Chapter 5 - Ranger #2
“Thanks,” I said as I slipped out of the room. “I’ll be back, Marla.”
“Okay.”
I was glad that she let me use her name more and more.
Even though she finally introduced herself to me a few days back, I didn’t want to overdo it.
If there was anything that Wrecker taught us about his time as a prisoner of war, it was the fact that sometimes, familiar things like a name or even a favorite food could become overwhelming.
So I tried to keep a lid on the want to treat her as normal. To treat her as if nothing happened.
I was glad she let us use her name now, however.
There was excitement around the phones. The girls automatically exchanged numbers while I preloaded all of the crew’s numbers onto the phones before I divvied them out.
We didn’t need to change over phones as often as we did, but there was no measure too great or too small for the venture we had taken on.
I was paranoid about technology, and for good reason.
Especially since we had tire tracks appearing all around our compound a few miles out.
I didn’t want to tell Marla that part yet.
I didn’t want her to think they were coming after her, when in reality, the crew made ourselves a target because we were protective as fuck.
“Aaaaall right,” I said as I slipped back into my bedroom and closed the door behind me, “one locked down, safe as hell burner phone, coming right up.”
I heard her shuffling around in the closet before she came close enough to the cracked opening in the door for her shadow to spill out into the room. She slid her hand through the little opening, and I smiled as I slid the burner phone into her hand.
“I’m glad you’re letting us use your name a bit more,” I said as her hand disappeared back into the closet, along with the phone.
“Why?” she asked softly as a small light illuminated through the wooden grating of the sliding closet door.
I could’ve sworn I saw her form hunched over the phone in there.
“Because it means you’re getting less skittish with us,” I said as I sat down next to the closet. “You weren’t a fan of us using your name in the beginning.”
“Sorry about that,” she muttered.
Her voice was so strong now that she’d been talking so much.
I wanted to keep hearing her speak.
“No apologies,” I said with a shake of my head. “Wrecker said it was very normal. He was captured once behind enemy lines, and he said that he couldn’t stand to hear his name for weeks after the fact. Said it reminded him—”
“Of the way his captors said it,” she finished.
My heart shattered. I hated that she knew. “Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
I didn’t know what to say after that. I sat there for a while, listening to the little tippy-taps of her fingers against the screen of the phone.
I leaned my head against the closet door, just listening.
Was she typing out a text to someone? Playing one of the games I preloaded onto it for her? Was she logging into—
“Don’t log into any of your social media,” I said quickly. “If you have them, that is.”
There was silence for a while before she spoke. “That stuff isn’t really my thing.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, good. The other girls weren’t happy that they couldn’t access it yet, but lockdown is lockdown for a reason.”
Silence fell between us once more before my eyes found the charger of the phone sitting on the floor next to me.
“Oh, here, take this,” I said as I slipped the charger through the cracked opening of the folding closet door. “There’s an outlet somewhere on the wall of the closet. You’ll be able to keep your phone charged in there as well.”
I saw the rest of the cord disappear into the closet as she picked it up. “Thank you.”
“You don’t ever have to thank me for the necessities, Marla.”
“Oh.”
And with that, I smiled to myself as I stood. “Ghost is taking the evening watch with those cameras I told you about. You know, the ones in the law firm?”
“The security cameras, I remember,” she said softly.
She remembered.
She retained the information I gave her.
Fuck. Yes. “Yep, those are the ones. I turn those cameras over to him once night falls, so if you need anything at all, I’ll just be putzing around on my computer. You won’t be interrupting anything.”
“Okay.”
As I pushed myself up from the floor, I made my way to my desk in the corner.
I knew she’d have a direct line of sight of me through the crack in the closet door, and I wanted to make sure it stayed that way.
My back hated the fact that I slept upright in my desk chair, but if she ever woke up in the middle of the night and peeked out that crack, I wanted to be the first thing that she saw.
I wanted her to know that I wasn’t leaving her alone and vulnerable, no matter what.
I was hopeful, really. Hopeful that she’d pull through this.
Hopeful that we’d all make it out of this.
Hopeful that we’d be able to push back the syndicate with the information we gathered.
And hopeful that she’d be able to reclaim some sense of normalcy for her life again.
If that was what she wanted.
All of us just had to play our cards right.