Chapter 12

Veni watched as Reid pushed the trolley inside. As soon as the door was closed, then she bounded forward eagerly. “What did you order?” she asked, lifting the lids excitedly. He laughed indulgently, and she realized that she was acting like a two-year-old. She rolled her eyes. “Sorry. It’s been slim pickings in the food department in my world lately.”

“Hey, no need to apologize. I understand.” He motioned to the table. “Let’s go sit down and enjoy a nice meal.”

She followed him joyfully, as he pushed the cart toward the small table they had in the room. Looking around, she noted, “This is really a nice suite, isn’t it?”

“It’s certainly nicer than I thought we would be getting.” Reid chuckled. “That’s the good news. What I don’t know is how long we’ll be here.”

At that, she frowned at him and then winced. “Of course. This could be very temporary.”

“I’m sure it probably will be, but you will be here for at least a few days, I would think.” He carefully lifted the lids off several of the dishes and put them aside.

She looked at one and said, “Chicken.”

“And this one has steak,” he noted, “and we ordered extra, so there would be plenty. Plus I also ordered a bunch of snacks.”

“Oh, good.” Then she laughed. “Did you remember that?”

“I did,” he replied, with a smile. “You used to snack a lot, all the time.”

“I’ve tried hard to stop,” she muttered, “but I’m always hungry.”

“In this case there’s lots of food, so pick what you want.”

She immediately snagged a chicken breast and a Caesar salad and one of the fresh buns. “This will have to do for a starter,” she muttered.

He took a steak dish and a bun, and they sat down and quickly tucked in. She sat back after a couple bites and moaned. “I forgot what real food tastes like and how it affects you when you’ve been deprived,” she murmured. “Oh, my God, this is so good.”

“I’m glad to hear that because I’m not sure there’ll be any chance of changing it,” he teased.

“No need to change anything, but I feel as if we should wake up Anders, so he can come get a hot meal.”

“If not for the fact that he needed the sleep, I would agree, but he does need some rest. Besides, we have a microwave here, so, if need be, he can warm up his food. He knew the food was on its way too.”

“Right, so if he misses out, that’s his fault, is that it?” she teased, with an eye roll.

“Hardly, there will be lots of food for him when he does get up though.”

And, with that, she had to be satisfied and went back to eating. By the time she had finished her plateful, he was still working on his steak. He looked over at her and asked, “Do you need more?”

“No, I’m fine.” But she continued to eye his steak. “It does look good though.” He immediately cut her off a bite and held it out. “No, no, no. I’ll make myself sick if I eat too much more.”

“Oh, I did consider that,” he noted, “but you were tanking up pretty well, so I didn’t want to slow your progress.”

She just smiled, then remembered her mother. She quickly looked at him and said, “We need to check in at the hospital.”

“We can do that in a minute. Let me finish eating.”

She waited and scarfed down another bun, while he finished off his meal. Then he pulled out his phone and called the hospital. “I need a phone too,” she muttered.

“It’s on the way, but you’re right. We haven’t got that yet.”

She didn’t say anything to that because she’d been making demands, and she’d gotten the shower, the hotel room, and the food, so the phone could wait.

Veni listened intently as Reid got through to the hospital and watched the smile on his face, when he nodded.

“That’s good news, indeed, as long as she’s sleeping. If she is even a bit better, then we’ll be less worried.” He disconnected with the hospital and then updated Veni. “Your mom is shifting from a drugged sleep into a more natural sleep, so they’re quite positive about her chances of waking up in a few hours. Not now, but in a little bit.”

“Oh, good.” Veni sighed with relief. “It’s always so hard to watch your family suffer.”

“Of course it is, which is also why your mother was willing to do what she could to get you out of there.”

“She struggled so much after she and my father separated. I know she was just so focused on her work that she didn’t want to listen to anything else. It was a coping mechanism for her.”

“It sounds like it,” Reid agreed. “Do you think there’ll be major repercussions on her work after this?”

“I don’t know,” Veni admitted. “She did mention something about sending her work out of the country first, so she could get it later, knowing there would be no access to any of her lab-generated findings. So it’ll be whatever it is, and I can’t help her with that.”

“So, you don’t have access to it?”

She shook her head. “No, I understand it was emailed and sent via the cloud, but where it ended up from there? I don’t know.”

He nodded. “I’m pretty sure MI6 will be very interested in accessing all that information.”

