Gifted Connections 4

If Fake Troy had known Troy well enough to imitate his mannerisms or was a better actor, we never would have known a thing, and stopping any kind of attack would have been too late.

I stuttered to a stop when I saw Troy. His build was unmistakable in the back corner of the room. He had a black hat pulled down low over his forehead and a pair of dark sunglasses on. Even with his disguise, I could see the left side of his face was one big bruise. When he reached for his coffee cup, he grimaced and switched to his left hand. His mouth was busted, so he winced when he sipped the hot liquid.

He looked up suddenly and shuffled to his feet. He embraced me and immediately sagged against me. “Oh honey, I love you,” he mumbled under his breath.

I staggered under his weight. “I love you too. What’s wrong?” I asked in alarm. “Those five men did this to you?”

He laughed and then gasped sharply in pain. “I may have exaggerated slightly. There may have been more than five men.”

“Let’s get to Noah,” I asserted. “He’ll fix you up in no time.”

“What’s happening at the base, and why couldn’t I go to the birthday party?” Troy continued to lean on me.

“How about we fix you up first?” Noah insisted before he placed an arm around Troy’s back.

“Away from here,” Remy maintained as he looked around the coffee shop. It wasn’t busy by any means, but everyone was nosey in this small little town.

It was hard not to notice my guys. Especially when they were together. I still couldn’t believe that they were mine. Well, nearly all of them. I still expected Lincoln to cut bait and run.

As I looked over at him standing in line, I wondered if he realized he still wore a bright red mask around his eyes and a red cape. It worked for most of the night. We only noticed a few people showing a little more than a casual interest in him tonight.

“Let’s go,” I finally agreed. “We can catch up on the way there.”

“Come on, Jax, let’s go help Linc get those coffees,” Drake said. “We’re probably going to need them.”

“Should we order some food?” Jaxson asked as they started to walk away.

Jace started to laugh. “We just had ice cream and cake a couple of hours ago. You cannot possibly be hungry again.”

“One, as a matter fact I am. Two, I need to bulk up more. Three, we might want them later on. Four, it was more of a rhetorical question, not an actual question,” Jaxson said with a smug smile.

“I can go for a banana nut muffin,” Remy stated with a small smile.

“Ohhh yes and a blueberry muffin.” Jaxson snapped his fingers.

“Let’s get them and get out of here,” Drake said in exasperation.

“Please do,” Troy grunted in pain.

The way back to base was a lot longer than usual. We had to head east and approach the base from the opposite mountain. The road had ended and turned into dirt. We found the track through the woods and pulled onto the one lane path. It was

rough and bumpy, but it was the only access we had to the second mountain.

We were relieved to see the guard still at the shack. The shack was less a shack and more like a glorified She Shed. They had access to television and computers, even had a little mini fridge.

They never made us operate them, but I had seen them. The back shack wasn’t that strict. All they had to do was make sure no one entered without the proper credentials, and they weren’t allowed to sleep.

“Hey, Masters,” Remy said as he leaned out the window and showed his badge.

Masters was one of the Nons we trained with from time to time and a likable guy. He was generally quiet and kept to himself.

“Hey Murphy,” he replied back. “I’m glad to see you guys!”

“Thanks,” Jace said from the front seat. He leaned across the center console. “Did you already give my dad all the info you could?”

“I did,” Masters said with a grimace. “I got a call from Darren right after everything started going down. He said to remain silent until he let me know the situation was handled. However, I know he manually unlocked the entrance from this side.”

“Hopefully they didn’t find out about it…yet,” Jace frowned.