Wrong Place (The Wrong Series) (11 page)

“Are you really taking pict
ures of me while I sleep? Who’s the creepy one now?”

“Creepy?
I was just going to use these embarrassing pictures to extort you with later on. How did you even know I was taking them?”

“Because I
, too, see everything,” Nathan said while opening his eyes and then winking at her.

“Well okay
,
Mr. See it all.
I’m going to go and get in the shower.”

“Oh
, no you don’t,” Nathan said as he jumped out of the bed and ran into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

“What
are you doing? I’m not taking a cold shower.”

“You will
not
leave me without any hot water today. The shower that I took the other morning was almost unbearable.”

“
If you come out, I’ll delete the pictures of you sleeping.”

“
I don’t care.”

“Please,” Sam
said in a sad and desperate voice.

There was a long silence
, and then the door opened up.

“Yeah
, okay, but just don’t use up all the hot water,” Nathan said and motioned for her to go inside.

As she entered
, she was a bit confused, to say the least. Apparently, men could be manipulated through a sad and pouty voice. What else don’t I know, Sam thought to herself.

* * * * *

In the early part of the afternoon, Jacob and Trish returned to Fields’ hospital room.

“We have the records
, and we found something pretty important,” Jacob said.

“What is it?” Fields asked
.

“They’re
headed to Atlanta, Georgia, to meet a man named Lee Higgins,” Trish said.

“What do we kn
ow about this Mr. Higgins?”

“He’s
twenty-seven years old, and he works for a small tech company in Atlanta, Georgia. Otherwise, there’s nothing that’s really significant about him,” Trish said.

“I want you two
to go after them.”

“When do we leave?
” Jacob asked.

“Right now.
”

“Yes, sir
. We’ll get it done,” Jacob responded.

“For your own sakes
, you better hope you do.”

* * * * *

Back at the hotel room, both Sam and Nathan had finished their showers and were on their way out the door when a very disturbing problem arose. They looked around in the nearly deserted parking lot for at least two full minutes before Nathan finally asked the obvious.

“Where’s
the car?”

Sam scanned the area
once more, and as expected, it was still nowhere to be found.

“It’s gone!
Great, this is just great!” Sam said in a panic.

I guess we really should
have stayed at a better place, Nathan thought.

“Can you call your friend Lee
and get him to pick us up here?”

“
Well, he’s at work right now, but I do know one person who might be able to help us out.”

Nathan dreaded
the thought of making the next call that he would, without a doubt, have to make.

“Good
. Make the call then,” Sam said.

“I’m sorry
, Zane,” she whispered to herself.

“He
y, Michael. I could use a little help. Is there any way you could come to Birmingham right now?” Nathan asked.

Chapter
11

While waiting for Michael to arrive
, Nathan and Sam went across the street to a small diner to get a bite to eat.

“So
who is this helpful friend who’s coming to get us?” Sam asked as they sat down.

“His name is Mic
hael, and he’s a little strange . . . okay, a lot strange.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I lived with the guy for almost two years, and let’s just say that they were the strangest two years of my life. He has some issues, but he’s a good guy overall.”

“Is he a
t least dependable?”

“He
is on the right day. I think that he’ll be here, as long as he isn’t distracted by something on the way.”

“So what you’re saying is th
at we may be screwed?”

“Yeah
, pretty much,” Nathan said and laughed.

“
I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Nathan said.

“What is it?”

“All
this craziness, you know like rescuing hostages, and running from evil organizations. Is all of this routine to you? I mean, how do you get used to it? Don’t you ever want things to just be normal?”

“Truthful
ly, I doubt that this much excitement is normal, but I really can’t say if it is or not. This is my first assignment, so I don’t exactly know what’s normal and what isn’t.”

“Wait
, so if you’re new at this, then I guess that this is new to both of us. I might just be as capable at these types of things as you are.”

Sam hadn’t really thought about it much
, but she really was as much of a rookie as Nathan was, although she was certainly a bit more capable than him, or at least that’s what she thought.

“
I’ve decided something,” Nathan said with determination.

“What
is it?”

“
After we get the flash drive, I want to continue on with you. I want to see this through to the end.”

“No way! Y
ou aren’t even supposed to be here with me to begin with.”

“Well
, what else am I supposed to do? I can’t go back home without taking the risk of someone killing me there, and honestly, I get the feeling that you could use a lot of help out here.”

“First of all
, why do you think I would need help, and second of all, we’ll put you in protective custody, so you don’t have to worry about anything. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“T
o answer your first question, it’s obvious that you’re a very capable person, but at times, you can be a bit hotheaded,” Nathan said and then was immediately cut off.

“Hot
headed? What do you mean hotheaded?” Sam asked in an angry voice.

