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“Yes. I’ll have someone come out to watch your place, and then I’ll take you wherever you need.”
The thought of being ushered around is not my favorite. “I couldn’t drive myself?”
“Sorry. There’s only eight of us available, and I’m on the fourth shift. If you drove, we’d need a third person to safeguard your car while I accompanied you shopping.”
Great. This just got complicated. Now I feel shitty for even asking. I’m also rethinking going to the store at all. I could get things delivered, but besides needing food, the whole point is getting out of here for a while. Sigh. Well, it’s either be a pain in the butt or go nuts. “All right.”
Later that night, while munching on some fresh fruit, I wonder whose turn it is to babysit. I check my phone to see if it’s Bastien but take a dagger to the heart when I realize he must have uninstalled my program. Bastien knew the app tracked our locations, and I guess this was his way of taking a firm stance after I kissed him. Stubborn asshole.
Despite being bored out of my mind the whole day Saturday, my demons remain quiet. Maybe they’ve decided to let me off the hook because of the drugging incident. Not likely. A more credible explanation is that they figure the whole Bastien thing is torture enough.
By Sunday morning, I’m ready to crawl out of my skin. It’s been a week since I last spoke with Sadie and days since I spoke with Bastien. Even though talking with him was new, he’s spent a lot of time with me over the last two weeks.
I love Sadie like a sister, but if I could only have one person walk through my door right now, it’d be Bastien. The sad thing is that he would refuse if I asked.
Needing to do something, I go to my office, sign into one of my world-building games, and spend some time actually playing for the hell of it. I’m not hunting, but by legit playing, I am maintaining my cover in a way.
An hour later, I’ve built a cool little house entirely made up of fish tank walls when I get a chat notification. It’s from Mercan. Damn. I should have stayed in my private world. This is unexpected but not a problem. All I have to do is keep up the narrative of a fifteen-year-old girl planning to meet a grown man for sex tomorrow.
The chat goes like I would have guessed, turning explicit pretty quickly. The dirty suggestions do nothing for me, not when I have the very real memory of Bastien’s hands on my body.
The chat pauses for a while, so I message back as an insecure teenager would. “Still there, or did you blow?”
“Oh, I blew all right. Just thinking about that sweet little ass was enough to make me do it. I can’t wait till tomorrow. Send me a pic and wait outside for me.”
That right there is an oh shit moment. “Dammit.” The whole operation just blew up in my face. I can’t refuse, or he’ll suspect something. Not only that, if he shows up tomorrow and I don’t make an appearance, he’ll leave.
Swearing the whole time, I ask for Mercan’s email address, which I already have, and send him one of the pictures I use for such occasions. Then, with a promise to be outside the ice cream shop waiting, I sign off and immediately type an email to update Detective Cooper.
I go to bed early that night, fully expecting to get no sleep. I worry about losing Mercan by keeping to the compound and upsetting Bastien if I help Detective Cooper score the arrest. I’m caught in a classic catch-22, where every answer is the wrong one.
It takes a lot of effort and several swear words to drag myself out of bed the following morning. With Bastien’s team deploying today, that leaves me stuck at Knot Corp indefinitely. I may as well get my favorite breakfast on the way in. I won’t likely get another chance for a while.
The big, black Knot SUV follows me through my neighborhood when I leave, and when I take a left instead of a right onto the highway, my phone rings three seconds later. Bastien.
“This isn’t the way to work.”
So he’s the one behind me. “Observant. I thought I’d enjoy one last taste of freedom before prison.”
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”
Crabby from lack of sleep, I lash out. “You’d know all about dramatics, wouldn’t you?”
The line goes quiet, and I feel like shit all over again. “I’m sorry, Bastien. I had a bad night. The Mercan situation went to shit, and now I have to be on-site to help the police with the sting.”
“You fucking will not,” he asserts.
“Um. I believe I just said I am. Mercan expects to see me outside the staging point. If I’m not there, he’ll walk.”
“I don’t give a shit. You’re not being put in the crosshairs again.”
My jaw clenches. I am not in the right state of mind to discuss this calmly. Not that the hardass is capable of being reasonable. To avoid one or both of us saying something we can’t take back, I end the conversation by saying, “I’m going to get a muffin. I’ll see you later.”
I hang up with Bastien yelling my name and order my phone’s voice assistant to turn on airplane mode.
Bastien
“What the fuck?!”
