospital.

– Can you fly a helicopter?

–I've never flown, it can't be that difficult.

– Yes it can be. We're going to die.

– You chose the ride on your own, I answered and concentrated on the helicopter.

Ali lied under the blanket completely quiet even if he wanted to kill those both agent bastards immediately, and even though his sweat was bursting from every pore. They had agreed with Amy that if anything goes wrong, they would lie in the chopper under the blanket as long as someone would fly the helicopter to help them out, or when it was safe to fly by themselves.

The chopper rose into the air, Ali had counted on that, but he surely will not forget that Steve had killed his beloved Amy.

Intense, dark curls, vanilla-scented Amy. Although Steve was brave and quick-witted man who was helping him, Ali, getting off the island, Amy's death could not be ignored. The fact that Amy will never touch him again, it felt maddeningly unbearable! His treasure had to be buried forever, and he'll never get to enjoy it again! Moreover, Amy had been carrying his children. Anger began to grow inside of Ali. Anger was churning in his veins, and it burned a grief which strives to the surface.

Sorrow was burned in vengeance of shards. Fragments of the revenge will not be like trickling tears from his cheeks. Fragments of the revenge tore Ali´s soul, grate the inside of his soul to remember all the pain and loss, and it made his soul even darker.

They continued to cut increasingly ugly face to his soul. The face that Ali would always see when he closes his eyes and that is why he would woke up every night in a cold sweat. Their ugliness would make him scream at night in horror. Ugliness would make his heart beat so wildly that his whole body would pound with the rate of the heartbeat.

Ali´s soul has the devil's face, because he wouldn´t shed a tear for his loved one, no, only blood.

He would avenge the death of his loved one, just as Dracula took revenge on a loved one´s suicide. Ali wanted blood, and blood he would shed. But he decided to be patient, because revenge must be the worst possible kind, one that his child´s murderer deserves.

Plan in Ali´s sick, vengeful mind started ticking, at the same time when the chopper started to get the right direction in the sky.

2.

Finland

February 2011

Thousands of miles away in the cold winter night sat the red-haired, green-eyed young woman. Her gaze was sad, and the disappointment in her eyes revealed amount of loss, if someone would look in to her eyes. She had a cigarette in her hand, her only comforter, a vice she tried to let go.

She always knew when tobacco ran out. But the end of the relationships she could not be sure, ever. As long as the cigarette lit, she was thinking, she was brooding:

I don't trust anyone. Does anyone else know how it feels, I thought to myself, not really asking from anyone, and yet hoping that every person in the world would hear my silent question.

I wanted to trust, and I had tried, but unfortunately with poor results. Better to be alone, live only to myself, because the only person I can trust, based on the recent happenings, is me. Tears were rising again into my green eyes. I didn't let them to come.

I didn't want to mourn. I didn´t want to live feeling like this. Why was I so easily hurt?

The world seemed confusing and unreliable. Maybe it is not the whole world to blame, only the people in it.

I was one of them who did not understand where was the entertaining part to film drunken, when they betrayed their partners and had sex in front of everyone. From the bottom of my heart I hated those TV-shows which had that overwhelming ingenious plot. Those shows were like a bar with a sauna, beds and cameras. I had always hated drunken weepers and whiners, so why would I want to watch how people who didn´t even knew each other, were fighting with each other and criticized each other somewhere in the diary room? In real life diary was a secret for a reason. Why sex, sorrow and love, people´s most personal things had become such things that may just be showing to everyone?

Love existed only for entertainment, no longer for brave people.

People were so easily for sale nowadays.

A real nature documentary can´t be made of human being. You can´t do the truth based research of people, at least not in a way when their odd living conditions are filmed continuously. A man is not himself in front of the cameras, especially when participation for the program could mean a prize of tens of thousands. I didn´t see anything socially significant in the TV-shows like that, and not in those people either.

I blew smoke tangles, they were clearly visible even farther also because it was minus fifteen degrees, so the smoke tangles were like white light.

Maybe I hated that show because I hated right now, and in general, bars. I hated all that alcohol had taken from me and I didn't want my own TV to show me that. From the television came the news and it was the only socially significant program, I thought. I stub out the cigarette, but I didn't go inside yet. I didn't want to, even though the frost hit really coldly on my toes.

I did not really smoke, I was an amateur. It was just a bad habit from my old life, left with the way to smoke when anger or frustration was so intense that I wanted to react to it, but I didn't know how, so I had a spare pack just in case.

I did not understand how it was possible that some got away with it, if they were drunk when doing wrong towards one another. It was merely forgivable when the alcohol content in blood is high and the primitiveness of the people had taken power. If love was only worth of infidelity, that kind of love should be forgotten.

