The old barn of love.

"Tell me about these dreams." A therapist asked, sitting across me with her legs crossed with a notebook and a pen in her hands. I looked at her for a brief second trying to think of something to say. I wasn't supposed to be here right now, and I felt like I was invading the time for the therapist, who thought that I am her patient for the past two weeks. I wasn't the patient she thought I was, but I wasn't in the position to say anything about it. I had to keep the cover a little bit longer.

"Well, I was running through the woods, and someone was chasing me. I felt like I knew it was a dream, but I couldn't wake up. I was running for my life, and the person who was chasing me got closer by each second. Then it happened, he grabbed me, pinned me down on the dirty ground, and he had a knife. I felt sharp pain with each stab he made. I know it isn't possible to feel pain in a dream, but I felt the pain, doctor. I woke up screaming, and my body was in agony." I was telling a story that wasn't a dream. In one of the operations three years ago, I got stabbed. I would be dead if my operation manager hadn't had found me in time. The therapist thought that I am Augustine Roger's a woman we were trying to find. No one could know that she was missing, so I had to be her. My job was to replace her by not changing anything about her life. That meant attending her job as the assistant hotel manager, living at her place, and attending her therapist. It was a dull task because nothing in her life led to the facts we had. It was like a perfect cover-up for a double life. She was too good to be covering her tracks, and likely she knew that we would maintain the secrecy of her disappearance. She had left without a trace. The only evidence we had was a matching picture from surveillance with her talking with a spy who recently was outed as a double agent. That meant a new investigation had to take place to search for possible moles among us. I didn't want to participate in this investigation because it meant withdrawal from the one I was already investigating, holding back the ongoing operations.

"Your pain from dreams could be from deep unresolved strong emotions such as heartbreak or perhaps anger, your last relationship with your ex-husband James. You admitted his mental abuse and control of your every move." The therapist spoke slowly and carefully. They were working with the issue the real Augustine Roger was working on before she disappeared. As much I had gathered, her ex-husband felt possessive of Augustine. He hadn't known that she had been a spy at some point in her life. She never told him, which led to him not trusting her. They loved each other, but her secrets and lies about the past had found a way to shape the relationship bringing emotional abuse and control of her life to take place. He assumed that she wasn't faithful, and there was nothing Augustine could do or say to prove him wrong without putting the man she loved in danger. The danger she was in right now. If I had to take a guess, Augustine never told him because of this reason. She knew that at once, we would chase her. A guilty person would always know.

"I still love him, doctor. I wasn't honest, but he took that in a completely wrong direction. I never cheated. I couldn't tell him the truth he deserved. That's probably the reason I let him scream at me, curse me. I felt like I deserved it." It was no secret. Augustine had a real soft spot for this man. People around her saw how he was treating her and how she let him. I shifted in my seat as the emergency phone vibrated in the bag that was next to me. The therapist wanted to answer my sentence, but I hold a finger in the air, stopping her speech before the woman could even open her mouth.

"Excuse me for a second," I said while I reached out for the phone. The therapist patiently waited while staring at me.

"We found her." A male voice said into the phone as I listened.

"Jeez, finally! Her life is so dull. I don't know how a person lives like this." I said while taking all of my belongings to leave this place for good.

"Augustine, we are in the middle of the session. You can't leave yet." The therapist looked confused about my sudden movement to leave the place.

"My name is not Augustine, doctor, at least for the past two weeks," I said with a big smile on my face. I saw her confusion before I continued.

"Augustine Roger's is under arrest due to the crimes of her past doctor. I was investigating her life till we found her. That's all I can say. Details are confidential." I said, dropping my character. The woman looked at me with complete shock.

"Who are you?" She spoke. The phone was still was on, and Roger, the man on the other line, announced.

"She is not arrested." He said. I wanted to curse for assuming that the call would bring good news. I mean, she was a double agent, double trouble, bigger fight.

"We found her at an abandoned barn. She escaped injuring two of our men and then fled. She is still on the run." Roger just kept bringing more bad news. I completely ignored the question from the therapist and went out of her door while speaking on the phone.

"Did you injured her as well?" I asked, my brain already thinking of places she could go.

"In the shoulder. But that was barely a scratch." Roger answered. That made me smile because I had a suspicion of where she would go. I was on the move, already exiting the building, and was reaching my car.

"I know how we can get to her to surrender. Search every possible place, surveillance. Search the barn for the clues. She might leave something there." I said, taking control of the situation.

"Harper, you know I am in charge of the search." Roger didn't like to be interrupted to do his job. I didn't care. He let me do this dull task for two weeks, and I wasn't having that anymore. I knew more than he could because I knew how Augustine Rogers was thinking.

