Page 26 of Protected By the Convicts
Chapter Five
HANNAH
Three days had passed since the mine collapse. Vaughn still hadn’t returned home. He ignored her messages, and when she went to the med-center to see him, the staff turned her away. They asked if she was sick. She wasn’t. That would have been the time to lie, but she realized that too late.
“You’ll be late for work,” Ren said as she stared at the med-center doors that had just closed. Vaughn was in there somewhere.
“Hannah?” Ren called her name again.
He was eager to leave the med-center. The only reason he was with her was because Ky’Li emphasized how dangerous it was for her to go anywhere alone. There had been too many attempts to take her. Every step in West Side and at the port for that matter was a risk, as was standing in the open for too long.
“Will you at least talk with him when he returns?” she asked as she walked alongside Ren toward the rail line.
“You meanifhe returns.”
She stopped so abruptly, Ren made it a full five paces before he realized she’d fallen behind. “Did I ever tell you that you can be a real ass sometimes?” she said when he turned around.
Ren crossed his arms over his chest and just stood there, saying nothing.
Hannah shot past him, leaving him in her wake. She didn’t care that she’d pushed her way onto a crowded railcar without Ren or that the railcar doors could shut any second, cutting her off from Ren. This fighting between the men needed to stop.
“Coming through! Move it!” Ren shouted as he pushed his way through the crowd on the car until he reached her.
“Move,” he said to the guy sitting next to her. The man relinquished his seat. Hannah would too, considering Ren’s tone and the scowl on his face. Ren never bluffed, about anything. He’d gladly start a fight if someone pushed him enough, or in this case, was unlucky enough to be in the way.
Hannah turned her head away from Ren.
“You going to ignore me now?” he asked.
That had been the idea, except that was part of the problem with their unit. They’d rather bury their issues instead of reaching out and asking for help.
“Sersie never told me where he went when he left during your fight with Vaughn,” she said quietly, hoping to make the conversation as private as possible considering the crowded railcar. “I thought the fight had upset him, but then when he showed up at the mine that collapsed the next day, he seemed himself, almost chipper even, despite all the dead.”
“I don’t think he’s using, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I don’t know what I’m saying. . . I’m just. . .” She sighed. “Frustrated and worried. I never thought getting everyone to work together, as a family, would be this hard. I keep going over and over everything in my head to figure out what I’m doing wrong.”
“Why is this on you, Hannah? Why do you alone bear the responsibility of making sure we get along? We’re all adults.”
“Adults who never wanted to be in this unit. Do you regret it, Ren? If I were to die today and you were stuck in the unit with the others, would you regret it?”
Ren looked out one of the windows for a minute. “Honestly? I’m not sure. I’ve gotten used to having the others around, even Ky’Li. They remind me of my own brothers in some ways. I miss home.”
“I’d like to say I miss my old life, but I can’t,” she said, surprising Ren as well as herself. This place terrified her at times, but she’d found such amazing men here and she never wanted to go back to a time where they weren’t in her life.
“Freedom to do what you want, go anywhere, live anywhere, be anything. No quotas, no miners, no Dresden—”
“No, you,” she said, placing her hand on his cheek. “And no Ky’Li, no Sersie, no Vaughn. I have more here on Narkos than I ever had on Argus.”
Bright blue eyes stared at her, and then Ren nodded silently, as if he understood.
The railcar screeched to a stop, portside. Ren escorted her onto the platform. He’d wait there until she went through the security gate at the port, watching over her as long as he could.
As she started to walk away, Ren called out to her. “If Vaughn wants to talk, I’ll listen. I’ll even try to help, but don’t expect me to forgive him.”
She smiled at him, her heart feeling suddenly lighter. Ren was trying.
Her hand went to her necklace. She had a long day ahead of her, and finding time alone at a terminal was going to be risky. The inventory management operations room wasn’t a good room to be in alone, but she needed privacy to run her queries. She let the necklace drop back inside her shirt. She needed to stay focused and do this for her men and all those miners who were at risk.
