Malik
“And how did that make you feel?” Corinne asks.
It’s a dreaded question, and it isn’t the first time she’s asked it. It’s our second full counseling session this week, and she has me talking a bit more today. Admittedly, Monday was a little stilted. She’d done some gentle prodding around the edges.
Today, when I sat in her chair, she point-blank said, “We’re going to talk specifically about your captivity today.”
Which was fine.
Monday, we talked about torture.
Today, we could talk about captivity if she wanted.
Neither event was more important than the other in my mind because they both sucked.
“I felt hopeless,” I say truthfully. “I figured the chances of being found and rescued were near to impossible, so I didn’t hold out hope. I set the bar low, resigning myself to die in that hole or being executed.”
We had been focusing on the months of isolation I had to endure with no one to communicate with. Yes, it was horrific being freezing cold, filthy, and hungry all the time, but the worst was truly not being able to talk to anyone. The guards hadn’t spoken English. Or, if they did, they’d refused to engage with me. The only time I heard spoken language had been when they yelled for me to hand up my shit bucket or threw my food down.
The worst had been hearing their conversations filtering through the door—hearing them joking with each other. I couldn’t understand them, but by their tones and laughter, I could tell they’d been happy and having a good time while guarding me. Knowing happy human beings were within spitting distance and I couldn’t have any part of it had made the loneliness a million times more unbearable.
“You sound so matter of fact,” Corinne points out.
“Is that wrong?” I counter.
“Not at all.” She glances at the clock. I do as well, noting we are out of time. She clicks her pen closed, then places her hands over her notepad and angles her body toward me. “That was a coping mechanism. The feeling we’ve lost hope is how our minds start protecting themselves from further hurt and disappointment. It’s natural, but it’s also incredibly depressing. And when you suffer that feeling for such a long time, it takes some time to bounce back from that dark place.”
“Well, being rescued and the sheer joy that comes with it helps a bit,” I offer.
Laughing, Corinne nods. She rises from her chair, indicating our session is over. “Indeed, that would definitely help dispel some of the depression. What I’d like you to do for me is journal specifically about that. Are you still feeling bouts of hopelessness or anxiety? Residual feelings are more than commonplace. The best way to lessen their effects is to confront them.”
Just fucking great.
Homework.
Corinne motions me to the door. “And since Friday is a holiday, we won’t be able to meet again until next Monday. Same time?”
Shit. I’d forgotten. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, which means Jameson is closed down for all nonessential personnel, including Corinne and me. While I loathe the idea of counseling, I want to tackle this bitch so I can move on with my life.
I don’t show my disappointment, though. It’s my job to convince Corinne I’m happy with my life, so I merely smile. “Of course. See you on Monday. Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Big plans?” she asks.
I shake my head, smirking. “I’m Canadian.”
“But you’re half American,” she counters.
“Well, growing up in Canada, we only celebrated that country’s Thanksgiving, which is in October. The American holiday hasn’t ever been a big deal to me.” And because it’s the polite thing to inquire, I ask, “You?”
“Flying home to Atlanta to celebrate with my parents,” she replies.
I wish her safe travels, she tells me she’s pleased with my efforts, and then we say farewell until Monday when we’ll see each other again. If I’m lucky, and she truly feels I am making good progress, maybe she’ll release me from her care and back to full duty next week.
Until then, I do have another job to do. Even if it’s not exciting fieldwork, I am enjoying the project I’m doing with Anna.
I make my way to her office, stopping at August Greenfield’s desk to chat for a few minutes. He’s a recent transplant from the Vegas office whom I met a few days ago. Nice guy, although he’s in a bit of a weird situation being married to a woman who was in WITSEC but came out by her own choice. They have a son who just had a stem cell transplant to treat leukemia, but he seems to be doing well. I like the guy, and I hope to get to know him better.
I find Anna in her office at her desk, working on her computer. She has a binder open, glancing from its contents to her screen.
Rapping lightly on the doorjamb, I ask, “Working on the database?”
Her head pops up, and she gives me a warm, welcoming smile. Same one I’ve received all this week we’ve been working together. I have to say it’s the kind of smile that puts me in a great mood.
