19. 19
I stared at Elias’s dresser most of the night, unable to really sleep.
My eyes closed eventually, but the rest I got was fitful.
Elias had a much better night, breathing deeply behind me, twitching every once in a while.
He woke briefly when I got up to shower again, at four in the morning, but went back to sleep after a few assurances.
My eyes shot open when his alarm went off at eight in the morning, and I could feel my palms begin to sweat before I even blinked.
Elias was smiling at me, and I wanted to smack the happiness right out of him.
Today was not going to be a good day, and he refused to acknowledge it, choosing to be irritatingly optimistic instead.
He’d probably argue something about pragmatism, and I’d roll my eyes, so I just left the conversation be.
“Good morning,” he said, stretching then wincing when he remembered how injured he was. “Damn. That hurts.”
“Last night probably didn’t help,” I reminded him. He definitely overexerted himself. He wasn’t exactly a passive lover.
“Oh no, I needed that,” the drunken grin still plastered on his face. “I think you needed it, too.”
“Not if it leaves you permanently disabled.”
He kissed my forehead, but I stared blankly at him. He frowned. “Are you always this crabby when you wake up in the mornings?” He asked. “The forehead kiss was meant to disarm you.”
I shrugged. “Only when the day is going to suck.”
“Why don’t you go have your cigarette and get your brain all worked up.
Then you can come back inside and we can have an awkward conversation.
If you want, we can talk about my exes again.
That was a blast. Or, you can force me to admit that I’m into you for the third time in a new, much more painful way.
” He pointed at the door when I didn’t reply. “Go, I’m gonna pack our stuff up.”
“I hate you,” I muttered, but I did what he said.
The air was cool, the autumn air evidently rolling in. I should’ve brought a jacket out with me, but I really didn’t have one, and I didn’t need to stink up one of Elias’s.
There wasn’t much to think about, I’d done it all night.
It wasn’t what I’d have to go through, how the government might own me.
I could deal with that. It was that I had no idea what to expect.
In my mind, I’d get shipped off somewhere and be given a new name.
They’d kill my parents so I’d have no choice but to comply, even if I was a willing participant to begin with.
Elias was busy in the house, hobbling back and forth between rooms. He seemed to be walking better, but he probably shouldn’t have been walking at all. I imagined he had plenty of poorly healed injuries because of behavior like that.
He was dressed almost like a civilian today, no cargo pants or thermals or bowie knives, just a single gun holstered under his arm.
A loose pair of jeans hung low on his hips, and a black t-shirt barely covered the skin of his stomach.
He pattered around the kitchen barefoot, and I caught a peak at the elastic of his boxer briefs.
Fiddling with the coffee pot, he looked up. “Let me have it,” he said.
“Are they going to kill my parents?” I asked.
“No. You give them the vaccine and they’ll be happy.”
“But you said that if we ran away they might do something to them.” I stepped around him to get to the sink, washing the smoke smell from my hands.
“I did say that,” he said, pausing to grind coffee beans. “But that was when we were fugitives with the information they wanted. If you give it to them they have no reason to retaliate against you. Are you thinking of running away again?”
“Maybe,” I said. I hadn’t really considered it, but it felt safer than walking into whatever trap they had laid out for me.
“Well, we aren’t going to do that, okay?” He looked at me expectantly and I gave him nothing.
“I’m not going to be forced into witness protection am I? Like, they aren’t going to ship me off to some town in Indiana?”
He pressed the button on the coffee pot to brew and leaned on the counter next to it.
“No,” he said, his tone firm. “When this happened to me, I was already in the military, so it might’ve been a little bit different, but it should be similar enough.
I was brought into a room, and they told me I’d be joining a new team.
I didn’t get a choice. I was already doing a bunch of shit I didn't want to, so the hard parts of the job weren’t anything new to me.
I like this a little bit more, really. I spend more time investigating a situation than I do rappelling out of a helicopter.
And when I do have to shoot my gun, it’s normally at someone who is missing half their brain and isn’t aiming back at me. ”
“I really don’t want to do what you do,” I said. I’d handled myself decently the last few days, but by no means was it my dream job. Besides, I’d worked far too hard for my degree to not use it.
“I’ll fight to make sure that doesn’t happen, but it wouldn’t make sense anyway,” he said. “You’re much more useful to them in your lab coat.”
There was a knock at the front door.
He jerked his head to the bathroom. “Go get dressed, I left some clothes out for you.”
