FO4 | Book 1: Bombs on Monday Morning ✔️

Ch 9: The Bloodied Trail

"Ellie? Are you here?"

"Nick?" She emerged from behind a pile of boxed papers. "Nick, is that really you?"

"Yeah, hard to mistake me for anybody else."

"Hmph. You keep laughing at death; someday, death is gonna laugh back." She wrapped her arms around him in a tight hug.

He hugged her and patted her back with a smile. "Not as long as I got a few friends to back me up." Nick smiled at me over her shoulder.

Ellie turned to me with an even bigger smile than Nick's. "You saved Nick, this agency and my job. Thank you."

"Happy to do it."

"Yeah? Go diving into scary prewar ruins all the time, do ya?"

"Not exactly, but I had no choice."

"Here. I know an amount wasn't on the table when you went out to find him, but you deserve a reward. Plus a little something extra." From her desk drawer, Ellie took a handful of caps and gave them to me. "Here's fifty caps, and..." Next she pulled a detective trench coat and hat out of the drawer.

I just grinned. It wasn't like I planned on wearing that cheesy outfit, but it was a very sweet gesture. I put everything in my bag.

"You know, if you'r looking for work and you don't mind putting on the detective hat, Nick sure could use a new partner."

"Whoa," said Nick who was shuffling through papers now on his desk. "One case at a time, Ellie. our new friend needs our help first." He moved to Ellie's desk, and she stood beside him to take notes on a note pad. There was an upholstered chair in front of Ellie's desk. "Alright. Let's get down to business. Take a seat. Make yourself comfortable."

I sat down in the worn-out chair and laid my bag on the floor beside me. I had a feeling I was going to be here a while, so I tried to sit comfortably.

"I want to know everything you know about the kidnapping. Don't leave out any details, no matter how excruciating it may be."

I started with the kidnappers. "There was a man and a woman. They didn't say much, but I remember they called me the 'back-up."

"So we're talking a small team. Professionals. The kind that know how to keep their lips tight when they're on the job. Not sure what 'the back-up' means, though... What else can you tell me?"

"We were in a Vault when it happened. Vault 111. It was some kind of cryo facility."

"You were on ice, huh?"

Ellie was furiously taking notes, her pen moving so fast, I couldn't wrap my mind around how she could read her own writing.

"More importantly, you were underground," he continued. "Sealed up. That's a lot of obstacles to get through just to take one person. What else do you remember?"

I braced myself. "My husband was... murdered. He was just trying to keep them from taking Shaun... and they... They just..." A lump jumped into my throat and my voice cracked.

"It's okay," said Ellie. "You don't need to say anything more."

"So, we're talking about a group of cold-hearted killers, but they waited until something went wrong to resort to violence. Anything else?"

"We're looking for my baby, Shaun. He's less than a year old. Why would anyone take him?" Finally, a few tears escaped my eyes, and I could feel my face getting red.

"Good question." He held his chin in his metallic hand. "Why your family in particular, and why an infant? Someone would be taking on all of his care, and a baby needs a lot of it."