Relevance (The Six #2.5)

by Sonya Loveday

  My eyes widened. “Bodyguard?”

  Grant nodded.

  I couldn’t help but smirk. “And how did he take that?”

  Grant smiled and rolled his eyes. “Let’s just say he wasn’t very happy about it, but really it doesn’t matter if he likes it or not. Oliver will ensure he stays safe, and he’ll report back to us if he notices anything that might wave red flags. So, yes, for now, Jared is relatively safe.”

  “So why did you make it seem like he was in danger?” I asked, slightly confused by the answer.

  “Because I needed you to say yes and didn’t have a whole lot of time to explain it to you. Would you have joined me without thinking it over if I’d said that there was only a slight possibility of him being in danger?” Grant angled the question more to himself than me before he continued. “I couldn’t be sure if you’d ask to wait until basic was over to be brought in, and with all the training you’ll need… we really don’t have that kind of time.”

  “I would have said yes regardless. Jared’s like a brother to me. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for him,” I answered.

  Grant tipped his head. “You boys have always done that. Looked out for one another, I mean. However, there’s a huge difference in boyhood and changing your entire life in order to keep someone safe.”

  I blinked heavily. “That’s what family does for one another.”

  “Yes, that’s what we do. Now go rest while I get caught up on some reports,” Grant replied.

  I pushed myself up from my seat and staggered over to the couch. My thoughts scattered in every direction as I landed face-first with a bounce when the plane hit a pocket of air.

  Chapter 2

  “What the hell do you mean I can’t call Riley? I told you before I wouldn’t tell her where I am or what I’m doing,” I snapped at Grant.

  “You can’t call her right now because you’re supposed to be in basic training. Would you be able to call her at ten in the morning from base?” Grant asked, tossing his hands in the air.

  “You know I wouldn’t,” I answered, clenching my jaw. I’d gone almost two weeks without being allowed anywhere near a phone. Without being able to call Riley and hear her voice. I missed her, damn it. Also, I needed to talk to her and my mom about not coming to my boot camp graduation.

  Grant put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I told you before that you’ll be able to talk to her soon. Stay focused. Keep up with your training, and I’ll let you know when you can call her. Okay?”

  Anger boiled in my stomach. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to do, Grant. Everything. I gave up my military career. I’ve put all I have into training every single day. The very least you can do is let me call her. Let me talk to her for a few minutes so I can come up with some sort of explanation as to why she can’t come to my graduation. Please?”

  I knew I was bordering insanity by begging him, but something had to give. The days were growing longer and longer every minute I went without her.

  Grant sighed. “All right, Jake. Fine, but not right now, okay? Later this afternoon, after I get with someone in coms to make sure we have a secure line that traces back to the base.”

  Anticipation shot through me. In only a few short hours, I’d hear her voice again. Not even the thought of running another five laps through the obstacle course from hell would take away the happiness bubbling inside me.

  “Hustle, Aceton. Move your ASS! You got the enemy coming up behind you. There’s a target to your right. Fire. Dive to the left. There ya go! Now watch your three o’clock. Duck! Crawl to your target…”

  The wire feed in my ear chattered non-stop as I made my way through an extraction simulator. What was supposed to be my team leader was really somebody watching the simulation screen. Eventually, there would be no one on the other end of the wire feed giving me a heads-up on where to look and what to do. That would be one of the tests I would need to pass before I would be cleared to go out into the field. One of many. And, truthfully, it was more distracting having someone shouting orders into my ear than just letting me get a feel for the situation on my own. I’d failed the simulation twice in a row, and I was getting more than a little fed up each time the wire in my ear crackled to life.

  “Mission incomplete,” the computerized woman’s voice said as a red strobe light bounced over the walls.

  I let go of the plastic gun in my hands that hung from a strap around my neck, and then pushed the goggles I wore up onto my forehead, blowing out a frustrated breath as I stared around the empty room. With the goggles on, I’d been inside a warehouse filled with crates, swinging chains, and holographs that were eerily real as my targets moved in assassin-like stealth at me.

  Frustration bubbled inside of me. It wasn’t a matter of completing it to pass anymore. It was a matter of self-justification. I could do it… I just needed to do it my way.

  “Again,” I snapped, my voice bouncing off the empty concrete walls.

  The red light stopped flashing, cuing me that the simulation was being brought back up. I pulled the goggles over my eyes, and then slipped the fake assault rifle back into my hands.

  The voice in my ear nattered away until I’d had enough and pulled the earpiece free, setting out to finish the damn simulator once and for all.

  The simulations were never the same. While the room was, the layout of targets were always different, which meant I needed to keep focus and not lose track of who and what was around me.

  Yes, it was only a simulation, but I couldn’t think like that. I had to play it out as if it were real life, or I’d never move past that particular training and be put in ‘live’ training. Live training was supposedly done with paintball guns. That sounded a whole lot better than holograms and people constantly in my ear.

