Looking for Trubel

Chapter Four

It had been a week. Trubel hadn't left her room since arriving there and, strangely, her biggest problem was finding something to do. Three times a day, Max would stop by with trays full of food, good food. The food was actually way better than the slop she was given at HW. She felt bad for comparing the two lives that she'd had.

She would talk to Max, but not for too long because she didn't want to get him in trouble. She would talk to Vincent, too, whenever he would stop by. She thought it was funny that both Vincent and Max knocked on her door before coming in. They actually treated her like a human being which she was grateful for. But, she was worried about how long that would last. She wanted to trust them, but it was hard. It was so damn hard.

She hadn't seen Blake, or Al, or Will, or Robert. She assumed that Vincent told them to keep their distance which she was grateful for.

But, she didn't know why anyone listened to Vincent. Most people just followed his orders. He must have ranked high, and she had no idea how. He was nice or at least seemed that way to her, but nice wasn't the kind of trait that got people to the top of Black Claw. Bonaparte taught her that much.

Maybe he was influential because he was a Mauvais Dentes?

People could be scared of him, or even worse, Vincent was playing everyone. It was a Mauvais Dentes thing to play games and manipulate people. Maybe that's what Vincent was doing? Playing her. Manipulating her.

That possibility scared the hell out of Trubel because Vincent was all she had.

She knew she trusted him more than she wanted to admit, and that was dangerous.

Vincent was sitting in a mess hall of sorts talking to Max.

"How's it going with you and Theresa?" he asked, sounding like a doctor methodically working through a list of questions as though she weren't invested in the answer.

"Okay, I think. She hates it here, though," Max replied.

"I know. Must captives do." Vincent thought about Theresa's rank. She was a captive, that was all. Bonaparte might just be fooling himself thinking that she could be more than that. "Have there been any more incidents?" Again, Vincent sounded unconcerned.

"Not since the first time when she was going to choke me to death," Max said.

"Good. That's good. I hope we're making progress, but it's hard to tell." Vincent was really hoping his experiment would work. Maybe Bonaparte would promote him. Hopefully, Theresa was beginning to trust him. That's how he got people to do what he wanted. Trust.

Trust was a key ingredient in obedience.

"She talks about Burkhardt a lot," Max said.

"She's really bent out of shape because of what happened to him," Vincent said.

"She cries about it sometimes," Max admitted.

"He's dead and she watched it happen. I hope we don't have to use it against her in the future. All it would take to really drive her crazy is telling her that his death was her fault," Vincent mused.

Josephine sat down next to Vincent. Everyone in the room shot nervous glances in her direction. She was the evilest, formidable person in the whole compound - except for maybe Bonaparte. "If we told her that, it might get her to quit blaming Bonaparte for what happened," she said.

"Smart girl," Vincent approved with a wide smile.

"I think that idea deserves a kiss," Josie said. Josephine leaned in to kiss Vincent.