“Yeah, thanks,” Lethal said, actually chuckling. “And for the record, you should pick a name. You are so much more than a number, and you deserve to be an individual.”
Two shrugged. “Maybe one day. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to find someone who can put up with me and I’ll let her name me. Right now, Two’s fine with me.”
Chapter 37
Nina had just finished washing the breakfast dishes and setting them in the dish drain pan to dry when she was interrupted by a knock at the door. Drying her hands on a dishtowel, she walked over to the door and looked out of the peephole. Nina stepped back from the door with her hands on her hips, shaking her head as she glanced down toward the floor, trying to decide what approach she’d take.
There was another series of knocks dragging her attention back to the door.
“Come on, Nina. Please open the door,” Roscoe begged.
Nina rolled her eyes and opened the door just enough to glare out of it with one eye. “What do you want?”
“I want you to come back to work,” Roscoe said.
“No.”
“No? Just ‘No’? You loved your job and you were damn good at it,” Roscoe said passionately.
“I did. And I was. And then you lied to me,” Nina said, still looking at him through a sliver of space with just one eye.
“It wasn’t to mislead you. It wasn’t to hurt you. It was to protect you from something that may have hurt you and it didn’t really make a different in your life, so I thought it was best to keep it from you.”
Nina stood there, still peeking at him through the door.
“Alright, I know I was wrong. But can you at least see where my intentions lay?” he asked.
Nina regarded him for a moment before answering. “Yes.”
“Thank you for that at least,” Roscoe said somewhat relieved. “Please come back. I really need you, but it’s not just that. I miss you. I miss your company, your smile. Going to work in the mornings just isn’t the same anymore.”
Nina listened to Roscoe with deep lines forming between her eyes. There was something about his plea that sounded off to her. “Why do you miss my smile? Shouldn’t matter to you one way or another if I smile.”
Roscoe nodded reluctantly. “I know. But inevitably, when you smile, I smile. You’ve become someone important to me. And I’d appreciate it if you’d come back to work.”
Nina was surprised that Roscoe had not only mentioned that she was important to him, but that he felt anything at all. He always kept everything business. She inhaled deeply and thought about her options. Honestly, she didn’t know what she wanted to do. But no matter what it was, she wasn’t quite ready to jump back into forgiving everyone and act like nothing had happened. And she certainly wasn’t ready to face One, or Lethal, whatever it was he called himself now, that much at least she was sure of. “I’m not ready to make a decision one way or the other.”
Roscoe was clearly irritated. He clamped his teeth together and tightened his jaw. He turned his back to the door momentarily and gazed out over the park and the small duck pond that was almost directly across from her house, before suddenly turning back to face her. “Okay. I understand. At least it’s better than a flat out no. I’ll take whatever I can get.”
Awkward silence met his reply, with neither of them knowing what to say next.
“I guess that’s it, then,” Nina finally said.
“No, that’s not it. Your job will be waiting for you. I’ll be waiting for you to come back. Let me know when you’re ready, Nina.”
“I might never be ready,” Nina answered.
“Then expect a whole hell of a lot more visits from me,” he said, before turning and walking away from her door.
“What?” she asked.
Roscoe was already walking down the walkway that led up to her front door, and didn’t respond — he just kept walking.
“Hey! What does that mean?” Nina called after him, opening the door fully and stepping out onto her porch. “Why would you even want to visit me?”
Still Roscoe didn’t answer, he just kept walking.
Roscoe smiled to himself as he left Nina’s house, but it was short-lived. The further he got away from her, the more he silently berated himself for his attraction to her. And even more so, the fact that he’d almost told her. He couldn’t help it. She was this small, little feminine dynamo that survived the most horrendous treatment he’d personally known of, and she feared nothing. She’d risen above it all to forcibly make something of her life, even taming one of the most rough-around-the-edges former military personnel they’d called in to help them rescue her and others like her. He hadn't even realized his attachment to her until she wasn’t there anymore. And now it ate at him the way he sat and watched the front of the admin building waiting for the door to open and her to step through it again. He knew she was with Acker by choice, and would never interfere, but, if the time ever came that she was on her own again, he had no doubt that he’d step in and let her know how he felt before anyone else had a chance to. Even Lethal would have to fight him for Nina if it came down to it. For now though, he’d take just getting to spend his days with her nearby. If he could get her to come back to work.
<<<<<<<>>>>>>>
Nina was still irritated that Roscoe had just walked away when she’d clearly had more questions, but she’d be damned if she let him know that. She went about her day, cleaning, then making lunch, and finally just relaxing on the sofa with a big bowl of popcorn and the remote, flipping through channels.
Just at the end of the movie she’d been watching, just when the two main characters were about to kiss, someone knocked on her door again.
“Damn it!” she swore out loud.
The male outside her door grinned to himself at her exclamation.
