25. June 16th

JUNE 16TH

TB

TB stormedinto the conference room. "Have you all lost your goddamn minds?!"

The group was sitting around the conference table in the same positions as before when he had hustled Flame out of the room. Folders in front of them, except for Waters, who stood up near the screen between the table and the window, holding his folder open with a page flipped over the top, and looked at him expectantly. "She's not some HVT. She's the client." TB grabbed the remote and turned off the telescreen that had held her photo there, then threw the remote back down on the table.

"Midas," Waters intoned. Midas grabbed the remote and turned the telescreen back on, smiling as he did so but not looking at TB.

That's right. Don't look at me with that smile on your face, douchebag. If you do, I'll knock your perfect teeth out of that mouth of yours.

"Never seen you get all hepped up about a client before," Waters commented without looking up at him.

TB stalked around the top of the table to where Waters stood and snatched the folder from him. "This is bullshit, and you know it."

Questioning eyes looked up into TB's face as he calmly took the folder back from the angry man. "What exactly are you calling bullshit on?"

"Don't, Waters," TB warned.

"Don't what?" he asked innocently. "Don't treat her the same as every other client? TB, you know this is how we operate. We look into everything, including the people we help. Everything." Waters punctuated every syllable of the last word.

"I'm warning you, Waters?—"

"Or is it that you don't want me poking the angry bear? Sorry, my friend, but we're long past that. A real bear would just get someone to pull the stinger out of his hide that he can't reach, but no. Instead, you'd rather suffer and stubbornly leave that stinger in because it would hurt your pride as king of the forest to ask for help." Waters gently threw the folder down on the bottom end of the table and faced TB head-on. "We need this information about her life before arriving in L.A., if for no other reason than to discount it as part of her problem. If you don't want us to ‘hurt' your delicate little Flame, then go in there and do what you do. Get the information yourself. That's your specialty. Why are you so fucking squeamish suddenly?"

"Waters…" The low-volume hiss had an edge of begging to it.

"You've never been concerned about the feelings or sensitivities of anyone before. Tell me. What's different now?"

"You know what's different now." He spoke softly for only Waters, but the room was so quiet, everyone heard.

"I wanna hear you say it."

TB stood, glaring at Waters, stubbornly silent.

Hands on hips, his face blank, as if he didn't know the outcome already, Waters pushed the final button to send TB into Defcon 1. "Fine. If you don't do this, I'll let Midas do it. He'll use his ‘hypnotism' who-de-ha shit."

Oh, he did not just say that.

TB turned on Midas and visually pinned him to his chair. "You. Will. Not."

Midas' face was blank, but his eyes glinted with knowing humor. "I will if I'm ordered to. I'm a good little soldier."

"You were never in any military, so fuck off."

Midas put his hands up in a gesture of surrender and leaned back nonchalantly in his seat. "Sorry, bro, we're tribe, but you're not my type. That would be a no two-fer."

TB threw his arms up in exasperation. "I'm an interrogator. She"—he gestured to the image of Sylvan on the telescreen—"is not an interrogation subject. And get her off of there, Nemo!"

Nemo looked him in the eye and blew a bubble with his gum. Without breaking eye contact, he picked up the remote, aimed it at the telescreen, and promptly clicked the zoom button, bringing her picture in closer and larger. After he popped the bubble from his mouth, he grinned his classic shit-eating Nemo grin.

"She's an interrogation subject when we know she's holding back information." Waters pointed at TB. "You know that." Waters pointed back at himself. "I know that." His hand swept around the room. "We all know that."

Is everyone in the world but me this stupid? Am I the only sane person left in the universe?

"Fuck," he whispered as he turned back to the windows and dropped his head. Waters waited him out. All eyes were on his back. He could feel it.

I'm so screwed.

A half a minute passed before he growled at Waters, "Seventy-two hours. No calls. No texts. No emails."

And here's where I just jumped onto the crazy train with everyone else. What the hell am I doing?

"TB," God rumbled, "we can't let you off the grid like that, it's?—"

His head snapped to the starfish, and his own rumble was even more menacing. "I didn't say I was disappearing with her. I just don't want to be interrupted. Watch over us all you like. I'm going to have to take her to the club anyway, and we'll stay at her house."

"Why there?" Waters asked. "Why not here?"

"Know Your Enemy 101." His eyes returned to Waters. "She's not an interrogation subject. She's the victim. She'll be more comfortable in her natural surroundings. Bring her to the apartments at Tribe, where she'll be away from her comfort zone, basically in lockdown, and her fear will skyrocket. It will be brutally clear we're corralling her. She'll be hypervigilant. Therefore, nothing I can do here will get it out of her. I need her in a safe place. Somewhere she feels comfortable. Somewhere she'll forget and let down her defenses."

"So, why no calls?"

"After this latest development, she's going to jump out of her skin every time the phone beeps or rings. Hell, a goddamn notification on her social media will probably send her into a near panic attack. I can't afford to run the risk of working my ass off and getting her to have a moment of trust and open up her mouth only to have one of you idiots ruining it with a pointless update."

