Project LOKI ③

Chapter 44: Dead Man's Switch VI (Trust and Doubt)

A/N: The sixth day of the second wave of updates! 

LORELEI

I FEEL bad when I make other people feel bad.

After walking out of the execom office, hindi na bumalik doon si Jamie. I understand her emotional outburst. She felt she wasn't trusted. She felt that she was betrayed. She felt that the world was keeping secrets from her.

Sounds familiar? Ganyan din kasi ang naramdaman ko sa confrontation namin sa hotel. She lied to me. Loki hid the truth from me. Nagmukha akong tanga. That's the source of my rage back then. Gusto kong sabunutan si Jamie. Gusto kong sampalin nang ilang beses sa mukha sa Loki. Mabuti't napigilan ko ang sarili ko. Like Jamie, I chose to get out of the room to cool my head.

Kaya I understand what she might be going through. Siya na ngayon ang nasa posisyon ko noon. While we didn't lie to her, we forgot to tell her what we knew.

To be fair, I myself can't trust Jamie a hundred percent. She lied to us before, she could lie to us again. But she'd been helpful in the past few weeks. She gave us a lead on where we could attack Augustus. Thanks to that information, we managed to drive the late editor into a corner and cut off one source of funding to M's organization.

That was a big deal kung tutuusin. Malaking dagok 'yon sa organisasyon ni M. Their operations would have been affected. With Augustus gone and the embezzlement scheme exposed, parang napilayan na ng isang binti ang trono na kinauupuan ni Stein.

If Jamie was loyal to them, would she really make that kind of risk?

I sincerely wanna believe that she wasn't lying when she said that her loyalty belongs to us. Mas transparent na siya ngayon. She's been sharing with us pieces of information na direkta mismo kay Stein. And they weren't lies or misdirection. How did I know? Luthor's statements supported hers.

Loki calling her a drama queen made the situation worse. He could have been slightly more sensitive about what Jamie might feel. In our defense, not telling them immediately about what we figured out wasn't a sign of mistrust.

From one angle, Jamie was only making a mountain out of a molehill, hence Loki's drama queen comment. From another angle, meron na kasing precedent. Alistair and I intentionally didn't tell her about the Loki-Luthor charade last Monday. Tapos dumadagdag pa ang "successor" clue ngayong Thursday.

Ang ending, nagkapatong ang dalawang issue kaya nakarating siya sa conclusion na hindi namin siya pinagkakatiwalaan.

After the confrontation at the hotel, the three of us agreed to an unspoken rule of being transparent to each other. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. That was never the case. I know some things that they don't. Loki probably knows some things that we don't. Jamie might also know more than what she lets on.

Kapag may pumutok na naman, siguradong magkakagulo kami. I hope that day doesn't come, even if it might be inevitable.

"Mukhang ang lalim ng iniisip mo, Lori?"