T
hey pulled up to the motel, situated beyond the edges of the city proper. It looked a little run-down but honestly, Savage had seen far worse over the years. Even during his time with the folks at Pegasus, he had been forced to stay at a couple of verified dumps.
"This'll do," he said with a scowl and shoved the car into park. "Barely."
"Hey, don't hate. This was the best that could be done on short notice," Anja said.
"I'm not hating, only pointing out that it's not exactly the Ritz," he said and made a careful scrutiny of their surroundings.
"Well, you can't stay at the Ritz, since they would ask for an ID," she pointed out unnecessarily. "Oh, and need I remind you that, without access to company funds, you can't afford to stay there either?"
"Yeah, I get the picture." He muttered an imprecation under his breath. His surliness came down to a lack of sleep and as long as there was a bed for him to use—and maybe something to eat before they collapsed for what was left for the night, he would be happy. Well, less annoyed, anyway.
They made their way to the front desk, which was covered by a heavy frame of bulletproof glass. There were obvious
reasons for that, the most logical being that it prevented people from reaching in to snatch the cash while the person working the register wasn’t present.
Person being the keyword, he supposed. No one was actually present at the front of the desk when they arrived, which forced him to tap the bell that rang a soft alarm in the back room.
A young man rushed out and looked very much like he had been woken up from a nice long nap.
"Hey, man, sorry for the delay," he said, his words slurred enough to raise the question of whether sleep had been the only thing he’d indulged in. "Queen bed, right?"
"My daughter and I need a place to stay for the night," he said and narrowed his eyes. "Two beds, if you please."
"Oh...right," the clerk said but tilted his head curiously. He appeared to doubt that his newest guests were related and could be excused for thinking that. Savage didn't care, though. If the guy thought they were here on some kind of tryst, it would perhaps make them even more forgettable.
It didn't really matter.
"Two beds and two people will be seventy bucks for the night," the young man said. He punched the details into a computer that looked to have been bolted to the desk two decades before. "A clean hundred if you want a late checkout."
"We're fine for the early checkout option." Savage peeled a few bills from his wallet and slid them through the partition.
The clerk counted the money and studied them closely for any signs that they might be fake currency before he put them in the drawer to his right and took a key from the wall above it. "Room 108. Climb the outside stairs and follow the numbering on the doors and you'll find it."
"Thank you kindly." He retrieved the key from under the partition and gestured for Jenna to follow him. "Do you want something to eat before we sleep?"
"Sure, I could eat something," the young woman said with a firm nod. "Could we order something? Can we order pizza?"
She sounded excited enough by the option to make him turn to look at her. "Sure. Is there any particular reason why?"
"I don't know, except that it's been a while since I've had pizza," she said with a shrug. "It was my favorite before the whole leukemia thing, and the doctors kept me on a very strict diet before I even entered the lab. They kept me on the diet there as well to make sure there were no regressions."
"So you miss pizza, then," he said and nodded. "Sure, let's order some. They probably have brochures in the room to order from. Either that or we'll find some online."
"I’m already working on that for you," Anja said. "I ordered a couple online that should be headed your way in fifteen minutes."
"Oh...thanks." He grinned as he unlocked their door. "Anja is already on the pizza delivery."
"Don't judge me. I was bored and needed something to do," the hacker said and chuckled.
"Well, I guess we owe you for all the little things." He stepped cautiously into the room and made sure it was secure before he motioned Jenna in and locked it behind her. "That on top of the whole saving our bacon thing."
"Oh, stop, you'll make me blush," Anja responded, her voice coquettish.
Maybe he was becoming a little too mushy for his own good. Or maybe he was merely a little too tired to be snarky.
The room was relatively clean—much cleaner than he expected it to be, anyway, and while he wouldn’t actually get too comfortable on the beds, it was still better than snoozing in the car.
Still, even optimistically, it barely passed acceptable levels. Thankfully, it would only be a short night of sleep, after which they would take the roundabout route to the airstrip where
he'd originally arrived. From that point forward, he assumed Jenna would be Monroe and Jessica's problem. He could acknowledge, at least to himself, that he had become a little attached to the girl but, like it had been with Jessica, it would be better for her to find someone more stable to stay with.
Someone like Jessica, he thought as a knock on the door announced that the pizza had arrived five minutes early.
Savage made sure to check that it was the pizza man and no one else before he opened the door. He paid for the meal and left a decent tip—enough to make sure that they were not remembered as cheapskates, but not so much that they would be remembered for being overly generous.
Jenna hadn't lied about having missed pizza. Anja had ordered pepperoni and meat lover's, along with soda for them, and he hadn't even had a chance to sit before she attacked both with the kind of gusto he remembered seeing in himself when he was taken to a fast food joint as a kid.
It was nice to watch, but by the time he got around to it, there were only a couple of slices of the pepperoni left—not nearly enough, but he could make do.
"Sorry," Jenna said and wiped her mouth politely. "I guess I was a little hungrier than I thought I was."
"Don't apologize. I'm actually a little impressed," he said around a bite of the second to last piece. "At this rate, you could probably make a good living from prizes at eating competitions."
"Still, I don't think that only two pieces are enough for you," she pointed out but still stared at the piece he hadn’t eaten with a hint of greed.
He laughed and pushed it toward her. "I can get something from the vending machine later. Honestly, I'm more tired than hungry at this point, anyway."
"I get that." She attacked the slice with the same fervor as she had the others. "Can I ask you something?"
He looked at her and tilted his head in query. "I think it was your turn anyway, so sure, go ahead."
