"Baby, you have to stop pacing," Astra said, trying to calm me down, but I couldn't. I was nervous as hell.
An hour ago, I sent Pandora and Marlowe on their way. I couldn't shake the horrible feeling that I was right. Pandora is the traitor.
I've been pacing my office while listening and watching the mics and cameras to see if Pandora is finally going to show her true colors, or if I made a terrible mistake.
"Baby," Astra whined for the umpteenth time today, "You need to relax."
I finally gave in and sat down in my office chair. Astra quickly made her way over to massage my shoulders, but I know it was probably because she wanted to make sure I couldn't get up again.
"I think you need to switch out with someone," Astra suggested as her hands kneaded at the knots within my shoulders, "You need to debrief."
"I can't," I huffed, "I need to stay here to see what happens."
"Yes you can," she disagreed, letting go of my shoulders and walking around to sit on my lap, "Baby and I want some attention."
"Astra," I whined, "I'm the leader of this nation. This could be detrimental to us. I can't just give you guys attention."
I knew I made a mistake as soon as the sentence left my mouth. I tried to grab Astra, but she had already gotten up.
"Baby, I didn—" I began to say, but Astra cut me off, "Save it, Styles. This nation means more to you than the mother of your child and your own baby! At least now, I know where we fall on the hierarchy."
Astra stormed out of the room as I let out an exasperated breath.
"Look at what you've done," I told myself before finally leaving my office and walking out to find Astra.
For her legs to be short, that girl can move. She was already in our room which was on the other side of the house.
Before I got to our room, I told Asher to go and watch the feed for me. I knew if I stayed in that room I might as well kiss my hopes of having a family with her goodbye.
I twisted the doorknob to our door and opened it slowly. Astra was shuffling around in the bathroom. I silently closed the door as I tiptoed to the bathroom door.
I could hear Astra sobbing. She was practically incoherent, but I could hear a few things I wish I wouldn't have.
"This is what I get for sleeping with such a dick."
"This is why you don't let men come inside of you."
"I can't believe I fell in love with someone who doesn't even care about me or his family."
Astra stopped mumbling, but she started throwing up. That's when I opened the door. She glared at me as I came in, but I didn't care.
"Get out," she said muffled by the throw up.
"No," I said sternly.
"If you don't get away from me, I'm going to blow up on you, Harry. Get away from us."
My heart twinged as the last word fell from her mouth, "I'll leave you alone if you want me to, but I'm not leaving my baby alone."
She rolled her eyes before she put her face back into the toilet.
"I think baby doesn't like when we argue," I said while grabbing Astra's hair.
"Shut up, Harry," she mumbled as her voice rang off the sides of the toilet, "I seriously don't want you near me."
"Okay," I said, letting go of her hair and taking a few steps back, "I won't be near you, but I'm going to keep my eyes on you."
She groaned, "You just won't give it up, huh?"
I shook my head while smiling, and she finally cracked a smile, "If our baby is as persistent as you are, I think we'll be a bunch of yes men."
"Harry!" Asher yelled, grabbing my attention back to the situation at hand, "Come look at this."
I glanced at Astra to make sure she was okay, and she just nodded me off. I quickly raced down the long hallway into the office where Asher was sitting at the computer, dumbfounded.
"Where is Marlowe?" Asher asked, "You sent her in there with her?"
I nodded as I moved to see the feed better. It seemed like Pandora was the only person. She wasn't covered in blood or anything, and she still had the same disguise on.
"Run the feed back," I instructed, but Asher shook his head, "It's like the mission just started because there is no history on this feed."
My eyebrows furrowed in confusion, "I was just watching the two of them. There's no way there isn't history."
I pushed Asher out of the way and tried to rewind on myself, but nothing happened. I looked grind my computer to see if any wiring was incorrect, but I found nothing.
Stumped, I took a step back to think about what I was watching while I was arguing with Astra. I watched Pandora and Marlowe wiz through some part of Scorpion territory.