"No, you listen. You got two men shot. You left me here to learn about her, and I did, so let me do the job. The goal is to get her alive. We need to know what information they traded and who else is a threat." I spoke into the phone angrily for being benched for the task. They shouldn't have called me if they didn't need me, and now, I was being benched for doing the job they clearly couldn't.

"Okay. Lead on Collins." Roger stepped back, allowing me to take control.

"Send me the address of the barn and meet me there after an hour," I told him and quit the call. Then I stepped in the car and drove to meet ex-husband James.

The drive wasn't long as I approached his workplace. James was a professor at the university. I entered the campus, already knowing where to go. When I reached the class he taught in, I didn't hesitate to let myself in, finding there around twenty students in the middle of a lecture about politics. As I still looked like Augustine, he clearly was surprised to see his ex here.

"I apologize for the interruption," I said with an apologetic face. I looked at James, who tried to look professional, but he couldn't hide his anger seeing me there. He rushed to me, taking me by hand and leading me out of the classroom. The second we were out, I grasped my hand out of his touch.

"What are you doing here." James angrily hushed at me.

"I am here to finally tell you the truth," I said, trying to sound emotional.

"You mean you're admitting that you were cheating on me? I already knew that that's why we divorced." James tried to sound superior, which made me laugh. I laughed at him. He was a silly, insecure man.

"Okay, this clearly is not going to work. You're going to dismiss your class announcing that you have a family emergency and have to be excused, then you will give me your phone, and we are going for a fun ride." I said, dropping my act. As I had a task to do, and I couldn't afford to play a character anymore. My name was Harper Collins. I am a CIA spy. My job was to find a mole who was on the run and injured. And my key card was this man.

"Why would I do anything you say?" James looked at me funny, clearly mocking me. I simply smiled at him.

"Because of this," I said and lifted up my blazer, exposing a gun in my pocket. The movement led James to step back and look at me in shock.

"Who are you?" Realizing that I wasn't the woman I looked like, he asked. His big scared eyes were looking at me. He didn't run or argued, which meant he was in the first fear state, freeze.

"That's not important. What's important is for you to follow my instructions so we both can find your ex-wife so she can explain to you the real reason for your divorce." I decided to play with his mind a bit, give him a reason to follow me. James was looking at me in fear and not moving.

"I don't like to wait. I won't hesitate to shoot you right here and now. Suggest for you to better move." I said impatiently, which brought James to finally move. He did everything he was told. He didn't even argue to sit in my car scared, as well interested where his ex-wife fit into this picture.

"I could spill the tea and tell you, but I don't think that's my position. I got only one question. What did your beloved wife tell you about her past?" I asked, interested in her lies.

"She said that she traveled a lot, from place to place, never stayed in one spot for long. She worked in hotels but never worked at one place for a long because there was nothing there to hold her until she met me." He answered the question, and I nodded my head at the answer while driving to the address Roger did send me before.

"Did you believe her?" I asked again.

"At first, yes, but later I knew she was lying. She lied about everything." James said while looking at the opposite side out of the window.

"You still love her," I stated, which led him to look at me for a second. He didn't answer, confirming my statement. He does care for her. He needed answers to know who he was married to.

It was quiet after that, and I didn't mind.

The drive took a while, but we finally found the place.

It was an old barn, abandoned. There wasn't any other building around it, in a middle of a field.

"Why are we here?" A sign of recognition was seen in James's face as he asked the question. That led me to look at him.

"Do you know this place?" I asked him with a raised eyebrow.

"This was the place I fell in love with her," James said with a pained expression.

"In the middle of nowhere?" I asked suspiciously.

"We spent a week here two summers ago. We were searching for a place to spend a night due to the storm coming up. It was raining way too heavily to drive, then we found this place." He said with a sad smile on his face, remembering the time he had spent here. I nodded, not wanting to interrupt his train of thought, hoping he wouldn't say more, but he did.

"We went camping as our first date, but neither of us looked at the weather. We ended up ditching our plan because of the storm, searching for any place to stay. We stumbled on this place. Luckily we had prepared food for days, so we decided to stay. It felt like a first date and honeymoon in one. We actually came here again after we married another summer. This place was like our safe place, an escape from the world where only two of us existed." James told the story of what the barn meant to him. As I was listening, I could notice the man was tearing up. He still loved her. That made me wonder if I would ever find anyone that would be dear to me. I couldn't let my emotions sink in, so I took out the phone James gave me and searched for a clue to find his ex-wife. I scrolled through the numbers he had and found one in her name. I pressed call, and to my surprise, it was ringing. I saw Roger coming outside the barn, and I opened the car suggesting, James do the same.