"Yeah, cuz you're not Terminator-scary, just the phone is." Nemo snorted as he flew a paper stealth bomber down the table at Demon. Steel, who was sitting next to the man, swatted the thing out of its trajectory and kept it from bouncing off Demon's forehead. Nemo flicked a good-natured one-finger salute at Steel and then continued with his own poking of the bear. "Your skills are slipping, big guy. She's a tiny little thing. You've broken some of the most unbreakable motherfuckers we've ever encountered. How come one pretty little woman is going to be so difficult?"

TB's gaze was focused out the conference room window at nothing in the far distance. He knew they were probably grinning like fools, planning on getting their pound of flesh over his obvious attraction to Flame, but there was nothing he could do about that. Maybe if he ignored their attempts to provoke him, they would get bored and stop.

Yeah. Not fucking likely. Even you know you're crazy about her.

When TB finally spoke, his voice was low and haunted. "She's like a drowning animal that will cling to a branch in raging waters, even though its instincts tell it that the end result is inevitable. In her case, she will cling to her misguided silence to keep herself from spilling whatever secret she thinks is so horrible that it cannot be survived. Whatever it is she's not telling us, she's mortified by it."

He heard a discreet cough behind a hand, and Steel's voice spoke to him, no smile behind it. "She'd live through telling us. We mean nothing to her. But you? It's you that she doesn't want to know the secret. She's worried that it will change your perception of her."

"Then we question her without TB here," God interjected.

TB acknowledged his assessment, his gaze still outside the windows. "Yes, you could. But I'd still end up learning what it was that she's so afraid of. If it weren't for me, she would give up what she knows, probably without a second thought. I've got to get her to trust me enough that her shame is more important to let go of than hold onto." He looked down at his feet and came to a decision. A decision he didn't want to make but knew he had no choice. Not really. "I'll get her to tell me whatever she's hiding. It might destroy us both, but at least that way, you can help her."

The silence in the room was heavy with what TB was suggesting. That he wouldn't be around to do it.

God cleared his throat over the speaker. "Well, ladies, I think this conversation is over. TB will get the information we need. Until we get it, proceed as planned. We'll regroup in seventy-two hours." He clicked off without a goodbye.

Papers shuffled. The murmurs between the guys were undecipherable. Waters clapped him once on the shoulder with a brotherly understanding, and he was the last out the door. The silence in the room hung like the gloom of an execution. And that's exactly how he felt. Because once he did this, there was no going back. The damage would be irreparable. He didn't see how it could be otherwise.

When TB turned, it was to see that Steel was still seated at the table, leaning back in his chair, hands laced and resting at his waist, his ice-gray eyes staring at him.

"Flame is stronger than you think."

"Possibly. But it feels like I'm about to destroy her." He looked at his teammate. "Interrogation is all about using the subject's weakness against them. That means I've got only one tool in the toolbox."

Concern fell into Steel's gray eyes. "What are you going to do, hermano?"

"Flame sees me as a hero. I'm going to give her what she wants: her white knight who will save her. I'll use her romantic nature to break her down. Then, and only then, will she trust me enough to tell me what we want to know."

"Just tell her the truth. You think she can't handle it?"

"She'll see it as a betrayal."

Steel shrugged. "I think you see Flame how you want to see her and not how she truly is. For all her ‘enchantments'—the hearts and flowers, the unicorns and rainbows—she is remarkably practical. I think she sees reality far more than you believe she does. She's certainly capable of discerning what is reality and what is fiction."

"You're wrong, Steel. She's exactly as she appears. A young woman with her head full of impossible dreams, just like her books."

Steel chuckled. "You obviously have not read one of her books."

TB grimaced. "No. Not my thing."

Steel had a gleeful smile on his face, something TB rarely saw. He groaned. "Don't tell me you have, too."

"Waters brought us each a copy of the newest one last night."

"Seriously?"

"She's a very good writer. I advise you to read one. I highly recommend Nature of the Beast, her most recent. I think you will find it very…" He searched for the word. "Enlightening. Page one hundred thirty-four to one hundred forty-seven included. Might help with your ‘interrogation technique.'"

TB snorted. "Highly unlikely. Reciting poetry about the color of her hair and eyes or some other romantic notions are not going to help me."

Steel stood up and pushed in his chair. When he got to the door, he turned back to TB, who was rooted in his same spot. "Don't be a narrow-minded ass. Read the book," he reiterated. "You might learn a few things about her that will surprise you."

"Whatever."

"Could be I'm wrong. It happens. But I sincerely doubt I'm wrong when I'm telling you that your querida is more than you think she is. Waters thinks so. You would, too, if your truth radar wasn't so jammed up right now."

"Well, trust me. You're wrong this time."

With a blank expression, Steel asked, "How can I trust in you when you can't trust in yourself?" And with that, he walked out of the room without a backward glance, leaving TB to stare at the quietly shut door.