Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Audra stared at the bathroom door. Gage had raced across the room, spilling his plate of wings in the process, and locked himself in the cramped room. She might chalk it up to diarrhea or food poisoning, except for the look of utter terror that had washed across his face.
This was far more than a case of when-you-gotta-go-you-gotta-go nature calling.
She brushed her damp curls out of her face and looked at the shrapnel of food on her plate. She was rested, washed, and fed. Her connection was on the way. And whether or not it was due to any of the former, her outlook on her life and mission was more optimistic.
Now, she just needed answers from Gage.
While he did whatever he was doing in the bathroom—and she tried not to listen for sounds to indicate what that might be—she tidied the room.
As John had mentioned yesterday, the room lacked a mini fridge.
So, she wrapped the food back in their bags and set them near the heater, turning it up a few degrees to keep the food warm even though the antique struggled already.
Nothing left to do. So she settled on the bed, berated herself for not bringing a holo-book to read during the long, monotonous hours of this journey, and waited.
She might have even dozed off, but Gage eventually flushed and exited the bathroom. He glanced at her, but didn’t meet her gaze. Neither did he approach the bed or the chair. He seemed unsure… embarrassed. Because he’d made a mad dash for the bathroom?
“Gage, relax. I’m not laughing or judging.” Her soft assurance rang loud in the awkward silence. “It happens to us all.”
Truth. As she’d entered her forties, her trips to the toilet for whatever bodily need had increased.
She swallowed the bitter laugh that rose in her throat.
She’d felt so betrayed by her body from her cancer diagnosis, she’d easily forgotten all the subtle ways an aging body could betray.
Midnight trips to the bathroom. Random twinges.
That hitch in her git-along from sitting too long.
Gray hair… everywhere. Breast cancer wasn’t necessarily an old person’s disease, but getting old was.
And while the treatment for her cancer was uncomfortable, there was no cure for aging.
Gage didn’t look convinced by her assertion. “Yeah, not all.”
Time to change the subject. “Are you hungry? I wrapped the food up, but there’s still plenty and you only took a few bites.”
He pondered her comment, or something else maybe, for a few seconds before nodding with decision. “Yeah, I’m still hungry.”
As if his limbs were made of wood, he walked over to the heating unit by the door and grabbed whatever container rested on top.
Then he tugged the chair farther away from her and angled his muscular frame so he faced the end of the bed instead of her.
His forearm on his thigh, he hunched over the container in his hand and shoveled tacos into his mouth.
Tacos? Not the wisest choice for someone if they’d just experienced an emergency bowel movement.
Which meant that wasn’t why he’d raced to the bathroom.
Whatever had happened, uncomfortable silence filled the room as a result.
“Sooooo.” She stretched out the word, hesitant to address the topic.
Doing so might bring up other topics she didn’t want to address and questions she couldn’t answer.
But she had questions of her own, and the answers to those might affect her safety or her mission. “How did you get a key to my room?”
He shrugged, then was silent for several moments while he chewed. “I told the gentleman at the front desk I was your brother. Given the, uh, diversity in this particular area, he believed me.”
“How did you find me? How did you know I’d be here?”
“Lucky, I guess.” He murmured, staring at his taco. From her vantage point, she watched his jaw muscles clench. Then he shook his head and huffed a laugh without any humor. “There’s a voice in my head telling me where to go.”
She frowned, not that he was looking at her to see it. The seconds ticked by and he didn’t amend his bullshit answer. She fiddled with the hem of the top sheet and changed the subject. “Gage, is this our dinner date? Is that why you’re here?”
Gage stopped chewing, but didn’t look at her. “This can’t be our dinner date, Audra. There aren’t any servers to over-tip and we’re not going to scorch the bed with any sex after this.”
Did he sound relieved they wouldn’t have sex, or saddened?
Her upper torso was still too ravaged for sex, so why was she disappointed he so readily declined any?
