“Ya don’t hafta.” He heard the sigh escape her lips as she shook her head. “Guy lied to us, put us in danger with that freak of his. Think we can all agree to call it even.”
“I’m not going to trust him but what I did to him...I mean, I accused him of killing a kid. I put a gun to his head, ready to pull the trigger. If that doesn’t deserve an apology, I don’t know what would.”
She had a point and besides, it wasn’t his place to decide what she should do to make it okay.
“I’m not going to apologize to Angela though,” she said, her lips thinning out as she pressed them together.
“That’s okay,” he said, not sure if she wanted him to talk her out of it or not.
“She pulled a gun on me so we’re even on that,” she said, “And I’m done with participating in her little chronicle project. She lied and I can’t trust her.”
“Alright, yer choice.”
She turned to look at him, her brow wrinkling as she studied him. “You’re still going to go?”
He shrugged. He wanted to support her like he’d promised but his sessions with Angela helped. He’d gotten through his addiction by going to meetings. There weren’t any community centres or churches around for him to find a meeting but talking with Angela helped. It was the only place he felt safe to talk about the struggles he still dealt with. “It helps to have someone to talk to.”
“You can talk to me,” she said.
“I know,” he replied, “But sometimes there’s things I gotta talk ‘bout that I don’t want ya to hear.”
She frowned and gave him a suspicious look, one he remembered from their first night together.
“I ain’t keepin’ secrets. It’s just sometimes I wanna talk ‘bout stuff...personal stuff, ya know.”
He could see that had sparked a curiosity in her and he knew she would keep prying until he told her. Best just get it over with.
“Look, if I’m gonna talk ‘bout ya, I can’t talk to ya, yeah?”
She stared at him a moment before a grin spread across her face. “You talk about me in your sessions?”
“Shut up,” he grumbled, his face burning with embarrassment.
“What do you say?” Her tone was teasing and even though it was at his expense he was happy to see her smile. “Come on, you can tell me.”
“Already told ya this mornin’,” he admitted.
Her eyes softened, the spark of humour gone, but she still kept smiling as she reached out to take his hand.
“You did.” Then her expression became serious. “You need to be careful what you say to her. She’s not on our side.”
He knew that Veronica wasn’t without reason for her paranoia but he wasn’t sure she needed to take it that far. He looked down at their joined hands and threaded his fingers through hers.
“Ya don’t wanna talk to Angela, I got yer back but ya sure ya shouldn’t be talkin’ to someone?” She tried to pull her hand away but he held on. “All’s I’m sayin’ is that the whole reason we all agreed to talk to Angela was ‘cause we were worried ‘bout how we were handlin’ all this shit. That ain’t changed.”
“I’ll think about it.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to her now. He did notice that she didn’t let go of his hand. Her palm was warm against his and he could faintly feel her pulse against his thumb. The memory of the feel of her lips under his own came to him unbidden. It had only been a brief touch but he felt like he could still taste her. For the first time in his life, he wanted to talk about it. He hated being off kilter. He didn’t know what exactly was going on and he wanted it spelled out for him.
She said she had feelings for him but he still wasn’t clear what she expected from him. Except the last thing he wanted to do was burden her with anything more.
“I should get to bed,” she said.
Well that was that. He went to let go of her hand but she held tight as she stood up. “Come on.”
He followed her as she led him back into the cabin and when he stopped at the couch, she tugged at his hand. “I don’t want to sleep alone.”
His body responded immediately to the idea, his dick twitching to life, but his brain set into panic mode. He wasn’t ready for this. He wanted her, that wasn’t a question, but he wasn’t stupid enough to believe that this could just be some meaningless fuck. It couldn’t even be two people relieving some stress, trying to forget the shitty things going on.
If they slept together it would change everything and he was already on uneasy footing just from kissing her.
The panic must have been clear on his face because she smiled at him, a smile that said she understood.
“I don’t want that,” she told him, “At least not tonight. Tonight I just want to sleep but not alone. Please.”
Somehow that made him feel even more anxious. Sleeping beside her, holding her, just reassuring her with his presence...that kind of intimacy was even further outside his wheelhouse. But he wanted to try for her. He had told her she wasn’t alone and if this was what she needed he’d give it to her.
“Alright,” he said, “Just let me turn off the lights.”
She nodded and disappeared into her bedroom as he turned off the lanterns in the living room. He moved over to the girls’ bedroom, peeking in through the crack in the door to check on them. Hannah was asleep, her tiny mouth hanging open and soft snores coming from her. A dim glow came from beneath the sheet on the top bunk, Audrey huddled beneath it with a flashlight and one of her books. They were good and he had no other reason to delay.
The lantern on the bedside table glowed, casting a soft light over the room. Veronica already removed her boots and was tossing her socks into the laundry bag hanging on a hook on the wall. She gave him a small smile as he entered, turning around to pull off her shirt. He was met with the sight of her bare back, the pale blue straps of her bra crisscrossing her freckled skin. He felt his dick stirring again and he turned away from the enticing sight.