  “Gotcha,” I whispered when one of the marked terrorists popped into sight just over a stack of crates. I fired my weapon, and he fell to the ground, no longer moving. Rapid gunfire erupted in my direction, and then a burst of cold air shot out from one of the many tubes placed inside the room. It hissed, telling me how close I was to being in danger of losing to the sim again. One direct hit and it was game over.

  I dropped low to the ground and duck-walked in order to get behind a concrete pillar. Seconds ticked by as I waited until the gunshots tapered off before making a run to the stack of crates to my right. Once there, I was able to take out another target, leaving two more unaccounted for. The tricky part was getting them before they eliminated the hostage.

  My heart pounded furiously against my chest, thudding away in my ears, making it impossible to listen closely enough because, like everything else in the simulator, sound was also piped in from various spots to create the complete sim experience.

  The scuff of a shoe, or the hiss of breath coming from the enemy, would, and did, pop up behind me before I could react. Which is how I’d lost the last sim round.

  I shook my head to clear it. Pushed everything out except for what was happening around me. All at once, everything snapped into place. The slight scuffle of a bound person and the garbled attempt at someone trying to speak through a gag. And it was no more than ten feet away. I just had to keep moving in the right direction and take out the last two targets.

  It didn’t help that the room was, for the most part, pitch black with only the muted glow of fluorescent lighting that flickered, giving me brief glimpses of my surroundings. It was enough to gain a mental picture if you stood in place long enough, but it was also a great way to get spotted and taken out of the sim before all the targets were eliminated.

  I had no choice. I had to move. Slipping around the concrete pillar, I kept low, making my way to the stack of crates I’d caught a brief glimpse of just seconds ago as something very large disturbed the air to my right.

  I brought my gun up, firing a shot just as the lights flickered and a crate sailed towards me.

  “Shit.” The word hissed past my lips as I spun around and ran smack into something
large and very real. Before I could make the connection that someone else was in the sim with me, I was on my ass, gulping for breath.

  That didn’t stop whoever it was from coming at me again. Ripping the goggles off my face, I blinked against the pitch black of my surroundings. I could hear whoever it was move. The sound of light footsteps approached as I scrambled backward, trying to get to my feet.

  I didn’t make it far before the heel of my boot was caught up in an iron grip, and I was being dragged along the floor like a mop. Twisting, I tried my hardest to dislodge the hold on me. When that didn’t work, I stilled, waiting for it to end. As soon as I stopped moving, I made a quick turn onto my hip, kicked my free foot out, and caught my attacker with the toe of my boot.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if whoever was running the sim had decided to show me I wasn’t in control. Maybe that I needed to keep the earpiece in and follow their rules, or I’d pay the price? Or had security been breached and there really was a threat? The longer the lights stayed out, the more I fought to understand just what the hell was going on.

  No. I’m not going to crack under pressure. I didn’t crack in boot camp. I'm damn sure not gonna crack now. I pushed the fear of the unknown away. It didn’t matter if it was real or not. The outcome had to be the same. I had to take down whoever it was trying to take me out first.

  Forcing myself to take deep, even breaths slowed my heart rate down. Brought my focus into perspective. Listen for movement. For the shift of material or a soft intake of breath, and then zero in on the target, I reminded myself.

  It was faint, the sound, but it gave me an idea of where my attacker was. I closed my eyes against the darkness, waiting a beat to hear it again, and there it was. I was being approached from the right. Slowly. One step… two. My arm shot out, fist sliding through the air and connecting with something solid. Something hard that grunted on impact. Staggering like a drunk leaving the bar, my hands reached out, grabbing at the darkness until I felt the whisper of material touch my fingers. After that, I had a hold of my attacker, struggling to bring whoever it was to the ground.

  It was like wrestling a pissed-off bull, minus the horns, but I finally managed to put my knee into a spot that made my assailant stop wiggling. When I was finally able to lock my hands around a really thick set of wrists and keep the person under me immobile, I heard him speak for the first time.

  “Sim complete,” he said.

  The overhead lights came on, instantly blinding me as I let go of him.

  “You’re a scrapper, I’ll give you that. Name’s Flint,” he said, getting to his feet and extending his hand to help me up.

  “So, Flint, since when did sims have hand-to-hand combat?” I asked, wiping the sweat from my brow with the bottom of my shirt.

  He lifted one meaty shoulder with a slight shrug. “Grant said to kick your training up a notch. I guess he thought maybe you could handle it.”

  I didn’t let it show, but that news made me very happy. The faster I got through training, the sooner I’d be able to get out from the confines of the basement of Cole Enterprise. “So what’s next?”

  “Coms,” Flint said as we walked out of the sim room.

  That time, I did smile.

  “We're getting everything set up for the call. Let’s talk about what you’ll say.” Grant gestured to an empty desk with nothing but a phone sitting on it.

  I looked around the room humming with activity, realizing there was no way I’d have any privacy at all during my conversation with Riley, and felt my heart drop a little.

  Grant sat on the edge of the desk, arms folded across his chest. “I figured it would be easiest if you tell Riley your captain pulled you for special detail, and that you’ll be boarding a plane directly after graduation.” He was feeding me my story, and it didn’t sit well with me.

