The Bargaining Path

by T. Rudacille

  ***

  “Brynna!” Don exclaimed when Savannah and I walked in, “James is out looking for you. What happened? Why did you take off like that?”

  “How long has he been gone?” I asked.

  “Since you left.”

  “Well, I will wait for him here. Where is Adam?”

  “He’s in with Paul, and… Hey!”

  I pushed past him and proceeded to storm up the hall. Before Savannah or Don could say a word to stop me, I barged into the interrogation room and closed the door behind me.

  “There she is!” Paul’s voice said cheerfully, “No worries now, Rexprimus. Your dear girl has returned.”

  When I turned around to face them, I startled once again; truly, I thought my nerves would be destroyed by the end of the evening. There was blood dripping from Paul’s mouth on one side, and Adam was clenching a fistful of Paul’s bloodstained shirt, his fist still clenched. Without a word, he let go and strode to me, taking me by my elbow and leading me out into the hallway. With a resounding slam, the door was closed.

  He knew. He knew everything. Paul had told him. Like a shark that smells the blood from an injured limb the moment after the injury has been inflicted, Adam had sensed that a secret was being kept, and he had attacked in order to find out what it was. Paul had told him. That had to have been why he looked so angry…

  “I am aware, Brynna, that things may have escalated between you and Mr. Valz very quickly, and that he may have rattled you. However, to run off without telling either James or me where you were going…”

  “My stars, you two are a band of brothers this evening, joined together by a joint mission of female suppression!” I said through a sigh of genuine aggravation.

  “Are you leveling the accusation of sexism at me again? Please know that now is not the time. I am quite upset with you. Now what could have been so terribly world-altering that you had to run off into the night alone without a word to any of us? I was ready to beat that man to death if he did not tell me what had been said to upset you so.”

  “He just…” I stopped, realizing that there was no way that I could tell him about what Paul had given me without revealing the whole sordid truth. “Adam, I need to tell you something, and I should have told you before now so many times, but I was afraid that if you knew I had even considered it, you would…”

  “I do not even know what to say to you right now!” James’s voice echoed up the corridor and startled me again.

  “Goddamn it!” I exclaimed, so sick of feeling that sudden lurch in my chest and that nauseating mixture of heat and cold that was the adrenaline my body sent pumping through me in response to the sudden shock of a loud voice or jarring sight.

  “Like, I want to refer to you by your full name, but that’s a little bit creepy, and I kind of want to whack you upside the head, but that’s mildly abusive. What the fuck, Brynna?!”

  “Just because I have embraced a more lenient policy on using profane terms myself does not mean that I wish to hear them all the time, James Maxwell, and if using your full name is creepy, then consider me a creeper. Also, what is it with you two thinking that you can tell me what to do? If ever I decide to run off for a few moments of solace again, should I expect to face interrogative techniques similar to what would be used on a known terrorist? Or maybe you will just ask me fifty questions! God or Gods, you two are annoying!”

  With that, I stormed off, thinking about how often I seemed to be storming off, away from either aggravating or anxiety-provoking situations.

  “Stop. Stop. Stop.” James said, and he had caught up to me with a few quick strides. We were out of Adam’s earshot now, and he grasped my arm and gently turned me to face him. “This is about what we discussed, isn’t it? Is that what you were getting ready to tell him in the hallway? Did Paul say he was going to tell him?”

  “James, she’s alive.”

  For a long minute, he looked at me.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am almost positive. Look.” I pulled the rings from my back pocket and dropped them into his hand. “My father had that big one made for her for their twentieth anniversary. The other one they claim she had around her neck, hence the chain.”

  “Baby, he could have brought these. Or they could have made them. Janna’s people make jeans and jewelry and all sorts of things that we had on Earth. Batteries and lights, plus the Pangaeans in the city had cars. They could have made these just for this.”

  “I thought that, too. But would they really have gone through all of that just to… I don’t know, get to me?”

  “Not ‘get to you,’ baby. They want Adam and Janna, and they’ll do anything to get them.”

  “But there’s a chance that she really is up there, James, and now he is saying that she is not going to be alive for much longer because she is really sick.”

  “So, what do you want to do, baby?”

  “I don’t know. I have not the slightest clue what to do, James. I cannot trade Adam, but I cannot leave her to die if in fact, she is up there. I just want to tell him. If I tell him that my intention has always been to pretend that we were going to trade him only so we could see if they were bluffing or not…”

  “But is that the truth, Brynna? Did you ever consider the alternative?”

  I began to shake my head but then I stopped.

  “That’s what I thought. Brynn…” He put his hand on my face, “This is a mess. And if I can feel that there is something really bad coming, then I know you can. So, we need to pack up as much as we can to get by, pack up the girls, and tell Alice, Nick, and Quinn, and then we need to go.”

  “Go where, James? Where are we going to run?”

  “I don’t know. We’re just going to run. We’re going to get away before he can find out and hurt you.”

  “I just don’t think that he could hurt me.”

  “He could, and he will. So, we need to go.”

  “But James, if he finds out about this, he is going to turn on everyone. You know that if he feels that I betrayed him, he is going to distrust all humans, and then so many lives are in danger. I don’t know for sure what he will do, but I do know that I will not leave these people here to suffer whatever it is.”

  “Baby, you’re going to have to.”

  “No, I do not have to do anything.” I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him quickly. “We need to just see how this plays out. If things go sour, we will leave. In the meantime, I think we should tell people we can trust that something potentially dangerous might be coming so they can be ready.”

  “Okay. You’re right.” He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Just like always. God, you’re annoying.”

  “Well, that makes two of us.” I returned his kiss when his lips pressed to mine. “This is going to be a disaster, isn’t it? All because I thought for maybe a minute and a half that I might trade him for her.”

  He shook his head and kissed me again.

  “No worries, baby. Not yet, anyway. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay.”