“Of course they will.” She sighed. “That’s the problem when your parent ends up being valuable to other governments.”

“It seems you were the reason it all came to a head though.”

“Probably. I think she finally accepted that my life would never be the same if we stayed there. She didn’t really believe it at first. Even now I bet she’s still trying to wrap her mind around all this happening, because she didn’t see it and didn’t want to believe it.”

“Do you think she was betrayed in terms of your escape?”

She nodded. “I know she thought so, but I didn’t really understand who could have known.… Whatever plans MI6 put into place should have been secure. So the fact that we were taken so quickly just didn’t make any sense.”

Reid nodded but didn’t say anything.

“Unless you know something about it that I don’t.”

He immediately shook his head. “Jonas runs a pretty tight ship, though I don’t know any of the details from MI6 on your extraction.”

“Right,” Veni replied, “because that’s not who you work for.”

“No, it sure isn’t.” Reid gave her a gentle smile. “That will also be part of whatever agreement you and your mother set up originally.”

“And that,” she said, with an eye roll, “is something that my mother set up, totally excluding me. I don’t really know that I was even part of it.”

“Meaning?”

“That was her agreement with them, not mine.”

“Interesting.” Reid frowned. “Did she even bring up the fact that you were the one in danger?”

“I have no idea,” Veni admitted. “It was part of the deal for getting her out that I had to come with her. And that was not something either of us would compromise on.”

“No, of course not,” he agreed. “Not if you were quickly becoming somebody the Russians were interested in. How much testing did you do with her?”

“With her? Quite a bit,” she said. “But it was all… It was not on paper. I didn’t really want any of it going into any scientific journals, and that was the part that we fought about. She wanted it to be published, but I didn’t.”

“Of course because that would bring all kinds of hell on your head.”

She stared at him. “You really do understand, don’t you?”

“Oh, you can bet I do,” he stated. “I tried hard to develop some of my skills, but it wasn’t exactly well accepted in the military. I knew about Terk at the time but just as a ghostly rumor. Ever since I came out of the military,” he added, “I’ve managed to get more feelers out and to talk to Terk about this type of work.”

“Right. What about Anders? Who does he work for?”

Reid explained about Levi’s team and how they now supplied men when needed for some of Terk’s jobs and how Terk also supplied information and assistance for any of Levi’s projects, as needed.

“It’s nice to think that the world can cooperate to that extent,” Veni said. “I didn’t know companies like that were out there.”

“And there are more like them. Anders was telling me about another one based out of Africa.”

“And that’s good,” she said, “because the world’s a mess. So the more people who we have to help us straighten it out, the better.”

“Which is also why,” he replied, looking at her directly, “I’ll continue working with Terk.”

She thought about it, then nodded slowly. “That makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“It does to me,” he murmured, his gaze intent, looking to see if that would bother her.

“I’m not a child anymore.” She smiled at him. “I do realize, especially now, how much the world needs people like you and Anders. So, if you’re asking me if I’ll have a problem with it, then the answer is no.”

“And yet…”

“I know. I know.” She raised her hands. “I’ve had a lot of time to think over my life choices.” She shook her head. “All I can say is, it didn’t appeal back then because I didn’t see any purpose for it, but now? Obviously it’s a different story.”

He nodded and reached out, and she grasped his fingers and squeezed. “That doesn’t mean I still want to work with my mom on this, though,” she admitted.

“Then you don’t have to. Don’t let her push you into it.”

She burst out laughing. “That might be easier said than done. My mother is many things, but when it comes to her work?… She’s very stubborn.”

“I wondered where you got it from.” He sent her a wicked grin.

She groaned. “Okay, I deserved that,” she admitted.

“Does she have any abilities?” he asked.

“Not that I know of. No one in my family does. I think that’s why it was something I wasn’t really comfortable with. Of course a lot of solid negative religious influence was in my world too,” she murmured. “I was raised with an awful lot of talk of the devil and stories of the battle of good and evil. Some of the stuff was pretty scary back then. That was the influence of my grandparents, I guess,” she muttered, staring off in the distance. She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t update my belief system, and, when I hit adulthood, college was just… Honestly it was an escape from the headaches at home. It was a very freeing experience.”

“And all of that you don’t need to apologize for,” he stated. “Now, do you want to stay here, or do you want to sleep on a real bed?”

She hesitated. “I’m just tired enough, so I might need to go to bed.”

“Good. That would be the best thing for you.”

