the door slammed, he walked back over to where Skylar and her mother waited. “I’m sorry this has happened, ma’am. I wasn’t with them, so I don’t know what happened, but I do know that even though it doesn’t seem like it, you’re safe,” he said as he moved behind her and started lifting Valor’s shirt off her head.
As soon as the shirt was off her head, Becky blinked against the light hurting her eyes and reached out for Skylar. Skylar hugged Becky’s legs as she looked around the living room and into the kitchen that could be seen from the living room. Then she turned to face Two.
“Thank you,” Becky said as she looked at the very large, very nice man standing in front of her.
“You’re welcome,” Two said, smiling warmly at her. “I never liked it much when I was little and all the adults were yelling. I figured the best thing for me to do was to get you both in here so they could keep yelling at each other. You don’t need to hear all that mess. What’s done is done. All you want to know is why and when you can go home again. And I’m not gonna lie to you, that probably won’t be real soon, but if you do still want to go home after we find out why you’re here, I’ll make sure that you do.”
“I’m going to lose my job,” Becky said. “I can’t afford to lose my job.”
Two thought about it. “If you do, we’ll take care of that. We’ll help you get another job.”
“I want my job. I need to go back to my life,” Becky insisted.
“I know. But all I can do is promise you that I’ll make it okay if you lose your job, and if you don’t want to stay here.”
“I don’t,” Becky said.
“I know, but it’s gonna be a little while,” Two said. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’ll make it okay if you just try to be a little patient until we can figure it out. Valor doesn’t usually act like this. He’s the nicest one on my whole team.”
Becky nodded, realizing she had no hope to just turn around and go home. “I’ll try to be patient, but I can’t stay here. We don’t belong here. And you may think Valor — is that his name — is nice, but he just forced us into a vehicle against our will, and now we’re here. Also against our will.”
“I know,” Two said. “It makes me mad. That’s why I’m going to help you soon as I can.”
“Thank you, Two. Can you at least tell me where we are?” Becky asked.
“You’re in a duplex. And like I said, I live next door. Unless I’m at work, I’ll be close if you need anything, and even then I’ll be close. I never leave Alliance.”
“Alliance?” Becky asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Two said.
“I’m Becky, please call me Becky,” she said, wanting to be nice to the only person that had made her feel slightly at ease since they’d been snatched. And he seemed concerned about the fact that the others were scaring Skylar by shouting at each other.
“Hello, Becky,” Two said with a smile.
She responded with her own smile, though strained. “Where is Alliance?” she asked.
“In Texas. We’re on a big ranch. Most everybody here just minds their own business. Some of us are very nice, and some others are just trying to make it day by day, but nobody wants to hurt anybody else. Well, except for the doctor and his assistants. We all kinda want to hurt them. No, that’s a lie, we all really want to hurt them,” Two said, nodding to affirm his statement.
“Why do you want to hurt a doctor?” Becky asked, feeling more uneasy again.
“Because he made us what we are. He’s mean and cruel. He deserves to hurt — a lot.”
“I don’t understand. Made you what? You’re just a man,” she said.
Two smiled sadly as he shook his head. “No, ma’am. I’m Variant. We all are.”
~~~
“He’s right. Yelling at each other like that in front of that little girl is just going to make her more frightened,” Nina said.
“Of course, snatching her and her mother off the street didn’t scare her to begin with,” Steel said.
“I’m just saying there’s no reason to make it worse,” Nina said.
“She’s right,” Feral added.
“Valor, what the hell is going on in your head to put us in this situation?” Lethal finally asked once he got