>MONTANA, 2011

The mountains and forests of Montana were sprawled out in front of the window. An idyllic landscape that if one was to take a picture of, such a photograph could be in the National Geographic. That picture would be a lie too, a deceitful painting of serenity and peace that was a betrayal of the haunting bloodshed that was happening. The soil from which the green grass grew was soaked with blood. 

The windowpane was a barrier between the real world and the world inside. What was inside was not natural, instead it was a snowglobe of debauchery. The smoke so great and constant that unlike the grains in a snow globe, that eventually settled to show a scene, everything in this room was permanently hidden behind the shroud. The windowsill was littered with several plant pots, only weeks ago they had been bought brand new. Herbs, flowers, succulents. [i]To brighten the place[/i] he had said. Now, each plant was dead or at least half way there. The water bowls underneath merely served as more ashtrays. The last petal clinging to the stem of one of the flowers fell crisp as old newspaper after a breeze rolled in from the crack in the window. 

The sound of laughter filled the place. A woman.

There she lay on the bed, in nothing but underwear and a tank top. Beside her, the muscular form of  man lying stretched over the sheets, his head resting on his hand and elbow in the air lazily. Beside them both a bedside table adorned with bags and lines of substance. Whisky glasses sat, smudged with days worth of fingerprints. Above them a skylight - the way the sun shone down made the thick haze of cigarette smoke worse. A sepia film over the scene, so that she could barely make out his face.

“I can’t believe we’re so close to done on this case, it’s been a long eight months,” she yawned, taking a drag from the cigarette, letting it sit, stuck to her lipstick as she stretched out her arms.

“Mmmm,” he replied, a soft drawl. His eyes were heavy lidded and he moved his hand to stroke her arm. “Then back to civ… Think we’ll stick together?” he asked, his eyebrow raised as if he was genuinely hoping for a certain answer.

She smiled, taking the cigarette between her fingers again and handing it to him. “Maybe.” Her eyebrows narrowed, and she relished in the act of playing coy with him. “You would come to Seattle, would you?”

“Maybe,” he replied, mirroring her own response. All it served to do was make her bite her lip and kick at him playfully. 

“We deserve respite. Maybe we could travel…” she suggested, looking down and into her lap, where her fingers danced nervous circles over her thighs.

“Want you to get cleaner first, this… it’s fun for the most part but - Paz…” His eyes were drawn to their table. He was guilty of it too, but she’d been worse. Much worse, and worse still was that she lied. But he’d still found her empty bottles. And fentanyl, the oxycontin. He’d found it all.

“It’s prescription,” she replied defensively - but there was a smugness about it too. Her parents were doctors, and that meant that Pari knew better than anyone telling her it was too much. “Besides, you’re a hypocrite…” She too, indicated to the table. The bag of cocaine. “We’re fine, it’s just now and then. We aren’t junkies, Simon,” she added as he passed the cigarette back to her. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I know my limits,” Pari said, softer this time. “This just… takes the edge off.”

[i]That’s how it starts…[/i]

He couldn’t argue with it, and moving the conversation on was better, they’d had this conversation more than once. Still, he did long to take her away from all of this shit. The cult, the braindead religious zombies that had well and truly been drinking the kool-aid delivered by their self-titled messiah. Eight months of undercover work had been hard, and if this took the edge off, then so be it. He took a look at her where she was. Buried deep in a file now, reading something. He remarked to himself how beautiful she looked like that, in the candid moments of her work. The way that her brow sloped down in concentration. Her expression held by the strong jaw that should have made her look less feminine, but by some miracle only made her more so. He was lucky to have her, and maybe when this was all over they’d make a real go of it and stand a chance. 

He’d ‘borrowed’ one of her rings. She hadn’t noticed it was missing just yet, and hopefully she wouldn’t. Some things were just right though. 

Pari soon caught him looking at he like he did; and she shot a kittenish glare in his direction, and then to the table, and then back to him. Sure, it had been only a few months but Simon thought she was special and there was merit to that old ‘light in the darkness’ cliche. They had a real connection, [i]so damned real.[/i] He’d realised that he wanted to be more than just a sad bachelor on his own. Working to live and not enjoying the life all that much. They needed to try more though. They needed to be out of Montana.