"I don't want to pry or anything, but I don't think you covered this in our previous question and answer session," she said, finished her food, and took a sip of her soda. "Why did you decide to help me escape from the lab when it would jeopardize your mission so thoroughly?"
Savage narrowed his eyes. "How did you know about that? I didn’t tell you that rescuing you would compromise what I was really there for. I only said I was there to find merchandise."
"Well, I did hear you talking about it before you broke in and set all the alarms off," she said. "I could hear what was being said in your earpiece."
"I...wait." He scowled and closed his eyes. "You could hear what was said through my earpiece the whole time? Why didn't you tell me?"
"Loud and clear, yes." Jenna grinned and shrugged a little sheepishly. "I guess I didn't want to seem impolite, snooping around in your private conversations like I was."
"That's impossible," Anja said. "I've tuned these earpieces to be heard by the person wearing them and no one else. How the fuck did she hear us?"
"The doctors said there would be side effects to the treatment they gave me," the girl explained. She’d obviously clearly heard what Anja said through Savage's earpiece, which meant she did an excellent job of faking ignorance earlier. "One of the first that I noticed was that my hearing improved dramatically over the first couple of months. While they tried to reverse the effects, that one never went away. I told them it did, though, to keep them from panicking about it. Don't change the subject, though."
Savage rubbed his temples. He really didn't have the time—or the inclination—to get into this. "Well, the operation was for something else, but when we saw they were keeping you in
there and against your will, from what we could see, I didn't feel right leaving you there to be used as a human guinea pig any longer."
"Why not?" She placed her elbows on the table were seated at and yawned. "I thought you said you were a bad man."
"I also told you that I have a family," he reminded her, his voice a little softer than he meant it to be. "A wife and a daughter. My wife divorced me and married someone else—someone better—but they'll always be my family, to my mind, anyway. When I saw you in there, I couldn't help thinking about my little girl."
"Do I look like her?" she asked curiously.
"No, she's still fairly young. It’s more like...my mind went to the thought of what would happen if she was subjected to the things you were. It burned me up inside, and I would like to think that if someone saw my daughter in that cage, they would act and get her out of it. Once I had the thought, I could only act on that instinct."
"You sound like you are a really great dad." She finished her soda and stretched on her seat. "What happened to your family, though? Did they die? Is that why you're doing this?"
"No." Savage shook his head. "No, hell no. Why would you think that?"
"I don't know. It's what usually happens in the movies," Jenna said. "You know, hero retires from active duty to be with his family. Someone comes after him but kills his family instead, so he vows vengeance. Alternatively, they go after his dog, with similar results."
"Depressing movies," he retorted. "Although I guess the reality isn't that much more uplifting either. Remember when I told you I needed to disappear for the benefit of the government?"
She nodded.
"Well, yeah, one of the conditions is that I have to stay away
from my family and not let anyone from my past life know I'm still kicking," he explained. "After the divorce, though, I wasn't that close to them anyway. I...well, she told me to leave and I did. I signed up for another couple of tours—kind of a way to show her, I guess. It doesn't really matter, though. I wasn't a great dad or husband. She married another guy, and I can't honestly say she made a mistake. Guy's a fucking lawyer.”
"That has to hurt, right?" Jenna said.
"Yeah," he agreed roughly and kept his gaze focused forward while he tried to keep his emotions in check. "But the guy's a great dad and a decent enough person."
"You stalked your ex-wife's husband?"
"Of course, I did," he confirmed with a chuckle. "You don't think I'd let some random dude move in with the two people I care about most in the world, do you?"
"Well, I think it’s creepy, no matter your good intentions," she countered.
"You're probably right. But I'm a paranoid dude for a reason. Folks have targeted me and have gone after my family to do it so, creepy or not, I stalked and checked up on the guy. I guess I also hoped to dig up a little dirt but it was, for the most part, for safety reasons."
"You're a tough man to get a read on, you know that, Savage?" Jenna stood from her chair and stretched again. "First, you're honest about what you want me to do and you're nice and chat to me, but then you beat up a couple of cops. You say you helped me because you hope someone would do that for your girl if she were in trouble, but you stalk her new stepfather."
"I know," Savage said. "Like I said, many people would have good reason to believe I'm not a great guy and they might be correct. I'm only doing what I think is right."
She smiled and shook her head. "You don't have to defend your actions to me, Jer. Only think about them before you do
them."
"I try," he replied. "Thinking isn't usually the kind of thing I have the luxury of doing. Like with the cops. If I hadn't acted instead of thinking, I would probably be sitting in a jail cell right now and they—whoever ‘they’ are—would haul you off to another facility, far out of the reach of anyone who might be able to help you."
"Okay, you say that, but if it had happened, I would have put some effort into helping Jenna," Anja interjected. "And there's not much in the world that I can't find when I put my mind to it."
"I appreciate that, Anja," the girl said and moved over to her bed, the one farthest from the door.
"I still can’t get used to that kind of hearing," the hacker muttered as he collected the trash and left it in a neat pile for housekeeping to collect in the morning, assuming they had housekeeping there.
"You know I can hear that too, right?" Jenna asked.
"Get some sleep," Savage said quickly. "It seems like we both need it."
"I'll keep working on trying to find the folks who intercepted the video," Anja said. "Stay safe, Savage."
"Will do," he replied and removed the security guard uniform to reveal the jeans and shirt he’d worn under it. He remained fully dressed and stretched on the bed, tucked his pistol under the pillow, and kept his hand close, even if the safety was on.
He was paranoid, but he had good reason to be. Weariness settled in and he shifted to find a more comfortable position and turned the lights off before the exhaustion from the long day finally took control.