Jayse bursts his bubble. "She was raised a civilian and wants a relationship like that, one-to-one. I don't think she would go for having two spouses." He looks over at Borden. "I do appreciate your trying to help though. I'll have breakfast ready soon. Tell Tommy he can sleep after we go over the plans for the reception. Besides he needs to eat he hasn't eaten much in the last two days. But let Kadance sleep, she doesn't need to be in on the plans." Borden nods and leaves as Jayse turns back to the kitchen to throw together some food.
Soon all three of them are standing while eating and going over the various ideas for the reception. They each add in their ideas and tighten the plan up until they all agree on the plan. Tommy smiles beautifically, "This will certainly be a lovely gift for our boss lady."
Kadance comes out freshly showered and inhales deeply the smell of food. She's still towel drying her hair as she says, "Ohh, that smells delicious. Is there any left or did you all eat it up?"
Tommy looks at her with pain and slips out of the room. Borden notes his leaving as Jayse goes to the kitchen to dish up some food for Kadance. "There's more. Jayse just went to get some for you."
She thanks Borden and sits down, "What will be a lovely surprise for me?"
Borden replies, "Now it wouldn't be much of a surprise if I told you now would it?
"Ahhh, here comes the food now. From what I could tell you haven't eaten since I joined with you yesterday so you're probably starving."
Kadance sets her eyes on the food and reflects on Bordens words. "You're right. Not since breakfast yesterday. No wonder I'm so hungry. Are you going to join us... oh I thought Tommy was here."
"Tommy was here, but he needed some sleep. Now I need to leave to pick up the two men I requested." So saying Borden excuses himself and leaves.
Kadance sits quietly as she eats and Jayse is too lost in his thoughts to interrupt her. She finishes and they clean up. Jayse takes her outside to a spot where they can work on her small arms. She doesn't need much help with the hand guns, but her knife work Jayse can tell she'll need more than one day of practice. "Tommy should be the one helping you with the knives. He's much better with them than I am."
Kadance looks at him in surprise. Jayse takes in her look of surprise, "Hey, I give my due when someone deserves it. Tommy is incredibly talented in many things. He's far better than I in almost all weapons, definitely in explosives and ghosting. He's downright invisible when he wants to be. I haven't heard of anything that he can't find out about if he's interested. But he detests authority and hates leading. Not because he can't but because he doesn't want to be responsible for other people. When he was teaching, he took each persons death, of those he taught, personally. If they died because of an explosion anyway."
Jayse takes the weapons away, "Time to wash up. We have time to eat before our guests come calling." Kadance hesitates like she wants to ask Jayse something, but turns toward the bunker. She turns back as Jayse calls out to her.
He tosses her a bottle. "Put that on after the hottest shower you can stand. It'll help with the sore muscles."
Kadance thanks Jayse and walks into the bunker as she goes she opens the bottle curiously and smells it. The smell was horrible and she recoils from it in disgust. She was going to toss the bottle as soon as she could, but the pull on her tired muscles changed her mind. She decided to give the smelly concoction a try. After all she's supposed to be trusting her bodyguards. So with a grimace she goes to the primitive shower room and turns the water on as hot as she can.
That part of the plan was nice and she stayed in far longer than she should have just enjoying the heat of the spray on her sore muscles. By the time she's done she's debating the need for the smelly mixture, but as the heat from the shower leaves she can feel her muscles tighten and start hurting once more.
She shrugs her shoulders and puts the smelly stuff on her arms and shoulders. Although it smells to high heaven it immediately starts to soothe her muscles. She gives a little shake of her head and reminds herself to thank Jayse for his smelly gift.
By the time she's ready it's time for the guests to arrive. She goes out to meet them and realizes that the perimeter guard hasn't been turned off.
She finds a seat and as she does she says, "Tommy turn off the alarm please. You're keeping our guests waiting outside." She says it all calmly but her voice is over ridden by Borden bellowing more or less the same thing outside the bunker.
Tommy looking sheepish looks up from his electronic gear and gets up and goes over to the alarm and turns it off. Opening the door he ushers in their guests. Once they are all in he returns to his seat, but his attention is now focused on the two new comers off to his side.
Jayse stands protectively by Kadance and Borden takes up a position on her other side. Kadance calmly looks over the two in front of her. She stands up and moves forward to meet them. She ignores Jayse's low growl and moves forward, "Gentlemen, sorry about the wait. We'd been practicing. And were in the process of cleaning up. My two friends here don't like to leave the door unlocked." She gets a whiff of the stuff Jayse had her put on and grimaces.
She can see the other two trying hard to not let on that they to could smell it. She smiles warmly at them. "I see that my perfume has grabbed your attention. A little gift from Jayse here. He says it will help with my sore muscles. I sure hope so, or I won't be able to move my upper body in the morning."
The two before her smile at first and then grimace in commiseration. They've all been in workouts that have made movement extremely painful for days afterward. Even the warriors that test themselves and push hard still find some things more painful than others.
By now their eyes had become accustomed to the dimmer interior light and first one then the other tenses as they recognize her. Jayse and Tommy both see it and respond. Jayse by pulling Kadance back and becoming ready to go into action. Tommy by pulling out a knife and playing with it.
Kadance gives Jayse an irritated look and turns back to the newcomers, "Is something wrong gentlemen?" Her tone is soft and solicitous with a great deal of curiosity. She has no idea why these two would react the way they did.
