Chapter 39 #2
"Addiction?" I say, sorting through them. "Recovery and relapse?"
"You were put in a position that we don't deal with very often," he says.
"And you think I'm going to start using drugs?" I ask, more than a little irritation in my voice.
He pulls in a breath before speaking, and it makes me wonder if he's going to demand I attend meetings for addicts as a condition to continue to work with Cerberus.
"I don't think that at all. I just want you to know that there are resources available if you feel the need for them," he says.
"And if I don't need them?" I counter.
"Then you don't," he says, his response sounding a little less sure than I'd like.
"I hear a but in your voice."
"We have to take precautions."
"And that includes?"
He shifts his body, pointing it directly at mine.
"You'll need to undergo random drug tests for the next six months," he says. "As a precaution."
If I were on the outside looking in on this situation, I'd be fully on board with his requirements. I'm all too aware of how easily that first hit of an illicit drug can change who a person is. I know how quickly they can become a shadow of their former self.
My mind tries to pull me back to Dakota's arraignment hearing.
I hadn't seen her in weeks, and even that short period had turned her into someone I barely recognized.
Her cheeks were sunken in, her under eyes painted with dark shadows that couldn't be explained away with an excuse of a few sleepless nights.
My sister went to jail as an addict, and knowing that she was so easily plucked from her life of privilege and opportunities and sank so quickly into one of drugs and crime broke a part of me that has never healed.
"Sounds fair," I answer, knowing his concern is built on his own experiences and knowledge about just how potent the drugs I was injected with can be.
"Meeting in five," he says as he stands. "Need help getting up?"
I shake my head, giving the informational material in my hands one last look before getting to my feet.
The walk to the conference room is slow, but thankfully, Kincaid doesn't hover like a mother hen, worried her chick is in danger and needs assistance.
Before I can make it to the room, I spot Zeus walking back, that fucking bowl of soup steaming in his hands.
"I guess you're not going to eat?" he mutters, looking down at the thing as if he spent hours in the kitchen preparing it for me.
The biggest part of me wishes I had a little more time.
I'd gladly eat the soup he made, even though I wasn't hungry.
That part doesn't want to disappoint him.
That part would walk over broken glass with the hope that he felt anything more for me right now than misplaced guilt of what happened to me.
I know that part doesn't exist in him, and there's no reason to feed those hopes. It only leads to an ever greater letdown in the end.
The smallest of whispers in the back of my mind constantly reminds me that I don't need help, that his attention is only to feed his own shame.
That bowl of soup isn't being offered because he cares that I haven't eaten in over twenty-four hours.
It's his attempt at redemption, and I don't refuse the soup as a way to deny the absolution.
I refuse it because he doesn't need that from me. The man owes me nothing.
"I appreciate the offer, though," I tell him, keeping my slow pace as I enter the conference room.
Kincaid, Shadow, and Hemlock stand at the front of the room, their discussion in whispers so low that I don't have a chance of overhearing, given how bad my headache rages right now.
As I make my way to the same seat I occupied at the last meeting I attended in this room, others filter into the room and take their seats.
When Zeus returns, his hands void of the bowl of soup, he takes a seat across the table from me.
I recognize Lark, Echo, Jersey, Ace, and Jericho from the last meeting. Casper is behind the desk in the far corner, eyes downcast as his fingers work feverishly over his keyboard.
Nyx, of course, isn't in attendance, but after the conversation we overheard, I didn’t expect him to be here.
"Sorry, I'm late," an unfamiliar voice says.
I look in the direction to see a man I don't recognize. I don't know how to feel about him when he glances in my direction, a wince of sympathy on his face as he notices me.
"Fury," he says, crossing the room quickly toward me.
I shake his hand when he offers it to me, and thankfully, he doesn't mention the condition I'm in, although he already made his thoughts clear.
"Zayne," I tell him.
"Welcome aboard," he says before finding a seat.
This was the guy who had been part of the original plan to join me on this last mission. I can also tell by the easy smile on his face as he chatters with others that his role would've been too similar to mine, and the switch with Zeus instead was the better choice.
A few other unfamiliar faces are sitting around, and I don't have a clue whether they were working when I arrived or are newcomers since we've been gone.
I try to pull faces from memory, an effort to recall if they were included in the personnel dossier I was given, but my mind is still refusing to work in full capacity.
