Risk and Rebel

29: DOWN TIME WITH YOUR RESIDENT SPIES

Showering was the best thing to happen to me in the last forty-eight hours, and my gut told me it was probably going to be the best thing I'd experience in the coming forty-eight hours as well.

I took far longer than I needed to just because I could, and when I got out, I ran my fingers through my hair as I walked into the bedroom I'd claimed as mine for the night. I had left my dirty clothes and my weapons on the bed, and when I emerged from the bathroom there was a different set of clothes that were more familiar to me in that they looked closer to combat gear than the civilian clothes I'd arrived in.

A slight smile curved my lips. I glanced at the door before starting to dress, not entirely surprised to find it was locked and shut as I'd left it. Everyone — at least, everyone at LASAR — was fairly adept at lock-picking. I assumed Rebel had come in and made sure I had clothing I'd be comfortable in, and that was all the thought I gave to it.

I was strapping the holsters back onto my thigh and waist when there was a knock at the door. I didn't bother asking who it was; just flipped the lock with a thought and declared, "It's open."

It came as no surprise to me when Rebel came in, and in my periphery I could see his amused smile as I straightened and looked up at him. "I'm guessing you enjoyed your shower."

I shot him a catty smile. "And from your smell and ... everything else," my smile widened with my teasing, "I'm guessing you still need one." I looked away from him in order to slide my knife back into my boot. "Have a nice chat with Desmond?"

Rebel shrugged, stepping further into the room and sliding the door shut after him. "Despite the fact that he's painfully awkward and wouldn't survive in a live combat situation, he seems like a bright kid. Key word there being kid."

"How old?" I asked, straightening and planting my hands on my hips as I turned to face him.

"Seventeen," Rebel answered, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the desk situated against the wall.

"Yet nowhere near the maturity level of the seventeen year olds we know, I'm guessing," I said with a wry smile.

Rebel shook his head, a small smile on his lips. "Hardly. He is smart, though; said he graduated high school at thirteen."

"Wow. Wouldn't have guessed Boss's kid would be a genius," I hummed, looking past him out the large window in the room. Gray's mansion had the perfect view of the beach, which looked peaceful and calm in comparison to everything else going on around me.

"Yeah," Rebel shrugged, his bright eyes fixing on me. "I wouldn't have, either."

We held eye contact for a long moment before I hummed and nodded. "Maybe I'll go have a chat with him."

He smiled. "Maybe you should. He's the third door down, same side of the hall as us."

I nodded promptly, heading toward the door without further discussion. "You shower, I'll go make a new friend."

Rebel laughed loudly at that, shaking his head and heading past me toward the bathroom. "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that what you're thinking of is how friends are made," he snickered. "While you're off terrifying people, would you mind scaring me up some clothes like I did for you?"

"Yeah, sure," I waved a hand at him on my way out. I heard the bathroom door shut right before I closed the door after me, making sure to flip the lock back with a thought before I headed toward Desmond's room.

I only knocked once before opening the door. As I did, I vaguely heard a mumbled, "Yes?" before I caught sight of the redhead sitting on a large bed, a laptop balanced on his criss-crossed legs. His eyes narrowed as he looked up at me, and his brows practically knit together when I shut the door after myself.

"Desmond," I greeted, flashing him a tame smile.

He shifted in visible discomfort, clutching his laptop to a point where his knuckles neared white. "You're ... you're Risk, right?"

"I am," I agreed, moving further into the room and observing the various pieces of tech scattered around. "Rebel told me he came and talked to you."

Desmond nodded at that; he seemed to relax somewhat at Rebel's name. I couldn't say I was surprised; Rebel had always been the more personable of the two of us. "You're partners, right?" he asked me.

"We are," I confirmed, pausing beside a table littered with strange gadgets. I turned back toward Desmond, focusing on him and canting my head slightly. He may have only been a year younger than I was, but the life experience widened the maturity gap more than either of us probably understood.

Desmond nodded slowly, bright eyes skipping down to my guns before jumping back up to my face. "He said you guys, um ... that is, he said LASAR ..." He trailed off with a heavy sigh, his gaze dropping to his computer screen. "I've never been around people like you before."

I smiled a little easier at that. "Seldom few have."

"Gray has," he pointed out in a mumble, shoving his fingers through his red curles. "And he's ... I don't actually know. Like I told Rebel, he seemed to know Mom, and ..." Desmond shrugged.

"And now you're here, surrounded by killers, feeling like you're in over your head," I said plainly. "Yeah, trust me, we put those pieces together on our own."

Desmond glanced up at me for a fleeting moment. "Yeah. Um, Rebel— he told me that I should be careful."

I arched a brow, and he continued without further promoting.

"He said that, uh," he scratched the back of his neck, "that it's a dog eat dog world, but that you— you LASAR people would do your best to protect me." He paused. "But he couldn't say the same for the others Gray hired."

"We don't know them," I agreed. "But we will do our best to keep you alive." I shifted slightly on my feet, choosing my next words carefully. "Several of the agents we used to work with were your age."

Desmond looked up with a sliver of hope in his eyes. "Really?"

I nodded. "Yeah, really. Granted, they had a literal lifetime of experience in the field, but that's not the point." Though it very much was part of the point, but this kid had come this far, and we didn't need him chickening out now.

"What is the point?" Desmond asked quietly.

"The point is that we're going to stop the bad guys and save the day," I shrugged, before I headed for the door. "By whatever means necessary."

"That doesn't exactly sound like hero talk," Desmond said as I reached the door.

I paused, granting him a small smile over my shoulder. "No one ever said we were heroes."

"So what are you?" Desmond pressed, his voice the most confident I'd heard out of him yet.

I paused at the open door, a smirk curving my lips as I looked out into the hall. "Personally? I'm a specialist. As for all of us together ... we're the ones that get the job done."

When he was silent for a few seconds, I headed out and closed the door behind me before heading off to find clothes for Rebel. I'd learned what I needed to about Desmond, and I had a feeling he might be more useful than I'd initially anticipated.

Though that would only be shown in time.