Nina stomped over to the front door, unlocked it and swung it open while her mouth was running. “If you don’t stop coming over here begging me to go back to work, I’m going to hurt you the next damn time you knock on my door!” she shouted. Then she clamped her mouth shut and changed her expression from irritated to surprised when she saw who was standing there.
“Well, as far as I remember, this is my first visit today, though I was planning to offer you a job, even if it is part time, to come help me out,” Brutal said, chuckling at the surprised expression on her face.
“Hello, Brutal. I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else,” she said.
“Obviously,” he said, still laughing.
“Come on in,” Nina invited, standing back and allowing Brutal into her home. After he stepped past her and into the house, she stuck her head out of the door and looked back and forth to make sure there was no one else near her home that she didn’t want there. Then she closed the door and locked it before turning to face Brutal.
“Anyone in particular you’re looking for out there?” he asked.
“Yes, and neither one of them better show up here,” she said before changing the subject. “Have a seat, Brutal. Would you like something to drink? Or are you hungry? I cooked, and I always cook way too much.”
“Where’s Acker? He’s not around?”
“No, he’s up at the General’s house for an important meeting. But I have plenty, and I’ll still have enough for leftovers even after he gets home and has lunch.”
“Really? Well, yeah, I could eat, if you’re sure you don’t mind,” Brutal said.
“Come in the kitchen and I’ll make you a plate,” Nina answered, walking past the sofa and into the kitchen.
Once Brutal was seated, she served him a plate of jambalaya and garlic buttered French bread with green beans on the side. She poured him a glass of sweet ice tea and took a seat opposite him.
“So, a part time job, huh?” she asked as he took his first bite.
“Oh, wow! This is amazing. You’re a really good cook, Nina,” Brutal said, taking another bite.
“Thanks. I enjoy it and being from the South I was raised making re
ally tasty dishes.” Then she realized what she’d said. “But you don’t repeat that to anyone, right? I don’t want anyone to know where I’m from,” she said nervously.
Brutal could clearly see the change in her personality when she realized her slip of the tongue. “It’s okay. I’ll never repeat anything you tell me to anyone. And no one would ever guess you’re from the South — you have no distinct accent. And I’d never tell, especially when you ask me not to. Consider it forgotten already.”
Nina looked a little relieved, but not fully. “Thank you, Brutal.”
“You’re welcome. Now, let’s get down to it. I know you’re not working with Roscoe anymore. Or at least you haven’t been for the last two days. I don’t know if you’re just taking a break or if you’ve decided you’re not going back, but I wanted to throw another offer your way just the same.”
“I’m listening,” she said, indicating with a wave of her hand he should continue eating while they spoke.
“You know I’m head of security, yes?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What you probably don’t know is that I hate technology. I hate computers. And all my officers have to turn in daily reports. Since I don’t use computers, they have to complete them by hand. Which means I have to read each individual one and sign off on them, then file them. It not only becomes tedious for me, it becomes extremely tedious for them.”
“I can see how,” Nina said.
“Not only that, but expense reports, purchasing, anything at all that requires documentation is being done by hand. When the powers that be — Roscoe and the General — want a report, they can’t just pull it up on the mainframe and take a look like all the other departments. I have to go in with stacks of papers and verbally explain it all.”
“And you’re ready to make the jump into the twenty-first century?” Nina asked, smiling brightly.
Brutal paused for a moment to appreciate the beauty of this woman when she smiled. She was obviously American with a slight oriental look to her features. Huge, dark, almond-shaped eyes sparkled when she smiled. He could see how Lethal had been lost to her. Fortunately for him, Nina, and Lethal, all he felt was an appreciation for her beauty, he wasn’t interested in her in any way other than a friend. “Here’s the thing. I’ll do what I must, but I’d prefer not to have to do anything electronic. I’ve been entertaining the idea of hiring one of the other females to work for me part time, but, I have no idea how to train her, no computer knowledge at all. And on top of that, not many of the females have ventured much further than the cafeteria and wouldn’t be interested in spending any time at all in the security building.” Brutal looked at her and leaned forward to make his point. “I’m trying to get away from calling it lockup since we were all kinda locked up at some point or another.”
“Makes sense,” she agreed.
“Anyway, you haven’t been in admin in a couple days and you move about easily, so I thought, why not offer the job to Nina and see if she wants it,” Brutal said.
“I’d have to think about…” Nina started to say but Brutal interrupted her.
“Before you even consider making any decisions at all, I want to be perfectly honest with you. We have a former guard locked up there. He’s helping us by supplying names and anything else he can remember. We have him in lock down not only because we don’t fully trust him, but for his own protection. We don’t want him dead unless we decide he’s earned it. We’re also building a permanent jail. Some of the people we plan to go after could feasibly escape from a metal building. Now that we’ve completed the apartment complex, we’ve just signed off on plans to build a secure jail. An actual building. And you’ve heard the term, ‘under the jail’? We plan to put some cells under the jail as well. Just for our most special guests.”