“Nah… organizing a proposal for Kynan, which he’s going to submit to some congressional committee that will make Jameson a ‘preferred’ contractor for the government to use,” she replies.
I step in, then take a seat in one of her two guest chairs opposite her desk. “But isn’t Jameson already sort of preferred? I mean… Kynan and Cruce being personal friends of the president and all?”
“You make a fine point,” she teases as she closes the binder. “And yes, in theory, the president does prefer to use us for any work the government needs. But in this instance, I think it’s more of a designation that speeds up assignments of work to us without some of the initial vetting that has to happen.”
“Makes sense,” I reply, then nod to the large stack of folders on the floor. “That our work for today?”
“Yup,” she replies. “I decided we would start chronologically, but work in reverse order on the freshest cases we’ve concluded.”
Monday and Tuesday of this week, Anna and I sorted all the files in the boxes I had carted down from the fourth floor to her office. We then pulled them out and separated them by date, spending the rest of the time learning the database in which we’d be entering the information. Dozer had made it so the order of the fields was customizable, then left it to Anna and me to organize it in a way that made input of the data easiest.
Today, we’re ready to start entering the information.
“Want to grab the top one?” she asks, tapping away on her keyboard and presumably pulling up the database.
Theoretically, the most recent case Jameson had was my rescue in Syria, but that folder wasn’t in the box because it’s probably still being debriefed with the government. Kynan has been working with his liaisons in the Defense Intelligence and Central Intelligence agencies to apprise them of how our mission went down and to account for the dead guards they’d left behind. Apparently, Jameson had been sidelined—intentionally told by the United States to stay out of my search-and-rescue efforts given the tensions in the Syrian region.
Kynan, of course, had ignored them. Had it not been for a very ridiculous amount of money he offered for information on my whereabouts, and the balls to ignore mandates by the government, and came in with guns blazing to secure my release, I’d still be stuck there. I’m forever grateful, and I figure he’s shifting around a lot of heat that’s coming down on him right now. I wonder if that will affect his proposal to become a preferred contractor?
The file in my hands reads, “Code Name: Hacker,” on the tab.
Frowning, I say aloud, “Code Name: Hacker?”
Anna grins. “I sort of named all the cases to keep them straight in my mind. That’s actually a case Bebe was involved in to take down a Russian mobster slash black-hat hacker in New York last month.”
“No kidding,” I murmur. Opening the file, I start flipping through the pages. I haven’t had a chance to see Bebe since my return. Actually, I hadn’t known her all that well before I left for Syria. Hell, I hadn’t known any of these people well, but I do know Bebe is essential to this company’s operations because she’s a certified tech genius. Apparently, while I was being held prisoner, Kynan had a state-of-the-art research and development lab built on one of the subterranean levels. Cage had told me it was pretty high tech. People aren’t allowed down there without an escort, and only two people have keys—Bebe and Dozer.
“It’s probably easiest,” Anna says as she pats the side of her desk, “if you move your chair over here so we can look at the file together. We can figure what’s the most important to put in the database, then I’ll type it in.”
“Let’s do it,” I reply, pushing up from my chair to drag it over beside her.
As I round the desk, I take a moment to notice how pretty Anna looks today. For a sliver of time, I allow myself to appreciate the navy dress she paired with the same brown boots she wears almost every day. She has a scarf tied around her neck with her hair in a high ponytail. One thing I’ve noticed is Anna doesn’t wear much makeup… maybe just a little mascara. I like the way she has a light dusting of freckles across her nose.
The moment fades when Anna glances up. Immediately, I feel contrition for checking out my dead teammate’s wife.
Christ.
“Pop a squat,” she teases as she nods at my chair. Thank God she’s fucking oblivious.
I leave the chair where it’s at, which is a safe distance of at least two feet from hers, and toss the file on her desk. She pushes the binder away, pulls the folder closer, and opens it to study the first page.
Leaning forward in my chair, I try to read over her shoulder, but I can’t really see shit. She notices, gives me an eye roll, and says, “You can scoot your chair closer. I don’t bite.”
