Melt me

Chapter 18

We return to the Sanctuary all shaken up. Back inside the meeting room, the four of us comb over every piece of evidence we have so far. Naz did some research but found nothing out of the ordinary concerning the guy.

No connections to the women or anything, just some regular dude.
"We have two rebels so far. One missing, one dead." Warner sighs, clenching his jaw at the photos. A shirt and jacket with the same Reestablishment logo and Sector shield.
Sector 2 in Asia.

"There's going to be more." Juliette nods,
"We need to find out who is recruiting these people."

I raise an eyebrow at her, "and how are we going to do that?"

"The other man." Nazeera says quietly from where she sits on my lap. She's been pretty silent the whole time we've been here. Running her fingers through my hair, seemingly uninterested with the idea of rebels.

She turns her head and looks at Warner and Ella.
"If this fight was staged, then the other man must know something."

"But if he doesn't we're back at square one." Warner replies, piling up the photos.

Naz shrugs. She kisses my cheek and goes back to fiddling with my messy hair. Huh.

"That's all we have." Juliette says, sounding defeated.

If a revolution did break out, we could definitely handle it. But no one wants that anymore. We don't want to fight anymore or for anyone to get hurt.

Warner fixes his tie and opens his mouth.
"Kenji, go visit the man in the hospital."

"Um, you're not the boss of me."

Juliette hops off the table and puts her hands on her hips,
"Unless you want to deal with the banquet preparations, you're going."

I scoff, "you people always push me around like your little servant. Honestly, I don't even know why I haven't quit yet."

Warner rolls his eyes and leads J out the door. It shuts and I would follow them, but I need to talk to Naz.

"So," I look up at my fiancé, who is now humming a gentle tune.
"Why are you so bored with the idea of a revolution?"

Nazeera chuckles to herself, her honey eyes bright.
"I'm not bored."

I sit up straighter, grasp her chin lightly.
"Habibti, what aren't you telling me?"

I know Nazeera and she would usually be more interested and determined to solve this. And her unsurprised reaction to the little slip of paper...
Clearly she knows something we don't.

The corners of her lips pull down in a small frown.   Nazeera sucks in a breath and says,
"I'm going back to Iraq."

That is not what I thought she'd say.
"What?"

"It's a pretty straightforward sentence."

"No- well yeah but...why? What's going on?"

My fiancé gets up, rubs the back of her neck.
"You know all those robberies we were having? Yeah there's less of them now."

"Is that not a good thing?" I stand and hold both her hands in mine. Very lost.

"Something is going on Kenji." She states,
"Why would they suddenly want to stop? Why now?"

"Maybe they got bored of it and decided to retire as average citizens."

Nazeera smiles and shakes her head.
"I'm leaving with Haider after the banquet."

"Not just you. I'm joining." I nod. I've gone with her on every trip to Asia and I told her I'd go again if she wanted to.
But this time, she refuses.