“Well, that was sweet of you.” He taunted.
I rolled my eyes. Not that he could see.
“Any chance of me resting my arms?” He asked. All humor was gone from his words.
I grabbed the two buckets and went back into my room. No need to answer that. There was no way that I was letting him get any reprieve while he was awake. He was tall and weighed twice my size. Even if I was faster, if he caught me or got a hold of me, I was doomed. No need to try my luck with that.
* * *
Sometime ago…
“Zendaya, where are you going?” I turned toward the shrill voice. Saja was nice enough, but her voice set my nerves on edge.
“I have to tighten up security at a few posts. Kiara is worried about things being too loose lately.”
“Of course, she sends her personal guard dog down to check it out.” Saja joked, having a playful tone in her voice.
It spiked anger to course through me so quickly that I barely registered what I was doing. I grabbed Saja by the throat and pinned her against the wall.
“I’m nobody’s guard dog. What exactly did you come running behind me for? Did you need something besides hovering at death’s door? Remember, I’m stronger, faster, and able to do things to you that would scramble your brain forever.”
“Is all this necessary over a joke, Zen? What’s really going on?” Saja struggled to speak but didn’t fight back.
“What. Do. You. Want?”
“There’s been a breach in security.”
“Where?”
Saja lifted the tablet with a red bleep a few miles from Kiara’s.
“Send a team of three to that location. I’ll meet them there with instructions.”
I let her go and jumped into my car, going directly there. Upon arrival, I got out of my car and walked the rest of the way there so I wouldn’t alert anybody to me advancing on them. Whoever they were, they were going to die. I was in a shitty mood and needed to release all my frustration right into their skulls as I beat them to death.
Arriving at the spot where the disturbance was supposed to be, it was undisturbed. I broadened the area of my scope, searching for movement or a clue. Tracking was something I was good at. I could do it in my sleep, but…
I stood up straight, closed my eyes, and let the wind point me toward anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing. I checked the fence lines where the censor should have been. It was out and needed to be replaced. Three guards came up behind me, ready to kill something, just as I had been.
“Stand down. You, go find a censor and get this replaced. The rest of you need to report back to your posts.”
I sighed, frustrated that I wasted my time. I drove to the post only to find Carmen sitting there, butt hurt, with a sour expression on her plump face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked while looking around. Eva seemed to be in a mood as well.
“Just Dreia, with her snotty attitude and pissy demeanor. What can I help you with?”
“Dreia? Isn’t she supposed to be out on an assignment?” I thought back to the schedule that I glanced at earlier today. “She shouldn’t have been here.”
It wasn’t a coincidence that they made the false breach at the fence. Nor was it that Dreia was here.
“Tell me everything that happened.”
Carmen did, and before she could finish, I left the post and went in search of Kiara. That was the day that I lost all of Kiara’s trust. It booted me from being at her side constantly to drinking in pubs nightly. She’d trusted that I had nothing to do with the attack on her life, but she didn’t want me by her side. She’d labeled as me distracted and useless.
I don’t know what I would have done if she’d died that day. Regret wouldn’t have been the only thing riding my consciousness every day. Now, I needed to let go of the past and find out the information that she wanted so that I could get back to my rightful place. No more distractions. Colton was the enemy who had information. Thinking of anything besides that could get somebody hurt. For the next week, I changed the rotation.
Pain.