The Last Of Us Book 2: The Leaders

Chapter 9

"You want me to what?!"

"I want you to talk to Leigh-Anne, and-"

"No, no, I know what you said.", Dinah said, cutting Lauren off. "I was just trying to see if you were joking, or if you've just gone insane." Lauren narrows her eyes at Dinah, slapping the taller girl on the shoulder, making her whine pathetically.

"I don't know about you, but I am freaking sick and tired of having to stop those two from killing each other every time they're in the same room."

"No girl, don't worry, I'm pretty sure there's people in China that are sick of it too."

"Okay now look, you may or may not have noticed it, but I think Leigh-Anne saved Perrie in training..."

"There is some deep shit between those two, so I'm pretty sure you just imagined it-"

"Dinah, I'm serious! Perrie was going to fall off the edge of the walkway, but Leigh helped her up!"

"Are you on drugs?"

"Dinah!", Lauren scolds, grabbing the girl's shoulders to make her focus. "I know what I saw, okay? Now as I was saying earlier, I think it'd be a good idea if we spoke to them separately to try and help them talk out their problems. Maybe then we can figure out what the whole story is, and we can help them get along better, because I am so done with them bickering all the time."

"Alright, I see what you're saying...but why do I have to talk to Leigh, and you get to talk to Perrie?!", the girl whines

"Because Perrie trusts me more than you."

"But-"

"No 'but's! You're going to talk to Leigh-Anne, and we're going to sort this out."

"Okay, Jauregui...I know you like big things; for example, Camila's butt." Lauren raises an eyebrow, and Dinah hurries to get to the point before the girl punches her. "But this favor that you're asking me to do is just a little too big. Even if we did get them to talk about it and stuff, it wouldn't make any difference! There's still the whole topic of Jade to cause a feud between them!"

"I don't care, we're still going to try."

"And when did you become the boss of me?"

"Just now."

Dinah thinks about it for a second, she and Lauren sharing a conversation through raised eyebrows and various facial expressions.

"Alright, sounds fair, let's do this."

***

"Mr. Payne." Liam jumps at the voice, he quickly scrambling off his bed to give his attention to whoever's voice that belonged to. Once he was finished almost tripping over his own feet, he noticed that there was a girl in his room, two guards on either side of her.

"Y-yes?", he asks, his heart thumping in his chest. Did he do something wrong? Were they here to kill him?

"Why are you so nervous?", she asks, taking a few steps inside of his room, glancing around to observe it.

Liam open and closes his mouth a few times as he watches her walk around, he trying to say something, but he's sure he just resembled a fish out of water. "I-I, I just, you know...am I in trouble?"

The girl turns to look at him, blinks, then shows off her pearly white teeth as she laughs, making Liam chuckle uneasily.

"No, no. Of course you're not in trouble.", she says, placing her gun back in it's holder that's positioned on her belt, walking up to the troubled boy and holding her hand out. "The name's Normani Kordei, but you and your friends will mostly be referring to me as Agent K. Nice to meet you, Liam."