All the world's explanations of how a man should take care of the fact that he could be a father for as many children as possible in this world, that's why he cheated, were maddeningly stupid explanation and a miserable attempt to escape responsibility.

Are cheating women then manly woman? Barely not.

The world is already overpopulated, and not all women even want children, or being in a relationship with a man while having a child, so men should think again what their mission in the world was.

The woman has submitted a claim to the man. Quickies are no longer enough in the first place, but need for a soul mate is vivid, and if not a soul mate, at least more affectionate lover and a partner.

World is hard for those who had more love to give. I, at least, missed the man who would let women to think for themselves. A man who loves himself in a way, that he is able to love and respect other living beings. It seemed like an appealing and safe idea, and I knew at the same time that it would not exist. To men sex seem to be enough, at least enough of them to have this opinion. How many men have dared to meet this challenge, to be a man anyway, with the pants on?

I didn't want to believe that men would be the only undeveloped creatures in the world. Or were they after all? I honestly did not want to think like that.

Can there be, somewhere, a little more sophisticated individual?

Maybe in space? It would be more than nice to meet him, although X-files did not gave a very flattering picture of the aliens either.

Frost bites my toes and the top of my nose forcing me to step inside, even if I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. I was annoyed.

The apartment was filled with in an anxious mood, had been ever since I got to hear that my trust was betrayed. I had the full right to hate men. I looked at the couch, and there he was lying, the blond haired man. I couldn´t believe how quickly love can turn to hate. In a blink of an eye your whole life could, without warning, turn into a completely different.

Because of drinking.

In real life.

What is not recorded.

It felt like I lived for nothing, at least not for myself, but for others. I didn't want to put that man in the same series with my biological father or with my ex or my friend´s ex. Sadly, he got there, in the lowest caste of the wreckage. I felt such a huge sadness, because I had lost in an instant the man who I had honored, loved and appreciated. To reach that space, love and trust, required a long time. Now that time seemed pointless, like it was completely irrelevant.

Why should I trust, when life taught me all the time not to?

Again I remembered that night when he told me what he have done, yes, that much he was a man, and he told me himself. My heart began pounding again, eyes got wet. I noticed that he had cried again too. It felt wrong when I could not comfort him, crying should be comforted. My heart collapsed. Life made me harder than what I really wanted to be. I wanted to love and be good to people. I just never seemed to have a chance, only just for a little while.

Morrison came to me with a strap in its mouth. I grabbed it behind the ears and then kissed him on the forehead. It wagged its tail and looked at me with his brown, wise, bright eyes.

Dogs should not be humanized, but yes, this German shepherd, my dog Morrison saved me from the biggest flip ever. I clicked the strap in the neck collar and we went for a walk. I nearly cried, and it annoyed me more. Fortunately, we did not live in the city. We saw only trees around us. I walked with terribly fast pace, just like the pain I had in me, could be walked away.

I felt that my heart and the whole body were torn apart. I had to struggle every day with myself not to get, longing for closeness, close to the man who had betrayed me.

It was miserable to live with a man in the same household, to who you didn´t speak anymore and who you didn´t touch anymore. A travesty of a relationship, which had previously been laughter and love.

Who wouldn't argue, but we were made for each other, along to the mother-in-law. Like something evil had touched our relationship with the black, rotten fingers and turned it in to a track where it was not supposed to ever go. Life gives bad things in front of everyone and relationship has to survive from them.

Unemployment, birth of a child or infertility, death in the family, a new job, and these things just rains all over you. Why do people have to go to increase their pain? Why do people have to test their final borders? Not all of stuff can be survived. Such stupidity does not need to be survived. This shouldn't have happened! This should have been prevented!

Landscapes past us at the same time while new stars lifted up to the sky and other stars fell. Frost pinched my cheeks and Morrison's beard began to fog up, his breath was steaming and his tongue was hanging out. The snow crunched with every step that I took with my shoes, on the snowy, cold ground.

My thighs were absolutely on fire and I decided that at the next post I would turn back. I knew that some kind of turn is also need to be done with my life. In my mind there was only one question, a big one, and I was scared to answer it. My face turned bleak from concern, I feared what kind of answer I'd end up: How much you need to experience, before something new is no longer able to start? I was already so broken, so full of fear and sadness, disbelief towards men, I'd never get what I had always dreamed of?

I had always wanted a family.

The family may also include only two people who are important to each other, but precisely that´s why it can be called a family. The family consist the most beloved and the most important people, no matter how many people is in.

