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“I get it. It’s not fun being the one left countryside. I can’t tell you shit, though. I don’t know shit.”
“They’re not in the country?”
She swore. “Look. Whatever they’re working on is top secret. I’m sure they’re fine. They’re the best there is.”
I stumbled back a step.
“The guys won’t tell you this because they clearly like you, but being a partner to someone in this field is miserable and lonely. I don’t think I saw the guys more than seven times last year and I work for them. You look like you’re seconds from breaking. If you can’t handle the not knowing, maybe you should get out before things get too messy.” She gently squeezed my arm. “I’m sorry. As one of the only women in this field around here, I’ve always been passed off on the wives and shit during parties and things. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories over the years.”
“Okay.” I turned around without another word and walked towards my car.
A thousand thoughts were racing through my mind. I was feeling what ‘not knowing’ did. I could see it with Forrest. Neither of us were cut out for it. The guys weren’t going to change. We would never be able to harden ourselves against their absence. Not for a long time, anyway, and not without a lot of pain.
Piper Young, one of the high school teachers, opened the door of her car right next to mine and it hit mine. She swore and got out, her face going red. When she noticed it was me, she let out a giant exhale, like she was glad to see me. “This is your car, right?”
I nodded. “It’s fine. It’s the least of my worries.”
“No, no. I scratched your door. I’m just racing around right now during my lunch break. Did you know the school only gives us twenty minutes? Twenty minutes to get over here, make fifty copies to hang around town, and then get back to school.” Freezing, Piper’s eyes widened, and she giggled. “Unless you want to rent the slightly above crappy apartment over the pharmacy, which would save me all this hassle.”
“How much?” The words were out of my mouth before I could even make a conscious decision, but I knew. As soon as I asked, I knew if I could afford the apartment, I was going to take it. I needed to distance myself from the guys. I couldn’t do that from their garage.
“Oh? Oh, wow. I thought for sure that wasn’t going anywhere.” She looked at the paper in her hand. “My aunt is moving away to live on a cruise ship with her new boyfriend for a while and it’s her apartment. She has rent listed at…”
I held my breath.
“Oh, here it is. Rent’s only three hundred a month.” She shrugged. “What do you think?”
“I’ll take it.”
CHAPTER 38
Ben
Three weeks later
“Still no answer.” The words tasted foul in my mouth. We’d been stateside for six hours and we’d been taking turns calling Violet the entire time, but she wasn’t answering. I squeezed the phone in my hand and took a deep breath. “She’s pissed.”
Justin rubbed his face and I winced at the deep bruises around his eyes. “We don’t even know what a pissed off Violet looks like. This mission couldn’t have come a few months down the road? At least then we’d know what we were walking into. Obviously, she’s not a big talker when pissed. Is she going to throw things? Scream?”
“We told her two days and vanished for a fucking month.” Mason shook his head and cracked his neck. “We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t hate us.”
“Not a fucking option.” I ground my teeth and looked around Senator Jacob’s private plane. We’d saved his asshole kid. The kid had managed to get involved with a gang of mercenaries. Hunting them down had been a long and painful process. We all had wounds and battle scars, but we’d bypassed doing anything other than getting on the plane and leaving. We were all disgusting, but it didn’t matter.
“That time, she just ignored the call right away.” Justin growled and threw his phone down on the couch next to him. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”
“Fuck off.” Mason narrowed his eyes at Justin and then dialed again. Someone picked up after a moment and when I leaned forward, Mason shook his head. “Hey, Angel.”
I absently listened to his conversation until he mentioned Violet’s name.
“Have you been down to the diner? I was just wondering if you’d seen Violet… Where...Just on the street?” He frowned. “Oh. Yeah, okay. No, that’s fine… Alright. We’ll check in later tomorrow, probably.”
As soon as he hung up his phone, we were on top of him. Justin bounced his foot. “Well?”
“Angel said Violet chased her down in the street three weeks ago and asked if we were safe.” He rubbed his jaw. “Angel wouldn’t tell her anything. She said Violet didn’t look great, though.”
I growled and dialed her number again. That time the call went straight to voicemail. “She’s turned her phone off. How fucking long until we land?”
“Forty-two minutes.” Mason tipped his head back and closed his eyes. “I hope Forrest is okay.”
