Jammed (Louis Tomlinson au)

Chapter 16

When I woke up the next morning, the sun was shining through the blinds. There was a body lying next to me in the comfortable queen size bed, but luckily this one was surely alive. Louis was sleeping with his face down in a pillow and almost all the blankets covering him, while I lay in the cold. He snored slightly and I checked the alarm clock on the nightstand to see that it was barely six in the morning. Damn him for ruining my sleep.

I wasn't surprised when I woke up next to Louis. I remembered everything from last night, having barely any alcohol in my system to differ that. And Louis was smart enough to know that he couldn't just leave my apartment, because there was probably someone waiting for him if he did.

And maybe, Louis wanted to stay. I for one wanted him to. I knew it was extremely dangerous getting this close to him; I would be blamed if anything happened. But Louis had proven himself to me, that he could handle himself. I could trust him, and that gave me a little more faith to push things further.

It was so different from the first time when I rejected Louis immediately. But at that time, he still had a girlfriend and I still didn't trust him. Drew was still around, as well, and he always held a large influence over me. Sometimes that had to do with the fact that we had once dated, but others it was just because we were such good friends. It appeared that without Drew around it was a lot harder to hold myself back from doing things outside the job's parameters. But then again, I didn't work for MASK anymore.

Thinking of the agency, my thoughts faltered to thinking about my still living friends. I hadn't spoken to Niall or Marlee since yesterday morning, before I figured everything out. I wondered if either of them knew about Mallory, especially Marlee because she was basically the position right under him. They certainly didn't know about Louis' encounter, though, so I thought I could call them and at least talk about that. Then possibly ease into the subject of Mallory trying to team up with high-threat terrorists and kill millions.

I had gotten an email from Liam not long after I woke up about the body from yesterday. Thank God I didn't work for the CIA, they all started their days way too early for me. Plus they spent too much time in the office; maybe that was why they were all a little crazy. But anyway, Liam sent me an email with the name of his "friend visiting New York this week". The friend, who was really Louis' attacker, was named Andrei Litvin. He was Russian but he wasn't a Kaminski, suggesting that the family was expanding, as well as the operation. Mallory was working with them closely as well, showing that he wasn't afraid to hesitate.

I decided that I could do more research on Andrei later, I'd have time with him dead. But Niall and Marlee were alive and healthy, wether they were on my side or not. I put my laptop aside and grabbed my cell phone from the nightstand. Carefully, I slipped out of bed and into the living room, where I opened the blinds, laid out on the couch, and waited for someone to answer the phone.

"Jancer, why the hell are you calling me at almost seven in the morning? I know you are anything but an early-riser." Niall was almost yelling, meaning that Marlee wasn't around. He sounded normal though, normal meaning amused and Irish.

"I need to talk to you. Have you or Marlee been in communication with Mallory recently?" I didn't know if I could tell if Niall was lying over the phone, it was much easier in person. But I'd give it a try to at least determine where to begin the conversation. I heard a tv blaring in the background, even though Niall had acted like I had woken him up. I knew for a fact that oddly, Niall was somewhat of an early riser.

"No, at least I haven't. I tried going into the office yesterday but oddly his door was closed so it didn't really do much good being there. I'll probably go back in today, but why?" Niall's voice sounded genuine in the least. I could probably ask one of the front desk secretaries just to confirm, since they probably weren't cleared for Mallory's secret. But at the moment I accepted Niall's alibi. For Marlee, though, I still had nothing to prove her innocence. I hoped that eventually Niall could help with that, since he was closest to her.