Pained Voices And Broken Eggs
by MelWil

"Zoe."

Zoe sighed, pressing the phone hard against the side of her head. "You know you can't call me here Tom."

"They're recording?" His voice was muffled, as if he was talking through a scarf. She wondered if it was cold wherever he was.

"Of course they're recording, Tom. They want to catch you, remember."

"They want to lynch me."

Zoe hoisted herself up onto the kitchen bench. "They're not the only ones."

"What do you mean."

"Danny and I almost lost our jobs, Tom. Gross incompetence, apparently."

"I'm sorry about that. And Harry," Tom's voice caught, "I'm sorry about him too."

"Just tell me where you are, Tom. We can fix things up for you. You know we can do that."

"Not today." He hung up the phone. The silence was deafening.

 

Zoe slammed the grocery bag on the kitchen bench. The noise, the clatter of the cans against the wood, felt good. Better, anyway, than the frantic rush inside her head. Or the awful silence she was inflicting on Danny. She lifted the bag and slammed it again, beans and tuna clattering the hurt and anger away.

"Hey. Hey." Danny closed the door and rushed over t her, carrying two grocery bags of his own. "I put the eggs in that bag." He fished inside the bag and scooped out the carton, shaking his head as he opened it.

"Look." He thrust the carton at her and Zoe felt strangely pleased at the way two of the eggs were oozing through their shells.

"See what you did?"

"Sorry." She said it automatically, on auto pilot. Like it was something she knew Danny wanted to hear.

Danny placed the carton on the bench and stared at her. "What's wrong with you, Zoe?"

She shook her head. "Tom called today."

"At work?"

"No."

Danny's head whipped to the phone on the counter. "He called you here?"

She nodded. "They'll have it by now. I assume they'll be trying to track him down."

"Do you think they'll get him?" Danny was still staring at the phone, like it was a bomb that might go off at the slightest provocation.

"I hope not." Zoe sunk to the kitchen floor and stared up at Danny. "I just wish he'd stop putting us through this, you know. I wish they'd all stop it. Tessa and Tom and Harry. Asking us to do . . . things. Compromising us."

Danny sat down next to her, placing a hand on her arm. "Make you feel like shit, doesn't it."

"Makes you feel like everyone's only in this for themselves. That no one really cares about Queen and country and all that."

"Are you going to report his phone call?"

Zoe stared at her hands. "I've got to, you know I have to."

"But . . ."

"It's Tom."

Danny sighed. "At some point you're going to have to stop being loyal to him. It'll destroy you, Zoe. You and all my eggs."

"But you're still loyal to Tom, right?"

Danny stood up, carrying the carton of broken eggs to the fridge. "I honestly don't know anymore."

 

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