All the King's Men Page 2
How did he…She shook her head. “I’ll be fine, Aldo. It’ll heal.”
“Danika, do me a favor and sit your ass down on this table so I can stitch you back up.” Even without sight, Aldo could see through her shit. Adamant old man, he was.
She strolled into his haven without further protest. The bottom floor of the Ward was about the size of a cafeteria, with rows of beds on either side, and oodles of equipment. It was nice to see that all of the beds were empty, other than the one holding the recruit.
Aldo’s assistant was none other than Tattoo Guy. He’d put on a shirt since she’d seen him last in that hallway. Having a better look at him, Danika guessed he was about six-foot-five, give or take. The lines of his tribal tattoos looked sharp, even against his dark skin, and reminded her of the exotic stuff she’d only seen on National Geographic since she hardly visited anywhere outside of Augusta. His thick mane of long black hair was tied into a messy little pile on the top of his head.
“Sit.” Aldo pulled the curtain around the examination area. He patted the cushioned table, which was covered in thin tissue paper.
Danika whined and frowned, but Aldo wouldn’t have any of it. She hated doctors or anything that resembled doctors’ offices; there was no exception for Aldo, even though he was one of the closest things she had to a friend here at HQ. Aside from Frost, of course.
The paper crinkled and made a lot of noise as Danika struggled to get comfortable on the table, until Aldo put his hand on her knee to stop her from kicking and squirming. She already assumed he’d tell her remove her t-shirt, so she did that without a fuss. Today, she was glad she wore a tank top underneath it, even though she was no stranger to being buck naked in front of the Doc. Aldo was blind, but she also recalled an incident on one of her first missions. Her clothing had nearly melted onto her skin, so it was a call to leave dignity intact and suffer considerable amounts of pain and irreparable damage while the clothing burned into her or bite the bullet and expose herself to the aid while he worked his magic. Needless to say, they shared a mutual loathing for anything involving acid after that and she had little shame around the old man. However, something about being completely topless in front of Tattoo Guy, a silent stranger, didn’t sit well with her so she was glad she had something to save her the embarrassment.
Danika waved away the anesthesia that was offered as Aldo warned her he’d need to stitch up that wound before it tore any further, or it would likely get infected. “It’s fine. Go ahead.”
He winced at the feel of the skin around the wound, applying slight pressure as he followed it around. “Looks like they got you pretty good.”
“Looks like?” She joked at the blind man, and then seethed in pain as he started suturing, pulling the curved needle through the end of the wound.
“Keep making jokes and I’ll stitch your mouth shut.” Aldo squeezed her shoulder to straighten her out, so the stitch line would come out straight. “And you can’t say I didn’t offer anything to keep your mind off the pain.”
She hissed softly as he squeezed near the tender spot behind her arm, wanting to yank her shoulder from his grasp but she would do better to stay put than to fight the old blind man. Danika knew he still had some skill to him or Morgan wouldn’t keep him around, and he proved it by stitching her up in record time. “Well, it’s been a pleasure Doc. Thanks.”
“Let me guess, you can’t stay?” Aldo asked as he swiped the tools he’d used, including the needle, thread and forceps, into the nearby basin for sterilization. “Alliance could use you, you know. Hell, I could use your help too, if you keep bringing these kids here like this.”
“Nah, I’m good. Morgan catches wind of me wanting to stick around and it’ll all be over from there.”
His thin lips curled up on one side, into a grin. The side of his face showed each wrinkle and crease that he’d referred to as time and wisdom. “That’s not a no. I’ll take it.” His milky white eyes stared somewhere beyond her, but she knew he could still see her. He’d been trying to convince her for almost two years to stay here at HQ. She just couldn’t bring herself to stay longer than a few minutes anymore. “Oh, and Morgan’s waiting for you in the main hub.”
“Of course, he is.” Danika rolled her eyes as she hopped off the table and carefully slipped back into her shirt. Or tried to. After fighting with it for a moment, careful not to tear her new stitch work, she decided it was best that she throw it over her shoulder instead. “See you around, Aldo.”
She lit up another cigarette and started down the hall. It was a journey just to get across the building to the hub, but she walked as quickly as she could on her swollen ankles and sore hamstrings. She’d rather take a bit more time to get there than nearly keel over again on her way. When the doors to the hub hissed open, she blew a puff of smoke into the room.
Inside, there was a twenty-foot display of monitors set up like a grid on the far wall. In front of it, at its base, was an arc that served as its command post, with other computers, various buttons, and smaller monitors running along it. Sitting with those computers were chairs for the onlookers, the observers, with one high-backed leather seat in the middle. It had been a while since she’d seen this place, and to her, it was just like stepping onto the bridge of a spaceship. It was enough tech for her to shake her fist at, but these weren’t her toys. They were Morgan’s.
“You know, I’d rather you not expose this room to that… habit of yours.”
“Nice to see you, too.” Danika knew the drill. She rolled her eyes and put the cigarette out on her palm once more and slid it into her back pocket. She’d finish it at some point. “You never complain when I send over some of those Cubans you love so much.”
Morgan grumbled something quietly, just out of earshot. “Yes…well, thank you for your service tonight, as usual.”
