Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen


Thursday, March 29th, 0012 NE

2214 hours



Atami, Japan



IT WASN’T GOING to happen. Stretching her neck to the side, Natalie contorted her body quietly beneath the covers of the king-sized bed she was sharing with Esther. For over an hour, the chestnut-haired captain had rolled from side to side, turning her head one way, then the next, then back again, straining with all of her brainpower to think of absolutely nothing so that she could fall asleep. Yet sleep stayed elusive. At this point, she was just about ready to give up entirely and slip out into the main room.

With three bedrooms available in Nobu’s suite, the decision had been made to split the group of survivors into two, leaving the third bedroom entirely for the Yakuza lackeys. The Nightmen would sleep in the room with Jakob Reinhardt, while the rest of the survivors would share the room that Esther had previously claimed for herself. Unlike the night before, when the scout had sequestered herself off without a word, tonight Esther seemed at least partially open to allowing herself back into the fold. It was amazing what a shower and a little alone time could do. Natalie was thankful that Esther had gotten both earlier.

What she hadn’t expected was to be sharing a bed with her. But it was what it was. Insisted upon by the men of the unit, the king-sized bed had been given to the two women to share, and with a pillow between them, they had more than enough space on the massive mattress to completely avoid one another while they—or Natalie, at least—tossed and turned.

Whereas their first day in Ikeda-kai “care” had been a whirlwind, the latter part of day number two had dragged on like nothing else. There was only so much watching television that any of them could tolerate, particularly when one of the hot topics was speculation on which outlaw—Becan or Jayden—could have survived. Natalie knew how much of a toll that must’ve been taking on Esther, so she’d ordered the television off, which no one complained about. Quite frankly, they were sick of seeing their names and faces everywhere, anyway.

Natalie was struggling with intense guilt over the possibility that the survivor might have been Jayden. In her head, she knew that tearing Esther away from the cowboy to make their retreat was the right decision. But with each hour that passed, she questioned it more and more. Could one of them have carried him? Could they have engaged the attacking Vectors further in an effort to hold them off while they checked Jayden for vitals, then perhaps stabilized him? The answer to all of these, at least from logic’s perspective, was a resounding no. Death for all of them had literally been seconds away. Even if it had been Jayden who was clinging to life and someone had carried him out of there, who was to say that the act of carrying him wouldn’t have killed him by itself? Tearing Esther away from Jayden and leaving him behind had been the right decision, there was no doubt about it. It just left her feeling painfully wrong.

As for the rest of the day’s events, there hadn’t been many of them. She hadn’t spoken much to Logan since their spat earlier, and even though it’d quelled just a bit, she was still plenty angry with him. Not surprisingly, he left the guest suite earlier in the evening to sleep in some other place that Nobu had set up for him. As rough around the edges as Logan had always been, it seemed that here, in Japan, he was afforded a life of luxury. That was fine by her. Maybe a little distance would benefit them both.

Other than that, nothing noteworthy had occurred. The crew just spent their time meddling about and clustering off into little groupings, where they passed time either quietly conversing or playing card games with the various decks that they’d found in the suite. Natalie hadn’t been particularly interested in games or small talk, so she mostly stayed off by herself. It gave her time to clear her mind, which she desperately needed. What she desperately needed now, though, was sleep. Not even the sound of slamming rainfall outside had been enough to lull her. She might as well have gone to bed after drinking a pot of coffee.

This is ridiculous.

Reaching her hand up, she ran her fingers through her hairline, then released the quietest of sighs. The last thing she wanted to do was to risk waking anyone else up by trying to sneak out of the bedroom. At some point, she had to hope, sleep would just come.

“Are you awake?”

The whispered words were Esther’s, and Natalie almost flinched a little when she heard them. Turning to look at the scout, she saw that Esther was already looking at her, her large, brown eyes visible even in the darkened room. “I’m sorry, am I keeping you awake?” Natalie whispered back.

“Yes.”

Ugh. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to keep still.”

