No Pain: Book 1

Chapter 7: Star

            The sun wakes me before the smell of bacon does. Still groggy, I climb out of the bed and make my way down the stairs "that better be maple bacon, Najee..." the name falls when I come into the kitchen and the face doesn't match. The night before floods back to me, John smiles self-consciously, considering he's only in his boxer briefs.

"I thought you'd never wake up." He inches toward the table. I shake my head

"I've seen worse." I shake the image of Marco getting out of the shower, my shower stark naked and sitting on my bed just to get under my skin. I shiver most frightening moment of my life. I take a seat at the table. John looks like he might ask, but he thinks better of it.

"How long was I out?" I pick a banana from the fruit tray and peel it from the bottom.

"You eat bananas like Najee." John chuckles.

"You miss Najee too." I bite into the banana, I can't believe I missed that look the first time he spoke about Najee.

John shrugs "he's off doing his own stuff now, I just don't have it in me to do what you guys do, I'm not brave, or fearless."

I laugh, nearly spitting my banana at him. "Fearless? I don't know what lies Najee has told you, but each of us has a phobia." I finish the bite of banana "Najee is terrified of water, but not like a pool, like the ocean and puddles and Keller can't stand to be near spiders, she had to crawl through some vents once and ran into a spider and Kader had to go and save her from it." I laugh "Then, Kader is absolutely petrified of stink bugs. Don't ask me why, I couldn't tell you but he was trying to get into one of the most secure bank in the world, I can't tell you which bank, but there was a stink bug on the door and he and Najee had to switch roles at the last second." I laugh harder and smack my hand against the table at the memory. It feels good to laugh, I haven't felt so light since the team and I made it back from the last mission we completed together. We just sat watching the worst movie ever and eating burned popcorn but we were just together.

John's watching me, and the realization that that might never happen again, dawns on me. The thought sobers me up pretty quickly. I go back to my banana and John pulls on some jeans and a shirt and finishes the bacon.

"Your bacon tastes just like Najee's." I say.

"We were taught the same." John eats a yogurt.

"So, how do you and Najee know each other?" I build a camp fire with my bacon strips.

"We grew up together." John says like it's obvious.

"You mentioned you were his ...brother?" Looking at him it's clear that they couldn't be any different. Najee was dark featured, his black hair, his dark Indian skin and eyes so dark they looked black unless they're in direct light, then you can see tiny flecks of gold around the center of his eyes. John has blonde hair, green eyes and skin so pale it looks like he might glow in the dark. John laughs knowing my thoughts stupid soul reader.

"Adopted," he clarifies, "my family was on vacation in India. Najee was digging through trash cans. I went over to him because I couldn't fathom why someone would want to do that." He shakes his head at himself "I didn't know that some people needed to do that to survive." John stirs his yogurt "my parents knew I was a soul reader the day I was born, they sheltered me so thoroughly I didn't know what I was looking at when I finally did come across someone bad." John's eyes glaze over for just a second before he shakes himself "When I first met Najee's eyes I saw good and, I didn't know it then, but sadness, the kind that goes so deep it made me ache just seeing it. I started to cry when I saw it and I had no idea why." John looks at my eyes. I drop my gaze to the table, I don't want him to see what's in my eyes, Najee never did tell me anything about himself before the compound.