"First order of business," Hemlock says as the three men at the front take a few steps away from each other, their conversation over. "A couple of new guys here. Johnny B and Cyrus joined us last week."
"Johnny B," one of the guys I didn't recognize says, raising his hand.
"Cyrus," the other guy says, doing the same thing.
So I wouldn't have been alone in the other house. Knowing that irritates the hell out of me, and I make a mental plan to get to my own room and out of Zeus's space as soon as this meeting is over.
"We're working on trying to get another member to join our team right now," Hemlock continues.
"Who?" someone asks, but I don't risk the pain it would cause to turn in the direction of the voice to find out.
Hemlock shakes his head. "Until membership is final, I'm not going to disclose their name."
Chatter begins among the guys, each of them curious about who it might be.
"Let's talk about The League of Liberty compound," Hemlock says. "Casper, the stats?"
The massive television behind him lights up, faces and stats on men I recognize from our time there.
"Forty-two arrests," he continues, going over the macro stats on the screen. "Fourteen casualties."
I recognize the three men Zeus left the compound meeting with that morning.
He gave me some details about what happened and how Nyx was involved, but I got the feeling there was more to the story than he was saying.
I didn't press for details because he didn't seem like he wanted to talk about what went down in the first place.
I wasn't going to risk him shutting down and refusing to tell me anything.
"Our top guy," Hemlock says as an image of Bobby fills the screen. "Robert Jones opted to face the devil rather than federal charges."
The room once again fills with opinionated grunts on the subject. I can tell some think this is the best thing that could happen, some wish he had to face punishment for the pain he has caused, and some seem disappointed they weren't the ones who got to blow his head off.
"His computer was recovered, but he ran a program on it before we could get to him that corrupted a lot of the information. Casper is working with the FBI to get what information they have found," Hemlock continues. "As of right now, we've found no link between the LOL and Nathan Adair."
I glance in Jericho's direction, knowing he has more involvement with him than any other man in the room.
He's quiet, his entire body still, but I can tell by the look on his face that he's still very much unimpressed with Adair.
"Sixty-one women were recovered from the compound," Hemlock continues. "Including missing teens Regina Banks and Candice Rogers."
I recognize both faces, the second one being the girl Bobby had with him that first night at the fire pit.
"Forty-three have been identified, and we are working to reunite them with family or friends," Hemlock says. "Eighteen have remained unidentified."
"Seventeen," Casper corrects.
I grip the armrests on my chair when the sad, crying face pops up on the screen.
Peaches.
"In the last hour, facial recognition discovered one of the women, Hailey Parker, was wanted in Oregon in connection to a house fire that killed her parents and three younger siblings," Casper explains.
"Her involvement with that?" Zeus asks before I get the chance to open my mouth.
"It's not a hundred percent clear, right now," Casper offers.
"The FBI is leaning in the direction that there's a very good chance the fire was in retaliation for something she didn't do that upset The League.
It was suspected before the raid that she was a participant in the murders, despite her not being visible on the house's cameras.
The initial case was worked by local agencies, but with this new information, the FBI has now taken over. "
"That's all they have on her?" I ask, feeling such a load of grief for that poor woman.
"She went missing a week before the fire," Casper says, looking at his computer screen as if he's seeing the information for the first time.
"Just didn't show up at work one day. A week later, she was still gone, and her family was dead.
Police thought the two were connected, but instead of working it from the missing woman angle, they were quick to place blame despite there being no motive. "
A huff of irritation, as if this is something most of the men in the room have dealt with more than once, floats through the room.
"The FBI will treat her right," Casper assures us.
"You fuckers talking about us and we're not even in the room to defend ourselves?"
Despite the pain I feel, I whip my head in the direction of the conference room door.
Clementine Monroe, aka Melody, the diner waitress, stands in the doorway.
"Us?" Kincaid asks from the front of the room. "If you're here, then that means there's no longer an us where you and the FBI are concerned."
"Let me rephrase," she says with an easy smile. "Are you fuckers talking about them when they aren't even in the room to defend themselves?"
"Everyone," Hemlock says. "Meet the newest member of Cerberus Tennessee, Clementine Monroe."
"Zero," she corrects. "I go by Zero."
“Jesus,” Lark whispers. “Dreams do come true.”