She frowned at him. “Doesn’t mean it’s what I want to do, though.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“It’s been nice spending time with you,” she said, with a smile. “You don’t realize just how off your world is until you reconnect with somebody you know, and then realize how much you missed them.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

“I know you say that,” she replied, with a laugh, “but circumstances will quite likely take you far away.”

“Maybe, but maybe not. It’s up to us if we want to stay in touch or not.”

“I do,” she declared. “As long as you do, then I guess we can find a way to make it work out.”

“I do,” he confirmed. “I’ve thought of you a lot over the years. You were about the only person I ever knew who could do what I could do, so it got pretty lonely.”

“Yet I’m the one who walked away, so I don’t know why you would even want to have anything to do with me,” she muttered.

“Ah, stop that. It’s all good.”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m just getting very tired and emotional.”

He stood up. “Anders is sleeping in the first bedroom, so go lie down in the second one.”

She sighed and looked up at him.

He shook his head. “You’re thinking too much. Just go get some sleep.” And, with that, he nudged her toward the bedroom, where she promptly crashed.

*

Reid sat backdown at the laptop and sent off several messages, then phoned Terk and checked in.

“Any signs of distress?” Terk asked.

“No, we’re here in the hotel. She took a shower, had some coffee, ate, and now she’s gone to lie down. Anders is taking a couple hours, and then I’ll get a couple hours myself. So far, all is well. I expect MI6 to come back with clothing, a laptop, a phone, and some basic essentials for her pretty soon. Other than that, we haven’t had any update from Jonas at all.”

“I’ve talked to Jonas,” Terk shared, “and they’re keeping an eye on both their disappearance and on her mother’s progress at the hospital, which seems to be improving.”

“That’s a good thing. From what I have heard, Natalia is a fighter, and apparently she’s pretty dedicated to her work.”

“Yes, and that has made her such a great scientist. Although I am hearing murmurs suggesting some of her work and her breakthroughs were due more to her daughter’s gifts than any of Natalia’s actual research.”

At that, Reid winced. “I can tell you what she told me.” Then he dove right in and quickly explained the scenario.

Terk whistled. “That explains why the Russians wanted Natalia and her work, but, if Veni’s not prepared to do that work anymore, it’ll be hard on MI6 because they’ve gone to a lot of work to bring her over here. Yet, if MI6’s agreement was just with Natalia and not Veni…”

“Exactly. I’m not sure that the other work her mother does isn’t just as valuable. Veni refused to let her mother do any testing of her gifts under proper lab settings.”

“No, of course not, but that could be what her mother is hoping for now.”

“Maybe, but they’ll have to work that out between them,” Reid noted.

“Perfect.” At that, Terk asked, “What about you?”

“I’m fine. I need some sleep, but I’m good. We’ve got camera views from the hallway, so we can check out anybody coming this way, and, other than that, we’re in a waiting game. I’m just glad to have a chance for her to rest.”

“And that resting period is very important because all the questions will start tomorrow.”

“Right, she’ll have to be debriefed, and that could get intense. Oh, great. I was thinking that she was over the worst of it, but she’s not, is she?”

“Nope, not yet. MI6 will want their pound of flesh now,” Terk noted, with a snort of laughter.

“I’ll be sticking around to ensure they only get their pound of flesh and don’t try to go for two,” he muttered.

“You care, I’ve heard.”

“Yeah? Who are you hearing that from?” he asked, his back going up instantly, thinking that Anders may have shared something.

“Oh, come on. I don’t need anybody to tell me that,” Terk replied. “I can sense it in your energy.”

“Ah,” Reid grumbled, embarrassed he’d gotten so defensive. “Yeah, we met in college, as you already know. She didn’t want anything to do with this energy work, whereas I was all over it,” he shared. “I didn’t know about you guys and went into the military, thinking that something would be there for me, but there wasn’t.”

“No, there isn’t,” he agreed, “not unless you’d found your way into my division, which you didn’t, and now my division is private. But there is work for you, if you want to come into our corner.”

“I was thinking about it,” he said. “I have to admit that it would be nice to keep growing my skills. Especially now that I know what is out there for people like us.”

“If for no other reason than we’re all here together, that will definitely happen here,” Terk confirmed, with an assurance that Reid really appreciated. “In our environment, it’s pretty impossible to not develop and grow. Even some people who haven’t had any skills in their life are slowly gathering some.”

