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“I hope not,” I reply, “as much as I want to see them. Saint and Raiden were also seriously injured, and they need rest.”
“Yeah, I just want to check in on them,” Atlas replies, “we could’ve lost a lot more people if it weren’t for them.”
“I want to meet them too. They sound like they’d be fun to hang out with, and I want to see if you’re right about the way they feel about each other,” Jynx adds from the back seat.
“Zemi is definitely our kind of person,” I tell her.
“Well, even though they shouldn’t be here today, with me working this case with you, I’m sure that I’ll be back here at some point, and I’ll get to meet them properly.” She replies.
“That’s true.”
It doesn’t take us any longer than usual to get to headquarters once we’ve gotten away from our small town, and the roads are more well traveled and taken care of. The only snow that can be found is at the edges and on the buildings; the roads themselves are completely clear.
Walking through the door, I smile. I’m glad that we took a chance and decided to work for Mr R. It’s made our lives so much better and also given us the freedom to be ourselves, which would have been very difficult to find anywhere else.
“Do we have time to get coffee?” I practically plead, “They’ve still got the Christmas menu up, and they won’t for much longer.”
“I imagine that he’s not going anywhere,” Atlas replies, “we’ve got time to grab a cup to take down with us.”
“Thank fuck for that,” Jynx says, real relief in her tone as she’s already on her way into the practically empty coffee shop.
“I guess Jynx needed coffee,” Atlas chuckles.
“Doesn’t she always,” I reply as we follow her.
Once we’ve got our drink orders, we head down to Mr R’s office to let him know that we’re here and find out exactly where the guy is being held so that we can talk to him.
“Hey guys, how was your Christmas?” Mr R asks as soon as I let myself into his office, clearly knowing it's me since I’m the only one brave or stupid enough to barge into his office without knocking.
“It was great, busy,” Atlas replies with a smile and then puts a coffee that I hadn’t realised he was carrying or had even brought on the desk in front of Mr R.
He smiles gratefully, “Thank you.”
“How was your Christmas?” I ask him as Jynx hangs back slightly and just observes while she sips her coffee.
“It was good, decidedly less busy than I imagine yours was,” he replies and then changes the subject, “I just wanted you to know that I wasn’t made aware of the connection between Rylie and you. I know that she was from the same hometown that you and the guys were from, so I assumed that you might recognise her or know of her, but I didn’t realise that you were so close. If I had, then I would have approached telling you that she was missing with more tact. I still wouldn’t have been able to tell you that she was in the agency to protect her ghost status.”
The explanation is a surprising one. I honestly didn’t expect to get one from him because, at the end of the day, he doesn’t owe me one. He has an entire agency to run, and he’s reporting to the higher-ups of this whole country. He’s got far more significant things to be worried about than my feelings or any connection that Rylie and I may have had unless it was a threat.
But that’s why he’s such a great boss; he genuinely cares.
“Thanks, Boss,” I reply with a smirk, “I’m aware that even if you did know, you wouldn’t have been able to tell me. I understand that.”
“Good,” he smiles and sips his coffee as he then frowns slightly and adds, “I know it's early days yet, but have you managed to figure out anything to do with the Rylie case?”
Atlas shakes his head as he answers, “No, we’ve just been trying to pinpoint her check-in locations, and Peter has set up facial recognition now to see if he can find any useful information about what she was doing, who she was following, that sort of thing. As expected, it’s going to take a while to get any solid leads, but hopefully, it will give us something that we can follow to try and find out where she is and if she needs help.”
Mr R nods thoughtfully and replies, “Excellent work. I would be very surprised if she just couldn’t make the check-in though. She would have made contact by now. She was very particular about that sort of thing.”
“That makes sense. We’re just making sure that we’re looking at it from every angle,” I reply.
“As you should,” Mr R replies.
“And we’re hoping to get some more information from the guy Ever, and I tortured,” Jynx speaks for the first time.
Mr R smiles and then adds more seriously, “We’ve tried to get more information out of him since he mentioned Erberus Hunt’s name, but he’s stayed extremely tight-lipped, not willing to tell us anything of any importance. If anyone can get him to talk though, I imagine that it will be one of you three.”
“We're certainly going to give it a good go. We need some information out of him; otherwise, our investigation is going to stall before it really gets started,” Atlas replies.