The Wrong Side

Chapter 25

She knows I won't try running. She knows that I want to seem innocent and that running won't help with that image. She also knows I have no where to go should I choose to run.

"What were you doing in there?" she asks with a smile and a voice like glass. "Did you get lost again even though I told you not to come down here?"

"Something like that," I lie, replying with a smile like hers.

"Hmm. Come with me, Mr. Tarasi. We need to have a chat," she says and she leads me further into the basement. It's cold down here and I wish I had put on shoes instead of wearing just socks.

The room she leads me to is small and cold and dark. There's one chair on one side of the room and another chair on the other side with a glass table separating the two. Ember activates the lights which casts a soft golden glow around the room. She indicates that I should sit at the first chair as she sits down in the other one. When I take the seat, she closes the door and doesn't say for a minute or so.

"I know you read my journal entry a few months ago," she says. "I thought I had locked the door but you found a way in."

"Why would I want to read your journal?" I ask, trying to feign innocent.

"I don't know, but I saw you following me outside and inside the building. It's been on my mind ever since November seventh. You remember that day, right?"

"I don't know... maybe."

"It's the day you won that match against Mr Altman."

"Oh right," I say. "I won, then I had to go to the bathroom. Maybe that's why you saw me?"

She laughs. "How much did you read?"

"I didn't read your damn journal," I lie, just wanting to get out of here.

"Don't lie to me," she says.

"I'm not."

"Fine. What were you doing in that room down here?" She asks.

I shrug.

"You're a terrible liar. You're hiding something, I know it."

"If you're so sure, then why don't you make me prove it?" I ask.

"Fine." She stands up and looks me in the eye. "I'm going to kill the soldier in that room if you don't give me a straight answer."

I laugh. "What makes you think I have any attachment to her? I just recognized her from the group of soldiers I beat up when I woke up in the back of that van."

I'm very surprised with myself. Where did I learn how to lie or to bluff like that? I don't think I'm the type of person who'd do that. Ember just manages to piss me off so much and I feel like I'd do anything to get on her nerves. Ember sits back down and the glass table illuminates, revealing that it's really another one of those giant tablets. She pulls up a few files and swipes them over to me. What are they? Are they surveillance videos?

"I didn't want to do this, but I have actual proof that you were in my office," she says and she plays the video. It shows the office she was in and it shows me climbing in through the window.

"Why wait so long to show me this?" I ask.

"There wasn't as perfect of an opportunity as now. There are also these," she says and she brings up another two videos of Dawn's room and me in it with her. One is from today and I'm surprised that she managed to pull that up so soon.

"It seems you and Miss Hill have a little budding romance here."

I'm speechless right now. "She kissed me," I manage to get out. "I didn't-"