“Two days, six a.m.”
I take a screenshot of the coordinates and then put them into my laptop, finding out where it is. The circle ring in the middle of the screen shows that it’s loading, and when it finally comes up, I narrow my eyes.
“It’s two hours away.”
Which means I’ll have to get up around four. Not that it’s a problem, I run on little to no sleep anyway. I press print on the directions and close the laptop, standing up and collecting the sheets of paper from the printer before walking out of the warehouse as I tell them, “I have work to do.”
I don’t have work to do, but I need to get inside my safe room and decide what I need to adapt on my car.
I have cameras, recording devices, the whole thing is bulletproof; but one thing I can’t do is fight back. My car is made for defense, not offense. I need to install something—something that will take anyone down that tries to get to me.
I know, I know, I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
My mind is already working on overdrive, figuring out what weapons I can install and how I can put them inside the bodywork so that they can’t be detected.
As soon as I open my cabin door, I lock it behind me and set my laptop down on the desk next to my computer screens.
My eyes wander to the floor where I know my hidden hatch is and I walk over and lean down, pushing my palm into the invisible scanner that lights up when it recognizes my palm.
The sound of several locks unclicking sounds around me and then the four floorboards slide one way as the brushed steel door that sits underneath it slides open, the lights in the safe room flicking on.
I walk down the first ten steps before scanning my palm from the inside, causing the doors to close. My eyes scan the whole area when I’ve made it down the next ten steps.
The whole space is bigger than my cabin, twenty feet underground and lined with steel that’s impossible to get into. I have a long desk set up with more monitors along the wall on the left, a board above it that has several pieces of information pinned to it.
The wall in front of me and to the right is full of weapons: guns, grenades, small rocket launchers, and many, many more. But it’s the last wall that is my favorite.
I walk toward it, typing in the twenty-five-digit code on the pad that sits on the empty wall. The brushed steel slides open, and much like when I first came into the safe room, the lights flick on, illuminating the twenty-by-twenty-foot space. Now, for me, this is heaven.
All of the equipment that I’ve made, adapted, or bought, lives in here. There isn’t anything in here that you can get from mainstream places. Every single item has my stamp on it.
This? This is where the magic happens.
I step inside, collecting several bits that I’ve been working on before closing the door behind me by punching in the access code again.
I set the pieces on the table that sits in the middle of the main room with six white chairs around it. I then collect a couple of rocket launchers off one of the weapon walls and add that to the pile I’ve already made.
I sit down, pulling open the invisible drawer that sits under the table and grab my car blueprint, trying to work out where I can place them.
Up until now, I’ve built my car to protect me, to keep me safe. But now it has to be a weapon in itself too.
I sit behind the main desk in the community center, listening as Evan teaches his self-defense class. I say listening; what I really mean is watching intently.
When he walked in the main door after not being here for nearly two weeks, I didn’t have a clue what to say.
The last time I saw him, he was running away from me after he attacked me with his lips. Not that I didn’t like being attacked by his lips; I liked it… a lot.
It’s been a week since then, and I haven’t seen him once, but as soon as his honey eyes set their sights on me, it was as if we’d only just seen each other yesterday.
He planted a kiss on my cheek and winked, telling me he had to go and set up for his class.
That was a few hours ago, and in that time, I’ve cleaned the whole center, fixed a few last things that were on the list Roy gave me, and now I’m sitting here, staring at the class and willing it to be over so that I can talk to Evan.
I don’t want to be one of those needy girls, but I do need to know where I stand: where we stand. I’d like to think I can do the whole casual kiss thing and be able to flick my hair and be okay with it, but I’m not.
The chatter of the women as they come out of the room has me whipping my head away from the closed door and clearing my throat as I shuffle papers around, acting busy.
I step into the office when the last one leaves, making sure all of the jobs are done. Like I haven’t already checked that several times. Why the hell am I so nervous?