Graceful Deception

14. Your Face...I Want To Punch It

Ren grabbed my shoulders and turned me toward him, practically forcing me to look him in the eyes.  “Emmy, seriously.  I knew that you could do some stupid things and I thought that you would have learned after Ryan showed up in Tokyo, but this…this is just completely…”

“She didn’t do anything,” I reasoned, shaking my head at him.  “She didn’t do anything to hurt me.  She just talked to me.”

“Come on, Em…”

“What?  It’s true!  I thought at first that she was going to do something, but she…she didn’t.  She didn’t do anything other than talk to me.  She said that…that…”

What exactly was I supposed to say to get him off my back?  It would have to be something good, because I would have to tell the same something to John.  That way, I didn’t mix up my stories.  So I went with something simple.

“She was just…reinforcing what Ryan had said before, that they were following us.  I don’t know if they’ll do anything exactly, but maybe…”

“That’s probably worse, because we know that they’re only a half-step behind us.  Emmy, really…”

“And now you’re starting to sound like John when I told him about Ryan!” I complained. 

Ren raised an eyebrow, laughing once.  “You think I’m being bad right now?  Just wait until John finally cracks and lets you have it.  Sure, he’s pissed now, but if you keep this from him any longer, he’ll explode.”

“I’m sure I can handle him.”

“I have no doubt that you can, but he gets mean when he’s pissed.”

“And I’m sure I can handle that, too.”

 ...

It was only a little while later that John and Stella had come back.  The sun was setting and it would only be an hour or so before we headed out.  When I looked at John, he still appeared angry, though he was doing a much better job at hiding it this time.  Stella was watching his every move, like she was waiting for him to crack or something.  She gave me an apologetic smile, glancing back at him.  Maybe they’d had a talk while they were out.

John hardly said a word until we were ready to leave, only sticking to one word sentences.  He would hardly look in my direction either.  Though no matter how much he was trying to fight that anger inside him because of me, his hand would somehow always find mine, holding onto it tightly before and after we all got in the car.

But when Ren was about to drop us off a few blocks from the Bundeskanzleramt, John said a one word sentence that I was sure all of us were thinking.

“Shit.”

Why were we thinking that exactly?  Because almost a dozen police cars sped past us a few seconds before, going in the direction that we were headed. 

“Go see what’s happening,” John told Ren, his eyes following the police. 

Ren nodded and started driving slowly down the road again.  Not long after, it was quite clear what was happening.  The police were surrounding the building in which we were just about to go break into.  Police in uniform were storming in, sirens sounding through the air as an ambulance pulled up, and people were already starting to gather in hopes to see what was going on. 

“Did you set something off?” Ren asked, glancing over at Stella and John.

“We left over two hours ago, Ren,” Stella said, her eyes not leaving the scene.  “They would have been there then.”