Chapter 10
Elena felt the cold trigger beneath her fingers; she was preparing herself to pull it. Then, she was immediately glad she hadn't, when the person in front of her stepped forwards, where she could clearly see it was Rude.
"Hey, hey, hey 'Laney." Reno said, stepping up behind her. She felt his hand on her shoulder. "I dunno if it's a written rule or what, but you don't point a gun at a team member… it's not a good way to be sociable."
"I'm so sorry…" Elena said quietly, her heart was beating at an extraordinary rate, and she could hear her pulse in her head. "I just…"
"Nah, it's ok. You're on your toes, stayin' alert. Nobody's gonna get at ya for that." Reno told her, he lifted his hand off Elena's shoulder and looked at Rude. "Ya find anythin', partner?"
"I think we should check this place out again tomorrow." Rude said. Somehow, Elena was relieved to hear his husky voice, as though proving to herself that is really was him.
"What ya found?" Reno asked casually.
"Nothing yet, but people around here have been suspicious of this part of the docks for a while apparently."
"Why's that?"
"Nobody I've asked is really sure; this part's been off limits to civilians for a while now."
"Ok, sure." Reno shrugged his shoulders, "We'll check it out tomorrow."
"It's not going to be anything dangerous, is it?" Elena piped up.
"No, 'Laney, don't worry yourself. This is your first mission; we don't want you murdered before we've even given you a real job." He grinned, making Elena slightly uncomfortable.
"Did I ever tell you, you suck at making people feel better?" Rude said, walking past him. Reno looked slightly shocked for a minute, and then followed him, Elena at his heels.
When they re-entered the hotel, Elena went straight to her own room. From the look on Reno's face, he was beat, and definitely ready for sleep. Elena walked down the corridor on her own; unable to shake that jumpy feeling she had in her heart, like she was expecting something bad to happen. She just put that feeling down to the events of the day; she had been shaken up quite a few times.
Elena opened her eyes, ignoring the blinding light from the window. Looking at her alarm clock, she saw it was 8:30am. Probably time to get up. It didn't take her long to get up, washed and dressed, and then she made her way down to Reno and Rude's room.
For some reason, Elena was hesitant about entering Reno and Rude's room, so she knocked anyway.
"Come in." she heard Rude's voice from within. She turned the door handle and opened it, revealing Rude sitting on his bed, and Reno on a bed across the other side of the room, seemingly asleep.
"Shouldn't he...?" Elena began.
"Leave him." Rude interrupted. Elena nodded and sat down next to Rude, still looking over at Reno. He looked like a different person when he was asleep, it was quite funny. All the usual arrogance he had etched into his features and the sly smirk that was usually on his face when he was awake was gone, replaced by an innocence of some sort. Elena slapped herself mentally when she found she struggled to tear her gaze away from the redhead.
"We can't do anything till he wakes up." Rude said bluntly, nodding in Reno's direction. Elena looked at him questioningly.
"Why don't you just wake him up?" She asked.
"Try if you want." Rude said, giving Elena a rare smile. "You'd probably have more luck waking up someone that's been dead for 5 years. Even if you did manage, he'd be in a bad mood, and you do not want to go on a mission with Reno in a bad mood."
Elena stared at Rude briefly. The news of Reno's sleeping habits was not so shocking; he seemed that kind of person, but that was the longest sentence she had heard Rude say since they met. He was starting to come across as the kind of person who really had a lot to say, but preferred to leave Reno do the talking, when he obviously enjoyed it more.
"What's the matter?" Rude asked.
"Oh nothing… just thinking…" Elena said. She really had been doing a lot of thinking lately; about Reno, about the Turks, and about her life in general… all the while trying to come up with an answer. The only problem was, she still wasn't sure what the question was.