a flying fuck. All I give a shit about is where my daughter is!”
“What about the rest of us? I have a fucking daughter that I can’t even see!” Jack yells back.
“Then leave and go sit with your daughter! I ain’t keeping your ass here. You want a job, you fucking stay. If you don’t, fuck off, Jack!”
“You’re being stupid as fuck!”
Tony punches him right in the face and that seems to be Jack’s final straw. He lunges at Tony, but before he can do anything, Delta grabs him and shoves him to the ground before putting a knee on his back. Tony doesn’t really get the whole fighting fair thing as he kicks Jack right in the face. “Anyone else have a fucking problem with this? I’ve sacrificed a lot for all you dickheads. I have pulled each and every one of you off the streets and this is how you fucking repay me? Instead of twiddling your fucking thumbs, get out there and help me find her!”
He whirls on another guy as Shepherd pushes me behind him and slowly starts to guide me back out the door. I can hear Tony yelling as we start down the hallway, but the moment he starts screaming about me, Shepherd pulls open the door to a supply closet and pushes me into it before shutting it behind us, immersing ourselves in darkness.
“We’ll just let him calm down a bit, alright?” he asks.
“Where the fuck did he go? Someone find Shepherd for me,” Tony barks.
I lean against Shepherd as I hear a door slam shut loud enough that I jump.
Shepherd wraps an arm around my waist. “It’s just like hide and seek.”
“But if you’re found, your ass gets kicked,” I add.
He snorts. “Yeah, it’ll probably get kicked either way, but if you wait, he’ll be less angry.”
I nod, preferring that. I can’t help but let my attention drop to the arm around my waist. It feels strangely comforting after everything that’s happened. It’s been so long since I felt like I could rely on anyone.
“What if we ran away?” I ask, wondering how, yet again, I’m asking someone to run away with me. The time with Rose was a mess. She wanted one thing and I wanted another. If only I had known how it would go, would I have done something different?
“You want me to leave my life for you?” He seems to find this highly amusing. “You’re not that cute.”
“Funny,” I snap.
He lets out a soft chuckle. “So was you asking me to run away with you like a lovesick teen.”
I lightly elbow him in the gut, no longer caring about the arm holding on to me. Actually, I want to shove it off just out of spite. “Do you have any friends?”
“Oh, man. So many that I can’t even keep track of them. There’s Abby and Benny and Carter—”
“You’re just going down the alphabet.”
“That’s just how many I have.”
“What are their middle names then?”
“Eugene.”
“For all of them?”
“It’s a requirement to be friends with me.”
“You’re so full of shit,” I say.
He clamps a hand over my mouth and listens for a moment, like he couldn’t just shush me. He waits for a bit, then pushes the door open and peeks out. Then he drags me out after him.
“Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“My room.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I ask as he sneaks me off to his room.
“A little. You have to understand that being a guard for Tony is boring as fuck. It sounds exciting if you watch the movies, but really, I just stand around contemplating life. Some days I just stand there praying that an assassin comes through the door so I can try out my amazing skills, but it’s rare.”
“Assassins are rare?”
“Very.”
“How long have you been a bodyguard for him?”
“Since I was sixteen.”
“Really?” I ask in surprise. “So you’ve been with him that long?”
“Longer, he actually pulled me off the street when I was fifteen because he caught me beating up some of his guys.”
“At fifteen?”
“I was a troubled child,” he says as he pulls open the door to his room and shoves me inside before locking it. “I had an addiction to beating the shit out of people because it made me feel something. It gave my anger and hatred an out. I wasn’t a very good kid.”
“Really? I assumed since you were an upstanding adult, you’d have been an amazing kid.”
“You’re an annoying shit, you know that?” he asks.