I sulked off to the bathroom to find my new clothes folded in a neat little pile, tags all removed for me. Elias’s voice traveled through the house.
“Good morning Kenny, Marcus,” he said, footsteps following him into the kitchen. “Coffee?” He asked.
“We need to get going, Correa. Where’s the girl?” One of them asked.
“I’ve never been late to one of these and I’ve always waited at least thirty minutes,” Elias said. “I think we’ve got time.” I heard a bar stool scoot against the floor. “Cassia is in the bathroom.”
The other man spoke up. “Surely we’ve got time for coffee, Marcus.”
“Fine,” said Marcus.
“So, what’s up with the girl?” Kenny asked.
“I’m not sure I understand your question, man,” Elias replied. He seemed friendly with the men sent to get us. Maybe they worked in the CIA building, too.
“Why is she staying with you in your house?” I didn’t think I liked this guy. I brushed my teeth with a little too much pressure.
“She lived in staff housing at Baker and Pryor, so she really can’t go home. She also created a vaccine for the variant and I think it would be pretty irresponsible not to keep an eye on that,” Elias answered diplomatically.
“You’ve got the vaccine?” Marcus asked. I liked him a lot more.
“Yeah it’s in the freezer.”
“Can I see it?”
“No,” Elias said stiffly. “Dr. Hayes will take care of its transport.” It was weird to hear him say my government name like that.
“So, you’re not hitting that?” Kenny asked, his question more clear this time around.
“What an inappropriate thing to say,” Elias said. “Did you think about that before it came out of your mouth?”
Silence filled the room after that, so I took a deep breath and prepared to make my entrance. The pattering of my feet against the hardwood was muffled by my socks. I walked into the kitchen, standing near the edge of the room and waved at the two men.
“I’m ready to go,” I lied. I was ready to board a flight to my parents’ house and hide out in the basement.
“This is Kenny,” Elias said, gesturing to the taller of the two. “And that’s Marcus.” Marcus was significantly shorter, but had a much more serious demeanor. Then he gestured to me. “This is Dr. Cassia Hayes.”
“Hello,” I said, unsure what to do with myself.
“Dude,” said Kenny, smacking Elias on the arm. I remembered when I called him dude. Elias was definitely not a fan.
“What?” Elias snapped at him. Even if I wasn’t here in the room, I doubted that Elias would be the bragging type. Also, it was incredibly crude.
“Nothing,” grumbled Kenny, defeated.
“Cassia, why don’t you make yourself some coffee, then we can go? There is a mug next to the coffee pot for you,” Elias offered. He stayed on the stool, sipping coffee out of a thermos.
“Thanks,” I said, my voice quiet. Marcus moved out of the way, giving me space to move freely around the room as needed.
“Creamer is in the fridge,” Elias added.
Kenny spoke up as I poured the coffee into my own travel mug. “Did you catch the game last night?”
I couldn’t help the heat rising to my cheeks, and prayed that Kenny wouldn’t look at me. He would infer everything he wanted to learn from the color of my face.
“Only a bit,” Elias admitted. “I called it a night early.”
“You missed a good one,” Kenny said.
“That’s a shame,” Elias sighed. That wasn’t a misdirection, he wanted to watch the damn game.
After I finished making my coffee, we were quickly ushered out the door, but not before Elias grabbed his bomber jacket for me. I didn’t think to buy a coat at the store. If we got separated, I’d have something to remember him by, at least.
Elias held my hand, weird looks from Kenny be damned, though Marcus kept his eyes on the road.
Plausible deniability, really. I was terrified, and Elias had saved my ass multiple times over the past several days.
If he needed to hold my hand to keep me from jumping out of the car, then that’s what Special Agent Elias Correa would do.
The cooler sat on the floor of the SUV next to my feet, and my hand jerked toward it every time we hit a bump in the road. Elias shook his head the first time, tightening his grip on my hand. “Relax,” he whispered. Easy for him to say. Just another day.
A classic rock song played softly on the radio, and Kenny nodded his head along to it.
Metal bars separated the back seats from the front, but the plastic partition was down.
I expected it to be more like a cop car, with a hard plastic bench as the back seat, but this was clearly a multi-purpose vehicle.
We didn’t stop in D.C., driving into Maryland for a few miles before we turned off the highway. Only a minute off the interstate, there was a check point led by at least ten men in uniform. Two of them approached the vehicles, rifles in their hands.