Chapter Three
Wednesday, March 28th, 0012 NE
2236 Hours
Sydney, Australia
TIFFANY’S DAD would have killed her.
As the blond Valley Girl sat along the back wall of her cell in Sydney Confinement, thoughts of her father ran through her mind. Up until the point she’d found herself at now, as a captured traitor to humanity, her role in the outlaws’ schemes hadn’t bothered her. Honestly, they still didn’t. What bothered her was what everyone else on the planet must have thought of her. To them, she was a terrorist. Though EDEN would surely have to answer questions about how anyone from Falcon Platoon had survived, she was sure they’d come up with a creative story about how Falcon had been infiltrated by the Nightmen and how they’d turned on humanity. Whatever explanation they went with, the bottom line was that Tiffany would be found guilty in the eyes of the world. She’d be reviled, labeled a traitor. Had her dad been alive to witness it, it’d have shattered him into a million pieces.
After being intercepted and subsequently downed by Jon Mariner’s Superwolf, Tiffany had been plucked out of the water and unceremoniously plopped down in a Confinement cell in Sydney, the nearest base to where everything had taken place. Stripped of her gear, she’d been relegated to a drab brown t-shirt and fatigues. With a pair of guards outside the glass cell watching her every move, Tiffany literally had nothing to do but sit and think. And the more she thought, the worse she felt.
There was no way out of the situation she was in. There was no jet fighter waiting to be commandeered, no brazen escape within reach. This was game over. All she could do was pray that the mission had succeeded. She hadn’t heard a word about the train operation in Japan—not that she expected to. At the point where she’d met Mariner in the sky, she’d been on a strict no-communication rule with the hijack team. She had no way of knowing whether they’d succeeded or failed, lived or died. She supposed she’d find out eventually. Or maybe EDEN would just kill her.
As hard as it was to swallow the fact that she’d been shot down and captured, the manner in which it had all taken place felt even worse. She hadn’t lost to Mariner in some grand dogfight for the ages. She’d just rolled over and died, succumbing not to weapons fire, but to a man’s sheer reputation. When that Superwolf appeared—when that call sign that every pilot in the Academy knew announced itself over her comm—she’d lost the fight right then and there. Sin. That was the name Mariner went by. It was fitting for the way that she’d lost.
A figure approached Tiffany’s cell—a young woman, olive-skinned and proper looking, wearing a gray suit jacket over a white, button-up shirt. Observing Tiffany behind a pair of spectacles, the woman angled her head.
Tiffany had thus far been “greeted” by a myriad of folks, almost all of whom worked for Sydney’s security team. The most imposing had been the chief of security, a large black man by the last name of Willoughby. He came complete with a scruffy mustache and the thickest Australian accent she’d ever heard. To put it bluntly, he hadn’t been nice, and despite her best efforts to pin an explanation to her actions, he hadn’t been inclined to listen. This woman staring at her through the glass didn’t look nice, either.
Stepping to the callbox attached to the cell, the woman reached out and pressed the button. The crisp crackle of an open channel reverberated. “Hello, Tiffany.”
Another strong accent, this one Indian.
“I am Jaya Saxena, from the Intelligence office of EDEN Command.”
EDEN Command. Tiffany shouldn’t have been surprised. This entire ordeal was EDEN Command’s fault. For all Tiffany knew, Jaya was a part of the conspiracy herself. In any case, if Jaya was expecting to get a reaction from Tiffany, it wasn’t going to happen. Tiffany just leaned her head against the back wall of the cell, her hazel eyes meeting Jaya’s in silence.
“What did you think you were doing, exactly?” Jaya asked.
There was no way to know if the question was rhetorical, but Tiffany treated it as such. Closing her eyes, the Valley Girl leaned her head against the back wall. She offered no response.
Lifting her chin, Jaya inhaled a long, purposeful breath. “So let me tell you how this is going to work. Very soon, you will board a transport to be taken to EDEN Command. It will be in your best interest to cooperate when that time comes.” Jaya adjusted her spectacles. “If there is anything you wish to say on your behalf, now would be the time to say it, while you’re standing before a person who can help you.”
Now that prompted a reaction. Eyes opening in a way that bordered somewhere between suspicion and curiosity, Tiffany asked, “How do you expect to help me?”
“I report directly to the president, Miss Feathers. Much as is the case with our otherworldly captives, cooperation always yields better results—both for the captives and ourselves. So if you have something you’d like to share that can justifiably explain why you’d side with the very people who intercepted your former unit over the Great Dismal Swamp, I would very much like to hear it.”
