The Scales of Justice

Chapter 4

Callen awoke to find light streaming through the slits between the curtains at her bedroom windows. She groaned and stuck a pillow over her head, only to fling it off and sit up quickly as she remembered where she was and what had happened. Another few minutes, and she remembered her midnight exchange in the kitchen with the enforcer.

"Ah, hell," she mumbled, feeling a faint blush come on as she remembered her reactions to Justice. She shook her head. It must have been too long since her last relationship if she was finding herself even remotely attracted to the enforcer. Not that he wasn't attractive; he most certainly was; but he didn't have that one special attribute that she usually found herself drawn to. She tended to go for guys who were the complete opposite of him; specifically bad boys; and he just didn't give that vibe. He was a good guy; and he had proven it; the two or three times in the past twenty four hours that he had tried to provide comfort to her; that was what it was that proved it to her. He hadn't had to do that; it wasn't part of the job description for billy bad ass enforcer; but it hadn't stopped him anyway, and now her brain was associating him with that already. She continued her musings as she slid out of bed and began the morning ritual of getting ready for the day. 

Why was she even dwelling on this? Gods knew that all attraction aside, it wouldn't do to start anything, temporary or not, with the man helping her locate her sister and the man trying to do her in. Besides, now she was assuming that he harbored any attraction to her. Most good guys didn't go for bad girls, reformed or not. She let out a sigh as she finished dressing; she wasn't quite sure if that thought comforted her or upset her. She wandered down to the kitchen. Both of the Paradox brothers were in evidence with mugs of coffee in front of them. Justice also had a laptop computer set up in front of him, and was poring over something.

"Morning," she said, heading over to pour herself some coffee, and splashed a heavy dose of hazelnut creamer to it.

"Callen," Retribution acknowledged with a slight incline of his head. Justice just mumbled something around a bite of toast. She sat in one of the empty chairs.

"Really? That's all you've got?" she prodded, and he looked up at her swallowing. Her breath hitched, caught in his gaze, as he greeted her, and she regretted poking at him. He had removed his contact lenses at some point after she had gone back to bed, and she had never seen eyes so captivating before. Silver gray and pale blue wound in spirals around a grass green background. After a moment, she realized that she was staring; and she forcefully drug her gaze away to focus on anything else. Unfortunately, that ended up being Retribution's direction, and he had speared her with a piercing look. He had most definitely noticed her infatuation with his brother. She immediately dropped her gaze to the table.

"You okay over there?" Justice asked.

"Yeah, fine," she replied, "So, what are you up to?" She spoke quickly, hoping to distract from her obvious discomfort.

Justice's face seemed to light up. "I'm going through my databases, seeing if I can find a decent starting place in our search. Retribution started last night; but he didn't quite finish."

"It's not my fault I forgot a filter," Retribution growled. "You know I'm not good with computers."

"Forgot a filter?" she queried, an eyebrow quirked in confusion. Justice turned the screen to face her. There was a list of names forming on one side as thousands of names scrolled by on the other. "What is that?"

"A history on every Draconis who ever lived. Think of it like a police system. Every person they've ever arrested; at least in the last thirty years or so, ends up in that system somewhere. Sometimes it's just prints and a mug shot, sometimes a full background on them. Of course, as long lived as we are, we have nothing but time. We are all in here, and with pretty complete workups."