Untrained Eye by Jody Klaire Page B

fear of
what happened with Yannick, her other issues will rear their head.” She sighed.
“And you’ll get to see just how irritating and pig-headed she can be.”
    “She made you mad or something?”
    Frei gave me a tight smile. “She’s made you mad which is why we’re
in the gym.”
    Okay, so some of what she said was getting through. I hadn’t even
realized it myself ’til she did. I was locked up in a pillow prison because I’d
helped her. I didn’t regret helping her, not one iota, but I was mad that I’d
had to. I was mad that she’d lied and I was mad that until she saw me have a
heart attack, she was happy to cut me off.
    “Not just her.”
    Frei nodded. “No, you’re mad at everything because that’s how you
survive when you don’t know what’s going on.”
    Man, she was good. She was better than any shrink. “That why
you’re mad all the time?”
    “You don’t want to know.” She got up off the weight bench and
squeezed my shoulder on her way past. “I like you, Lorelei. I get you more than
you realize.”
    I turned to see her in the doorway, not a patch of sweat on her
top. I looked like I’d been caught in the sprinklers. “Pick up your violin on
the way out. I want you back on duty tomorrow.”
    She liked me?
    Frei shook her head at the dumb expression I must have had on my
face. “Doesn’t mean you’ll get flowers, Lorelei.”
    She shut the door on her way out and I went over to check the
weight rack she’d been using. I tried to lift it for good measure. I couldn’t
help but smile at the thought in my head. Frei a machine? Nope, a machine had nothing
on her.

 
    Chapter 8
     
    FUNNY HOW WALKING out of the clinic felt as though I was escaping.
Kinda like when I’d left Serenity Hills, I got the feeling somebody was gonna
haul my butt back inside.
    Nobody did though.
    I shivered without my jacket as I stood there, waiting to be
escorted but no one batted an eyelid at me. They’d returned my clothes at least
so now I was in the clothes I’d been in when running. Black cargos, boots, and
a t-shirt with my name stamped on it, because they must have figured I was dumb
enough to forget my own name.
    The main drag was busy. People hurried from building to building.
Frei’s office was opposite and I looked up at the top window, assuming that’s
where a general would be. From a slave to a general, that was some going.
    I rubbed my cool arms and decided that the escort wasn’t gonna
turn up. I had to have one everywhere before. Maybe I didn’t need one
anymore. It would have been nice if someone would have talked me through
everything but that would take communication. It would be logical. It would
help me know what I was and wasn’t allowed to do. Least if I broke the rules
then, I’d know I’d done it before guards with guns showed up to escort me to
get hollered at.
    The wind whipping down from the snowy mountain top stung my cheeks
as I trudged down the gritted sidewalk. Renee must have been on duty as she
weren’t there to meet me. A few folks cast glances at me, either ’cause I was
Lilia’s kid, or the fact I was in a t-shirt.
    A few minutes later I stopped outside the door to my quarters. A
concrete slab, next to lots of other concrete slabs. Lorelei was chiseled into
the heavy door. I stared at it half expecting to see the sticky notes that had
been used in Serenity. The ones that told the guards just how unfriendly the
wild animal locked inside was.
    Renee’s place looked empty so I took a hot shower, changed into
something that wasn’t military, and opened up my violin case. I’d missed it. It
was sweet that Renee had dropped it off for me.
    I picked up the violin and ran my hand over the wood. Perfect time
for revisiting a friend.
    Time kinda flew by and before I knew it, the heavens were filled
with a twinkling starry sky. I peered out from my window and smiled up at it.
There was nothing like a canvas of nature’s glory.
    A breeze tickled my arms and I