“You’re okay; you’re going to be okay; I won’t let anything happen to you."
She looked up at him and gripped his hand. The stares lingered for a moment, and then she sighed. “I know, I know. Thank you.”
Mack pulled her up, keeping her hand in his. She didn't object or flinch but instead held on tighter.
"So, what do we do now?” she asked fearfully.
“The next part is beyond us, but I know just who to call.”
Brie watched him pace the room waiting for a call to connect.
“Hello? Lauren? Thank God, I need your help.”
The pacing stopped, and Mack began to talk into the phone while Brie looked at him.
He finished with his call and hurriedly made his way toward her. The distance was closed faster than normal, and he paused when he got to her. He stared at her for a moment before finally speaking.
“Hey Brie, can we have your phone for a moment?”
Something wasn’t quite right about how he said that.
“We?”
Just then, as if on cue, there was a knock at the door.
“Ah yes, that would be him.” Mack walked toward the door.
“Brie, this is Lauren.” A burly man walked in after Mack; his face was almost all hair, a single mass of curly brown on a set of shoulders. Brie could only tell his eyes apart from everything else from the glasses struggling to stay on.
“Hello, miss, not to worry, I’ll be out of your hair soon.”
Mack came up to her. “Lauren here is going to need our phones for a moment.”
“A simple thing, miss. I just need to clone them; it won’t take too much time.”
“Clone our phones?” Brie asked, looking at Mack
“Excuse us, Lauren,” Mack took Brie out of the room, leaving Lauren with the phones to work.
“Lauren’s a civilian, Brie, a skilled one, yes, but I don’t want him in all this deeper than he has to be. His cousin works in digital forensics; he’ll take the clones and a note to them, she’ll know what to do.”
“Which would be?” Brie’s confusion was painfully evident
“Heck, even I don’t know, but those texts bother me. Hopefully, she can pin something to them or where they came from."
All throughout the conversation, Brie’s hand grabbed at his wrists, her knuckles starting to turn white.
“Mack, what happens if they get to me if the other one gets to me?”
“None of that matters. No one is going to get to you. Please don’t think about things like that.” His hands shot up to cradle her face. “I won’t let them get you, not again; I promise you, you have to trust me, Brie.”
“I do, I do trust you,” she replied.
CHAPTER TWO
A knock came from the room they left Lauren. “He must be all done,” Mack said as he turned to leave. Just as he got to the door, he turned and walked back to kiss her hand before going.
The room bore down on Brie, and she held one hand in the other, not sure exactly what to feel at that moment.