* * *
Paul immediately noticed that there were more people in the commons room than normal. Remembering that two Walkers who’d been on assignment had gotten back just the day before, he realized why.
In addition to two new faces at the table where Hodge, Dittrich, and Lisa normally took their meals, there were two more tables full of people. Sentinels, Paul guessed. Parker took Paul by the elbow and led him over to Hodge’s table.
Standing up, Dittrich welcomed them. “Paul! Hodge was just filling us in on your progress today. He tells us you’re coming along quickly.”
“He does?” Paul asked, surprised.
“He does!” Dittrich replied, laughing and turned to the table. “I want you to meet James and Allen. They just got in yesterday.”
Paul shook hands with them. Their reception was cordial but not overly friendly, which surprised him somewhat. He’d grown used to the immediate camaraderie that existed with everyone else except Hodge.
Allen was in his late twenties with a boyish face framed by wild, dark, curly, hair. He was tall and bulky, built like a barroom bouncer. Obviously not worried about appearances or cordiality, he gave Paul a single upward nod and kept filling his mouth with food.
Only James offered anything more than a cursory hand shake. He was of average height, extremely skinny, with jet black hair. He had a dark skin complexion and dark, glassy, brown eyes. “So you’re the guy, huh?” He had a deep southern drawl, somewhat out of place with his almost Italian looks.
“I’m … the guy, I guess.” Paul replied with a nervous smile, wanting to leave this group and join his normal table.
“Lookin’ forward to seein’ your tricks,” James answered and went back to his meal.
Not sure how to respond to that, Paul exchanged a nervous smile with Parker, hoping that his expression made it clear he could use a save from the uneasy silence that hung in the air.
It was Dittrich, still smiling, who broke the awkward tension. “Well, Paul, I’m sure you’re hungry and I know you have a great deal more to do down in training before breaking for the day.”
Relieved, Paul murmured the appropriate nice-to-meet-yous and turned to grab a plate of food from the kitchen. On his way back toward his usual table, he nearly walked past Steven, not recognizing that it was him sitting alone. Steven sat with his head cradled in his arms and didn’t look up when Paul set his plate down in the spot next to him.
“Rough day so far?” Paul asked.
Steven’s body jerked once in a single chuckle. He spoke into the table, not lifting his head. “You could say that. I had four people working me over the entire morning. And they woke me up at like six.”
“What did they have you doing? Weights and stuff?”
Lifting his head, Steven looked at Paul. There were bruises along his right jaw line all the way down to his chin, his left eye was blackened, and his lower lip was split and swollen.
“No, not weights and stuff.”
“What the hell?” Paul exclaimed. “What did they do to you?”
Getting up, he pushed his chair out of the way with the intention of finding Dr. Abrams, but Steven grabbed his arm. “Sit down, Paul.”
“No way. They said you needed to be trained, not beaten.”
Getting a firmer grip on Paul’s arm, Steven gritted his teeth. “Sit. Down. I didn’t spend the morning getting beat on to end up being embarrassed by you. Sit down.”
Reluctantly, Paul took his seat again.
“After this morning, I think I finally get it,” Steven explained. “I finally understand. This is the real deal, here. Whether I want to believe that you can walk around like a ghost at night or not, the fact is everyone else here totally believes it. Everyone I trained with today protects someone just like you. And I got to tell you,” Steven grinned, “they’re all pretty damn amazing.”
Giving Steven a confused look, Paul let him continue. “Every one of them knows how to handle themselves in a fight, or I guess I’m supposed to say ‘in a Combat Situation.’ I learned a lot from these people this morning, and I’ll learn a lot more this afternoon because they tell me I’ll be working with four others just like them. And the combat maneuvers and course training area? Freakin’ amazing, man.”
“Combat maneuvers area?” Paul asked.
Steven grinned through cracked lips. “Past all the glass walls, down that hall. I think it’s built into the side of the mountain. It’s like a giant gym with all different types of areas like sand, dirt, concrete. Pretty much if you can name it, it’s there. And they got a pool. I can’t believe you haven’t checked this place out better. They got all kinds of good stuff.”
“I’ve been pretty busy!” Paul objected. “I guess I just kind of assumed that I’d already seen everything except the safe rooms.”
Steven began cramming his mouth with food from Paul’s plate. “Well you ain’t.”
A little miffed that his buddy already knew more about the place than he did after just a single day, Paul changed the subject. “So the Sentinels you met today… ?”
“Yeah?” Steven replied through a mouthful.
“Where are they? Why are you sitting all alone?”
“Oh,” Steven gave a single, throaty laugh. “I don’t think any of them like me very much.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because the first thing they said was, ‘Get it straight, hillbilly—we don’t like you and we’re going to break you’. And, it was that Rex guy that was in charge of my training today.”
“They said that, huh?” Paul grinned, beginning to get the picture.
“Yup. And you know how much I love it when people don’t like me.”
“I most certainly do,” Paul replied.
Steven continued to cram his mouth full of food, humming Break Stuff. Paul ate what was left of his lunch, happily secure in the knowledge that the rest of the Sentinels had unknowingly secured Steven’s success in the program simply by declaring their dislike for him.
Watchers of the Night Page 33