The Skylar Experiment : Dead Ending (second draft)

Chapter Forty-Three - Father's Blessing

LUC

THE MAN FIXED HIMSELF a cup of coffee over the counter, rubbing his eyes and yawning. 

"Did you eat before coming? You want anything?"

I shook my head. I didn't quite understand how he behaved so casually right after dropping the fact that this house was under a microscope, or after I told him I'll keep his daughter away from him. Where was the logic? 

He turned with the mug in hand. "You can sit, Lucas. I wouldn't like to yell across the hall. Don't want the mic to pick that up."

Abandoning the idea of shoring up common sense, I joined him at the table and we each pulled out a chair. I seated myself across from him, growing more uncomfortable by the second. Out the kitchen window, the cockrow sun was peaking through billowy curtains. The panel had been cracked open for fresh air, and I could hear white noises of winter. 

Riley's father peered at me through black rims of glasses. "I know you don't trust me."

I felt a twitch nag my lips. That was an understatement. I should have been suspicious of him for longer after the way he grilled me that dinner night. I'd passed close to following the man around town, but he was already tame around the house, including at hours Riley was asleep or gone. 

After we discovered the compound and that NIO never left the shadows, what did it matter if someone tipped the government over something they were still tracking? 

She was adamant he didn't know what he'd been talking about. I'd focused on keeping my low profile as always, for anyone. Guess I was stupid to let my guard down. He's had countless opportunities to be up my ass and trade compromising information if he wanted to. Shit.

He'd invited me in his house and acted so amicable, and now seeing the crap he put his child through... 

I was willing to pause on the singular basis that this fella was her father. It was the only thing keeping me in the kitchen. And yet, regardless of his position, the vulnerability of his ties for us meant that good intentions meant nothing.

So I was going to let him say his piece, but nothing he could say would bring her back. I'll make that clear when the time came to leave.

"You're not entirely wrong," I said. Riley wasn't here, and all false pretenses had fallen. If he knew exactly what I was and worked for NIO, then humor and flattery were bygones. "But you have one chance to get the benefit of the doubt. One."

"Fair enough, coming from you." He nodded, back straight. The greying hair edging down his forehead, the weary strain in him as well as the crinkles of age on his face didn't reduce the firmness of his stance. "I'll offer what I can and make the best of it. I hope that you won't hate me too much after we're done. If you still do, I don't blame you."

I nodded back to indicate that I was ready, and he didn't waste time beating around the bush. 

"I wanted to raise a child from the very beginning," he explained. "Me and Jocelyn both wanted a kid. I was on-off with the military as an engineer and a soldier."

"How long have you been working for them?" 

"Just a little before they gave me Riley. They reached out to me after somehow finding my record. I hadn't known exactly what they were about. I just understood that they were a peculiar branch—with one foot in mutagenic science and the other in various technologies like weaponry. I serve in the latter, and NIO doesn't mix both aspects very often. They're separate. I had no idea of the magnitude of their research until executives extended an offer."