Kismet by T.B. Markinson

Author:T.B. Markinson [Markinson, T.B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: T.B. Markinson
Published: 2020-11-30T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

Allison

I sat in a room consisting of white walls, a wood burning stove, and a twin-sized bed. Aside from the stove, which provided plenty of heat, I’d consider myself a political prisoner in some type of hunting lodge.

Since I wasn’t allowed to have any electronics, I read one of the paperbacks I’d brought. Before leaving New York, I had stopped in a bookstore and picked up copies of The Secret Man, the story of Watergate’s Deep Throat, The Pentagon Papers, Dark Money, and No Place to Hide, about Edward Snowden and the NSA.

I had no idea if any would be helpful for whatever waited me outside this room, but the more time I spent in seclusion, the more my anxiety dramatically increased.

The weird thing was I couldn’t wait to make that leap.

I’d grown up revering investigative reporters, going all the way back to Ida Tarbell and her going after JD Rockefeller. The Gilded Age was ripe with excess for a select few and nothing but pain and hardship for everyone else. Today’s world was becoming frighteningly more like the age of the Robber Barons, with the gap between the haves and have nots becoming nearly unbridgeable unless something major snapped.

I flicked the pages of the book on Snowden, lost in thought, when the door opened to reveal Janey.

Perking up on the bed, the dour-faced woman shook her head. “Not yet.”

She had a red folding camp chair and sat down in it by the stove. “I spend the majority of my time waiting for people to either shit or get off the pot. It’s an exhausting dance that hardly ever has a payoff.”

I rested my back against the wall, setting the book down on the other two.

She craned her head to read the titles and laughed. “Trying to prepare for every eventuality.”

“Yes and no. These are the typical books I gravitate toward.”

“You’re like a mini-JJ but taller. Much taller.”

I shrugged, not wanting to show my appreciation for the comparison because JJ was another one of my idols. Which was the main reason I wasn’t completely freaking out about my current situation. Just slightly. One could only contain their humanness to a certain degree.

“How’d you end up on this one?” Janey picked at a thread on her flannel-lined jeans.

Again, I shrugged.

“Right. You don’t know what this is yet.”

“Do you have a way to communicate with the outside world?”

“You know I do.” She gave me a bored expression, as if she expected a lot more from someone JJ handpicked.

“I need to send a message to someone.”

Janey puffed out her lips. “No can do. Strict orders.”

“Please. It’s completely innocent, but if I don’t get a message out, it’ll ruin something…” What exactly did Dagny and I have?

Janey fixed me with those cold eyes. “Are you asking me to break the rules all for a girl?”

“I absolutely am.” I wasn’t surprised she knew I was gay, since it was out in the open. Besides, Janey was the type to hack into all of my email and social media accounts.

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