Pandora had said that this would be the easiest route to infiltrate Scorpion territory.
Then, it dawned on me. Because of the anti-hack software I recently installed, if anything is deleted from my computer, it is stored on my flash drive whether it's hacked or not.
I quickly grabbed the flash drive from the console of the computer and plugged it into my laptop sitting a few feet away.
"Styles," Asher said, "What're you doing?"
"I think they had me watching a fucking loop. It was like they would change little things to make it seem like it wasn't a loop, but I'm thinking it was. Either way, I know this is recording, so the real footage has to be deleted from my computer."
"No fucking way," Asher said, coming to look at my laptop, "So they hacked your computer it something?"
Before I could answer, the contents of my flash drive were on full display. There was feed dating back to two days ago.
Pandora was setting up the fake camera to record the looped video, but it still didn't make sense. Marlowe is supposedly in this video. She's right behind Pandora, following her every step, but there was no way this could be possible.
Marlowe is in a heavily guarded room. How would she get out just to fake some footage? If this was her, where was she? Did she leave The Allegiance, or is she among us?"
I paused the frame and zoomed in to see if Marlowe's infamous tattoo is where it should be. If Marlowe has ever found you attractive, she would show you her favorite tattoo. It was on the back of her legs written in a basic font.
Daddy's girl
As I zoomed in, the pixels stayed the same tannish gradient of "Marlowe's" supposed leg instead of gradually becoming darker due to the tattoo ink.
I resumed the footage, but my mind was elsewhere. If this was not Marlowe, who was it? Could this mystery person be someone within The Allegiance, or is Pandora in contact with Scorpion forces?
"Harry!" Asher yelled, grabbing me out of my own head, "Who is that?"
I looked back at my laptop and squinted to see who this new person was. They arrived in a tented black truck and wore a black turtleneck and pants.
They had a black hat on to match their black shades, making identifying them difficult, but I could tell by the car that they were not anyone in The Allegiance.
"Pandora was the traitor," I murmured as I gave Asher the laptop.
"We have to go," I told Asher as he looked at me, confused, "Why?"
"Pandora is the traitor. She has a room here. I can get everything changed, but until then, I can't leave you guys in here knowing that some outsider knows the ins and outs of the place."
Asher groaned, "I still have boxes left to unpack."
"Call Margaret and ask her to secure us another place for the moment. I'll send the emails off to security, so this can get fixed."
Asher nodded and walked off as I sat back at my computer desk and emailed security.
<><><><><><><><><>
After telling everyone they had an hour to get their shit and head to the new location, I finally had to go tell Astra.
She was the first person I was going to tell, but she was knocked out when I came in there. These past few days have been hard for Astra when it comes to sleeping, so I knew waking her up was not an option.
I tiptoed into our room and grabbed a few duffel bags in the closet. I opened Astra's dresser and took a few things I think she would need and a few things I'd like to see her in.
"When did she get this?" I asked myself as a I threw the sexy blue lingerie into the duffel bag.
I practically fisted our sock drawer because Astra's refused to not wear socks recently. According to her, her feet are the size of balloons now, and no one can see them.
Yet, she walked naked through our room when she showers, so I can whole heartedly say that she is just dramatic, but I'm not going to listen to her bitch at me to take her to the store to buy socks later tonight.
After stuffing four bags of things, I packed them all into our car. Everyone else had already relocated. I was going to have Caspian stay and watch Astra while I moved stuff around, but she's not doing well.
I couldn't lie to her about why we moved because it was obvious. Pandora went somewhere, and then we're moving out of our current house to update our security while she's gone. Caspian is not stupid; it's easy to make two plus two equal four.
She hasn't stopped crying since I broke the news. I've heard all about it because the boys won't stop blowing up my phone. They're beyond ready for us to be there, so Astra can wisp Caspian off and have another girl's night.