"Hi, sweety," I said with my sweet voice into the phone when the other end answered.

"Before you disconnect the call, I would like to give you the information that your beloved James is with us, and we are going to treat him as your accomplice if you do not cooperate," I said on the phone, knowing that Augustine will take the bait.

"Let him go. He knows nothing." Augustine's voice said emotionally, wishing that I do as she says.

"We can't do that, dear. You shot two of our men, and you're clearly guilty. Just do us a favor and turn yourself in. We will let him go only then." I told her on the phone. I heard heavy breathing from the phone likely she was treating the injuries in her shoulder.

"James knows nothing," Augustine repeated angrily this time.

"But does he? He knew about this place. I wouldn't be so sure. We still need to bring him in for the questioning, and I would totally let Roger do the task as you know how proficient he can be." I was teasing her. She knew our interrogations don't follow the rules of law. That's the thing with spies. We are here to do the work politicians refuse. Finding the possible threats and eliminate them. The work behind the curtain. Augustine knew that because she was one of us, at least used to be. I don't know what made her turn against us, but that's why we need her alive. I heard her swearing silently under her breath. She knew that she had lost and had to surrender.

"We are at your lovely cabin. I will be so kind and will allow you to explain to James who you really are. We haven't told him yet, thought let you do it yourself." I know that I've won because the next thing I heard was a positive answer.

"I will be there soon," Augustine said and then disconnected the call. That made me smile while I looked at Roger, who was patiently waiting for me.

"I still don't understand why you didn't bring me in before. We may have avoided our people being injured." I said to him, not hiding my disappointment.

"Because we were three, and she was one. That seemed like an easy task." Roger defended himself, but I only shook my head.

"Not everything is for violence. Right words sometimes can do more than bullets," I said, giving a look to James, who was simply looking at the barn, not daring to take any step further.

"Let's go inside. You have one last date with your ex-wife." I said to James, welcoming him to get inside. Roger was shortly following us inside.

"Which ones got injured?" I asked, giving a look to Roger. He knew why I was asking. He knew I that was going to kill him if he says the name.

"Mason in leg and Andrew in the shoulder." He said quietly, ashamed. I glanced at him with a look that said it all. Mason Collins was my older brother, and his lead had gotten him to be shot in the leg. I wanted to scream at him but knew it won't do anything to the situation. Roger was aware of me, and that's likely was the reason he gave me the lead. I pushed the hate thoughts out of my head as we entered the empty barn. It wasn't the place and time. I had to keep my cool now, and then I will be free to punch and scream at him for taking such a risk.

It wasn't long since Augustine entered the barn. Her shoulder was patched up, but I could tell it hurt. I was glad that it hurt because she was the one that shot my brother. She didn't look at Roger or me. The only person she saw was James. She had a gun in her hand, but she dropped it as she ran to him. As I promised before to let them talk. Let her explain the lies.

"I am so sorry! I never cheated on you, my love." Agustine said once they ended the hug. She didn't fully let him go holding his hand as she continued her talk.

"Before we met, I was a spy. I worked with the CIA." She said, looking at him, ashamed of the life she had.

"You worked with who?" James seemed puzzled, looking at her and then at us.

"We didn't tell him yet, as promised," I said with a small smile on my face.

"Are you CIA as well?" James asked us, and we nodded in approval letting Augustine tell the rest.

"I betrayed them. That's why I am wanted now. I stayed at the job as a spy for the CIA but was actually selling the information to others. It was just for different governments, different countries. They all protected me because I made a deal that I wanted out. It was for a year of giving them the information and passing a colleague to do the same thing when I left. They told me that they would protect me, but it only meant for the period they needed me. Once I was finally out, I was on my own. Running from place to place. Until I met you. I knew I shouldn't stay, but running was exhausting. I knew that our time together wouldn't be forever, that's why I never told you the whole truth. If you knew, that would mean I would ruin your life, and I couldn't do that to you. I didn't want you to pay for the things I did. It killed me to lie to you every day, but I couldn't let you know these things. I am so sorry, my love, so sorry!" Augustine confessed to everything, to lies to her husband and the crimes she did. She was crying now, knowing that this was the end of her love story, the end of running. James was in tears as well because of the place. The abandoned barn where their love once started now was the place of their ending. The same place that brought happiness now was shattered to pieces. They hugged each other tightly and then shared one last kiss with tears falling from both of their faces.

I knew that it had to end now. I gave a look to Roger, who looked to be emotional as well. It was our job to bring her in now. We had no other choice, and all of us knew that, so we did what we had to.