A Ruthless Victim by Nadia Siddiqui (best chinese ebook reader txt) 📕

day of searching, and slowly walks the three blocks back to the motel room that he’s renting. He doesn’t know how long he plans to stay there. He doesn’t know if the company is going to send somebody after him. He’s unarmed; he left everything in that rental car in case somehow the company decides that he’s too much of a threat to be bothered with any longer and turns him over to local authorities. He won’t be surprised. If it were him, and he were tasked with the mission of tracking down a M.I.A Doe agent - that’s where he would have started, posed the whole thing as a bullshit missing persons search to enlist the help of local law enforcement without drawing too much attention to himself. Then again, perhaps the company knows exactly where he is. It seems unlikely that they will let him stay; he’s already dallied long enough without checking in. Turning off his phone after that last assignment had brought such a strange feeling with it. He can’t say that it’s liberating, nor is it only fear. He’s not sure what word to place on it.

He’s contemplating that same phone, still tucked into the nightstand drawer next to the bible that all motels seem to keep. He’s thinking about what will happen when he turns it back on, if he chooses to turn it back on at all, as he arrives back in front of the door with the metal ‘seven’ nailed cheaply to it. The number is slowly rocking from side to side, as if somebody slammed the door behind them in a great rush, or conversely, somebody went running down this hallway with an impressive speed. Nathan’s gut tells him that it’s the former of the two.

He is not afraid as he pushes the door open, two fingers against the wood as he silently curses himself for not even having a knife on him. Just in case. The light in the bathroom across the room is illuminated, just as he left it. The bedsheets are still tucked in neatly, and the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign is still hanging from the doorknob to keep housekeeping out of his personal belongings, but there’s something off. Nathan doesn’t have any bags; he didn’t bring anything with him. He bought a pack of black t-shirts at the convenience store when he arrived just so that he would no longer smell like rubble, but those are just how he left them on the desk as well.

Somebody has been in this room; he’s absolutely certain of it. The question is whether they are still present or not.

Casually, Nathan flicks on the light switch and doesn’t bother closing the door, just in case he needs to make a swift getaway. The lamps are bolted to the walls above the beds so they won’t be any help, and he simply just doesn’t see the television as being any real help to him as a weapon or an efficient shield. He will have to rely on his bare hands. That’s alright; he’s more than trained in that capacity.

On the bed, is his phone. Which is not at all where he left it. The drawer isn’t open, but he’s willing to bet that inside of it, the bible will now be laying face down instead, just another sign that sweepers have passed through here. A team that Nathan has only met face to face one time, but they were a rather cynical and somehow superstitious lot, didn’t like anything of religious connotation.

The message is clear. He doesn’t need to lift the phone to know that it’s on. He knows that there will be a message with coordinates waiting for him in the otherwise empty inbox. He knows that there will be a location saved into his map and that the photos will be filled with brand new surveillance footage of the next case he’s supposed to be working on. He knows these things because he’s woken up to the exact same setup for a new case more times than he can even remember. This is the life he lives, like it or not. The message is clear, return to work. We have found you; we will always find you.

On the bathroom counter next to his lonely toothbrush is a brand new leather toiletries bag that will not have any products inside of it. Nathan knows that bags like that are almost always used to hold cash. They will pay for his room and his transportation because they aren’t cruel. Nathan doesn’t know why this sudden need to discover himself has risen, but he cannot hide from it either.

Perhaps the smart thing would be to simply message the company, to tell them that there must be something wrong with his conditioning package. That perhaps some of the work that they no doubt have done to him needs to be corrected. He should tell them that he’s slipping, that he’s having difficulty concentrating. That for the first time in probably years, he’s wanting to ask questions that he has no right to ask. He should text those things right now, but he doesn’t.

He doesn’t do anything but neatly pack the items that have been provided for him into his pockets and extract just enough cash from the leather bag to cover the cost of the room as well as his lunch for the afternoon. The rest he will tuck away. Nathan silently moves to the lobby, pushing the familiar charming facade over his features, and checks out, leaving a hefty tip. He leaves the lobby and crosses the street to the covered parking garage, only to find that the black car he drove all the way here is no longer in the spot where he left it.

Nathan is really starting to despise busses.

The phone in his back pocket vibrates subtly, and he’s almost nervous to read the message.

‘We are not in the