The Protected and The Deaf

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Next thing I knew I was waking up in a corner of base on a mess of bedding. Someone had brought it all back in from the van in the night, made up a nest of it, and set me down to sleep like a small child. The thought both irked and warmed me.

And sitting at the monitors, dressed, preened, and ready for the day before even God himself (as usual), was Naru.

I groaned and rubbed my eyes of dust as I sat up. "Do you sleep at all?"

"You've seen me sleep. Tea, please." He didn't even look at me, nor did his fingers miss a beat while scrolling through footage.

"Jeeze, you could let me wake up first."

The clicking paused. "I could always wake you up."

I had to laugh. "What? Kissing me senseless? I thought you said you weren't going to do that anymore."

He had his dry smirk, which he only gave me partial of as he was only inclined to glance at me before turning back to his work. "More like dump holy water on you. Purifying, enlightening, and invigorating. I am not of a mind to sexually molest my assistants on the job."

"So you do off the job? Wait, sexually molest?"

He just chuckled low and repeated his command for tea, to which I begrudgingly moved to comply with.

"Who's molesting who?" said the bed head of Takigawa, which had poked through the door, followed by the rest of his lanky frame.

"Good. I need someone to investigate the basement."

Takigawa gave Naru a sleepy glare. "Basement? This place doesn't have a basement."

"According to the blueprints, which our employer has just now emailed, it does."

I shuddered over my tin can of earl grey. "Super creepy!"

"Then what have we been using all this time?" asked Takigawa

"The maps drawn up by the building contractors to show the locations of asbestos. Apparently the basement escaped them."

"And me." Monk scratched the back of his head as he leaned over Naru to take a peek at the computer screen he showed him. "Jeeze, no wonder we didn't find it. What took him so long?"

"Some paltry excuse about digital copies," said Naru tersely. "Either way, I need someone to scout it and set up a camera. I'd rather not bring Ms. Hara after yesterday. She is technically injured."

"You're not going to make him go alone," I said, accidentally dropping the teaspoon with the leaves into the teapot's strainer.

Naru gave me one of his signature droll stares. It took me a second, but I got it. He planned on going with, and, by default, so would Lin.

Fishing out the teaspoon and tapping it on the side of the teapot, I said, "Then I'm going to."

The slap of Naru's palm against the table made both of us jump, and the ferocious glare he turned on me made even the bravest part of me, which was use to Naru's fury, cringe.

"I will not have this argument with you," he said, blue eyes like frozen steel. "You are staying here with the others. Only if I deem it safe will you be going anywhere outside this room."

I trembled beneath his despot words. Though it crossed my mind to argue—as no one was my master—the thought no sooner was born than it died, because I could see it: the rare slight hunch of his shoulders, the paleness around his narrowed eyes, the almost imperceptible way his stomach clenched in.

Plain: Book 2Where stories live. Discover now