  I shook my head. “You know she’s going to ask where I’m headed.”

  Grant squinted. “And you realize that if you really were headed out to do something right after basic, and were told you couldn’t tell anyone about it, you’d be in the same position, right?”

  I sighed, scrubbing my hand down my face. “True.”

  Grant’s hand came down on my shoulder. “Look, I know this isn’t easy. But you chose this, Jake. Now it’s just a matter of seeing everything through because it’s the right thing to do.”

  The pressure on my shoulder steadied me, yet it made me feel as if my world were crashing in. It was such a mixed matched conundrum of emotions that if I didn’t shut it all down, it would consume me.

  I pulled the chair out from behind the desk and sat. “I understand.” I tried my best to hide the disappointment in my voice, but the look on his face told me he didn’t buy it.

  “You don’t, but you will in time. Ready?”

  I nodded.

  Grant signaled a guy across the room. “Bring it up, Asher.”

  I reached for the phone, but Grant put his hand out before I could lift the handset up. “It will ring in to you first. Once it does, the line will transfer over and direct call Riley’s number.”

  I didn’t have time to ask him how he had Riley’s number, or which number he was calling—her cell or the house—because the phone on the desk came to life. When I lifted the receiver, I heard the end of what sounded like someone else dialing, and then the phone began to ring.

  I held the phone tight against my ear as my heart thundered against my chest in excitement. But with every ring, the beating slowed. Finally, Riley’s voicemail picked up and then disconnected before I could leave a message.

  My heart sank to the floor.

  “We’ll try again in a few minutes,” Grant said.

  I chewed my lip and then asked, “Can I try my mom?” She’d need to know about graduation too.

  “Bring coms back up,” Grant said. Seconds later, the phone rang again. My mom answered on the second ring.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Jake! Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice!” Her excitement put me at ease.

  “How are you?” I asked, settling into the chair and taking my very first full breath in what seemed like forever.

  “I’m good. The usual, you know,” she said, laughing. “What about you? Getting ready for the big graduation? I can’t wait to see you.”

  My happiness fizzled out. “About that, Mom…” I said, going on to tell her what Grant had told me to say.

  “Oh, well, I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I understand,” she said. If I closed my eyes, I could see her sitting there in the kitchen, eyes closed, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose to keep from crying.

  “I’m sorry, Momma,” I said, clearing my throat to keep the lump that was forming from completely taking over.

  “Don’t be sorry, Jake. You’re a grown man with responsibilities now. I know you’ll come see us when you can. Have you talked to Riley? Does she know?”

  “I tried calling her, but she didn’t answer. I’ll try to call her again later.”

  She paused in thought. “I’ll stop by her place tomorrow and, if she’s home, I’ll check in with her. If you haven’t talked to her by then, I’ll let her know. Okay?”

  That gave me a bit of hope.

  “Thanks, Momma. It was good to hear your voice. I’ve missed you,” I said, watching Grant circle his finger, telling me to wrap it up.

  “You too, honey,” she answered with a soft sigh. “I’m so proud of you, and I’m counting the days until I see you again.”

  My heart clenched up.

  “I have to go now, but I promise I’ll keep in touch as often as I can.” The words came out in a raspy whisper.

  “Love you, Jake. Talk to you soon,” Mom said.

  “Love you, too.”

  “Until next time,” she replied, taking the hard part of hanging up away from me and putting it on herself.

  She was never one to say the word ‘goodbye.’ At that moment, I was really glad for it.
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br />   “Coms down,” Asher said, snapping me back to my surroundings.

  “We’ll have to bring the connection back up to try Riley again. It might take a bit to scramble the channels again and get a solid connection. You never want to stay on one connection for too long. Hackers get a bead on it and then they’re in,” Grant said, standing up and moving over to where Asher sat.

  They spoke about connections, pings, and all sorts of other things that made my head spin as they tossed around ideas on how to keep and maintain a secure line.

  None of it made any sense to me, so I just sat back and pretended to be paying attention, but really, my thoughts were on Riley and what she was up to. Maybe she was out helping Doc Anderson. If that were the case, there was no telling if she even had her phone on her. Then again, there were times Riley would forget to charge it, but I couldn’t see her not charging it, knowing that with graduation so close, I’d be calling.

  I couldn’t help but think I was acting pretty full of myself. Thinking she’d sit around waiting for the phone to ring.

  “Com lines are stable for the moment, Jake, but it’ll have to be a quick call,” Asher said, breaking me out of my thoughts.

  The phone rang again, and I snatched it up. Hope soared through me that she’d answer.

  “How did you get it to connect so fast?” Grant asked as the line popped in my ear, beeping before it rang.

  “Piggybacked it in on another call coming in. See, if you look here, someone from… looks like Houston General…”

  I pulled the phone back from my ear as it continued to ring with a wide-eyed stare. Did he just say Houston General?

  “Grant, we need to check on Riley’s dad. Houston General wouldn’t be calling Riley for no reason,” I said, catching the sound of Riley’s voice when her voicemail picked up. The call ended once again before I could leave a message.