I had always wanted a family, but that happiness is not for me obviously, only cheaters.

Somehow it seemed to me, that it would have been more merciful to strip me naked, throw completely devoid of protection to the crowd in the middle of the cold winter nights, and see how long it takes that someone kind-hearted would give his jacket to me. That's the way I would find the right partner. I couldn't believe I would found it from the bar.

I stayed for a moment to stand on the bridge, Morrison sniffed intently the air. It could smell the wolves, which were told to be rolling around. I looked to the lake behind the woods and I saw with my mind´s eye the wolf pack, their bloody paws and snout which sniffed the ground.

Big furry ears that now were moving when they heard Morrison's quiet growl. Yellow eyes were looking at us who were standing on the bridge. They were looking at us behind from the lake, from the woods. They were looking at us, because we were the intruders. I leaned on the railing and sighed deeply, for a moment I was jealous of the wolves about how sensible their interaction was. Not like the wolves fell in love. Or did they, I asked in my mind and looked thoughtfully there, where the wolves were.

I expected some kind of response but I didn´t get any. I knew already, that I would miss this place very much. I loved nature so deeply, that´s why this place had felt like home.

I looked at the dark, starry sky. I said goodbye to the world's most beautiful sky, here was definitely the universe's brightest diamonds. They wished me good luck, wherever I wanted to go, or at least I wanted to think so.

– Morrison. Let's go, come on!

The wolves and the diamond sky, they would be now far behind me, and in front of me would inevitably be moving back to the city, where I had once already escaped from this same pain. I had to bite my teeth so hard, that my cheeks drizzled.

I took Morrison home and in a second I was out to go practicing. I just grabbed my bag and left without saying a thing.

I drove too fast, but then what? No one else cared about anything, why should I? I parked in the yard and said hello to the other trainers. Today I'd kick my heart out of the chest. I'd hit with that stick so hard that my wrists will burn. I would break myself, so I could get complete again.

Kung-Fu, my life savior.

3.

Meanwhile in America, Steve and Ricky landed successfully on the roof of the hospital. Steve had seen the white tick on the roof and felt happy about it, while Ricky had begun to lost track of time and place.

– You'll get help buddy. Just a second, hold on Ricky!

In the hospital, Dr. Mike Hamilton was on the top floor waiting for the helicopter to arrive. They were notified of a patient who had received disease attack while driving a car. Suddenly Mike heard chopper blades fluttering sound, and he wondered how it could be there already.

Mike opened the door and looked at the sky. There was a black helicopter quite soon landing on the roof. The doctor called right away to that other coming chopper that they should fly to another hospital which was close. Mike was wondering should he call the guards, but decided not to. Instead, he called the nurse for help and went ahead to see what was the situation in the chopper.

A groggy and bloody man came out from the chopper.

Beside him walked a man, who was not wounded. He helped the wounded one to walk.

For a moment Mike was worried that he did not call the guards, but it was too late to back off.

– What's the matter?! Mike shouted and ran towards the men.

Wounded handed Mike his hand which was wrapped with some cloth, that was now completely blood-stained. If it ever was a cloth, no one could say what kind of, or what color it had been.

Mike took the wounded man beneath his arms and helped him to walk. He did not bother to ask anything anymore and decided to leave the questions later. The most important thing was to get this man back in shape; he had lost a lot of blood.

When Ricky had been in surgery for some time, Steve sat outside the room waiting and wondering what to do next. He would write the report and after its submission, he would start a new life. How and when would he tell Ricky about his plans?

They had been partners for over ten years. Could he live without the excitement work brought? How would he adapt to the so-called ordinary life?

The nurse came out from the room and noticed Steve was in his thoughts.

–Hey. Your friend will be all right, he'll stay for the night for observation. He had lost so much blood that loss of consciousness is still possible. He need to rest now, nurse said, touching Steve's hand.

– Thank you for the information, can I go to see him or is the doctor still sewing him back together?

– You can go. He may be a little hopped up on pain meds and the anesthesia.

–Thanks again for everything, Steve said and went to Ricky's room.

Dr. Hamilton was in the room and when Steve stepped in, he asked:

–Hello again Steve, can I ask where did you two came from and how he got into that accident? Doctor pointed Ricky, who was lying bored in a hospital bed. Like Ricky had been a prisoner of the bed at least for a week. Even a slightest bit of Ricky did not seem that he would be messed up from anesthesia.

Steve looked at the floor and showed his own badge.

–We were doing our job, I don't know exactly where, until it all went wrong and now here we are. I don't know who owns that helicopter, but I know that those men, who cut off Ricky's fingers, are now dead.