Damn her fate. Back at the Pentagon, she’d spent years trying to give Gage every opportunity to ask her out or have more than a two-minute looks-like-it-might-rain-how-’bout-last-night’s-football-game conversation with her.
She’d finally taken control that fateful morning and had bypassed all the typical dating steps, going straight from casual work acquaintances to fuck buddy in a matter of minutes.
And after all that—after all that had happened to her since then—they were back to being practical strangers.
Fuck her life.
“Did you really track me down all this way just to tell me you didn’t want sex?” He finally glanced in her direction, denial in his eyes even if the words weren’t on his tongue. “How did you find me, Gage? Why are you here?”
“Why are you here?” He turned back to his tacos. “You left without telling anyone. Your boss was worried. I was worried.”
His confession made her heart trip, but she slanted him a look of reproach when his eyes flicked in her direction. “Really? My boss was worried about me?”
He looked like he might lie again, but then sighed and shook his head. “Maybe a little bit. But he was more worried about the workload piling up and making him look bad. You were MIA and hadn’t told him why.”
“I told him.” Ugh, how she wanted to cross her arms over her chest in frustration.
“Higgenbotham can’t be trusted to zip his fly after a piss if I’m not there to remind him.
I told him about my impending leave of absence—several times—and even put a note in his calendar.
He just didn’t remember, or didn’t listen in the first place. ”
“Knowing Higgenbotham the way you do, you should have known that wasn’t enough communication.”
Her gut hollowed. “What did you want me to do better, since it’s apparently all my fault?”
“No, not your fault at all. I’m sorry it came out that way.” Gage shook his head. “But you know he’s inept. You could have… made a large poster and… stapled it to his forehead or something. Arranged for someone else to pick up the slack—”
“Gage, I’m not a super hero. I can only do so much and, honestly, I had my own things to deal with without being obligated to ensure Higgenbotham’s poopy diapers got changed while I was gone. He is a grown-ass man, after all.”
“What were you dealing with? Why did you have to take a leave?”
Tears sprung to her eyes but she blinked them back. She couldn’t tell him about her mission. Didn’t want him to know about her cancer. “I… I had personal things to deal with—”
“Personal things that brought you all the way here to Bum-fuck-Egypt?”
“Yes.” She plunked her fists on her hips even as she sat on the bed. “You act like this is some one-stoplight cow town. Besides, I’m not obligated to give anyone my reasons for leaving, least of all my boss. Or you.”
He waved that away. “You should have given Higgenbotham some sort of explanation—”
“Higgenbotham never wanted to hear anything personal. He said those details got in the way of his employees being proficient and professional.”
“Say you’re on your period and need a month to go buy tampons. That would have kept him too uncomfortable to ever ask again.”
“He still would have been pissed I wasn’t there to do my job.”
In a flash, Gage was at the side of her bed, leaning forward to tuck an errant curl around her ear, his chocolate brown eyes filled with concern. “I’m not Higgenbotham. I care about you, not your job performance. Why did you leave?”
Her poor heart cringed. Dammit, all she wanted to do was confess and then curl up in the protection of his arms and let him keep her safe forever.
But he was a cyborg. They struggled to keep themselves safe, without the added responsibility of protecting others.
Then again, he was a cyborg. If anyone could empathize with her plight, it would be the cybernetic individuals she was trying to save.
And Gage was just the kind of strong, stalwart cyborg who could help her in that endeavor.
She cupped his cheek, loving the tickle of his facial hair, a few days past a fresh shave.
She opened her mouth to tell him the truth, but he flinched, his body tensing and his hands fisting the top sheet until it threatened to rip.
A pained grunt escaped his lips and lines of tension creased around his eyes.
His voice sounded forced. “What did you do with the information?”
She jerked her hand back as if bitten. How did he know about the information she carried? Or did he mean something else?
“What information are you talking about?” She tried for innocent, but her voice sounded guilty even to her own ears. “I left all my work on the office computer.”
