00070. A conversation with concerned parents.

00070. A conversation with concerned parents. AnnouncementSorry about last week, I said I would post another chapter and I didn't. The chapter I was writing just didn't want to work right and took way to long to write. That being said, I should post another chapter this week sometime. Also I started working on a new story... It's a secret for now and will be posted to patreon first to get some feed back on it. But I will probably post it every where else in a month or so.

To say Melina was disappointed would be an understatement. The fact that Alexei was imprisoned here and hadn't escaped yet was the main reason for her disappointment. While it was one of the most remote and 'secure' prisons in the world. The security or what passed for it was a joke. The only thing that made this place hard to break out of was the location.

It had only been a few days since she was visited by that man. She frowned as she walked down the hallway towards Alexei's cell. She should have actually listened to what the man had to say, she should have used her training and collected as much info as possible. Instead she was unnerved by the man and his ability to read her so easily.

She shook her head as she stopped in front of Alexei's cell and looked inside. He was seated on his bed as he looked at a picture. For a moment she just watched him before she stepped inside as she asked, "What are you looking at so intently?"

Alexei's head snapped up to look at her, the hard edges of his face softened slightly as he recognized Melina. He held up the photo in his hands, it showed him and Melina with two young girls in front of them.

Melina sat down next to him as she asked, "He visited you as well?"

"Dah."

She studied his face for a few minutes before she asked, "What did he say?"

Alexei glanced at the woman next to him for a moment before he turned his attention back to the photo. He looked at it for a few moments and then said, "A job and a chance to see the little ones again."

"He offered the same thing to me. If I accepted, I was to meet him in the red room in a few days."

Alexei nodded his head as he said, "He told me I had till tomorrow and he would come back for my decision."

Melina glanced at Alexei then the photo in his hands as she asked, "Have you made up your mind?"

Alexei chuckled as he asked, "Have you?"

They lapsed into a comfortable silence for almost an hour. The only thing that happened was Melina leaning over and Alexei wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

Melina's voice broke the quiet atmosphere as she asked if a voice laced with trepidation, "Do you think it's really possible? That we could be together with the girls again?"

Alexei tightened his grip reassuringly on her shoulder as he said, "Let's wait here for him to come back and then ask him. If we don't like his answers, we don't have to join him."

Melina glanced up at Alexei as she asked, "What about the girls?"

"We will take them with us."

Melina frowned slightly as she said, "He's powerful, I don't think we can if he says no."

Alexei shook his head as he said, "It’ll be fine. He said he was like me, he has a hero complex. If he really does, he will let us have our girls."

Ezekiel laughed as he said, "No, we work for ourselves. Technically the world doesn't even know we exist."

Alexei glanced at Melina for another moment before Melina said, "You are being very talkative for someone from a hidden organization. What if we don't agree to join you? Aren't you afraid we could leak information about you?"

Ezekiel shook his head as he said, "No, we have a few ways to remove that information from your mind."

Both Melina and Alexei shared a concerned glance and tensed up slightly as they looked back at Ezekiel. Ezekiel raised his hands slightly as he said, "Look it's only a worst case scenario. Plus you would keep your memories, they would just be altered."

Ezekiel gestured at Tao as he said, "This conversation would change to something completely different and me and Tao would look like new people. I know that doesn’t sound reassuring, but we need to keep our secrets.”

Melina placed her hand on Alexei’s which made the man glance back at her for a few moments before he nodded his head. Melina then looked back up at Ezekiel as she asked, “What do we get if we join you? You said we would be reunited with our daughters, but you never said anything else.”

“That’s because you didn’t want to have a normal conversation with me the first time.”

Melina crossed her arms over her chest as she said, “I was on edge because you just showed up at my house randomly and could somehow read my hidden hopes I had buried in the back of my mind.”

Ezekiel gave her a deadpan look before he said, “Anyone with half a brain could piece together your hidden desire if they read your psych profile and found that photo album you didn’t exactly hide away.”

“I... I never took the time to think about it like that... That was a stupid mistake on my part.”

Ezekiel nodded his head before he pointed back at Tao as he said, “Yes, yes it was. It also helped that we looked into the future and were shown that in more than half of them, you both worked with us. Natasha joins us about ninety percent of the time and Yelena joins us about sixty percent of the time.”

Alexei’s eye’s narrowed slightly as he said, “You told us we could take our daughters if we refused to work with you.”

Ezekiel shook his head as he said, “You asked what would happen if you didn’t work with us and just wanted your girls. My exact answer was, ‘I guess I'll give you some money, so you can start a decent life somewhere.”

Ezekiel watched them for a moment and as soon as Melina and Alexei tensed themselves to possibly attack them, Ezekiel said, “The main reason I never said the girls were going with you, is because that is not my choice to make. Natasha and Yelena need to make the choice to join you or join us.”

Melina was still tense as she said, “They are just kids, they shouldn’t be allowed to make that kind of decision.”

Ezekiel gave a hollow laugh as he said, “You know damn well that any girl who has been in the red room for more than a year is not really a kid anymore. The fact that they just passed their ‘trust test’ just hammers that home.”

Melina looked down in shame as Ezekiel shook his head and said, “All of those girls are going to need a lot of work and therapy to become somewhat normal, Natasha and Yelena included. I plan to help them with that, but it would be easier if I had both of your help.”

Ezekiel along with Tao watched quietly as Alexei reached over and clasped hands with Melina as they shared a private conversation for a few minutes. Once done, Alexei looked back at Ezekiel as he said, “We will join you, but we want to be able to spend a lot of time with Natasha and Yelena.”

“Deal.”