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“What? Say it slower, meisie.”
“The doctor...he said I had a drug implant in my arm. Under here.” She touched just below her armpit on the side near me. “It means I can’t get pregnant. Works for ages. Did you know?” Her look was imploring, hurt, uncertain. “Did you know they’d done this to me?”
“No, I didn’t.” I frowned. It was invasive, but what did it have to do with what I’d just said? “This bothers you?”
“Yes.” Her toes seemed to fascinate her. “Even here, I’m not rid of there, of what they did to me. What you did. I need you to go, Pieter.”
I shifted higher. “Hey. I’m your friend. You know that.”
“I need you to leave.” She sat up then slipped off the bed, wiping at her eyes. “Please.”
Fok this. “I need your name. Your address. You have to say.”
“No. I don’t. Go.”
“If you don’t tell us. We can’t let you go.”
But she only folded her arms and glared.
Shit. Stubborn bitch, alright. She was having some sort of emotional upheaval and it seemed I hadn’t a clue how to fix it. Forced hugs wouldn’t work this time.
“Dinner is in an hour. I’ll come get you.”
“Send it up. I can’t face eating with anyone.”
What the hell? She was going to hide up here, totally? Like we were lepers?
“Please?” Her tone was so wobbly that I switched from wanting to chastise her to wanting to help her in a second flat.
“Okay.”
I closed the door and stood there for several minutes staring at nothing. How was I going to make everything right again?
Dinner was strained without her, though that was more my effort than Glass’s. Within seconds of my return downstairs, after I delivered her meal, he sat down at the table and tucked into his plate of takeaway.
“Tomorrow I’ll know anyway,” he told me, around a mouthful of fried rice.
“How?” I poked my plate with the fork. Eating should be a high priority after the crap I’d had for a month. “How will you know?”
“My IT guy is running the hard drive through his algorithms, or something. He says it should pop sometime tomorrow. Then we’ll know who the bloody hell she is anyway.”
“Uh-huh.” I took a swig from the bottle of Aussie beer he’d served, then read the label. Eumundi lager? It had a weird Australian tree on it, which actually...looked South African. But it was ice cold and delicious, and I was pretty sure my finger felt better already. Maybe I’d stick to beer for dinner.
“She’s stupid. Thinking we can let her go without knowing who she is.”
“Stupid?” I leaned back at a steep angle onto the chair, crossed my legs. She wasn’t that. “No. She’s just hurting, doesn’t trust us...me.” It was the me that pained me. “I sort of understand.”
Tomorrow I would know who she was and... Surprise, surprise. That knowledge had sent not dread, but a thrill of anticipation into my balls. With my thumb, I smeared the cold droplets on the glass of the bottle. If I knew who she was, maybe I could find a strategy to keep her here?
Weaknesses might yet be found in this woman. In the past, her weaknesses had been engrossing.
“How are you taking it?” He pointed with his fork at my finger. “This and all the rest, it wasn’t standard operating procedure for combat. I know you can handle that, but what I saw up there...crazy shit.” He shook his head and waited.
I chugged down some more beer.
“I don’t know. It has fucked with my head. Given my priorities a shakeup. I’m not seeing everything the same way.”
“Yeah?” He drank from his own bottle. “If there’s anything I can do? More work? I know you need money? That job for Vetrov led to this? Right?”
