Bodyguard by Melanie Shawn

23

Savannah

I openedmy eyes to a blank slate. That instant in the morning when you’re only consciousness, no form or context yet, was starting to be my favorite part of the day. As soon as that bloody context started filtering in, it all went to shit from there.

The first thing I noticed was the pounding in my temple. Fuck, it hurt...then I remembered all the crying I’d done the night before, in the shower.

Oh, right. Mr. “Better Friend Than a Lover” had rejected me.

I felt like an ingrate even being mad at him, or hurt. After all, he was risking his damn life just to save mine. If that wasn’t a friend...hell, if that wasn’t a lover, if not in the romantic sense...I didn’t know what was.

But I couldn’t help it. The visceral memory of his hands pushing me off of him...it sent daggers through my heart, and ice through my soul.

I was in love with him. I’d never stopped being in love with him. So much so that I’d had his handwriting permanently etched on my body. So much so that I’d never been able to tolerate the touch of another man. Even the thought of another man’s touch made me queasy.

And that was what had been too much for him. He would protect me. He might even die for me. But he wouldn’t love me. Or he couldn’t.

And as grateful as I knew I should be for the first two...as grateful as I, in fact, was for the first two...that third one hurt like fucking hell.

I shook my head. Just one more trauma, one more loss, to shove down and save to deal with another day. One more sacrifice on the altar of keeping my wits about me for the sake of survival.

I could do it. It hurt like hell to do it, but I knew I was capable. After all, I’d done it often enough before.

Gage knocked lightly and then stepped into the room. Although it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to read his always-stony expression, I’d had lots of practice. The stare he was giving me was wary.

I decided to break the tension right away. All he was doing for me, I owed him that. Not to mention, we had work to do. Making things tense and awkward between us would not only be unfair and counterproductive—it could potentially be fatal.

I smiled brightly. “Morning, boss. What’s on the agenda for today?”

He studied my face for a moment, likely trying to figure out if I was being sincere. I held my expression and, after just a moment, he was apparently satisfied. He gave a quick nod. “Come on. We’ve got work to do.”

I nodded and climbed out of bed. I went into the bathroom, brushed my hair and teeth, and brushed aside thoughts of the night before. I couldn’t just pretend. I actually had to put it aside, otherwise it would impact Gage’s ability to protect me.

After dressing quickly, I stepped back out into the bedroom and then followed Gage out to the main living area.

Bear was waiting there, and coffee and pastries were sitting on the counter. My stomach growled. As had become my habit, I hadn’t realized how hungry I was—or even that I was hungry at all—until I’d seen and smelled the food.

“Dig in,” Bear encouraged in response to the loud growl of my stomach. “We’ve got a big day ahead. You’ll need the sustenance.”

I did what he said, pouring myself a cup of strong-smelling coffee and piling both an apple and a cherry pastry onto a napkin.

Hey, the man had said I was going to need sustenance.

I wondered what the day ahead held. It must be really something, I reasoned, for someone of Bear’s vast experience to refer to it as “big.”

I didn’t have to wonder long. “We need intel,” Gage began. “We can’t get that from you. You just don’t know enough.”

Insulting. But, no argument from me. It was true, when it came to my father’s affairs, I’d been blissfully ignorant. The truth was, I hadn’t wanted to know.

“So, we’re going to need more reinforcements,” Bear continued. “This time of the more technically-inclined variety.”

My skin went cold. Even more people were going to know my whereabouts? That seemed like a terrible idea. “Don’t worry,” Gage said quickly. “I trust him like I trust Bear.”

Damn. He could read me like a book. It had always been that way. Since the very first day, when he’d known that me subtly searching in my bag and my air of quiet panic meant that I didn’t have a pen and was afraid of being embarrassed. And, just like then, he was jumping in immediately to set my mind at ease.

“Hey,” Bear said with what I was coming to recognize as his trademark smirk. “I’m not crazy about that characterization. But I do agree. Crypt is trustworthy, and capable.”

I cringed. “Crypt? That doesn’t give me much confidence. You know. About survival?”

“It’s short for encryption,” Gage clarified. “Because he says that none is a match for him. I don’t know how much of that is bragging and how much is true, but I do know that he’s never let me down.”

“Me either,” Bear agreed.

“But we can’t just be out and about looking like this.”

I looked down at myself. Jeans. T-shirt. Flats. I didn’t know what he meant, I thought I looked pretty normal.

“Looking like ourselves,” Gage clarified. “It’s not like I advertise my connection with Crypt. Or with Bear, for that matter. But I also haven’t kept it secret. There’s a chance, no matter how small, that Barlowe could have eyes on his place.”

“Oh. Got it,” I replied, my belly fluttering.

“There are three of us. That will throw them off to start with. But we need to disguise ourselves so they don’t recognize us even if they have photos.”

My brows drew together. “Like...ball caps? Sunglasses?”

“We’re not Julia Roberts going to the grocery store,” Bear chuckled. “No. Something a little more subtle.”

“What you’re thinking of would look too much like a disguise,” Gage clarified. “It would draw attention rather than deflect it. We need to look like normal people on the street. Just not like us.”

I nodded. “Okay. How do we do that?”

Bear moved to a closet, shuffled around in there for a minute, and returned with a medium-sized bin full of supplies. I glanced in. Fake tattoos, silver body mod jewelry, cat-eye glasses, make-up. “We’ll wear all black, and boots. We’ll put on these tattoos and fake piercings. You’ll do your make-up. We’ll wear glasses.” He paused and gave the smirk. “I’ll wax my mustache out to resemble a handlebar.”

I laughed. “Are we going to be hipsters?”

“Exactly,” Gage said. “The key to a good disguise isn’t not being noticed at all. It’s giving them something else to notice. When we are looking in a crowd for someone we recognize, we think we’re matching every face we see against the picture we have in our head of the person we’re looking for.

“But that’s not how our brains actually work. That would be too much processing, it would slow down the circuits. So what our brains are actually doing, without us ever noticing, is broad pre-categorization. We’re discarding people of the wrong gender, wrong height, and wrong type. We don’t do it consciously. It happens in a split second.”

“Got it,” I said. “So it’s not like we really have to totally disguise our features. We just make ourselves the wrong type. They’re looking for two people, mainstream clothes and appearance. We’re three people, clearly with a long-term commitment to alternative style choices. Right down to tattoos and piercings.”

“Exactly,” Bear confirmed. “They miscategorize us right away. Go on to the next faces in the crowd.”

Gage added, “The other benefit is that when you give people something extremely noticeable for their brains to focus on, that will likely be all they retain. So if something does pop off, if we end up having to leave some bodies in the street—”

My eyes widened but I didn’t interrupt.

“—then, chances are that all the witnesses will be able to describe later is tattoos and a handlebar mustache. Things like height, weight, eye color...their brains won’t have kept processing past the tattoos.”

I nodded. “That all makes sense. I wish it made me less nervous.”

Gage flashed me a tight smile. “No. Stay nervous. Terror will paralyze you. But nervous keeps you on your toes.”