“They didn’t intercept us,” said Tiffany.
Jaya looked down her nose. “I believe we both know that’s not true.”
“They saved us.”
The Indian woman offered a frown that bordered on sympathetic. “You were fooled, Miss Feathers. You were fooled by people who are very good at deception.”
Tiffany shook her head with adamancy. “We were intercepted by EDEN. One of the ships that shot us down was called the Pariah. It belonged to the Fourteenth before EDEN stole it to use in the attack. It was all a setup to make it look like the Nightmen had done it.”
“Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?”
“It’s true.”
Angling her head, Jaya asked, “And you have proof of this where?”
“What happened to the Fourteenth?” Tiffany asked, ignoring Jaya’s question. When Jaya looked at her curiously, Tiffany rephrased it. “What happened to everyone in Japan?”
“Do you not know?” At last lifting her chin, Jaya said in a tone that matched the pointed disdain on her lips, “I am sorry, Miss Feathers, but your friends were destroyed.”
“What?” She gaped.
The corner of Jaya’s lip curved upward. Like she was unable to contain it. “Now, is there anything you’d like to say on your behalf?”
With her face a shade paler, Tiffany pulled her knees in tightly. No answer came as the blond pilot stared ahead.
Only when it became apparent that no answer would come did Jaya reach forward to rap her fingernails against the glass. “Cooperation, Miss Feathers. It will always be in your best interest.” With her narrowed, spectacled gaze lingering, Jaya took a step back then pivoted to face the door. After a parting nod to the guards at post, she made a swift, albeit purposeful exit.
Tiffany closed her eyes. Body shaking, the first tears she’d cried since her capture rolled down her cheeks. No effort was made to shy her head away from the guards—no care was given as to whether or not they saw her. In a Confinement designed for extraterrestrials, she felt like the most alien one there.
No one else spoke to Tiffany in the hours that followed. No one came to offer her the chance to defend herself. No one even swung by to gawk.
The pilot was left alone.
* * *
Wednesday, March 28th, 0012 NE
2204 hours
Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan
WELL…AT LEAST it was an improvement.
Natalie gave herself a good looking over in the mirror that hung in the bathroom. Though nothing but time was going to hide the bruises and bumps on her face, the fact that her face and hair were now truly clean at least provided her some measure of comfort and civility. Nobu’s bathroom facilities, as complicated as they might have seemed, were actually quite nice once one knew how to use them. Between the buckets, the spigots, and the rainfall showerhead that was so tucked away she hadn’t even seen it at first, there was a bevy of options when it came to dispensing water upon oneself. So far as clothes went, she was fine with wearing the same white sweater and dark blue jeans that Nobu had provided earlier—not that she had a choice in the matter just yet.
Allowing a final examination in the mirror, she turned to make her way for the bathroom door. When she opened it and stepped into the main suite, her emerald eyes widened.
“Lo!”
Dressed to the nines in a black suit, the Australian stood alone in the center of the room. “Hello, Nattie,” he said, his expression stoic.
As soon as she’d assured herself of their privacy, she hurried across the room, opened her arms wide, and embraced him. “Where the hell have you been?” Leaning back, she gave his outfit a once-over. “And who dressed you in that?”
Grimacing at her, he said, “God, you look awful.”
Her face fell flat. “Thanks for that. My confidence needed a boost.” Cutting right to the chase, she asked, “What’s going on? Where’s the rest of my team?” Before he could even open his mouth to answer, more questions came forth. “The Ikiryō? Really? What on God’s green Earth did you do here?”
Logan held out a hand. “Whoa, one at a time.”
“Start with whichever one you want.”
“How about you start with one of mine? Like why the bloody hell didn’t we surrender to EDEN?”
He was referencing the fight in the wilderness. “Fair enough,” she said, jaw setting as she leveled her head. “There’s some kind of conspiracy going on between EDEN and the Ceratopians—” She’d scarcely gotten the words out before he turned his head and scoffed. Blinking, she stared at him. “Okay, do you want to explain that?”
“Conspiracies, Nattie? Seriously?”
“Yes, conspiracies. Do you think I’d make this up?”
Shaking his head, Logan walked toward the wall. “You can’t honestly tell me that you believe in this tinfoil-hat nonsense.”
“Now wait one minute.” Eyes narrowing, she marched after him from behind. “If you think this is tinfoil-hat nonsense, why’d you come with me in the woods? I explained it all then!”