Nina thought of the guard that had tried to be nice to her when the others weren’t watching. “They aren’t all bad. Some of them were just caught in a bad situation. Some of them do belong under the jail, but there was one who was just caught up in it, I think.”
“Maybe. We shall see. But I wanted you to know. He won’t have access to you or even see you, nor you him, but I wanted you to know he’s there. And, the other thing you need to know is that I am friends with Lethal. However, if you take this position, I give you my word I will forbid his presence in my building at any time day or night. You will not have to deal with him being there for any reason and if he does by some small miracle manage to make it into the building while you’re there, I will personally whip his ass.”
Nina smiled slightly before shrugging slowly. “You could try,” she said.
Brutal grinned at her. The fact that she believed in and had faith in just how badass Lethal was, and could tease him about it made him respect her even more. It meant she didn’t hate him as much as Lethal thought she did and she was woman enough to have begun to realize it. “At the very least I’d make sure he bled, too,” Brutal teased.
Nina nodded, and smoothed her thumb up and down her own glass of sweet tea as the condensation dripped down the side. “I really gave him a hard time the other day,” she admitted.
“I have no doubt he deserved it,” Brutal said.
“I accused him of deserting me. I am well aware that he most likely had no choice in the matter. Dr. Waller said One, I mean Lethal, was given the chance to take me with him and chose to leave me behind. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but, just the thought that he may have been able to keep me with him and didn’t, it drove me insane. Not because he didn’t want me anymore, but because of what I lived through after he left.”
“I heard you tell him it would have been kinder to kill you before he left,” Brutal said quietly.
Nina nodded. “It’s the truth.”
“Nina, I’m not going to speak for anyone but myself here, but, let me just say emphatically, if the Lethal I know now had had the chance to take you with him, he’d have never left you behind, and he’d have never have harmed you or killed you under any circumstances. What that means to you or doesn’t mean to you, I don’t know. And whatever else your accusations may be might just be accurate, but I do know he was hell bent on finding you the moment he was freed. You don’t write someone off and then buck every rule you face to search them out again,” Brutal said. “I don’t question that you were not just a reward to him.”
Nina nodded slowly. “There is so much pain, and anger and resentment. So much frustration left over from having no control over your own life that it just spills over sometimes. The emotions are so raw they just explode out of you. It’s like being a child and it was so much easier to just blame everyone else, you know?” she tried to explain. “I saw him standing there and it shocked me. All the emotions came rushing back and I blamed him for what happened to me after he left.”
“I do know. Don’t forget, I came from the same place, more or less.”
Nina offered a halfhearted smile as she tried to blink away the tears that had begun to pool in her eyes.
Brutal decided it was best to change the subject for now. “But, all that’s neither here nor there at the moment. I’m here to offer you a part time position. Part time because I’m not sure exactly how much time it will take up. And once you get it up and running, it may not take that much time at all, but you’re welcome to as many hours as you want on whatever days you want them.”
“Well, in a perfect world you’d learn to use a computer,” Nina said, looking at him for a response.
Brutal rumbled a soft growl of irritation.
Nina chuckled and continued. “But, I suppose if I automated the reports your officers complete, I could print them out for you and leave them on your desk for you to review. If you approve them, just check them off and put them back on my desk. I’ll finalize them in the system and electronically file them away. If you have questions, I’ll flag them in the system, letting the officer know the next time he logs in that he needs to meet with you.”
“You can do that?”
Brutal asked.
“I’m pretty sure I can.”
“You want to come work for me? You make your days and times,” Brutal said.
“You know what? If you can let me have the rest of the day to decompress, I’ll do it,” Nina said.
“Really? That’s great! Start tomorrow?” he asked.
“Start tomorrow,” she answered.
“And what about Roscoe and the admin office?” Brutal asked. “Soon as he finds out I’ve hired you away he’s going be over here.”
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do about working in admin. I’ll think about it. But in the meantime, helping you get yourself set up should be relatively quick,” Nina said.
“I appreciate it, Nina.”
“I appreciate it, too. I hate not having something to do.”
Chapter 38
General Ferriday took his time clicking through slide after slide that presented the evidence that had first alerted him and Roscoe of the men and their plight. He allowed everyone seated in his living room time to pick apart every slide. When he was sure they’d seen all they could, he’d move on to the next slide. Once that was finished, he signaled Acker who flipped on the lights and stood silent sentry at the back of the room.
“This is outrageous,” one of the men said. “There’s no way this is possibly going on beneath our noses. We’d have heard something about it by now.”
“You’re hearing about it now. And it is going on. The first people we’ve confirmed are associated with it from a lower level, but a crucial one, is the military judge that gave these men choices between military prison and a testing facility. The testing facility is where all this happened,” General Ferriday explained.
“But surely we’d have known if there was such a facility,” another said.
General Ferriday offered a strained smile. “Acker.”
“Sir!” Acker responded immediately.
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