I walked back down the long ass hallway for the last time before seeing if Astra was awake. She wasn't.
Sighing to myself, I walked over to her and softly placed my hands under her body. She woke up slightly but relaxed once she realized it was just me.
"What are we doing?" She whispered as I carried her towards the car.
"Don't worry about it," I assured her, "I'll tell you when you fully wake up."
And to my surprise, she actually listened and drifted right off the street.
I quickly put the address to the new house Margaret found for us and speed off. This house was on the opposite side of town, and if I'm being honest, I had no idea where this house was.
This was my nation. I knew every building in it except for this one, so I was anxious to see what awaited me.
Pulling up to the house, Astra was still asleep, but Asher was waiting at the door for us.
"Took you long enough," he laughed as he walked towards the car, "We're about to lose our minds if we have to deal with Caspian any longer. Sis, wake up!"
Astra shuffled in her sleep, and I punched Asher, "Don't wake her up please. She hasn't been sleeping because she isn't used to being without me."
Asher nodded, "How much longer until the two weeks is up?"
"Four days," I groaned.
"I'll pick her up," Asher said, grabbing his little sister while I grabbed our duffel bags.
This house was not as large as the other house, but I actually liked it better this way. Walking damn near half a mile to reach the others every time we needed something was getting tiring.
It still has six bedrooms. Everyone assigned the room on the other side of the house to us once again, but this time, they left another room for us. Asher said depending on how long we would have to stay here, he would turn the room across the hall from ours into a nursery.
Caspian cut the corner into the living room in tears, still. She looked at me and held her arms out. Caspian knows damn well that I'm not a hugger, but I couldn't say no to her.
I opened my arms as her tears quickly dampened my shirt. Caspian held tightly onto me. I looked to where Astra was supposed to be sleeping, but she was fully awake and looked as if she was ready to kill the both of us.
"I'm broken," Caspian sobbed into my chest. She lifted her head up and looked at me, "Can we talk in a different room? The guys are all sick of me, and I don't want to bother them."
I glanced at Astra but couldn't gauge her reaction, so I agreed and got dragged into the first room by Caspian.
"How did you deal with it?" Caspian asked, pacing the room.
My eyes followed her as she nervously raced through the room, "Deal with what?"
"I know you hate talking about her, so I didn't want to bring it up in front of everyone. How did you deal with Snow's betrayal."
I swallowed hard as the lump began to form in my throat. I hated the word Snow, and everyone knew it.
"I really don't want to talk about this," I said before grabbing the doorknob to leave, but Caspian grabbed the knob to stop it from turning, "Harry, please. I feel like I can trust no one, but I know you've been in this position before."
I sighed as I leaned against the wall, "I didn't."
"Didn't what?"
"I didn't handle it," I admitted, "I still deal with the thoughts everyday. Sometimes, I want to accuse Astra of trading on me. You'll probably never be able to trust again."
"You're telling me," she joked.
"If I had to give you some honest advice," I said, looking directly at her, "Get under someone else. It was fate that helped me forget about Snow. Within the next few weeks, Astra popped up."
Caspian smiled through her tears, "I love you guys. If you guys don't work out, I'll give up on love."
I smiled as I pulled Caspian into a tight hug, "Sorry about shutting you down at first. I just cannot stand anything to do with that bitch."
"I can't wait until I get to that stage," Caspian mumbled into my chest, "I just feel so hollow."
"Do you want to take Astra for the night?" I asked, "You two can have a girl's night if you want to."
"Is she okay to go? Like how is she and the baby. Speaking of the baby, when will we figure out if I'm having a niece or nephew?"
"She'll have no problem going, but I'm not sure. I'd have to ask her. She keeps up with all the dates and stuff."
Caspian laughed before finally letting go of me and walking into the living room, "James Brown was right. It's a man's world, but it would be nothing without a woman. Where would you be without Astra?"