There was a slight pause before Esther replied, “It’s okay.”

There was nothing irritable about the way the scout said it. Quite the contrary, she almost sounded…relieved. Rolling over to face in Esther’s direction, Natalie asked, a bit automatically, “Are you doing all right?” If I’d have told myself a week ago that I’d be lying in bed in a nightgown with Esther, I’d have laughed my head off and then slapped myself.

“No.”

Now that caught Natalie’s attention, not so much because the scout wasn’t doing all right, but that she’d actually admitted it. Brow furrowing, Natalie shifted a bit to get comfortable on her side. “Talk to me.”

There was a pause—one long enough to make Natalie think that the scout might be on the verge of breaking down. The poignancy of what Esther said next, though, hit hard enough on its own. “How does one be a good person?”

A good person? Natalie blinked a single time, her emerald eyes gazing into Esther’s as if searching the Briton’s soul for the question’s hidden meaning. But there was none to be found. There was only the question itself—one as heart-wrenching as it was genuine. “What do you mean?”

After a short hesitation, Esther said, “Just what I asked.”

Shaking her head slowly, Natalie answered, “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. You’re a good person.”

“Oh, Esther,” Natalie whispered, a sad smile emerging as she stared the scout in the eye. “My face is plastered on every screen from Tokyo to Kansas City. I don’t think many people would categorize me on the side of good right now.”

Esther’s face remained stoic. “It doesn’t matter what people think. You know that.”

She did.

“That woman who’s plastered on every screen isn’t the villain everyone thinks she is,” said Esther. “But me…” Her voice trailed. “I am exactly what they say. Word for word.”

“That’s not true.”

Nodding, Esther said, “It is.”

Though it wasn’t intentional, Natalie felt the expression on her face shift a little. The guise of trying to be polite and agreeable fell. Against this woman, it wouldn’t succeed.

“I didn’t have a father growing up,” Esther said. “What few memories I do have are of an abusive man—physically to my mother, verbally to me.”

Brow arching painfully, Natalie narrowed her eyes as if feeling the pain herself.

“He was out of the picture when I was a young girl. Our lives were better for it, but…” She hesitated. “I still grew up with the pain of not having a dad. I take responsibility for the woman I am, but I wonder how different I could have been had I grown up with a proper family.”

So much about Esther suddenly makes sense.

“Fast-forward to today, when I find out that one of my two closest friends might have survived in the woods. Most people don’t know this, but Becan has a baby son in America.”

Natalie didn’t know Becan terribly well. The most she’d interacted with him, ironically, was when they’d fended off Oleg.

Drawing in a breath, Esther continued. “So now, in my heart, I have to choose. Do I want to wish another child fatherless, or do I wish to lose my husband?”

My God, what kind of an awful choice is that?

“I have been at war with myself since I heard the news,” said Esther. “A good person would want the father to live. As much as they might love their husband or wife, they would recognize the enormity of a child growing up without a dad. They would sacrifice their own desires for the sake of an innocent’s.” Esther’s body jolted—enough to make Natalie wonder if the breakdown had arrived. If it had, though, Esther’s voice gave no indication of it. “But I just want Jayden back.”

This was normal. This was so totally normal. “Esther, listen to me. Anyone in your shoes would want that.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“What, do you think I wouldn’t?”

Nodding, Esther said, “I know you wouldn’t.”

How could Natalie explain this? “Look, if I had to choose between Scott or someone else’s dad, I’d be struggling the same way as you.”

Esther’s body went still. Lifting her chin, her brown eyes stayed fixed on her chestnut-haired counterpart. The look she was giving Natalie was…definitely a look.

Blinking and angling her head a bit against her pillow, Natalie looked at Esther strangely. “What?” What’d I say?

The expression on Esther’s face told ten tales at once. Surprise. Understanding. Suspicion. Curiosity, knowing, conveying. Like she had something significant to say. At long last, she said it. “Scott.”

Scott? What did he have to do with any of this? The perplexed look on Natalie’s face remained.

