Tattooed

XXX

The next night, Corinth followed through with her promise and we went back to HQ together. Not everyone I saw that first night were there, but there were enough familiar faces. Soon I saw Wes and my heart did a weird flip. He was looking a lot better now, almost like the guy I met on the street in what seemed like forever ago. His hair was a couple inches shorter now but still past his shoulders, color was back in his skin, and he stood with lax confidence. But as soon as he saw me his face shifted into anger.

"Corinth what the hell? Why'd you bring her here?"

Corinth raised her chin and looked Wes in the eye. "Cecil deserves answers, she's in this now. Actual people from the government were at her door the other day. Not Creative guards, people from the Government. She needs to be brought up to speed for her safety."

"The more she knows the more she's endangered. She loses plausible deniability."

This time I step up. "I already lost that. I'm the one who took the book and read all the other ones. I'm the one who lost my job. I'm the one the government is probably watching. Nothing can protect me now so I should at least know what I'm fighting for."

"You're going to be fighting for your life." Wes snaps.

"I know I'm fighting for more than that. We all are."

Wes grabs my hand roughly and drags me to an empty room in the back. It's small with a small bed, a cluttered desk, and a bulletin board overcrowded with pinned papers.

"What are you-"

He cuts off my question with a hard kiss. His hands pull my head toward him and I'm so surprised I don't move. By the time I relax into it he pulls away and rests his forehead against mine, breathing hard.

"I can't stop you from going all in, can I?" he asks. His voice is laced with pain.

"I almost wish you could." He laughs through his nose and pulls away.

"I'm going to be honest, I kind of knew you wouldn't let this go." Wes goes to the desk in the corner and holds something up. "That's why I went ahead and made this for you."

I step closer to look at it. "My locket?" My hand goes to my actual locket that still hung around my neck. I remember when I lost it and Wes gave it to me the first night we met.

"Not quite. I made a replica. Every team member has some sort of tracker that when pressed emits a signal that shows us your location. It's not perfect. When I was imprisoned the walls scrambled the signal on mine, and if you don't press it it's useless. You'll know it's working when it lights up. But I want you to have one. You can move your family photo to this one if you want."

"Thank you." I say, reaching out to feel it. Wes turns me around and puts it on me, over the original one. He kisses my hair and I lean into him.

"Ok," says Wes, "let's go back out and have this meeting."

We spent the next hour with the whole resistance group sitting around trading information. They all introduce themselves and I find out there's a lot more than I originally thought. Wes says there's even more back in the Stratums. I tell them all I know about Colorless, about the library, about how suspicious the government is, and they tell me all they've done as a group, the intel they gathered and the missions they had. Wes actually founded the group, angry that his mother was gone, and it grew from there. There's a secret intranet that Cunnings made to help connect everyone. By the time I was all caught up it was late, and I knew I had to get back home.

Corinth drove me this time, dropping me off a walk away from my door to avoid suspicion. When I got to the front the same two men from the other night were there waiting. 

All the blood drained from my face. I knew immediately this wasn't another innocent visit.

I mustered a fake smile and naive voice, "Can I help you gentlemen?"

The men walked toward me and I didn't run because there was no point. I'd look guilty and they'd catch me. Next thing I know one of the men lunged at me, shoving a cloth down my throat and I blacked out.