I know I’m being ridiculous. I move the chair beside hers until I can clearly see the documents. She reads aloud and points out a few things, but all I notice is her perfume smells really good.
Light and fresh.
Anna grabs some sticky notes. “I’m going to flag all the people we need to enter.”
Before I can respond, someone’s knocking, and we both pop our heads up to see Cage. He walks in, winks at Anna, and sticks his hand out across the desk to me. “What’s up, Mr. Admin Man? Heard you’re riding desk for a bit.”
“Just watching over Anna to make sure she does her job right,” I lob back. Cage laughs, and Anna lightly jabs me in the ribs.
I double over, exaggeratingly rubbing at my side.
“So what are you guys actually doing?” Cage asks as he plops in the other chair across the desk from us.
“Putting all past cases into Dozer’s new database,” I reply.
“That dude is crazy smart,” Cage says with an incredulous expression. “That database is actually more along the lines of artificial intelligence. It will be able to learn the plans we enacted, where mistakes were made, and come up with better solutions.”
Impressive indeed. Anna nods, continuing to go through the file. Snatching a stapled memo, I start flipping through it.
“So listen,” Cage drawls. Once again, we glance up from our work. He’s looking directly at Anna. “Um… Jaime’s starting to think it’s weird she hasn’t met any of my friends or coworkers yet.”
“Uh-huh,” Anna replies, her head dipping back down to the contents of the folder.
“And well, I’m taking her out to dinner tonight, but I thought maybe drinks would be nice first, you know?”
“Uh-huh.” I’m not even sure Anna’s paying attention to him. I have no clue who Jaime is or if I should even be a part of this conversation. It does tell me one thing, though… Anna and Cage are good friends since he’s coming to her with girl troubles.
Or maybe boy troubles. I suppose Jaime could be a guy.
“So you’ll come with me to meet her for drinks then,” he asks, but it’s not really a question. More of a statement, which is confirmed when he says, “That’s great. Thanks so much.”
Cage stands from his chair just as Anna realizes something important just happened. Her head snaps up. “Wait! What?”
“You’ll come meet Jaime and me for drinks, so she thinks I’m legit,” he says, still heading for the door.
“Wait a minute,” Anna commands. Cage stops, turning around with a sheepish smile. “Thinks your legit? Have you not told her the truth yet?”
Now I’m confused as I lobby my gaze between Cage and Anna.
Cage ducks his head as he shakes it. “Hasn’t been the right time.”
“Now would be the right time,” Anna says with a fair amount of snark.
“I can’t,” Cage replies… well, actually almost whines. “But I figure if she passes muster with you, I’ll know she could potentially be the one, then I’ll tell her.”
“Forget it,” Anna grumbles. “I’m not going to pretend to be a… what did you even tell her you do again?”
“A used-car salesman,” he admits in a low tone.
“Yeah… not doing that,” she says adamantly.
I can’t help but snicker as I think I’m figuring out the story now.
“You don’t have to pretend to be anything,” Cage maintains, holding his hands up. “Be yourself. You’ll just be coming as a good friend of mine.”
“Ask August,” Anna says with a sniff, glaring down at the folder. “I know you were good friends back in Vegas.”
There’s a long silence before Cage finally admits. “No one knows about Jaime except you, Anna. I only told you because I needed a woman’s opinion, and I trust you.”
Cage actually cuts his eyes to me, and he adds, “Guess I’m trusting you with this now, too.”
I cock an eyebrow, tapping my finger against my chin. “You mean you’re dating someone who thinks you’re a used-car salesman? Why the big secret?”
“Because Cage doesn’t do relationships,” Anna mutters sarcastically. “Thinks it will ruin his rep or something.”
“That’s not it,” Cage growls. “This is new for me, Anna. I don’t want to fuck it up, and I want you to meet her. Please come.”
Anna finally raises her head, blowing out a long breath. “Fine. But I don’t want to be a third wheel. Malik can come, too.”
“Whoa,” I reply, shaking my head. “I don’t think—”
“You’re coming,” Anna says firmly, giving me a scowl that frankly scares me.
And… okay, fine. Looks like I’m going out for drinks with Anna and Cage tonight.