“Of course.” She mock-curtsied, which was a rather humorous sight given her ragged attire. Danika was no delicate flower by any means, and Morgan shook his head at the gesture. “I’ll take payment, as usual.”
“Sure.” Morgan forced a chuckle as he nodded. Her payment consisted of raiding the bunker fridge, invading Morgan’s private office bar and of course a little bit of pocket money transferred to her account. After her first outing as a freelance agent a while back, he’d learned to keep those areas well-stocked. “I don’t suppose you’ll be in your bunk this evening?”
“Nope. Aldo already tried, thanks.” Danika had ascended few steps and took the small chair to his right, kicking her boots up on the desk.
Morgan swiveled his chair around to face her, his dark hair swept into a firm military hairdo, kept crisp and sharp with what she assumed was a case of Aqua Net. He had a thick brown mustache that rounded out into a goatee, almost instantly bringing the eyes to his charming smile—which he wasn’t using currently. He seemed displeased at the way she was treating his furniture. Her boots hadn’t been cleaned yet, and the smear of blood on the tread didn’t impress him, either.
“What?” she asked, but after a moment she sighed and removed her feet from the vicinity of the expensive tech that probably cost more than a year’s rent on her apartment. “Okay, well Aldo said you wanted to see me? What’s up?”
“Funny your greeting to me is what’s up after the way you left the training room on Level Two last time you were here.” Morgan folded his hands in his lap. That was their code for the training wing, one she remembered had been left in bad shape on her last visit.
“Hey, Frost wanted to throw down, so I gave him a chance to show me what he’s made of. And, aside from throwing me thirty feet in the air thanks to his ice spikes—which is totally cheating, by the way—as well as saying not to go easy on him…? It was his idea.” She smirked. “Where is Frosty the Snowman anyway? I figured he lived at this desk.”
“Mr. Frost turned in. I’m assuming to his bunk, unless he found other arrangements…” Morgan chuckled, “but I do have an early exercise for him to help with, so—”
“Dani.” There was always a noticeable exasperation when he said her name.
She groaned. “What? I don’t have to have a mind-reading power to know where this is going. You’re going to lure me in with words like money or accommodations and right now I’m not in the right place to be joining up with a crew.”
“When will you be?” He was direct with his question, not easing into the topic. “I know that Monroe… that was a big hit.”
“Yeah, well I lost someone that day—”
“We lost people that day, Dani.”
Her teeth clicked when she shut her mouth, cut off by his sharp interjection. She watched as Morgan made his way around the half-circle command center and moved towards the monitor on the far end. He’d turned away from her, probably fuming over what she’d said. They’d saved some people from Monroe that day, but for Danika, even those saved lives were no consolation for what she’d lost.
“Mr. Carter was a great leader, and a huge asset to the team. I won’t forget his contributions,” he said somberly. “We miss him, too, Danika, but you can’t blame yourself for his loss forever.”
Danika could feel the goosebumps trickling over her skin when Morgan mentioned his name. When she closed her eyes, she could still see his face. Carter had fought beside her for a long time, and even though it’d been almost two years since he’d been gone, she was still feeling the sorrow as if it was just yesterday. She wiped away a stray tear and blinked away the others that threatened to fall. It was one of her ‘hot-buttons’, a topic that she wished never to discuss, but Morgan generally found a way to mention him whenever she came around. She didn’t quite react as she wanted to—outright scold him from saying his name out loud when she wasn’t ready to face those memories—but he knew what he’d done.
Morgan took a deep breath, turning to face her once again. “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day, and we have—”
That was her cue. Morgan telegraphed his windups, something her father said was his weakness. He made his actions and intent obvious, even in speech. The deal was: she’d drop off the recruit. That had turned into a fight with the cat-looking creature, and more than a couple of stitches she didn’t expect to acquire either. Her dogs were barking—her feet, that was—and she couldn’t wait to strip down and cuddle up with Jack…
Jack Daniels.
Danika pulled herself up out of her chair. A sharp surge of pain burst outward from the center of her hamstrings all the way up her back and down into her heels, but she wouldn’t let him see that. She’d just take a nice hot shower when she got home and hope for the best. “Say no more. I’ll get out of your hair, so you can get some sleep.”
The door hissed as it slid open and she made her way through quickly to make sure he didn’t have much time to try and convince her to stay.
Not tonight.
“Dani,” he called out once more, but it didn’t faze her.
She kept walking. “Goodnight, Morgan.”
On Your Guard
Departure by Journey was her favorite of her dad’s collection of vinyl records. She kept them all, preserved in their cardboard sleeves, wrapped in plastic to keep the dust out, and stored inside a cabinet behind a glass door for display. She called it being meticulous, but Frost called it ‘being anal’. Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to. Danika threw the record onto the turntable and set the needle to the first song. Any Way You Want It was up and one of the many classics she knew the lyrics to, so she belted it out as soon as Steve Perry started up on the first verse, filling in the instrumental parts with a vocal imitation of the guitars and drums.