“We could go to Mumbai, you could see where I’m from.” Her bare legs hooked over his and she moved closer to him, putting down the work and putting herself on him instead. Work could wait for the moment. She handed him the cigarette again. “What do you think? Or maybe we could go to Bali and find a private beach…”

“Always fancied Germany during Oktoberfest. All the beer you know?” he said with a smirk. “But anywhere with you would be perfect. We could go to Paris…” he suggested, taking her left hand in his, thinking of the rings.

Pari scoffed in response, “the [i]City of looooooooove,[/i]” she laughed. So that was a no, then. “We should just take a map, close our eyes, and point.” Pari blew the smoke out slowly, letting it swirl around her face before she lowered herself to his chest. “Let’s just take this son of a bitch down first, then see where the wind carries us…”

“Soon,” he said with a soft sigh, squeezing her hand again. “Just a few more days, and then we’ll go wherever the wind carries us and be us for a while.” He smiled, a hand behind her neck to pull her close and press his lips to her forehead. Her hair smelled of patchouli, jasmine, and mandarin. He inhaled it, wrapping his fingers where he could around her curls.

“Fucking bible bashers… trapped in their cave,” Pari said, suddenly sounding weary. “They’re not liberated, they’re slaves to him and his fucking delusions of granduer… He’s nothing but a psychopath.” It was another conversation they’d had many times. It was all that they talked about some days. About Elijah Brooks and his so called apocalyptic prophecy. Brainwashing the local people, and when that didn’t work - violence and coercion. The line between preacher and warlord was terrifyingly thin. He had spouted loud of a Seven Headed Dragon, serpents, and beasts. Frightening those who were too weak and beaten down to see the sense. Pari scoffed again, Simon hadn’t responded. Of course he hadn’t. He had been pounding the pavement when she had been safe in the offices.

“So yeah… it takes the edge off from all of [i]that[/i],” Pari concluded after what had felt like an incredibly long pause in a smoky breath - somewhat apologetically. This was time together, not time to talk about the cult and Elijah - the mission. She knew that it wore him down, that the eight months had been hard on him. No wonder he couldn’t wait to be free of it. He’d zipped up more bodybags here than anywhere else. She finished the last of the cigarette, pushing the butt onto the table by the coke. The breeze carried it to the floor though, in the cloud of its own ash. 

Simon stared up and out of the skylight. Outside was clear and beautiful, and even the smoke was drowned down by it from where he was lying. Clouds drifted idly by for what felt like hours as Pari fell asleep beside him. The sky was such a beautiful thing, it made him feel small and insignificant - that the vastness of everything above and beyond made his efforts futile. Even if that wasn’t the case. They both had the weight of the world on their shoulders, and the lives of many were on the line. The last hurdle of this case. It was a crushing weight of responsibility that Simon wasn’t poetic enough to effectively express. So, looking up at the clouds reminded him that he was small, and just one man existing in a split second of the entirety of time. Looking up at the clouds, with his love breathing easy beside him removed that weight. But it wasn’t until he could run his drugs and whisky into his system that he could feel his demons let him go long enough to even enjoy the weightlessness.

Everyone had a poison, afterall. She was right. He was a hypocrite.

[hr]

>PRESENT DAY
>BLACKRIVER, 0500

It wasn’t always possible to remember and find time for her morning routines, but if there was any day where setting the time aside would be worth it, it was today. And so she did it. Upon waking she said a silent prayer before leaving her bed, clearly visualising her affirmations for the day. She opened her eyes, and moved towards the bathroom of the cheap motel and let cold water take away the last ounces of sleep that were holding her back. With a sharp gasp she carefully washed her face, eyes, and mouth. She brushed her teeth, gargled mouthwash, drank water. Each step had purpose.