“Because you’re you!” he said, turning back around to face her. “Because at the end of the day, we stick together. It’s what we do.” Growling, he walked away again. “Bloody conspiracies. That bloke’s got you wrapped around his wanker.”
Now that—that got her mad. “Oh, no you didn’t.”
“If you’d have just stopped fighting and come with me, we’d never be in this mess.”
“First of all, don’t you ever talk to me like that again. Second of all—”
The Australian wasn’t hearing it. “Are you really this stupid?”
Natalie stared at him in silence, mouth hanging, eyes fixed. Stupid. That word—that outburst—said so much. Was that what he thought she was? Sucking in a long, deep breath, she set aside her pride, set her gaze forward, and spoke clearly. “What the outlaws have been through, what they’ve experienced—what I’ve experienced—can’t be ignored. Lo, they used Scott’s younger brother as leverage. They were going to kill him to get to Scott. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“And what if they were right to do it?” the Australian shot back. “You’re a greater good person, Nattie. If it costs a life to stop this nutter, maybe that’s worth it.”
“There’s right, and there’s wrong. The ends don’t justify the means.”
His face red with irritation, he cocked his head and asked, “Yeah, to what extent? Would you not take a life to save a hundred? A thousand?” He pointed behind him. “The whole bloody planet? Because that’s what Remington could be putting at risk in his little crusade against sanity.” He clenched his fists. “And we caught him, Nattie. We caught him. This could be over—we could be on our way back to Cairo, back to wherever, with all of this behind us.” Taking another step closer, he lowered his voice. “We could still do that. We can find out where they are, we can turn them in and totally justify what took place. I can say I turned to get on the inside and that everything you’d done was because you’d been fooled, but that you’d now seen the light. Everyone would have sympathy for you.”
She could not believe what she was hearing.
“It would work, Natalie. I promise you, it would work. We’re in a position to turn this to our favor, but we have to do it now. Take that step with me. End this. We’ll never have to see or think about any of these people again—they’ll just disappear and we can go back to having normal lives.”
Normal lives. That was what Logan Marshall cared about. That was what he wanted. It didn’t matter that any of this was right, wrong, justified, or not. All that mattered was that it was inconvenient. It wasn’t the kind of life that he wanted, and so all options were on the table to change it—even the selling out of innocent people. How could he—how could anyone—be so selfish? Shaking her head slowly as she took a step back from him, she said quietly, “I don’t know who you are.”
The Australian sighed, his shoulders sagging as he looked at her with disappointment. “Is that really where we are right now?”
“Your mercenary work. The Ikiryō. What I’m hearing from you now.” The sickness in her core was so intense. Gravity-defying. “You’re right. I was fooled.”
Lowering his head, he said, “Natalie…”
“I’m sorry that I got you into this. I’m sorry that I tried to…” Her words trailed briefly as she sought for them. “I’m sorry that I tried to change who you really were. As soon as I get my crew and we get out of here, you have permission to leave.”
“How can you stand being this bloody idealistic?”
“At least I stand for something.”
The Australian scoffed. “And like I need your permission. You’ve gone mad for this idiot. You’re just…” Arm waving as if to find the words, he settled on, “You’re just gone.”
Like the period at the end of a sentence, the words stung with finality. She was who she was, and he was who he was. Neither of them was going to change, not even for the other. Before she could even think of a proper response, the sound of a knob twisting caught her attention. Though the Australian’s eyes stayed on Natalie, she turned hers to whoever it was that was entering the suite. When she locked onto the big, brown eyes of Javon Quinton, a smile crept from the corners of her mouth. Leaving Logan behind, she made her way toward her comrade in arms.
There was no hesitation from Javon when he saw her—no exchange of proper formalities. The weary black soldier extended his arm to meet her uninjured one in a clapping handshake, then he jerked her in for a hug. Though she winced, it was okay. There was no need for Natalie to question if Javon was on the same page as she was. They’d both been to the same places. They’d both seen the same things. They both knew where right and wrong stood.
“Vee, is it good to see you!” Javon said as the two pulled apart, eyes alight as if seeing a long-lost family member. He looked genuinely gleeful.
“It’s good to see you, too,” she said. Brushing loose strands of her hair back, she leaned past his shoulder to see if anyone else was there. Standing in the hallway beyond the threshold of the door were Mark Remington and two men she’d never seen before. Natalie realized that they must have been the two surviving slayers from those on-lend from Valentin. Behind them, there was someone else, short in stature, dwarfed by the slayers who stood before her. Esther. Looking past her, she saw only Youko and a pair of unnamed lackeys bringing up the rear. “Where is everyone else?”
