Brian freed himself from Justin's grip and stopped dead in his tracks, forcing Justin to look at him and answer his question.  A multitude of other questions were beginning to swirl around in his head, also.

"Well, well, well, look who joined the party!" Michelle exclaimed as she appeared and quickly held her gun to Brian's head.

Justin immediately countered her action by placing his own gun to her head.  “Leave him alone! He has nothing to do with this!"

Brian’s mouth gaped open in disbelief; had he landed on another planet?  Was he really standing there with a gun being held to his head?  And Justin; what the fuck?  As he looked over at Michelle partly covered in blood and Justin holding his own gun to her head as if it were the most natural thing in the world, however, he knew it was all painfully and horrifying real.

"Nothing to do with this?!" Michelle cried out in insult and hurt.  “He has EVERYTHING to do with this!” she screamed at Justin; she was so angry, her hand shook slightly as she continued to hold her gun against Brian’s temple.   “You’re standing there, pointing your gun at me! Me!! Your partner!  I've known you since the day you were born! They put us in the same crib even! For sixteen years we’ve shared everything! We played together, trained together, ate together, and KILLED together!  And now you're choosing him over ME?!? Him?? A man you’ve known for a year?!  A man that doesn't even know you?”  She sneered.  “Do you really think he’ll still want you after you tell him the truth?” she asked with tears in her eyes, her voice a mixture of disbelief as well as derision. 

"Tell him, Justin" she pressed him.  Justin didn't reply verbally, but the tears started running down his cheeks as he looked at Brian who had a very overwhelmed look on his face.

"Tell him the fucking truth!!!!!" Michelle screamed now as if she were trying to shake Justin out of his trance.

"Jennifer and Craig aren't my parents,” Justin began as he looked over at Brian with tears in his own eyes; the hurt and confused look on Brian’s face was breaking his heart.  "My real dad was a hero soldier who died when my mother was pregnant with me… and she died giving birth to me…"

Brian stared into Justin’s face, still trying to come to grips with what he was being told; his stomach was tied up in knots as he began to listen to his lover’s story.

"I was taken from the hospital and raised in a secret unit of the Government where I was trained to be an assassin,” he continued now almost in a monotone, knowing if he stopped to think about what he was saying he wouldn’t be able to get it all out.  “My… my first kill was when I was ten.”  He took a deep breath and paused before he revealed, “By the time I was sixteen, I’d killed hundreds.”

Brian felt like someone had punched him in the gut; his life with Justin had all been a lie! This man he had fallen in love didn’t really exist; it was all part of a big, fat joke. 

Justin watched Brian’s face fall in both misery and horror as he desperately tried to explain.  "But all that changed when I met you, Brian; when you kissed me," he told him frantically as the tears continued to stream down his face and he stepped closer to Brian. 

But Brian’s face contorted into anger and hurt as Justin told him "I wanted to stay with you!   I wanted to be with you forever, you changed me" He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  His voice dropped to almost an incredulous whisper as he added, “But you aren’t the man I thought you were, are you?”

No, no, no…. Justin’s heart began to pound.  “Brian, I LOVE you!  Please, don’t do this!” he begged in desperation.  He reached out with his free hand to try and touch him, but Brian instantly shrunk back in reaction.

“Don’t touch me!” Brian snarled.  “I don't even know you. The man I.. I love doesn’t even exist.”

“Brian, please…"

Brian continued to back away from Justin, uncaring that Michelle was still pointing her gun at him.   "Don't you dare touch me! I'll break your freaking arm!!!" Brian screamed in anger.  “I don’t ever want to fucking see you again!  I’m OUT of here!”

He had just turned around when he cried out as a Taser gun hit him squarely in the chest; his body contorted as he began to fall, unconscious, to the ground a few feet away.  Only Justin’s quick thinking prevented him from falling into a heap as he dropped his gun and caught him in his arms to slowly lower him to the ground and cradle Brian in his arms, uncaring at that moment for his own safety. 

Seemingly out of nowhere Thomas and 20 other agents appeared. The distinguished-looking man seemed totally unaffected over what was going on or the fact that there was blood everywhere.

"Hello, Agents."  He greeted them as if they were at a board meeting.

"What are you doing here, Sir?" Michelle asked him as she hurriedly wiped the tears off her face in embarrassment.

"I see you really used the free hand I gave you," he told her, looking around to observe what she had done to Chris and Ethan.   The grisly scene didn’t really surprise him; it would have expected nothing less from one of his top agents.  

Still holding a limp Brian in his arms, Justin told his superior, "I'm not going back, Thomas! I'm out!"

Thomas masked his disappointment quickly as he looked over at Michelle to reply, "Well, Agent, "I see you didn’t successfully complete your mission."

"I'm sorry, Sir," Michelle mumbled as she averted her gaze downward in mortification.

"Don’t do that, Agent," Thomas told her surprisingly as he stepped up to Michelle. "We train our agents to be proud no matter whether they succeed or fail.  As long as you did your best, you can hold your head up high."

“Yes, Sir,” she responded as she did as she was told, standing up to thrust her chest forward and straighten her shoulders and back as she lifted her gaze to at her boss, just before a flicker of awful realization hit her and he placed his hands on her neck and gave it a horrific but efficient twist to break it cleanly.

“No!” Justin cried out in shock and pain as his eyes widened.  No… This can’t be happening…  He tried to rise with Brian still in his arms, unable to let him go, but another agent behind him quickly stuck a syringe of some unknown substance into his neck; he felt the sharp pinprick for just a moment before his eyes soon began to blur…

"You see, Justin,” he heard Thomas say through a haze.  “Agents that are not useful anymore are given a painless, quick death."  He felt Brian being ripped away from his embrace, but he was unable to resist. 

“No…” he whispered. 

"…But you’re not an agent anymore,” Thomas said, smiling, as he bent over Justin so he could see his face.  “So that means you'll get to die a horrible death instead."

It was the last thing he heard before he lost consciousness and slumped to the floor.