“Interesting. So, it’s really true, huh? When you have a group of us together, everybody develops more?”

“Absolutely. More and faster,” Terk stated. “So, if you’re telling me that you’re interested, that’s cool. I’ve got you on the roster.”

“Yeah, but I have to finish this first,” Reid replied. “I can’t leave Veni like this. As much as she appears to be well-adjusted and strong, she is a bit of a mess.”

“Yeah, and it’s not a done deal yet anyway,” Terk noted. “You stick around and ensure that she’s safe, and, after that, we’ll talk. So don’t worry about where you’re going from there. I’ll have a place for you at all times.” And, with that, Terk rang off, leaving Reid sitting there, a smile on his face, realizing what a gift it was to have a group of people like him, who he could work with.

The smile was still on his face when Anders stepped out of the smaller bedroom a little later, yawning and wiping the sleep from his eyes. “All’s well, I presume,” Anders muttered, as he came in. Checking to see if there was still some coffee, he almost chortled when there was some and it was still hot.

“Yep, doing good. How was your nap?”

“It was… solid,” he replied, with a nod. “I have to admit that nothing is better than getting some real sleep to clear your head. So it’s your turn now.”

“I’m good with that,” Reid said. “Veni’s gone to sleep. Food is under the covered plates, plus a bunch of snacks are around too. We’ve both eaten, and I didn’t wake you, thinking that sleep was probably a bigger priority for you than food.”

He nodded at that. “Absolutely it was. I’ll get some food now, while you go catch some sleep. Then we’ll both be caught up. You look like you’re doing pretty well though. Interesting conversation with the girlfriend?”

“She’s hardly my girlfriend,” Reid stated, with an eye roll. “But an interesting conversation with Veni? Yes, and with Terk too, honestly.”

“Did he offer you full-time work?”

“Something like that. At least a place to call home and to work with his group. There’s a real sense of being alone in the world when you’re the only one who can do this kind of thing. It’s mainly why I struggled when Veni didn’t want anything to do with it because I figured we were probably the only ones within who-knows-how-much distance, and I was pretty gung-ho about it. I think she’s changed her mind now.”

“Strife has a way of doing that,” Anders noted, “particularly after what she’s been through.”

“I’ve also been keeping an eye on the hallway, but nothing’s there.”

“That’s what we want,” Anders agreed. “Nothing sounds perfect. Let’s hope it stays that way.” And, with that, Anders nodded toward the bedrooms. “Go get yourself some sleep, while you can. Then we’ll reconvene in a couple hours.”

And, with that, Reid headed into the spare room, but Anders suggested, “You may want to go in the other bedroom.”

“Why is that?” he asked, frowning.

“Veni’s not sleeping well at all. I’m guessing, if you sack out beside her, chances are, she’ll calm down and get some rest.”

Reid walked into the other room to see her twisting in the bed, her arms curled up tightly against her chest. He winced and headed to her side and gently held her. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “It’ll be fine.” She opened her eyes and stared up at him, bleary-eyed and groggy. He smiled. “Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you, but you were having a nightmare.”

She shuddered. “Yeah, I’m not surprised. I’ll probably have those for quite a while.”

“Yet they will get better. They will get easier,” he stated. She yawned and he added, “If you’ll be okay, I’m heading to lie down myself.”

“Then lie down right here,” she said. “Then I don’t have to worry about where you are, and you don’t have to worry about me.”

When he hesitated, she asked, “What’s the matter? I’m hardly in any condition to take advantage of you in your sleep.”

He burst out laughing. “Hey, just for the record, I’m up for that anytime. Just give me a heads-up. That’s absolutely no problem.” He winked at her, as he grinned happily.

She flashed him a big smile. “That was the other thing I remember about you,” she said. “You always had a bright smile on your face, and nothing ever really got you down.”

“Oh, things get me down,” he corrected, “but it’s amazing what a person can deal with in life, especially if they choose to have a good attitude.”

She scooched over on the bed. “Lie down. You need some sleep, and this is the best place to get it.”

He stretched out beside her and whispered, “Now you go back to sleep.”

She rolled over, so she could pick up his hand, and, with that held against her chest, she drifted off to sleep while he watched. He didn’t remember her ever having that innocence, that ability to just drop into this kind of peaceful sleep, but he was grateful for it, and it made his job a lot easier too.

His own eyelids slowly drifted closed, as he headed into dreamland himself.