Javon shook his head. “I don’t know. We was all together. For a while I thought we were it.”
Had Natalie been the only one to wake up alone? Surveying the group as they trundled in, she could see they were all soaking wet. They must have been dragged through the rain. Just the same, they all wore civilian clothes. Stepping aside to clear the door, she gestured for the others to enter. “Come on in, everyone.” Though she looked at each of them as they entered the room, special mind was given to Esther, whose damp, dangling strands hid her brown eyes from view. As the scout wandered away from them, Natalie leaned her head closer to Javon and spoke quietly. “How’s Esther?”
Javon blew out a breath as he glanced toward the scout. Looking back to Natalie, he said, “She ain’t said a word. Not to me, not to no one. I dunno.”
Natalie knew. The girl had just seen her husband mowed down in the woods. She was destroyed.
“We got our eyes on her,” Javon said. “We’ll keep her steady.”
Esther looked anything but steady. She looked in another world. But there was nothing that could be done about that now. As Mark and the two slayers wandered deeper into the room, Natalie stepped back from Javon to take the group in. “Everyone okay? Anyone hurt?” The men shook their heads; Esther did nothing. “Well, I know about as much about what’s going on as you all do. Arrangements have been made for the Nightmen to retrieve us—or they’re being made, at least. The Yakuza who rescued us can’t afford to get found out, so until they can safely hand us over to them, we’ll be laying low here for a while. Whether ‘a while’ is a few days or a few weeks, I don’t know.” She prayed to God it wasn’t the latter. “We’ve been given the go-ahead to use this suite as we see fit, so please, catch a shower and get comfortable. Or get some rest. Whatever you all need.” Their schedule, apparently, was wide open.
All the while she’d been speaking, Logan had been lurking about in the back of the room, eyes and ears on her as she spoke. Regardless of how she felt about him now, they were alive because of him. Natalie felt it best to at least introduce Javon to him. Gesturing for Javon to follow her as she started across the room, she asked, “You got any reservations about being second in command?”
Javon blinked—a clear indication that the answer was yes, he had them. “Uhh. No. I mean—whatever you want, Vee.”
What she wanted was an XO she could trust. The pickings were slim—not that she could have thought of a better candidate than Javon, anyway. “You’re second if anything funny happens.” Before Javon had a chance to react, the two had approached Logan. “Quinton, this is Logan Marshall. Logan Marshall, Javon Quinton.” She drew a breath. Lowering her chin, she said, “Marshall served under me in Atlanta and Cairo. Quinton is one of the Falcon survivors and my acting XO.” Logan raised an eyebrow at that part, but said nothing.
“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” Javon said.
Logan’s voice remained low. “Pleasure’s all mine.”
“Marshall is the reason we’re alive,” Natalie explained. “He had contacts in the Yakuza who came to our aid. We owe him for that.” She didn’t want her frustrations with Logan to show. These were formalities that needed to be played out. Looking at Javon, she asked him, “Am I right in assuming that you were drugged just like I was?”
The soldier frowned. “We musta been. I don’t remember nothin’ after we got picked up. None of us do.”
“Then perhaps,” she said, turning her focus to Logan, “you can shed some light on what took place between that time and now, seeing as you were the only one not induced into a sleep state.” When Logan looked at her curiously, she said, “You don’t expect me to believe that you were given the same treatment as the rest of us.” Especially considering he’d had time to conspire with Nobu. “These are your friends, after all.”
Laughing humorlessly, the Australian said, “I don’t know if I’d call these blokes friends.”
“The fact remains that you were the only one awake while the rest of us were drugged. Am I wrong in that assumption?”
It was clear by the slightly annoyed look on his face that Logan wasn’t too thrilled with that question. “You’re not wrong.”
Before Natalie could say anything else, Javon interjected. “Where’s Colonel Lilan’s body?”
Logan answered, “I don’t know. I assume Nobu has it.”
“You assume?” asked Natalie, eyebrow arched.
“That’s our colonel, man,” added Javon, voice rising, though a steady hand from Natalie kept his emotions in check. “We carried him out for a reason.”
Looking between them, Logan ran a hand over his shaved head. “Look, I don’t know where the body is, but if it has value, Nobu won’t be careless with it. He must have it somewhere.”
“Let’s make sure of it, okay?” Natalie asked.
Eyeing her flatly, he answered, “I don’t know. I’m purely speculating. Next time I see Nobu, I’ll ask.”
