Page 39 of Unraveling Connections

In the end, I didn’t manage to book a movie night for all of us, but I'm hoping to get one in before Jynx has to head back. Of course, knowing our lives and how quickly everything goes tits up at the moment, I'm probably not going to get the chance; one or all of us will be busy; I think we are pretty fucking lucky that we managed to get everyone together for Christmas, well almost everyone.

Hence, the reason why I am trying to get the movie night in now, at least Peter and I can have one.

“Yeah, that sounds good. I will come and find you after I have hopefully had a phone call with Eli,” he replies with a grin.

“Oh yeah, I forgot Trick said it would be safe so long as he managed to check in and confirmed that it was,” I reply.

Peter nods, “Yeah, I'm hoping he will be able to give me a rough time scale of how much longer he thinks he will be away for. It wouldn’t be so bad if I knew exactly when he was going to be back, like a date to look forward to, the open-ended nature of the cases makes it seem like it lasts a lot longer than it usually does. I never know if he is going to be gone for a few days or months."

I frown, “Yeah. I can see that actually.” Pausing, I add, “You know the option is always there for you to go and work with his team.”

Peter smirks, “Trying to get rid of me?”

I chuckle, “Never.”

“Better not be,” he replies and then adds seriously, “I’m not going to lie, I have thought about it, but I love working with you and the guys, and I'm happy here. Not only that, I don’t know if you have noticed but Eli is a little bit protective over me, he wouldn’t try to stop me from going on the cases and not just being tech support, but it would cause him so much stress. He worries.”

I smirk, “Oh yeah, I think we all know how worried he gets about you. You know, I think it might actually be a good thing for him to see you in action. He knows how good you are and that you easily hold your own alongside us, but hearing someone say it and actually witnessing it are two very different things.”

Peter considers my words for a moment, “Yeah, I suppose he’s not really seen me in action for a while, not since we last did a case together, and that was years ago; maybe he needs a little reminder.”

“Exactly. Although, my guys still worry about me, and I have tortured and killed people since I was a teenager, so you know,” I shrug, “it’s probably just something that we have to get used to.”

Peter grins, “Yeah, you might actually be on something there.” He side-eyes me, “Admit it,you worry about them just as much as they worry about us, I know I do. So, maybe it’s just one of those things, the difference being your men have gotten used to watching you throw yourself in the way of danger, and my man hasn’t seen it enough to get used to it.”

“A very valid point,” I frown, “I feel like we may have somehow talked ourselves round in a slightly wonky circle.”

Peter frowns, “I’m not even entirely sure of the original point either of us was trying to make.”

Neither of us have to try and figure it out, our brains are clearly fried from all the footage that we have had to watch today, because Trick comes back into the room with a frown on his face.

“What’s up?” Cash asks immediately, gaining everyone’s attention as all of the conversations stop.

“Well, it’s not the news that we were hoping for.” He replies.

Riot raises his eyebrow, “Oh, what happened?”

“He’s dead,” Trick replies.

“What? How?” Atlas asks, “Surely, they checked him for one of the chips? That has become standard protocol now; everyonehas to be checked, and even those we know for certain don’t have anything to do with Hunt.”

“That’s exactly what I said,” Trick replies, “he apparently came back clear with no signs of a chip when he was scanned.”

“How did he die, then?” Rage asks, looking as confused as we all feel. “One of ours didn’t get a bit heavy-handed, did they?”

Trick shakes his head, “No. He broke his tooth and poisoned himself.”

“He had one of those capsules implanted?” I ask.

He nods his head, “Yeah. He died pretty quickly, and there was nothing that the agents could have done.”

The looks on everyone’s faces are a mixture of somber and confused.

“Why did he wait so long?” I ask, “He could’ve ended it at any point, but he waited for a really long time before he did.”

“Maybe he was hoping that we’d let him go?” Luc suggests.

Rafe shrugs, “That’s a good point there’s a big difference between saying that you’ll end it if you get questioned or find yourself in the enemies’ hands and actually being able to do it.”

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