He went to the chair by the closet and to unlace his boots, unable to stop himself watching Veronica from the corner of his eye. She opened one of the dresser drawers and pulled out a familiar oversized flannel shirt that she had taken to sleeping in. She pulled it on, keeping her arms inside the shirt and she started shimmying around beneath it.
His mouth went dry when her arm emerged, her pale blue bra dangling from a finger. She tossed it in the laundry bag but part of the lacy blue thing stuck out and he stared at it, a string of X-rated thoughts flashing through his brain. Maybe this really wasn’t a good idea.
The sound of her belt hitting the floor brought his attention back to her. His belly tightened at the sight of her bare legs as she kicked the jeans that were pooled around her feet. The shirt she wore was long enough to hit just above her knees, covering her up but he was still nervous. Usually he slept in his boxers in deference to the summer heat but tonight he was fine with keeping his jeans on. He pulled off his belt but left his jeans in place, hoping the thick denim would keep him from embarrassing himself.
She climbed into the bed and he stalled, carefully tucking his socks into his boots and hanging his belt on a hook. He knew he couldn’t play around forever and so he went to the opposite side of the bed. He mucked around with the pillow a bit, adjusting it before he lay down on his back, tense as hell. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands, putting them at his sides before moving them to rest on his belly.
Veronica rolled over to face him, looking at him with sympathy and he felt like an asshole. She knew he was acting like some idiot teenager who’d never been close to girl and she felt sorry for him. He was about to sit up, tell her that he couldn’t do this, that he wasn’t the kind of guy to do this but she must have anticipated it. She grabbed his hand and lifted it up so she could shuffle up beside him. She rested her head on his chest and slid her arm around his waist. She let out a long breath and relaxed next to him. He loosened up as well, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to tuck her closer to him
.
Her breath ghosted against his neck. “Thank you.”
“Didn’t do anythin’,” he insisted. Truth was he was pretty sure he’d fucked this whole thing up.
“Yes you did,” she sighed, her voice going soft as her eyes fluttered shut. “You’re here and that’s all I need.”
He lay there for a while staring up at the ceiling, listening to her even breathing as she drifted off to sleep. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as difficult as he thought. Maybe intimacy wasn’t lost on him, at least when it came to her.
Subject File #742:
Subject: This feels a bit awkward after our showdown.
Administrator: I wouldn’t call it a showdown.
Subject: What would you call it?
Administrator: Coming to an understanding.
Subject: You know, you're a lot more likeable when you let people in.
The impromptu party had broken up a little while ago when Raquel had announced that she was exhausted after the day’s travel. Kim had ushered the Reyes and Travis off to one of the empty cabins. It hadn’t been long before the others had started to head off to their own cabins for some much needed sleep.
With his watch shift starting in less than an hour, Malcolm had remained at the lodge after the last of them left. He’d taken up residence in one of the armchairs by the fireplace, running over the events of the day. The one thing he kept coming back to was Glen.
He understood why Harold had hidden his part in creating the virus. Anyone would have kept that hidden. It would be too easy for people to turn on him, make him a scapegoat for everything that had happened to them. Hiding his part in it made sense to him.
What he didn’t understand was why Angela, Elaine and Nas had kept it from him. He wasn’t a civilian. He was part of the Omega Protocol, hand-picked by the Director before half of them had even joined the CIA. At the very least, Elaine should have told him. She knew him and she trusted him. If she hadn’t told him, it was because she’d been convinced not to and he knew there was only one of them that could have done it.
He launched himself out of his chair and left the lodge. The night was cool after the heat that had been generated inside from all the bodies. He made his way out to Angela’s cabin by the moonlight, spotting the gleam of a lantern through the screen door. Good, she was still awake. He bounded up the steps and knocked on the door frame.
It only took a moment before Angela appeared behind the door. “Can I help you?”
Malcolm didn’t let her acerbic tone get to him. “We need to talk.”
She stepped back and let him inside. The interior was the same as the cabin he shared with Kim and Trey. A single room with a woodstove against the back wall between the doors to the cabin’s two bedrooms. Instead of a checked sofa like his, they had two wingback armchairs in navy blue. They were tucked in the corner, next to the front window, matching ottomans in front of them. The table in their kitchenette was larger and the entire surface covered with binders and file folders. He recognized the binders. They looked the same as the ones that were in the lodge office and the clinic. The same ones that contained information the Director had thought they would need.
“Is Elaine here?” he asked with a nod towards one of the closed bedroom doors as he casually took a step towards the table.
Angela predicted his move and skirted around him to block his approach. “She’s on watch. You know that. Why are you here?”
“Why do you think?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You can’t seriously be here to lecture me about what happened today. I didn’t do anything wrong. One of your people pulled a gun on one of my people. I was only defending him, making sure that he didn’t die because Veronica can’t keep an eye on her goddamn kid!”
Malcolm held up a hand to stop her tirade. “I’m not here to lecture you. I’m here because I have some questions for you.”
“And what’s that?”
“I want to know why the hell you didn’t tell me,” Malcolm told her. “About Harold’s part in the virus, about Glen, about any of it.”
