"Always good doing business with you Nikolai"
Washington smiled briefly and left, leaving Jay alone with the Lieutenant.
"Mutt, I'm so sorry." He murmured. Jay tried to blink back tears; when he had saved her life almost half a year ago, he had sworn to her that Washington would never touch her again. And now he was selling her back to him. "If there were any other way, you know I would do it. But I must do what is necessary to protect our home."
Jay just nodded.
"You will fight against the First next week and then you will return to Washington. The fight could not be more important, I am relying on you. Can you do this for me? To protect your home and your Lieutenant?"
She nodded again. The Boston Second had been kind to her, and she had a debt to pay. She would be fighting alongside Crow next week; she could not let him down.
"Curfew is not for another two hours. There may be some food left over from earlier. Go, I will send Crow your way." He said, dismissing her. Jay bowed and left.
The moment the door shut, she headed straight down to the third basement level. The Ghost complex was housed beneath a shipping warehouse. Three floors deep, it was a maze of corridors and rooms that extended far beyond the perimeter of the building on the surface. The first level was a storage level, used as an extension to the warehouse, mostly for appearance's sake. On the second were the Ghosts' quarters and training areas.
The third level was not used much; a small area made up a shower room where they were able to wash once a week. Well, shower room wasn't all that accurate. It was just a concrete walled room with a hose and a tap so that the Watchers could hose the Ghosts down with cold water.
Once on the third level, there were numerous twists and turns through the corridors until she reached a long forgotten room in the farthest corner of the complex. It was full of old crates, all of them empty, aside from which held a vast array of knives, hammers and other weapons. Jay had added only a few to the collection since her arrival at the Boston Second, the same went for Crow, and Cook before him and Fletch before him.
The walls of the room were cinderblock, apart from the wall to the right of the door, opposite the weapons crate, which was boarded up with wood. The wood was covered in small dents and nicks. One area of it was worn through almost to the rock beneath where someone had hacked at it for hours out of anger and frustration.
Aside from her, only Crow knew about this part of the complex. Well, no doubt the Lieutenant knew but he had yet to forbid her from going there or tell the Watchers about it.
Almost without thinking, she picked up a knife from the crate and weighed it in her hand, testing its balance. Faster than the eye could follow, she threw it at the wall. The knife's tip buried itself in the wood with a satisfying thud.
She changed hands, and picked another up with her left. At first she had hated looking at her maimed finger, it felt like a weakness. But it wasn't. It just showed she had the strength and patience to adapt and move forward. While she may no longer be able to use a pinch grip, it hadn't taken long to master the hammer grip, it was a point of pride for her.
She threw again, and again the thud of the tip hitting its mark helped to calm her. But it wasn't enough. She threw knife after knife, pouring all of her emotions into the destructive action.
Anger, frustration, hurt, fear, pain. Everything buried itself in the wood. Faster and faster she threw them at the wall, until her arms were burning and her chest was heaving. Each knife found its mark. Thud, thud, thud. The movement and the sound were soothing, but not enough to comfort her. Countless times Crow had woken her from her nightmares of Washington, had stroked her hand as she wept in the dark. And now she was going back.