They reply almost in unison the same way, "No, ma'am." But it was rather choked out and she could tell they had a hard time getting it out.
She senses Tommy moving from his position to stand by her. She feels Jayse's readiness to move. She feels almost claustrophobic, but at the same time is reassured by it all. She turns to Borden and raises an inquiring brow. It was silent, but a demand for an answer all the same.
The two men are unable to speak and look at Borden imploringly. Kadance just waits and Borden sighs. He pulls up something on his communicator and hands it to her.
"It might have something to do with this." Kadance breaks off her look at Borden and looks down at the screen in front of her. After watching it for a short time she hands it back. During that whole time she neither speaks or changes expression. Not even Borden can tell what she's thinking.
She finally breaks her silence but her words are hardly reassuring to her listeners. "I see. Sergeants Rackem and Candlen, Attention!" She commands. "Yes, I pulled Jayse back from his suicidal spree. Yes, I pulled Borden back from his. They now, along with Thompson, work for me as my body guards. Borden, against my better judgement, requested special consideration to have you join us." Borden wasn't too happy about his choices right now and frankly wished this interview would be over with. "Putting my faith in him," she pauses and turns her look on him. Borden tries hard to not squirm. She turns back to the two in front of her, "I acquiesced. He thought you'd bring exceptional abilities to our team, our company, if you will. But so far I'm less than impressed." Her words had become sharp and disdainful. They look down in shame.
Now she turns her full attention on Borden and he wished he hadn't ever met Kadance right then. "Borden why'd you bring them to me?" Kadance asks her voice still sharp and bringing the defensiveness out in Borden.
Borden comes to attention and giving the two in front of him a dirty look he answers, "Because each is the best in his specialty. Working with us there won't be security we can't penetrate." Tommy can't help but snort. There wasn't any security he couldn't get past. Borden gives Tommy a look that could kill. "You are needed on other things Tommy. We need someone else to work on the security penetration."
He turns back to Kadance and continues his explanation, "Or be able to penetrate our security. I know Tommy is likely to mess with whatever is put up, but truly he has talents that are better put to use elsewhere."
Bordens voice starts taking on a pleading note as he finishes and she still doesn't show that she's been convinced. "Truly Kadance we need these two. We could do a lot worse than these two, but there are none better. At least none that are redlined and available. Please don't dismiss them out of hand. Had I known that they didn't know they would be meeting you I would have prepared them ahead of time and they wouldn't have been so star struck when meeting you."
Kadance lets out a grunt at the words star struck. She just continues staring at Borden. Finally she says, "They are that important to you?" She never takes her eyes off of Borden and so her next words startle him. "Sgt. Candlen put down arms."
Jayse hadn't been surprised. He was ready to spring into action and Tommy was ready to throw his knife. The temperature in the room had definitely changed.
Kadance just turns to Rackem and says, "He went over and you didn't, why not?"
Rackem shifts his feet a bit before realizing it then stops. He tries but can't pull his gaze away from Kadances gaze. Finally he can't stop from answering any longer even though he knows it doesn't make sense. "I don't know, ma'am. I just didn't feel like it."
He's surprised at her response, a chuckle. "Hear that boys? He didn't go suicidal because he didn't feel like it. Would that all would feel that way." She looks pointedly at Jayse then Borden and finally Candlen.
She looks back at Rackem, "You're there. I can feel it. You're holding it in and I am pushing it." She looks at Rackem without emotion now, "I want you to think about how you are controlling it. Analyze it and find out why. You need to know if you don't want to lose control."
She turns and looks at Tommy, "You need to do that too."
Tommy shrugs eyes never leaving Candlen and Rackem. "I know why. It's too much work. It's easier to keep a rein on myself than to try to pull it back in if I let it go. Besides my enemies are shifters not fellow warriors or civies." He smiles slow and wicked. "But should the chance ever happen that I find it reasonable I might let go and destroy some shifters."
This makes Kadance whip back from her study of the two suiciders in front of her to look longer at Tommy. She narrows her eyes and in a threatening voice says, "We'll talk later." Tommy just shrugs his shoulders. This infuriates Kadance even further.
"Kadance calm down or we're all going to be in a mess." Jayse pleads. Her anger is inciting everyone in the room, with the exception of Tommy. At least he's not showing it like everyone else.
Rackem chooses that moment to answer Kadance from her last instructions to him. And it sends her whirling back to face him and helps to ease the anger in the room. "Ma'am, yes ma'am. I didn't go over, simply because I didn't want to."
It takes Kadance a moment to recall what they had been talking about and get back on track. She forcefully calms herself down before she continues her talk with Rackem.
"You take your anger and rage and you keep it well controlled. Which is good. But you need an outlet for it or it will eventually eat you up and you will lose control. So I want you to take that anger and rage and refocus it and use it so it's not boiling up inside you."
She looks at both of them now. "If I take you on my team I don't want you going off when I need you to focus on something else. Do I make myself clear?" Kadance demands.
"Yes, ma'am!" Rackem replies.
Candlen remains quiet however and she turns her focus on him. "Sgt. Candlen, you weren't diagnosed as suicidal. What happened?" Her voice had softened.
Candlen closes his eyes as he shakes his head, "I don't know. I've been angry, all redliners are." He takes a deep breath and continues. "But it wasn't until you dismissed us without even giving us a chance that it suddenly overwhelmed me with anger and I wanted to kill you and all here." He hangs his head in shame.