Natalie wasn’t sure if his answer was intended to sound like sarcasm, but it did. “We’re going to need that body. It’s going to need a proper burial, even if we aren’t there to see it happen.”
“I’ll pass that on to him,” Logan answered. When she narrowed her eyes, he widened his to appease her. “I will,” he said, his voice as placating as the Australian likely could manage.
Behind them, the door to the suite opened again. Natalie, Javon, and Logan—along with all the others present in the room—turned their heads to regard it.
It was Tom King. Immediately behind him was Feliks Petrukhin. Other figures could be seen entering as well.
“King!” Javon said, stifling a move in his compatriot’s direction before looking at Natalie as if to ask her permission.
As if she’d say no. “Go ahead.” Gesturing with a head nod in Tom and company’s direction, she said, “I’m glad to see them, too.” As Javon departed to greet his friend and fellow Falcon survivor, Natalie watched to see who else entered. Pyotr, the young Nightman teenager, was next in. Behind him and being rolled in in a wheelchair, was Jakob Reinhardt. The pilot had indeed survived.
Despite her relief in seeing so many enter, there were still two glaring absentees: Ju`bajai and Lisa Tiffin. While it was no surprise to Natalie that an alien and a prisoner hadn’t been ushered into the room, it still left the critical question as to where they were and if they were all right. She needed to know the answers to both, and so once again, she turned to Logan. “The Ithini and the Vector. Are they all right?”
This time, he answered with confidence. “They’re all right. Tiffin is in protective custody, locked away until she can be sold back—” Though he bit his lip to catch himself, it was too late.
“Sold back? As in, sold back to EDEN?”
Sighing, he answered, “Yeah, that’s kind of how the mob operates.”
“No. No, that’s not how this is gonna go.”
“I hate to break it to you, love, but you don’t exactly have a voice in the matter.”
It didn’t mean she couldn’t fight for one. “I want Ju`bajai released back to us, and I want to see Lisa.”
“Sure. Anything else? Sushi, spa treatment, drink with a little umbrella in it?”
“Can you stop being completely ridiculous?”
Logan’s eyes narrowed. “Can you? You talk about not knowing me anymore, but what about you? Jugga-whatever, I assume that’s the alien? You’re naming aliens, now?”
This was stupid. “Aliens have names.”
“Yeah, but we’re not supposed to care enough to use them.”
“Ju`bajai. Lisa. Make them happen.” With nothing further to discuss, Natalie turned to step away—that was, until he reached out and grabbed her shoulder, not terribly hard.
“Hey, stop for a minute.”
The last thing she wanted to do was talk to him further. Tiredly, she turned back to him and asked, “What?”
The Australian’s gravelly tone softened a touch. “Can we not act like enemies? You wanted me to come with you, so I came with you—ended up losing a bloody Vector because of it, and I’d been working alongside them.” Despite his set jaw, a frown found its way out. “Just make me understand this. That’s all I’m saying. Make me understand why you believe in this so…” Pressing his lips together, he shook his head. “So bloody stubbornly.”
Make him believe it? She wanted nothing else as badly. But there were no words she could say that he’d believe. Natalie was a creature of intuition, but Logan needed something he could put his hands on. As it stood right then, she had nothing tangible to offer. But she did know one thing. “Just stick around.”
He looked at her curiously.
“If you hang around these guys long enough, you’ll start to see the truth. It happened for me.”
Logan looked at her for several seconds, saying nothing. At long last, a resigned looked crossed his face. “I never could say no to you.”
And that—that prompted an eye roll. “Don’t be romantic. You suck at it.” When his eyes narrowed, she turned to walk away. “Go talk to Nobu and run my requests by him. Report to me whatever he says.”
Hands on his hips, Logan watched her until she reached the other side of the room. Blowing out a defeated breath, he said, “Aye, aye.”
Separated from Northern Forge. Sequestered in a Yakuza suite. No knowledge of what had taken place in the aftermath of the mission. Those were but a few of the many challenges that faced Natalie and her team of survivors. The fate of so many remained a mystery, from Scott, now in EDEN custody, to Tiffany, who was who-knew-where. How thorough had this defeat actually been?
Once again, Natalie’s gaze sought out Esther. The scout was in the same place Natalie had last seen her, in the far corner of the room, with her back to the wall and sitting on the floor. Staring at nothing. I need you, Esther. You know more about what’s going on than anyone else here. Come back to us. A conversation between the two of them was due, that much was certain. But for the time being, she would give Esther space. She was sure that was what she needed more than anything else. As for what everyone else needed? She knew the answer to that one. They needed to know that the woman in charge cared about them. And that was a need that was easy to remedy.
