I finally got what she was throwing down. “You think they’re here to stave off another attack.”
“If something goes wrong, yes,” Anna said with a head nod. “But the guys and their little secret clubs? They take that shit seriously. I won’t be able to get my brother to say anything, but I’ve hung around them long enough to be able to read between the muted lines of their faces.”
“You should teach me how to do that,” I muttered as I looked around, only to find the girls standing behind me.
Silently.
Listening to us speak.
“We’re going to be okay, girls,” Anna said to them over my shoulder.
“Do we know when they’re gonna be back?” Em asked softly.
Anna just shook her head in defeat. I could tell that the motion killed her to even execute.
I wondered if she was worried about Brutus.
“This is so fucking stupid,” Amanda said as she finally approached us.
Ariel was hot on her sister’s heels. “Fuck them if they feel like they can’t give us answers. What the hell are we gonna do about it? Follow them? We don’t even have that capability!”
“She’s right,” Jasmine said as she approached the fold, “I don’t like this ‘keeping stuff from us’ thing. I mean, we’re the ones in danger, right? Shouldn’t we also know the stuff that’s happening, in case it puts us in more danger?”
Anna held out her hand. “That’s exactly what I tried to convince my brother of, the stupid, hardheaded asshat. If we’re the ones in trouble, we deserve to know what’s going on. Keeping us in the dark doesn’t help us, it makes us spin our wheels and then if something does happen, we’re too damn tired from not sleeping over our brains spinning that it won’t make a fucking bit of difference.”
The tension was growing and that wasn’t good. We had to settle down before there was a damn mutiny on our hands. I was frustrated because I missed Doc, sure, but my time with the military taught me how to deal with commanders and officers that sparsed out information like that for the betterment of the detachment.
I held up my hand. “What do you guys say to a movie marathon?”
The girls all paused and slowly looked my way.
“What?” Anna asked.
I shrugged. “Look, it sucks, the situation we’re in, but it’s not going to change. We have to trust that the guys have this all under control. We all got out of Doc’s place alive because of the men they are and the way they have prepared for every angle. We’ve got proof that it’ll only be the same way here, too.”
Em’s shoulders deflated a little bit. “She’s got a point.”
“Plus,” I said as I held up my finger, “I think all of us have snacks and letters in these bags to read. I think the best thing to backdrop all of this would be a nice Harry Potter marathon.”
That immediately captured Jasmine’s attention. “Could we watch all of them? In succession?”
“What if we fall asleep?” Ariel asked. “Will we pause the movie?”
“I’m sure there are sodas in the kitchen,” Amanda said as she started down the hall, “let me go see what we’ve got stocked.”
“I love movie marathons,” Jasmine said as she peeked back into her bag, “and I’m eating all of this fucking chocolate. I don’t care what anyone says.”
“I’m still pissed,” Anna said as she looked away from us. “All of this is fucking stupid.”
It didn’t take a genius to spot the fact that she was the only one without a bag.
“You stay with her,” Amanda muttered in my ear as she patted my shoulder, “I’ll get her a bag of goodies made up and bring it with me.”
I looked at her and nodded my thanks before the girls backtracked, leaving me with Anna.
Who was still just staring off at the window down the hallway where we were perched not too long ago.
“Wanna help me set up the living room for our movie marathon?” I asked as I offered her my arm.
