Intertwine

64 - Ali, You're Not Blinking

ALINA

"Nat, have you seen my Smith & Wesson M&P? " I asked, walking into her room. "I can't find it anywhere."

"Have you checked under your bed?" She asked me as she sat cross legged on her bed, leaning forwards over the papers spread around.

"Yes."

"The training room?"

"Yes."

She jotted something on one of the pages. "How about the kitchen?"

"Yes!" I cried.

She looked up at me for the first time. "Now I really am getting worried."

"You haven't taken it by mistake have you?" I asked, beginning to open her drawers and rummage through. She wasn't a very sentimental person and didn't really keep very much in her room, so it wasn't a hard search.

"I use Glocks, I'd know the difference." I threw her hand guns onto her bed to show me. "These babies never leave my side."

"Ugh!" I sat down on her bed.

"Mind the papers!" She shouted, shooing me off and making room for my butt. "You've crumpled them!"

I picked one up. "This is barely crumpled." I said holding it up to the light.

She snatched it back. "Shut up."

I sat down on the bed.

"She'll be okay." Nat said, giving me a quick look before going back to her work. "She's clever, and Loki will look after her."

"How did you?"

"Your necklace. She gave you that right?" Nat asked.

"Yeah, when I first came, we used the wood to demonstrate my aim with a gun." I said. "You were there."

"I remember. Very impressive. You hold the necklace when you think about her." She said, nodding to my hands.

I hadn't even noticed. My fist was wrapped around the small wooden disk, clutching it to my chest like a baby with a favourite stuffed animal.

I cleared my throat. "What are you working on?"

"I'm looking through the file Fury gave us, analysing fighting styles and approach tactics." She explained flipping over a sheet of paper and scanning the words on the other side.

"And?"

"They're chaotic. They know our thought process, that we dive in when we see them come up, and they've been using it to their advantage. But here, look, remember the prison developer who Axel met with? Roderick Penny?"

"Yeah."

"Well here's a photo of him from 30 years ago, 1983." She passed me a piece of paper. "And look who he's with."

"The man from the video. The one who killed Fiona." I said. He looked much younger, maybe in his twenties, light brown hair swept back and an expensive suit on.

"His name is, or was, Anton Albright, Ascendency code name Wheel. Had a daughter too, her name was Elizabeth. She died under mysterious circumstances when she was eight." She tapped on the photo. "They're making a business deal here. Albright was selling his patent for a type of dynamo, the same one used for the prisons that Penny builds."

"Did they make any other deals?" I asked, picking up another piece of paper and looking through it.

"No but Albright attends all of the prison openings, goes around to make sure the dynamo is working properly. He's not a scientist though, has no formal training." She explained, passing me another piece of paper. "And this is his wife, Alissa."