"You are not going back there, Nora."
"We need the money, Mia," Nora responded in an exasperated tone. "We've already had this argument, remember?"
"We have money. You paid the rent," her sister argued. "Why do you need to go back?"
"We can't live off of that bounty forever," she argued. "We need food. We need to keep paying rent. We need to save up for when we can't stay here anymore. Don't you want to be able to live without having to constantly worry about whether or not we're going to be able to get by?"
"I'd rather be able to live without having to worry about you in bed with Miles Matheson," Mia retorted.
"I'm not sleeping with him," Nora countered. "It's just a job. That's it."
"Yeah, like sleeping with him in the first place was all just part of a job," Mia pointed out unenthusiastically.
"Exactly," her sister responded angrily. "That's how desperate I was Mia. I was willing to sleep with General Matheson and risk my life trying to kill him to protect you. This is better. It's a job and we need money. It's not up for debate."
"You said that you were going to stop leaving me here by myself," Mia argued as her voice suddenly dropped in volume.
"I will," Nora assured her, although she wasn't sure that she was even convincing herself. "Just not yet, okay?"
"When?" Her sister challenged.
"As soon as I can, alright?" Nora questioned. "I promise."
As soon as she could proved to be a longer amount of time away than she had intended as Nora developed a pattern of bounty hunting for General Matheson. It became a routine where she showed up, he gave her a new target, she tracked them down, then she came back and turned down his offer of a drink in favour of collecting her bounty and going home to spend what little time she could with her sister.
The routine was only broken when she came back to collect her bounty, like usual, only to have an unfamiliar soldier escort her to the general's office. She was about to ask where Captain Baker was when she stepped through the doorway to find Miles and Monroe, staring down at a map, in the middle of a heated conversation that was quickly cut short when they noticed her.
"Right, you want your bounty," Miles commented before downing the rest of his drink in one gulp, much to her surprise. She was used to him trying to talk her into staying. Something must be wrong if he was going to get it for her, unprompted.
Before he could leave to get it, she walked over and blocked his path. She swiveled her neck to try to catch a glimpse at what they had been arguing over as she questioned, "What are you two working on?"
"None of your business," Monroe grunted out in a tone that was even more irritable than usual.
"Some of our men got captured by rebels," Miles responded. "Captain Baker included. We're trying to figure out how to get them back without losing even more men."
Monroe glared over at him as he insisted, "She doesn't need to know this. She's not going to be of any use." If anything, Bass was sure she would just prove to be a distraction for Miles and he really was not in the mood to deal with that.
His words grated on Nora's nerves, so she studied the plans of the building where she assumed the men were being held. After a moment, mainly to get back at Monroe, she commented, "There aren't many exits."
"Yeah, we already got that ourselves," Monroe shot back at her in an annoyed tone.
"You didn't let me finish," she responded with a glare before she pointed back at the map and pointed down at a side entrance that was at the end of a long hallway. "This one looks pretty useless, but mess with it and it'll throw them off. They'll start streaming out of the other ones to try to figure out what's going on and then you only have to worry about the two main doors."
Miles glanced over at the other general in challenge. He was sure that her plan was better than his friend had been expecting out of her. Miles knew that Bass still wanted, at all times, to underestimate her or consider her a huge threat towards them, instead of just trust her. He, on the other hand, was willing to hear her out as he questioned, "And how do you suggest that we mess with it and throw them off?"
Nora wasn't entirely proud of it, but a small smirk crept on her lips at that. "We blow it up." Miles raised an eyebrow at her and she took that as encouragement to go on. "They'll think we're trying to get in that way. Why else would we be blowing the door in? So when they go out the other doors to try to go around and attack us, they won't be expecting there to be men waiting for them."
Her use of 'we' and 'us' did not go unnoticed by Miles and he had to smirk a little at it. And to think Bass had been so convinced that she would never be loyal to the militia.
"Who's going to blow the door in?" Monroe challenged, speaking only to the other man as if Nora had left the room. "We can't just blow the whole place up, we need to control the explosion if we want to get our men out. You know anyone with that skill that we can get this short-notice, Miles?"
"I can do it," Nora spoke up with a hint of pride.
"You can?" Bass asked skeptically.
"I'm good at blowing things up," Nora insisted with a small smirk.
"There any other skills you want to share with us?" Monroe demanded.
She looked between them for a moment and then responded, "Not at the moment."
A/N: Please read and review! Another giant thanks goes out to strangeJenny for reviewing last chapter! :D