Page 20 of Rue

He stopped it before Mig opened the door.

She looked back at him, her face going red. “I have nightmares.”

“You tole’ me you don't lie,” he sneered.

“I didn’t lie! I did sleep! It just wasn’t for very long.”

His lip curled as he looked down at her, his eyes glittering. “How long you been sleeping like that?”

“Since the night you did what you did,” she told him in a whisper, looking down.

“You need ta fuckin’ sleep, Rue. If tha’s my kid in there and you need ta be takin’ care of your body more.”

Sailor looked up at him and opened her mouth, ready to say something about how he shouldn’t be handling her so roughly and raping her, but she thought better of it at the last moment. Closing her mouth, she glowered at him instead.

“Sit her down,” he told Mig, sitting down as he did something on his phone.

Mig pushed her to the small couch beside Geo, and she immediately pressed herself to the far side. Pulling her bare feet up to tuck under her as she made herself small and still.

Geo tapped on his phone, ignoring her, and Mig opened his phone. There were two other men in the room, but they seemed to be bodyguards, one at the main door and the other at the door to the hall.

After a moment, Mig left, going back down the hall. He came back with a blanket and stopped in front of Geo. Geo flipped a wrist at her, and Mig tucked it around her.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, huddling in it.

Geo grunted but never looked up from his phone, and Mig didn’t acknowledge that she spoke.

It got quiet again, with no one speaking as they stayed on their phones. Half an hour passed, and Sailor was starting to nod off, exhaustion winning out with the warmth and comfort seeping into her.

A knock made her jump, and Mig answered the door and brought food bags. Setting them on the table, he pulled out acovered plate and handed it to her before getting larger ones for Geo and himself. After handing out forks, he pulled the cover off of hers. Looking down at the omelet, she took the drink he offered.

“Thanks,” she mumbled again.

No one answered, Mig and Geo eating silently as they stayed on their phones. She ate just as quietly, finishing everything and surprised at how hungry she was.

Mig took her empty plate and threw the trash away before moving to the chair nearby, sitting close and tapping away on his phone.

Sailor didn’t understand why she was out there but stayed quiet. She was full, and warm, and the couch was soft.

Jerking, she lifted her head at a loud knock on the door.

When Mig got up, she realized she’d fallen asleep. The brighter light came in the windows, shining on the floor, not the side wall. The sun had moved quite a bit, meaning she had slept at least a few hours.

Mig opened the door as she blinked, sighed, and rested her head on the armrest.

When Geo sat up and put his phone down, she could feel his movement in her feet. She was curled up in the small space but pressing against him.

She noticed then that it was Gabe coming back in, looking like he hadn’t slept yet. “I finally found someone,” he told Geo. “As far as he can tell, it all checks out. She’s right. All that software is monitored, even ones that are illegally downloaded. They have some sort of proprietary, umm… shit. They have a thing that makes it so even ones not sold from the sites are all monitored. They also monitor keywords and shit? Images. There are… algorithms that can pick up all kinds of things from all the software like it. The asshole liked to hear himself talk. Umm… he did make an offer, though? Said he knew what we were wanting, and he knew what to do to go around all the proprietary shit and could clone something? Anyway, he said he could do what we were wanting.”

“Did you tell him what we wanted?”

“No! No, I told him we were testing someone we might be working with, seeing if they knew as much as they said they did or were they full of shit, you know? It was all just hypothetical, like you said last night. He said she knew what she was talking about and why none of what I was doin’ would work. He says he can make it work if he were paid the right amount? Got a cut of it?”

Geo snorted. “She said that was the hard way. Why would I wanna do shit the hard way when I got me the easy way sittin’ right here?”

Sailor almost cut in to say she wasn’t doing shit for him, but she decided against speaking up. She would say no if he asked her, but not invite trouble before she needed to.

“I got his number anyway. He don't know who I am, and I made sure he wouldn’t say shit to no one.”

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