Page 132 of The Masks She Wore

January 19th, 2020

She was still sitting in the center of our bed, her legs crossed, her hands resting on her knees, palms up, eyes closed.

?Every once in a while she would twitch and then scribble something down, but it’s been an hour and I was starting to get impatient. She deserved however much time she needed to work through this, but I also wanted to speak to her about her father before I forgot any important details.

?Even Zo was pacing. “She hasn’t trained in two days, Jack, we can’t let her falter now. She needs to work through this with her fists.”

?“Mental fists are just as good as physical ones, you know that,” I commented, turning back to my own notebook. I was taking a page out of Rae’s book, writing down everything and anything I felt might be important.

?Zo stopped and took me in. “When thefuckdid you get reading glasses?”

?I frowned, looking over them to meet her eyes. “I’m 30, Zo, I needed a prescription.”

?Her lip curled. “You look like an idiot.”

?I was going to kill her one day. I truly was. “I don’t want to hear anything from you about idiocy.”

?She glared daggers at me. “You never checked either,” she justified. “I’ve been carrying every assignment on my back while you’ve been here training and fucking her. Something was bound to slip through the cracks.”

?“It shouldn’t have been that.”

?“Well maybe you should have gone down there yourself,” she bit. “Nobody is perfect, not even you.”

?Without gracing her with a reply, I glanced back at my phone to see Rae finally getting up. She grabbed my jacket, pulled it on, and picked up the notebook she had been working on. Seconds later, she was walking with a purpose out the door.

?I turned back to my notebook, scribbling down a few more notes when another notebook appeared in my line of sight.

?My eyes lifted.

?Her amber eyes were fierce, lined in black so sharp, they could kill a man.

?I didn’t let her beauty affect me. Not this time. “What is this?” I knew exactly what it was, but I needed to make sure her mind was still working properly before I decided whether or not I needed to see Azrael about how to unshatter a mind.

?She took in my face, her cheeks filling with a slight hint of red.

?She liked the glasses, so they would remain.

?“Information,” she stated as I took it from her. “What they told me, everything they told me, and what I can remember of that time.”

?I flicked through the pages. There were at least 10 of them, front and back. I set it on mine and took my glasses off, taking in how small she looked in my jacket. God, she looked good. “You good?”

?“I’m fine,” she stated coldly. “They did what they did and it’s over.”

?“What do you want to do?”

?“Hunt them down and kill them all. Whoever the fuck they are.”

?I smiled softly. “Good girl. How long ago did it happen?” I needed to know her timeline before I gave her any information on her father. I couldn’t have that altering her train of thought right now. I didn’t need her second guessing herself in the middle of this.

?“February is when she disappeared, that’s when everything feels more solid, so that’s when I ‘woke up’,” she explained, using air quotes. “From what I can decipher, they got me in November, early, possibly the end of October.”

?I nodded. She told me four months last night, so now I had more belief that even in her manic state, she was able to keep things straight, truthful. “Do you remember any truth as to where or who you were before then?”

?Her jaw feathered, her hands flexing at her side.

?“That,” I pointed out, angling my chin. “What’s happening right now?”

?“It’s a physical pain,” she said through her teeth, rolling her head. “It’s uncomfortable, like a headache behind the eyes but burning.” She gripped her hands into fists, her knuckles turning white. “The Bennett’s were dead,” she finally said, a sweat breaking out across her brow. “It was good enough for a temporary place before I moved on.”

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