Doctor listened and asked whether he can still help them somehow.

Helicopter should, however, get off the roof, as there was a new patient on the way.

Steve said he has the men to fly it off just at this moment.

Dr. Hamilton left wishing all the best for men, and Steve stayed in Ricky's company.

– I don't want to be here anymore, Ricky said.

–You've only been here for like a few hours.

– Still, this is boring. And I can't get my job done in a long time because of this hand. How will you cope without me? Don't you dare to replace me with someone younger.

Steve didn't say anything. His laugh was somehow subdued.

– What? Did something happen? Ricky looked at Steve.

–Well, not really.

– Talk to me God damn it!

Steve sighed and said that he is about to quit. Ricky's face turned pale again.

– You go to hell! You can't be serious, you're only thirty-six! What are you going to do until your retirement? Sell donuts at the market?

– And you think that is all I can do?

– You're just too good as an agent to be anything else!

– Ricky, I'm really tired. We were both much too close to die this time. It is getting out of hand. This time they cut your fingers. Next time it's your head, and you know it.

– You're giving up because my fingers are shorter? You can't leave this all, just like that!

– It would take a whole army that Ali and his partners get caught!

We can't do it!

The room became quiet. Men looked at each other without saying a word. The silence deepened even further, until Steve decided to leave. Ricky hoped, when the door closed, that he could be a woman, so he could be bawling his eyes out and he wouldn´t need to be ashamed.

A few hours later Steve sat in front of his boss. Ray looked at him quietly, not smiling but not brooding either. Ray was a grey haired, tall man, and the fairest man Steve had ever met. Ray was a strong man, and he had a strong man's will.

– Are you absolutely sure about your decision, Steve?

– I am, chief, Steve replied.

– If this thing had only once occurred...

–It's not a one-time-thing. The entire case, the whole time I thought I wanted to quit. My life is nothing but this shit constantly and it is wrong.

– Maybe if you talked to a psychologist, which you should have done already. It is quite normal to want something beautiful in your life, especially when you do this kind of work, Ray still coaxed.

– I don´t need a psychologist. I've made my decision. I have considered this for a long time. I know what I want, and I want to quit.

Ray fell in silent, dropped his gaze down and rolled his fingers around the pencil. In reality, he wanted to throw every single thing off from the table. He was frustrated, because Steve was the best agent of his time.

– It is a pity to lose an agent like you.

– There will be others, believe me, Steve consoled.

Hardly, Ray thought, and took guns and badge which Steve put on the table. Ray decided to keep them still for a moment before he would mark them unused. Maybe Steve was just freaked out and soon he would be himself again.

A moment later Steve returned to his office that he had shared with Ricky. He sat down in his chair and sighed deeply. He knew that over ten years as an agent will not just disappear from his mind.

Steve also knew that the new life which was waiting for him might not please him. But he also knew that he couldn´t stay in this place.

He crossed his hands behind his head and leaned properly back with his chair, he tossed his chair back and forth and fell into his thoughts.

– Why do you do that?

Surprisingly, Ricky's voice was heard behind him.

– Do what, leave?

– No, why are you twitching like you need to take a leak, Ricky blurted out.

– What are you doing here? Why aren't you in the hospital?

–Why should I rot in there? I'm all right.

Steve chuckled and got serious then.

– Ali will get even with you Steve, Ricky said.

– So? Where the hell did that guy disappeared anyway?

Ali wasn't heard or seen anywhere.

– It is currently being examined, Ricky replied.

–Maybe you should forget the whole thing, or at least to say so to others and you could study on your own, Steve proposed.

– Are you thinking that somebody here...? Ricky was astonished.

– You never know. Can anyone be trusted?

–I at least trusted you. I still don't understand what you strive for your new life, Ricky said indignantly.

– My purpose in life can't be that I shoot people´s brain on the wall.

–It was a crazy and foolish woman, who almost by the way shot you, in case you don't remember! The purpose of life is not to think about the purpose of life. Where are you going to go now anyway?

– I will visit my parents, Steve replied.

–Well, run away from the world, right in to mother´s arms.

– No, it is not like that. I care about them.

–When the hell did you figured that out, Ricky teased.

– Clearly earlier than you.

They looked at each other and grinned.

–We have to go to that woman's funeral. Can you find out when they are, Steve said to Ricky.

– I'll call you as soon as I know, Ricky said.

Steve rose and went to hug Ricky; manfully they pat each others on the back. They promised to stay in touch.

It was not said aloud, but they both were in danger.

They needed each other, even if the other agent gave up his badge.

Ricky thought it was crazy, because