“Well
, you’re pretty hotheaded right now. Also, if you had just stormed into the facility to get Driver, like you wanted to, you might be dead or worse by now. I can be an extra head to help you think when you’re in a difficult spot. Everyone needs some help from time to time.”

Sam knew it was true that she and Zane had been a bit rash when they made their initial plan, but they were only eager to rescue a colleague. Plus, Nathan had really underestimated her skill of infiltrating a place undetected. That kind of underestimation ticked her off, even if he meant well.

“Second of all, do you
really think I want to spend the rest of my life in protective custody? Finally, you say that you won’t let anyone hurt me, but who’s supposed to protect you? Sometimes even you need someone to watch your back, especially in a situation like this one,” Nathan said.

“Look
, it’s not that I wouldn’t want someone like you with me. It’s just that you aren’t an agent. You’re here by mistake, and I’m pretty sure that the CIA wouldn’t approve of you being here in the first place.”

“Right
now, technically you aren’t with the CIA either. You’re a rogue agent, remember? Look, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll flip you for it,” Nathan said as he pulled a coin from his pocket.

“Fine.
”

She really had no plans to let him tag along after getting the flash drive
, but why not let him flip the coin? He might lose, and then this whole situation would be resolved.

“Heads I’ll go with you
, and tails I’ll go into protective custody,” Nathan said.

He then threw the coin into the air and caught it in
midair. When he opened his hand, sure enough, it was heads.

“You’re still not coming
with me.”

“Okay
, well just tell me this. What if you recover the flash drive and they still don’t want you back, or worse, what if there’s nothing useful even on it? Then what do you plan to do? I look at it this way. I can’t go back to my family until this is all over, if it’s ever over, and you may or may not be able to go back your old life at all. So why not plan to stick together for now? It might just work out that way anyway.”

She hadn’t considered the po
ssibility that there might not be a way to go back to her old life, and honestly, none of this would be resolved anytime soon, so the odds of him being able to go back to his own life anytime soon were truly next to nothing.

Maybe we
should
plan to stick together for a while, she thought.

“Fine, but you’ll
at least need to learn to shoot if you’re going to stick with me,” Sam said.

“Great
! Wait . . . what?”

* * * * *

Michael was halfway to Birmingham, and he had brought a friend with him. His friend’s name was Jessica Rogers, and she was twenty-three years old. She had long brown hair, and deep brown eyes. In contrast to Michael’s 5’11 and 195 pound frame, she was very small.

“Thanks for coming with me
, Jess,” Michael said as he drove.

“No problem
. That’s what friends are for, right?” Jess said with a smile.

Friends. N
ow that was a word that Michael hated, at least when it came from Jess. He had asked Jess out a half dozen times in the past, and she had always said yes, but unfortunately, it had always been made very clear that they were going together just as friends.

“
So why does your friend need us to pick him up from Birmingham anyway?”

“He didn’t really say. He said
that the less I know the better.”

“What? T
hat doesn’t sound a little odd to you?”

“Yeah
, but it’s Nathan. I mean, I’m going to be there for him, and he’ll tell me what’s going on eventually,” Michael said.

“You’re too trusting
of people.”

“You’ll see when we
get there. He’s the most trustworthy guy I know.”

“
All right, if you say so, but you know that you just missed your exit, right?”

“Really? W
ell, crap. See, this is why you pretty much had to come with me. There’s no telling where I would have ended up otherwise,” Michael said.

* * * * *

Back in Birmingham, Nathan and Sam were hanging out in the parking lot of the hotel. It was fairly cold on that late morning.

“So I could get
the room for another day so we wouldn’t have to wait out in the cold,” Nathan said, while visibly shivering.

“No, your friend sh
ouldn’t be too much longer,” Sam said as she pulled her coat closed.

“I rea
lly don’t mind.”

Nathan’s teeth began to chatter. He didn’t have a whole lot of body fat
, so he had never done very well in cold weather.

“I bet you wish you had the jacket I got for you
right about now,” Sam said while laughing at him.

Nathan had
left the jacket in the car that was stolen. No way. The thief can have it, he thought.

“Well
, yeah. I do wish that I had it right now.”

Nathan said that so he didn’t hurt her feelings
, but the truth was that he was glad the jacket was gone. He would rather freeze to death than to wear such a strange coat.

“I have a question,” Sam
said.

“What is it?”  

            “All right. I know that you need to learn to shoot, but can you fight enough to defend yourself? I know that you were taken before at your house, but that guy was pretty big. I can’t really fault you for being overpowered there.”

“Of course
, I can defend myself. That guy just caught me on a bad day.”

“Uh huh,” Sam
said with obvious doubt in her voice.

“Hey
, I can prove it. Go ahead and throw anything you have at me.”