The blinds were open, providing a beautiful view of the city. It was about 11 p.m. now, and Augusta was well-lit for the hour, at least in her part of town. The moon provided some good lighting as well, so she kept her overheads dimmed to the minimum setting on the switch. Danika lived in a quiet apartment complex. Minimalist. Trendy. She thought the price tag was well worth the quality of living. Each visit she made to HQ, she had at least two people ask her if she’d be moving in, but the answer was the same every time: Nope. She preferred her privacy, the welcoming décor and having a place for everything. Not to mention, not having to share a communal restroom with the unit.
She slid out of her Alliance hoodie, one she’d ‘borrowed’ from the laundry room at base, then her tank top, to let her stitches breathe some. The frigid air stung her fresh wounds, but she was used to it now; it was the equivalent of getting a gold star for a job well done. With Aldo’s special treatment and her healing factor, she figured they would heal up in a few days—if she was lucky. She was probably looking at a week before the stiches could come out. Her healing was accelerated over non-powered people who would take two weeks or so to recover from the same wounds, but she definitely wasn’t immune from pain, infection, or even death if she got hurt badly enough. If Aldo said the stitches were necessary, she’d go with it, even with her complaints. Danika trusted Aldo as her one and only medic, since he had helped her time and time again. She felt a little guilty not taking him up on his offer to stay and help…but it was just too soon.
Danika swayed her hips to the beat and she boogied her way down the hall. She gave her hair-tie a tug and bobbed her head free of the ponytail, before swinging her arms at her side.
When she turned the corner, she saw a man standing there. He reached out to grab her.
“Thank you for—”
Arm, spin, pin.
Danika grabbed the intruder’s wrist and twisted it inward. She spun around to slam him, chest and face first, along the bare wall, with her weight guiding the movement at his back. Damn, she was pissed she let him get one word out, let alone three before she could react, meaning she needed to work on her reflexes in case hostile intruders did this more often. Fighting through the ache of her muscles, she leaned into the pin with all the strength she had left. “Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?”
The stranger grunted and wriggled, though not aggressively. He was taken by surprise as much as she was, and he coughed to catch the breath that was knocked out of him on impact. “It’s me, it’s Ch-Charlie!”
“Who?!” She didn’t know anyone by that name.
“I-I’m not h-here to hurt you!”
For all she knew, he was just spouting off some bullshit to get her to stop.
“My ass.” Danika struggled to keep him pinned, and felt the stitches tighten and pull on her back.
Dammit.
‘Charlie’ shifted his weight and used his own momentum to push them off the wall and into the kitchen. His arm swung around, and Danika ducked, pulling her weight to her back foot to regain her balance. She put up her guard and started to swing on her own, letting the Gale into her hands to strengthen her punches. Her attacker was obviously stronger than her, but she wasn’t going to play nice with an intruder.
“Yaah!” She yelled, lunging at him again with another series of punches.
Head, head, neck. Chest, chest, chin!
But he blocked every single one of them. She wound back and kicked out with her left leg, feeling the strength of the Gale behind it, and caught him in the knee, causing him to almost topple over. She followed the kick by swinging a barstool like a baseball bat into his abdomen.
The man groaned at the hit and flew backward like a ragdoll in a tornado. He landed flat against the far wall with his back first, then his head followed. He bounced off and fell with a heavy thud. This was an opportune moment to run, but she wasn’t going to leave her apartment dressed only in her bra and underwear, fleeing from some guy she was determined to take down. Damsel in distress mode was not her thing. She spotted her batons laid out on her kitchen table and once they were safely in her grasp, she hit the button to extend them out to their maximum length. As they rang out, Charlie took a step back.
Danika lunged at
him, a backswing with her left, followed by her right, then back in the other direction with the same movement. She picked up her attack speed as she twirled the batons with strikes aimed at his core, in a flurry of movement to break his guard and eventually find an opening to take him down. Charlie was fast, moving with the same grace to counter her, as if he could anticipate her moves before they were made. Danika swung and whiffed the air, and when she leaned back in to correct her stance for another swing, Charlie grabbed one of her batons, ripping it from her grasp and shaking her balance. She narrowly dodged as he threw a punch powerful enough to put his fist through the partition wall between the hallway and kitchen.
HELL NO! She growled in anger. He is so paying for this... Classic Dani, always thinking about repairs and cost during a fight. Someone was going to have to take care of this mess, but she didn’t think it would be her insurance company since her claims stack was a mile high and they already knew her by her first name.
She bowed back and swept him with her leg, watching as he fell backwards onto the hardwood floor. Quickly she straddled him and raised the baton high above her head and brought it down on her target. She gasped sharply when he caught the stick between his hands, just before the end of it hit him right between the eyes.
“Please, wait!” Charlie, the intruder, the ‘Destroyer of Things’, was waving a white flag of sorts. “I’m just here to talk.”
Danika narrowed her eyes, staring down the length of her weapon at him. She huffed, almost out of breath. It seemed like he’d conceded for now, so she used this as a recovery window. Finally, she yanked the baton from his hands and sat back on his lap, to try and tame her racing heartbeat. With one last, lazy punch (which was effectively blocked), Danika hopped off him and stalked toward the living room. The wounds on her back were throbbing; she hissed as she reached over her shoulder to try and touch them.