Laughing a single soft breath, Esther cracked as wry a smile as she seemed capable of cracking. “You don’t even realize you said it, do you?”

“Said…?” Said what? Backtracking in her mind, she searched back to see if anything she said might have initiated this odd little tangent. It did not take her long. When she caught what Esther already had, her eyes widened in horror. “Oh my God.” Even those words she hadn’t meant to utter, but out they came.

“I can already tell Sveta’s going to love you,” Esther whispered.

You idiot, Natalie! She exhaled a hard breath. “Okay. Just…” Just what? She had no follow-through. “All right…”

Smirking subtly, Esther said, “Take all the time that you need.”

Oh, just forget it. Sighing and with nowhere to go but up, Natalie allowed the embarrassment to take her. “Yeah, so, I have a crush on Scott. See? There you go, I’m not Miss Perfect.” There was absolutely no way for her to backtrack that little slip up. She might as well own it. “Rather than humiliate myself more by going on about it, just allow it to convey to you that I understand your plight. You love Jay, I…” Damn it. “…have a mild to moderate crush on my former XO. Who was never really my XO, as it turns out, but a Nightman plant. A very roguish and…sexy Nightman plant. Who is fighting to save the world.” Once more, a sigh. “I mean come on, Esther, work with me, here.”

“This is all you, Venus.”

Blech. “The point is this. Every person has their struggles. For some,” she said, gesturing the scout’s way, “it’s coming to terms with the way they are. Fighting selfishness, staving off the urge to always put themselves first. For others,” she indicated to herself, “it’s…”

“Horniness?”

Natalie’s eyes narrowed—as much at herself as at Esther. After a short pause, she said defeatedly, “Horniness.”

The tracings of a smirk remained on Esther’s face for several more seconds, until they slowly began to fade away. Whatever little distraction that brief aside may have been, it was clear that Esther’s thoughts were returning to her dilemma. As the last remnants of levity left them, the sound of the tattering rainfall recaptured the room. Esther stayed quiet for almost thirty seconds before finally speaking again. “I have never put others first. But Jay always did.” Exhaling, she said, “Ours was a foolish, reckless love. I know there are many who’d say we were never really wed—that nothing so brief and irresponsible could count as real marriage. But in that time, as short as it may have been, I got a taste of what it must be like living to make others happy.” She paused. “I will never be Jayden. But if he is gone, I want his desire to build up others to live on in me.”

“Then do it,” Natalie said without hesitation. “Take that part of him with you. You can do it.” She offered a smile. “I saw you with Jakob today. And I saw you with Mark. You were good to them. You’re a better person than you think.”

A hushed laugh escaped Esther’s lips. “Natalie, you don’t even like me.”

The laugh was echoed in kind. “I know. I don’t. It’s true.” Drawing in a slow breath, she lowered her gaze to peer deeply into Esther’s eyes. “But here we are, having what is probably one of the most honest conversations that I, at least, have ever had with a person. And you initiated it. So maybe…maybe I’m the one who needs to reevaluate the way they judge others. Maybe, just maybe, that’s my struggle.”

Silence fell between them. Esther looked away, rolling slowly onto her back until she was staring up at the ceiling. Outside, a low, rolling thunder emerged through the rain. Both women were still, until a soft inhalation indicated that Esther was about to speak again. “You said to let the best part of me win. The best part of me knows that Becan’s son has his entire life ahead of him. That he needs a father. That’s what I should wish for. But Natalie…” Though her voice stayed controlled, a single tear rolled down the side of her cheek. “I would give anything in this world to hear my husband’s voice again.”

Eyes still on the scout as she lay sideways and observed her, Natalie said simply, “Then wish for both.”

Watery-eyed, Esther rolled her head sideways to look Natalie’s way.

“Wish for both.” Nodding her head as if to affirm the statement as much for herself as for Esther, she said, “I grew up in the heart of God country, the same place as Scott. While I’m no expert on all things religious, I do know that a little bit of faith can go a long way.”

