Page 6 of The Wolf and the Monarch

He really didn’t like being put on that spot like that. He was truly stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, yeah, Andi was right. They should give them the details before they go. It’s the military. They should probably have the IP address somewhere. But, also, he trusted his dad. And he didn’t think that mission sounded all that hard. He could easily get in, plug in whatever Andi needed and get out in fifteen minutes tops. And if he did a good job, it would show his dad that Benji could do more. “Um,” he sounded softly, turning his gaze down towards the sandwich that was sitting on his lap. “I mean…Andi’s not wrong. It’s really weird they won’t give it to us.”

“I don’t disagree,” Matthew mentioned. “But I figured the job itself would be quick and easy. We like easy payouts.”

“Yeah…”

“Then I think it’s fine if we do it.”

Andi’s gaze darted back and forth between the two before they settled back on their dad. “We shouldn’t do it. I don’t feel good about it, Dad. Please.”

Matthew shook his head. “It’s going to be fine, Andi. Ben has this covered,” he looked towards his son. “Right?”

Benji frowned a bit as he looked over to his sister. “Yeah.” It felt like he had just betrayed her by saying that. And the look on her face was enough to cement that. She scowled at both of them and stood up from her chair, sliding it backwards she did so. Andi didn’t say anything else before she stomped out of the office, clearly done with the conversation.

His dad sighed and reached over, slapping a hand on Benji’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about her, bud,” he shook his head again. “She’ll get over it. It’s not very often she’s told no, is the thing.” That wasn’t necessarily wrong. Andi usually got what she wanted. But those were just little things. It was nothing like what was going now. Benji couldn’t remember a time when she was so adamant about not doing a job.

Perhaps he should have tried harder to stop it… “I’m gonna go talk to her.” Benji mentioned while standing up.

“I wouldn’t. She’s like your mother. It usually just makes it worse.”

Benji shrugged. “Oh well. I’m going to do it anyway.” His mind was made up. Walking out of the office, he looked in both directions before he decided to go to the left. Andi probably went to the computer lab. It just made the most sense. Peaking through the window, he saw the back of his sister's head and opened the door.

“Get out of here, Benji.”

He shrugged. “No can do.”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Too bad.” He sat down in the chair next to her, straddling it. He folded his arms on the top of the chair, just staring at his sister. “I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

“I really am.”

She looked at him with tears welled in her eyes. “Then why didn’t you fight harder against this when we know it’s bullshit?”

“I mean…we don’t know for sure.” Andi turned away at that statement. “I trust your judgement. I know you know when something smells fishy but…maybe it really is just a weird fucking situation, you know?” He paused for a moment and frowned. “And you know this is a big deal for me after everything that happened…”

“But what if I’m right, Benji?” she asked and turned to look at him again. “What if it all goes to shit and you’re stuck in there alone?”

He shook his head. “Nothing in there can be that bad. There’s no way.” She sighed heavily, clearly not convinced. “I promise you, I’m going to be okay,” Benji lifted his hand up and held up his pinky finger. “I’ve never broken a pinky promise in my life and I’m not starting now.”

Andi swallowed and sniffled softly before she wrapped her pinky around his, squeezing tight. “I’ll fucking stab you if you do, Benji. And I’ll take my twenty bucks from you as you bleed out.”

“That’s a valid thing to do when you think about it.” He smiled and shook their hands around, officially binding the pinky promise. “You still mad at me?”

“I’m never really all that mad at you,” she paused. “Usually just peeved.”

“Also valid.”

“You are quite annoying.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Andi huffed and opened up a drawer on the desk and pulled out something that resembled a USB drive. “I’m going to load this up so that whenever you plug it into that computer, it will immediately remote me into it so I can get to work on wiping it and the cloud.”

“Sounds good. So just plug and play?”

“Pretty much,” she smirked. “I can’t see you handling much more than that.”