“I wasn’t about to serve Harold up on a platter to a bunch of people looking for someone to blame for the virus.”
“We wouldn’t have,” Malcolm said and Angela’s eyes grew wide.
“Look what happened today! You clearly don’t know your people.”
“I do,” Malcolm growled at her, his own temper flaring to life. “I know my people. They’re my family. I trust them with my life.”
“Look I get it,” Angela said. “You guys all bonded on your way here, but do you think we didn’t? You say those people are your family now? Well, Harold, Nas, Elaine, they are mine! You might trust your people with your life but I don’t trust them with their lives. I had to do what was best for them, what I thought would protect them.”
The anger that had been flaming to life inside him banked. If he had been in her place, he might have even done the same. The need to protect those you cared about was powerful and could influence you to do crazy things.
Though he might understand her better now, he couldn’t let the lies go completely.
“You could have told me the truth,” he said. “I might be retired but that doesn’t mean I forgot what classified means. I’m a part of the Omega. I deserved to know about Harold and Glen. So, what else do I not know?”
“Nothing. You know it all.”
“And how am I supposed to believe that?” he asked. “You lied before, why not again?”
“Because I don’t have any reason left to hide anything,” she spat out bitterly, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s over now. Glen is gone. Harold’s got a snowball’s chance in hell of figuring out a cure. There’s nobody else from Omega coming here. The whole thing is a failure.”
He saw tears spring to her eyes but she was quick to hide them, turning away from him. “Take the binders if you want them. They’re useless to me now. Just take them and go.”
He circled the table to where a binder lay open and studied the pages. They were filled with addresses in the United States and Canada, listed alphabetically by state and province. It was open to the O's and several of the addresses in Ohio and Ontario had been highlighted while others had an X through them. The ones with the X's were all located in large cities. The highlighted ones were all in towns with names he didn’t recognize.
“These are safe houses,” he said and looked up at Angela. “Are you planning on leaving?”
She turned back to him and he saw that she hadn’t been able to control her tears. They streaked down her pale cheeks in silvery rivulets.
“Do you want me to?”
“Of course not.” He flipped the binder shut and rounded the table to stand in front of her. “You’re a part of Sanctuary as much of any of us.”
“I don’t want to leave.” Pain filled her eyes and she bit down on her bottom lip, as if biting back a sob. “Those places, I marked them because I thought...I just thought that maybe he made it to them.”
Her uncle, Director Shepard.
Now it was all making sense to him. The highlighting wasn’t something she had started tonight, she’d been at the project a while.
She shifted a few of the binders and pulled out a map. She unfolded it to reveal the eastern seaboard of the United States, different coloured lines traced over it like a rainbow spider web.
“I mapped out all the possible routes he could take out of DC,” she told him, “And then I cross referenced the safe houses he might use along the way. I did it back when we first got here. It made me feel better to know he had a real chance of coming here. Classic denial, really. I couldn’t accept that he was gone so I created a delusion I could believe in. You can take them now if you want. Read through them, make sure I’m not hiding anything else. I’m done with them.”
She tossed down the map and left the table, crossing to the door to stare out into the darkness. Malcolm studied her, her arms crossed over her chest in a defensive posture
as she tried to blink away her tears. In all their time here, he had never seen her look so lost. Her belief that her uncle was alive and on his way here had been what had kept her strong. Now that she had given up on it, she was collapsing in on herself.
“Angela, you don’t know what happened. He could still be alive.”
She let out a bitter laugh. “Malcolm, don’t placate me. I know that all of you have been humouring me. I’m a psychologist with self-awareness. I know what I was doing. The first stage of grief is denial and now I’m past it, right into anger."
“Maybe it wasn’t denial. Maybe it was just hope,” he said, “And maybe that’s something you can still have. You did all this work, you said it yourself that it shows he has a chance. Holding onto that possibility isn’t denial, it’s hope.”
He walked over to join Angela at the door. “There’s nothing wrong with having hope. Hell, that’s what kept all of us going on the road, wasn’t it? Hope that this place would be a safe home for us. Other people might have called us delusional for thinking we could find a place like that but we knew it was a possibility. Same thing with Sheppard. You don’t have to give up on him completely.”
Angela stared at him with glossy eyes, pursing her lips as she considered what he had said. “It’s just been so long. After all this time, how could he make it?”
“Hell, we thought Travis was dead and here he shows up alive. You telling me that you don’t believe the impossible is possible now?”
The corner of her mouth turned up in a half smile. “You do have me there...but it’s been so long since I saw him.”
She shook her head and wrapped her arms tighter around herself. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye. If I knew...I don’t know, I just would have done things differently. Our last conversation was nothing but business. He told me about Harold. He said I had to do whatever I could to make sure he survived.”
“It’s because of him that you didn’t tell me about Harold or Glen, isn’t it?”
“He told me keep it from everyone else. Highest security clearance. I did, at least until Glen got infected. Then Harold confessed, promising to cure Glen. I couldn’t stop that but then you all came here. I just wanted to do what my uncle asked so that when he got here...”
The Complex (The Omega Protocol Chronicles Book 3) Page 4