Shaking her head and with her voice still hushed, Esther said, “Faith has never been kind to me.”

“Have you ever exercised it? Have you ever believed in something that was impossible?” She didn’t need to wait for Esther’s response to know the answer. She could tell by the attuned look in the young woman’s face. “It’s a funny thing about miracles, Esther. They only tend to happen to people who believe in them.”

Wiping away the lone tear that’d trailed down, Esther said, “I’m afraid I’m the wrong kind of girl to try faith like that.”

“As long as you stay afraid, you will be.” Corner of her mouth curving up just a hair, Natalie said, “And I have a hard time believing you’re afraid of anything.”

“God, are you ever wrong there.” Turning her head to look up again, Esther inhaled then released a long sigh. “I’ve lived my whole life in fear. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection.” A sad laugh escaped her. “I was even afraid of you for a time.”

Natalie’s small smile remained. “Why me?”

“Because a comrade looked at your photo in a dossier and thought you were pretty.”

Well, that caught her off guard. “You’re kidding.”

“You were prettier then.” Looking at Natalie again, Esther allowed herself the faintest of smirks. “Now you look like you got mauled by a tree.”

Now there’s the Esther I know.

The scout’s seriousness returned, and she looked up again. “I’m afraid of having faith in anything other than myself.” She shook her head on the pillow. “I don’t know if I believe in God at all. And if I do, I don’t know if I respect Him or hate Him. All I know is that every time I’ve exercised a granule of faith, it’s come back to bite me. So, when you ask me to willingly do that again…that’s no small request.”

That, Natalie knew. That, she most certainly knew. “Let’s make a deal, then.” Esther looked at her. “You find a way to muster up that granule of faith one more time…and I’ll stop pretending that I have everything here under control. At least, to you. Because I so, so don’t right now.”

Brown eyes lingering on Natalie, Esther finally said, “It sounds like you could use a friend.”

A friend offering from Esther. These were truly uncharted waters. She would gladly sail them. “Yeah, I think I could.”

Esther nodded her head slowly, gaze remaining on Natalie’s as the rain continued to pound outside the walls of the suite. At long last, as she rolled over under the covers to face in the other direction, the Briton said, “I’ll pass it on to Youko. She could probably use one, too.”

Though Esther couldn’t see it, Natalie’s eyes narrowed instantly. Just the same, she couldn’t stop the wryest of smirks from creeping out. “Nice chat, Esther,” Natalie said, rolling over.

“By the way,” Esther said, her whisper elevated slightly in order for Natalie to hear it, “we have a deal.”

Though Esther couldn’t see it on Natalie’s face, the captain smiled.


No more words were exchanged between the two women on their respective sides of the bed. Between the steady rainfall outside and the rhythmic breathing of the sleeping men around them, there was more than enough sound to dampen whatever preoccupying thoughts might have drifted through their minds and kept them awake. Natalie felt the weariness now in light of the two women’s conversation. It draped over her like a blanket. She embraced it in return.

There was no doubt in Natalie’s mind that before things got better, they would stay exactly the same. Their entire release—the entire prospect of their freedom—was contingent on the Nightmen coming through in some way, shape, or form in their dealings with the Ikeda-kai. But until that moment came, there was simply nothing Natalie and her teammates could do besides watch television and pass the time in conversation. Whether that span of time would be measured in days or weeks was yet to be determined. But however long it ended up being, at least Natalie had someone new to relate to on a personal level. That that person was Esther was just another unexpected twist. But she wasn’t complaining. It was nice to have another woman to talk to, even if it was one that she—at least for a time—wasn’t particularly wild about. But that animosity, as passive as it may have been, was subsiding quickly.

For both of them, it seemed.

Eventually, Natalie did fall asleep, her war with insomnia quelled by the many new things she had to think about. There simply came a point where her mind switched itself off, opting instead to succumb to the ethereal world of dreams.

She welcomed it with open arms.


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