Home - COD Simon Ghost Riley X Female OC

Chapter 43

They had to go back in, and Mariana wasn't done yet. She walked back onto the stand and took a seat, looking perfectly put together. Simon took his seat in the gallery and watched her closely, anxious to get it over with. Price was nearby, also watching closely. And mixed in were multiple people he didn't know.

He wasn't confident they were safe there, and he fought nervous energy, wishing they would hurry up. He wasn't sure how they were going to endure days and weeks of this, but Mariana looked stoic and calm and every so often, her eyes met his, feeding it to him.

He needed to go and shoot or run to burn off some energy. He wondered, constantly, how he could operate on such little sleep and with such an inability to rest. He shifted in his seat. What they had planned for later might help.

Mariana's eyes found his again, often when she was working through a string of details. Her mind must be a steel trap, she was stronger than most men he knew, even soldiers. And he didn't just feel that way because he was attached to her, but because he knew what it had taken for him to continue existing after his own captivity and torture and social death.

Watching her, he was glad he had.

She was detailing her second capture, and the things she had overheard. He hoped it was the last time she would ever have to talk about it. He knew it probably wasn't, and that she didn't need him to worry about it, about something he couldn't really protect her from. He couldn't do a lot of the things she needed. He wasn't even worthy of standing next to her, to see her this way, to take her back to his bed like she could get what she needed from him. She might love him, but she would never be satisfied with someone who could only give her parts of himself. She could tell herself that she was, but he would go and devote himself elsewhere and leave her behind. Price was wrong, he couldn't have both. So it became a question of how long he could lie to himself. And to her.

He shifted again, this time in discomfort. He wasn't really boyfriend material. He was too old and jaded. He didn't want to steal her youth, and that wonder he liked so much. Maybe it wasn't all him, he didn't have to decide and figure it out on his own, she had made it clear she wanted in, that she wasn't just clinging to him because he slept next to her with a gun under his pillow. That was the hell of it, was having to look inward at what she saw. At himself.

A sound, very familiar to him, very distinct, pulled his focus. It came from his left and he was on his feet before he even understood why it was there, in the courtroom.

The metal on metal sound of a slide lock. A handgun.

Other people turned to look, the judge moved to stand. Simon wasn't far from the aisle where a man stood, in plain clothes, his face uncovered, his gun aimed directly at MJ's chest. He didn't have time to look and see if someone pulled her out of the way, and he couldn't be in two places at once.

He stepped in front of the man, reaching for his wrist and pushing it up. A shot rang out, making plaster rain down from the ceiling. People cried out and began moving past them.

He easily overpowered the shooter, kicking his legs out from beneath him with one of his, dropping to his knee and forcing the smaller mans arm over his other. Harder than necessary, something popped, Simon felt it, and he cried out in pain as the gun clattered to the ground and slid across the floor.

In that second, the man's dark eyes looking up at him in fear, something unintelligible coming out of his mouth, Simon wanted to kill him. And he contemplated it. How easy it would be to snap his neck like he had his elbow. Another thought snuffed it out. The woman behind him. He turned to look for MJ but she was gone, the room clearing as quickly as possible. He flipped the man over and pressed his knee into his back, pulling his hands together. He struggled to breathe under Simon's weight but it was gone soon enough as a bailiff approached him and took over. Where had he been sixty seconds ago?