Page 224 of The Company

Chapter Ninety - Sasha

One week later.

Rock Springs, Wyoming

I look around the hotel room and the sadness is overwhelming. I can’t deal. I can’t deal at all. I have lost everything I’ve ever loved to bad people. My mother, who I never even met. My father. My grandparents. And now Nick. My last thread of hope that life would be worth living after all this was done.

But it’s not worth living.

It fucking sucks.

My chin starts to quiver and the tears begin to fall. Again. I’ve done nothing but cry since we got here to the hotel room a few days ago. Harper and James are staying in here with me. Against my wishes. I wanted to be alone, but James refused.

Today is the last paid day for this room. The last chance for Nick to come back to me.

And it’s almost noon now, past checkout time.

So…

Reality.

It sucks.

James walks through the open door and stands there, a black figure, backlit by the morning sun. “You ready, Smurf?”

I shake my head and sit on the bed, staring at the dirty hotel carpet. “No,” I whisper. “No.”

“He’s not coming here, Sasha.”

“I know.” I swallow down that rock in my throat, but I can’t seem to make it go away. “But I don’t want to leave.”

James takes a long breath and sits down on the bed next to me. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” He’s been apologizing for a week now. I’m sorta sick of it.

“But Merc sent me a message a little bit ago. He thinks he’s finally figured out how to get the files to open.”

I sniff and look up at my friend. “What’s on them?”

“Secret money accounts, mostly. Names of all the Company members, of course.”

“Huh. All that bullshit for money and names? It’s hardly worth it.”

“Yeah, but it’s the non-money stuff you’re gonna wanna hear about.”

“Oh, God, no. I’m not interested.” They’ve been talking about the ‘programming’ I was subjected to by my father. I’m having a hard time coming to terms with Nick being gone, I really don’t need to know that my father was brainwashing me to kill people when I got older.

“We still think it’s on there, Sash.”

Hearing James call me Sash makes me let out a sob. “Only Nick called me Sash. So don’t.”

James takes a deep breath and lets it out. “OK. But that brainwashing stuff might be true, so you need to be aware of it.”

“Consider me aware.”

“We’re ready to hit the road now, so where should we go? You get to choose.”

“I’m not going.”