Over the next hour, Natalie reconnected with each of the surviving members of the Atami ambush. Her first stop was with the wheelchair-bound Jakob. He’d suffered second- and third-degree burns across most of his back and shoulders. It was a testament to the protective capability of the V2 cockpit that it hadn’t been worse. Thankfully, he was expected to get a little bit better every day with the use of burn gel. The painkillers he was on would help him bear through it.
When she was finished talking to Jakob, Natalie made a beeline for Mark. Her heart went out to the boy, who seemed totally despondent. After finding out his brother had been labeled a terrorist, being held at gunpoint by EDEN and used as leverage, then having to escape through the forest with chaos rounds exploding around him, one could hardly blame the shell-shocked cadet for his state of emotional withdrawal. He needed to feel that he was as valuable to her as any other member of the team, even though, sadly, it wasn’t true. As it stood now, on a practical level, he was little more than a liability. She looked forward to finding out if he had it in him to change that.
As for everyone else, they weren’t a concern. Javon was a pro. He was handling this entire situation as well as anyone could have. The same could be said for Tom, his counterpart from Falcon Platoon—which was a pleasant surprise considering the soldier’s past displays of volatility. Natalie needed him as much as she did Javon.
She also needed Feliks, the last surviving member of the Cairo extraction team. Feliks, quite simply, was a machine. When she asked him how he was handling everything, he simply told her that he awaited his next task. When pressed on the details of the ambush from his own perspective, he provided an emotionless, point-by-point narrative of every fatal shot that a fellow Nightman had taken and every near miss that he’d dodged himself. Though her chat with the ginger-haired, droopy-eyed slayer had been a short one, its monotone, bullet-point firmness spoke volumes. It made her understand why Novosibirsk—the heart of the Nightman sect—went by the moniker The Machine. Inundated into this kill-kill-kill culture, there seemed little room for emotion to cloud ruthless efficiency. She found herself simultaneously admiring and pitying them.
As for the two surviving slayers from the six lent to them by Valentin, she found her conversation with them downright fascinating. The older of the pair, a clean-cut man by the name of Paul Kaverin, had a certain David Jurgen essence to him. The way he spoke to Natalie was almost fatherly. At least, it would have been had her father been part of a sociopathic cult that evaluated its members based on their ability to perform ritual homicide. Paul was such an even-keeled and pleasant conversationalist, it was hard to imagine him being a Nightman at all.
In contrast, the younger of the pair, a shaggy, blond-haired man by the name of Bedrich Zima, possessed an air of arrogance. Unlike Paul, she could completely believe that Bedrich was a Nightman. Just the same, that air of arrogance never translated over into a snippy remark or antagonistic attitude. He answered every question and word from her with “captain,” seeming to understand exactly where his place was in the hierarchy and having little desire to test its boundaries.
The only question mark among the slayers was Pyotr. He didn’t look so much at peace with the chaos around them as he looked outright oblivious to it. He and Mark’s responses to all this were on totally opposite ends of the spectrum. Mark was a nervous wreck. Pyotr simply didn’t seem to care.
All in all, with everything that the team had been through, Natalie couldn’t be displeased with their overall status. Had another firefight been looming, she felt they’d have been ready, even after the utter exhaustion of the previous day. They instilled in her confidence in them.
If she only knew now what to do with it.
Eventually, the group retired to the various bedrooms that were laid about in the suite—the Nightmen in one, and Natalie, Mark, Jakob, and the Falcons in another. Only Esther slept alone, having locked herself in a third bedroom far away from the action while Natalie had been making her rounds. There was concern in Natalie that the scout might try to harm herself, but a few simple words from Javon—“Just let her deal”—convinced her to give Esther distance. At least, distance for the time being, until the scout gave her reason to do otherwise.
And so, with a comfortable little cove picked out for herself on the floor—for it was unanimously decided that the burned Jakob was to have sole occupancy of the bed—Natalie sought out the replenishment of a good night’s sleep in the guest penthouse of a Japanese Yakuza lord. This was unlike any situation she’d experienced before, but such situations had been popping up a lot lately. She was beginning to get used to them. Perhaps more scarily, she was beginning to feel comfortable in them. That, possibly more than anything else, told her all she needed to know about her own state of mind. These were strange days, indeed.
She was more than ready for a new one to come.