There was so little around her. Just her few belongings that she had placed out on the bathroom counter, two suitcases by the door, and her outfit laid out on the bed sheets that she’d made. She had the skill of an experienced maid in making the bed back up. The sheets were pulled taut and tucked with precise folds. It was completely even - it looked as though it hadn’t been slept in at all as she observed it through the reflection of the mirror. She had a habit of leaving places in the way that she had found them. 

She smiled at her reflection, and combed her hair methodically with her fingers into a ponytail before moving to the balcony - where she performed her sun salutations and a quick yoga routine under the rising sun meditavely. She sat herself down for her Pranayama, taking a few moments to breath in the early morning air - and exhale anything she was holding on to. She smiled again. She was ready, as she got dressed she recited another prayer in Marathi out loud. She collected her belongings and finally switched on her phone, listening to the sound of the engine of the car awaiting her as she left the motel to head towards the safehouse. 

Parinaaz Bhatt sat with one leg crossed over the other in the backseat. Today she was in charcoal tailored pants. The kind with the severe and deliberate crease down the centre of each leg. She looked down at her thigh and pinched at it, dragging her thumb and forefinger over the crease to ensure it stayed in place.

There was a manila folder on her lap and with one hand she thumbed at its corners - already aware of the images and information inside - but still she was curious for another look. The forefinger of her other hand was pressed to her lips, brushing against her front teeth. She glanced upwards into the rear view mirror and saw that her driver was looking right back. She placed her hands back by her side and smiled politely at him, nodding her head in acknowledgement of him as they travelled together.

There was a strange stillness about the place at this hour - as if it were suspended in a single peaceful minute as the sun rose up, casting it’s rays against the luscious greenery, the dew on the grass sparkling, and the trees were catching an ethereal amber glow in the solar spotlight. “Good morning,” she said softly to the man in the driver's seat - he smiled back - but it wasn’t a sincere smile. Just a return of hers so as not to appear rude. He was here to take her to the safehouse, and that was that. As the journey brought her closer to the mountains, the bright glow seemed to hide behind darkened clouds, and the stillness was disturbed by wind. The atmosphere changed. She swallowed.

It had rained during the night. Pari could smell it in the air, there was a freshness to that smell. Cement and gravel soaked through deep. Grass drinking it in, the trees protected by the shell of their bark but still she could smell pines, earth, and fresh air. It was a misconception by many that rain signified the washing away of any badness in the world to leave behind a clean slate. There were some things that simply wouldn’t come clean, there was always a trace, a fingerprint, a disturbance in the energy that left behind the heraldic evidence of evil’s dark touch. This much, she knew.

Pari turned her head to look out at the scene as the car began to wind around the roads in the mountains, thick deciduous forest either side of them, sliced through the middle by a rough grey dirt road, that only seemed to get bumpier the further they drove across it. The scene outside of the window, the mountains - the forest... It was a world away from Seattle, a universe from Mumbai. There was a chilling dissonance here that only seemed to become more unnerving as the car approached her destination. That which the rain couldn’t wash away...

As the scene broke once again, the car curled around the bend with the tyres crunching over gravel and Pari’s attention was torn from the folder to a lone tree outside of the rest of the forest. A solitary figure, devoid of leaves and bent over as if bowing its head in prayer. The branches were gnarled and came together like arms and joined in the middle like hands. Entwined in each other, barren of life and yet kneeling low. What a strange thing to see -- the disfigured conifer, isolated from those that were practically perfect, standing in line and statuesque. It was heartbreaking, and Pari placed a splayed hand against the window of the car, feeling somewhat like that raw and exposed tree too. She saw the beauty in it, beyond the cracked and mangled bark.

If there had been an atmosphere before, it was nothing compared to this. The scene was in slow motion, captured and held there in a heavy and morose ambiance, threat and terror looming over the horizon - something quietly sinister stirring below. It was as though the whole thing would collapse at any moment. She was out of place here completely and it only caused the anxiety to further stab at her guts. She took a deep breath in and clicked her finger against the button of her seatbelt. “Alright, and so it begins...” her tone was subdued and heavy, followed by the long exhalation from her nose.