Page 43 of Broken Warrior
It’s quiet, peaceful, dark.
This place is old and has a certain level of charm but it never really felt like home, not unless Fin was here.
I hit the kitchen first and start a pot of coffee. I’m going to need it but Nadine has a very strict routine and if I don’t walk in with her mostly cream and sugar cup of joe, a glass of orange juice, and her pills, she won’t take them and it’ll turn into world war three.
Once the pot is brewing, I tiptoe down the hall and frown when I notice Fin’s bedroom door is cracked. It’s never open, not even a little, and I know he keeps it locked most likely because of his mom, but it’s strange to see the heavy door slightly ajar.
Must have been a long night.
I peek into Nadine’s room, the woman scowling even in her sleep, but she’s out like a light and to be totally honest, I don’t plan on waking her unless I have to. Nine AM is my cut off, but the later she sleeps in, the better our chances are that her mood is somewhat decent.
My footsteps slow as I pass Fin’s room again, my stomach tightening to the point of pain.
It really isn’t like him to leave the door open whether he’s home or not, and it has me a touch frazzled that I can almost see into that forbidden cave.
But I ignore my curiosity and anxiety and head back to the kitchen to see what I can make for breakfast.
“Jeez...” I mumble to myself. Fin needs to go shopping. He was supposed to go yesterday after I pointed out how he barely even had the essentials but it doesn’t look like he grabbed anything other than Chinese takeout at some point.
I’ll just have to give him shit as a reminder when he gets up.
I count out Nadine’s pills and put them in a cup, pour the orange juice, and set it in the fridge. I’m not going to wake her yet but I like to be ready. If she wakes up before I come to check on her, Nadine starts yelling for Mac to come downstairs so they can have breakfast and when he doesn’t show, she gets pissed then turns into a nightmare. That’s usually how I know she’s awake.
After her pre-breakfast is set, I pull some pancake mix from the cupboard and set out everything I’ll need, then it’s off to the bathroom to get things in order for her shower.
It’s still a little humid, the mirror covered in condensation around the edges. It smells like Fin’s soap, his shampoo, and there are little bits of shaving cream in the sink. Maybe he had a long night with Nadine, grabbed a shower, and passed out without locking his door? Granted the bathroom has horrible ventilation so Fin could have showered hours ago and it’d still be like this, but I bet that’s all it is.
Too bad I can’t seem to convince myself that it’s true.
I slow to a snail’s pace outside Fin’s room again, then take a few cautious steps toward the door. When I peer inside I see nothing but a very dim light coming from behind the door, one that barely illuminates an enormous and unmade bed to the right. I can’t see anything beyond the foot of the bed but I can tell it’s huge, it’d have to be to accommodate Fin, and I definitely see that it's a disaster, the pale yellow sheets and comforter hanging off in total disarray.
I’ve always wondered what color his sheets were.
Maybe that’s weird but there’s a quality to Fin that doesn’t quite fit the brooding, grumpy, dangerous biker thing he’s got going. It’s not just his softer side either. I’ve seen that enough to know that it fits with the rest of him but there’s something else, a meticulousness about him that makes me think there’s a trait just under the surface that goes against everything else that is Fin, and for some reason I thought his sheets would give me some insight. Messy is a surprise but the color isn’t. I mean, it is, but only because I would have expected black or gray to match his mysterious side but again, I know there’s more to Fin than that.
“Fin?” My curiosity wins out as I knock on his door. “Fin... it’s Tate.”No shit. Gah, I’m such an idiot. He knows my voice by now and if it isn’t me then it’s Jackal but that guy doesn’t knock to save his life. He’s walked in on me peeing more times in a matter of months than I’m comfortable with.
There’s no response and I consider leaving, but between the desire to know what his room looks like, to take a little peek inside his mind, and the growing feeling of dread over his door being open, I don’t. Instead, I knock one more time then push inside.
The natural light from the hall streams in and my god, this is not what I was expecting.
Heavy blackout curtains hang over two large windows and in between them is a very long wraparound desk that takes up most of the far wall. On top are four different computer screens, a couple of keyboards, lots of very full ashtrays and empty beer bottles amongst a ton of other shit I can’t identify.
On either side of the bed are nightstands piled high with books. Classics, poetry, ancient history, quantum physics, computer coding, and even a couple in different languages including Latin. There are clothes all over the floor, two pairs of biker boots, what looks like an empty gun belt, and possibly a pair of handcuffs.
Wow.
Apparently there is a lot about Fin I don’t know.
I push the door open all the way and step inside, announce myself one more time and that’s when I catch sight of two things that make my stomach flip.
The wall next to the door is a goddamn armory.
It’s like a door-to-wall curio cabinet, but instead of knick knacks, it holds guns and knives, hand grenades, baseball bats full of nails and wrapped in barbed wire. There’s even something that looks like a medieval mace. No wonder why he kept his room locked. It’s basically a military grade command center and weapons locker.
The other thing that makes my brows lift is a small section of wall between another slightly ajar door and the window. It’s a huge corkboard and on it are pictures of faces I hoped to forget.
Valetti.
