There Will Be Freedom (not mine)

3. Rio

MADDIE POV

I shut the door to Justin's office and tried not to listen to his phone conversation with Jeremy. I desperately wanted to-I always did.

I slowly went downstairs and found Jaxon in front of the TV. I plopped down on the soft green couch next to him.

"What's up, Bug?" he asked me.

"I'm bored and I don't have to be at work for another few hours."

"Go read. Isn't that what you always do?" he snickered.

"No," I said in an annoyed voice, "I have a life."

I actually did like it on this island, even though I wished sometimes that I had more interaction with people. That was what the bar was for though. I could work a couple nights a week and feel like I was important and not just wasting away. The only problem was it could get incredibly boring on long days, such as this, when Justin was busy playing with money of whatever the hell he did. Cabin fever was starting to set in. But I chose to be here. This place was better for Justin and me. Here, on the island, we were free and could just be Maddie and Justin.

"We could go for a swim," Jaxon suggested.

"You look ready." I noticed him in nothing more than swim trunks. That's all he ever wore these days.

"I was planning on it later after my movie goes off."

"I don't want to swim today."

"Let's go shoot something." He got overly excited. "Justin bought me a new gun the other day. I can't wait to try it out."

I didn't really have any choice in the matter. Jaxon took my hand and pulled me from the couch roughly. We went to Justin's very special 'gun room' and searched through the wide array of options. Everything was ordered and coordinated to Justin's specific guidelines.

"Can you not break anything?" I warned Jaxon, "You know how he gets."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Over the years, I had become somewhat of an aficionado in things that went 'boom'. Justin called me a small dynamo with a gun. I certainly had more of a love for them than I used to. I knew the makes, models, size, weight; almost everything about every piece of firepower made. That was all thanks to Justin, but I studied hard.

"I love it here," Jaxon sighed in awe as his hands traveled over the smooth steel of guns.

I tried lifting a large semi-automatic off of the wall, but it was too heavy for me and I stumbled backwards. I was still determined to use it and tried to act like it wasn't a problem for me.

He snatched it from my hands easily. "Silly, Maddie. Small girls can't handle big guns."

"I can so. I choose not to," I said stubbornly.

Jaxon gave me a smaller one. "There you go. A military grade Beretta 7301."

"It's a girl gun." I weighted it in my hand.

"You do have a vagina, don't you?" He smirked at took the larger one for himself.

"I swear, you get more like Keegan every day." I shook my head, grabbing a couple of rounds for later and following Jaxon out of the room.

I grabbed my sunglasses on the way and put them on as the sticky, humid heat that had become a constant in my new Brazilian home started to make me sweat instantly. Thankfully, the one thing I never had to worry about here was my hair. It didn't frizz for whatever reason.

It was the small pleasures that counted.

"Wow, it's a hot one out today," Jaxon observed, like I couldn't feel it myself. "Should have brought a bottle of water. Oh and Justin said I could go with you guys into the city. I need a few things."