Chapter Ten - Trading Secrets
Hugo opened his eyes slowly, sluggishly sitting up. The room was very warm and the only light was the one shining from under the door. It took him several moments to climb out of the dream and back through memories to remind himself why he was there. Right. He was a murderer. Hugo wiped his hand across his face and pushed his bleached hair out of his eyes. He checked his watch; it was late. He didn’t like the idea of leaving the room, but he felt lightheaded and his stomach was cramping from hunger. He needed to eat something, even if the idea was appalling. He reluctantly left the bed and cracked the door open. The virtue of the hour was that there wouldn’t be many people around; he didn’t feel like he could carry on a conversation with anyone right now.
He made it to the cafeteria without passing anyone. The lights were at half-strength, but CJ was there guarding a basket of bagels. She stopped attacking the one in her hands to look up at him as he entered. Hugo glanced behind him, but decided it was too late to leave the room. “Hi,” his voice was scratchy and thick. He coughed a few times and repeated the greeting more clearly.
“It looks like you’ve stopped being crazy,” CJ said warily, tilting her head at him.
“Probably not,” Hugo sat at the table across from her, plucking a plain bagel from the bunch. He took a cautious bite from it and even as he started chewing he thought he was going to be ill. He set the bread product down. Maybe he could get a juice instead.
“Yeah, but you’re not a robot anymore, so that’s less crazy to me.”
His smile in response wasn’t exactly enthusiastic, but it existed. He stood long enough to grab an orange juice out of the fridge, and then returned to his seat in front of CJ. He wanted to climb back into bed, but knew the conversation wasn’t over.
The almost-16-year-old girl continued to devour her bagel; Hugo watched the crumbs fall to the table in small flakes. Even as she ate, she was watching him, eyebrows drawn. “Why didn’t you take me with you?” She finally blurted out the question.
Her tone made him want to apologize for anything and everything he’d ever done. Looking at the table, he traced the edge with his thumbnail, “He can…could change a person’s thoughts; I was worried he was going to do something to you.”
CJ’s response was sharp, but she didn’t raise her voice, “And what about you? Did you think he was just gonna leave you alone?”
Hugo’s head sunk, he watched the condensation slide down the aluminum can of juice. “I can remember everything, I thought if he changed anything I could remind myself what I’d really been thinking.”
“You’re not allowed to do that anymore, you hear me?” Her voice was both firm and brittle.
Hugo jerked upright at her commanding tone, staring her squarely in the eye, “What?”
“I’m your bodyguard and from now on if you do something stupid, you’re going to take me with you, understand?” She jabbed her finger at him, and then threw her arms in the air, “I could have helped you! And if I hadn’t come after you, those monkeys would have killed you!” Her hands balled into fists as they fell back in her lap, “You freaked me out and you’re not allowed to do that anymore. I know I don’t always understand what’s going on, but it doesn’t matter because you asked me to be your bodyguard. Got it?” She leaned forward pointedly.
Hugo nodded, the small smile returning, “You’re right.”
“I know!” CJ grinned, and then stuffed more bagel in her mouth.
He tentatively took a few more bites from his bagel with slightly better results.
CJ’s eyes lit up. “Wanna know what happened to Clem?” She didn’t pause for an answer. “Christian had to go pick him up! Apparently he was in some random hotel all super drunk and Christian had to take him to a rehab center. I guess the head dude there is one of us and he’s really really good at straightening people out.” The girl nodded appreciatively.
Hugo set the bagel back down with a sigh. Great. He’d caused even more damage. Clem would probably never come back to Gideon Enterprises, maybe even thought he’d been lying and had really gone to the hospital to kill all of those people; not that his intentions mattered when the outcome was so clear.
“How are you doing?” Hugo asked softly.
“Fine. The monkeys kinda creeped me out, but I kicked some garbage cans and now I’m over it.”
Hugo opened his mouth, but nothing sensible came out, so he closed it again. What could he say? She was 15 years old and he’d already exposed her to so much death. He hadn’t meant to. The one person she should be talking to, the person who could help her, wasn’t there because Hugo had killed his brother. He could say he was sorry, but that didn’t nearly cover it, so he just drank his juice and then went back to sleep.
The Sound of Wind Page 46