He lowered his body and angled his right leg—the cybernetic leg she shouldn’t know he had—away from her. His face hardened and his muscles tensed again. He spoke through gritted teeth as if talking through intense pain. “No. The info you stole.”
Her heart spiked. Again, how did he know? “Stole? I don’t know what you mean.”
Again, her voice lacked conviction.
Tension like a physical entity filled the space between them. If he chose violence, she would be defenseless against it. Fear flooded her body so she nearly screamed.
Voices passed outside their room. Loud with laughter, topic muffled, but the tone was light and carefree.
Gage’s attention swung to the window as several shadows flickered by.
The tightness in the room, like a web constricting around her, dissipated, and she took advantage of his distraction to slide off the bed to the other side of the room.
She was still defenseless if he chose not to stand down. But the physical distance between them at least gave her room to breathe. He turned back to her, his brows furrowed with regret.
“It’s time you left, Gage.” She forced her voice to be firm. “Thank you for the food. I’ll repay if you wish. But my reason for being here has nothing to do with you. So, goodbye.”
Okay, not exactly the truth. But she wasn’t about to amend her statement.
His head dropped and he muttered under his breath something that sounded like let me do this. Who was he talking to? Was he wired with a mic? Was someone recording their conversations?
Maybe she shouldn’t have blindly trusted him just because, in her compromised emotional state, his presence had been a welcome relief.
Yes, he was strong and solid. Steadfast. But that didn’t necessarily mean he was on her side, even if he was a cyborg.
He didn’t know she was working to make his future better.
And she couldn’t tell him now. Not with the possibility he was working against her.
Audra mentally berated herself for being stupid and letting her attraction to Gage cloud her judgement.
After all these years of keeping her distance and limiting her vulnerability.
Whoever had discovered her duplicity would naturally send the only person she’d engaged with.
Did they send him merely because they knew she’d fucked him?
Or were they also aware of the cyborg connection?
If they knew he was a cyborg, then they knew he could be manipulated.
And if they could manipulate him, they might be able to circumvent his human sense of right and wrong and control his weaponized leg.
He might go rogue, right here in this little motel room with her as the primary target.
Gage dragged in a deep breath and stood, rotating his right leg as if working out a kink. Audra’s muscles tensed for an attack, but he didn’t move toward her. “I see you’re upset. I’m going to step outside for a few minutes and then we’ll talk when you’ve calmed down.”
She should have been enraged by his pandering tone and his demeaning choice of words.
But he also used tactical hand signals at the same time, and that silent message contradicted his words.
Her years at the Pentagon, surrounded by military types, equipped her to decipher the words he signed, but their meaning eluded her.
You. Silent… Me. Hostage… Suspect. Enemy. Head… Me. Go. There.
She needed more information to fully understand what he meant, but it confirmed her worry he was wired.
Someone else was listening in on their conversation.
But as she nodded her head and lifted her hand to signal she understood, he whipped to the door, stopping with his hand on the knob just long enough to repeat the signals for You Silent before leaving the room.
The door closed behind him with a soft snick, leaving Audra alone and confused. If he was wired, they should be able to chat through hand signals or even writing things down. But he didn’t want her responding at all. Was he wired for sound as well as visuals?
If so, why the sudden retreat? Why engage her in conversation, then abruptly go mum and leave willingly?
Ugh, her head hurt more than her chest. She needed to take some pain meds. She needed to pack her stuff and figure out what her next steps were. She needed a nap.
More importantly, she needed her contact to arrive so she could pass along the information on her micro-drive.
The information Gage—or at least his handler—already suspected she had.
Which meant her contact might have to fight Gage to get to her.
Fight a man who’d spent his years in the Army and was still in top physical condition at his age. A man with a machine-gun leg.
Her contact was no match. Even if he came with friends and armed, someone was going to get hurt. And that someone probably wouldn’t be Gage.
Audra wasn’t sure if that fact made her sad or relieved.