Page 58 of Run

On the wall opposite the beds was a small flat-screen TV, a tall cubby with coat hangers, a desk with one drawer, and a dining chair. Everything was made of MDF with a blonde wood veneer. Sturdy, it was not. On the wall above the beds, two cheap prints showed London attractions. Neither hung straight.

“We should have taken separate rooms on the same floor.” Ryan stared at the three beds in horror. “Where the hell are we all going to sleep?”

“Not all of us are going to sleep,” Callum said. “We’ll take shifts, keeping an eye out for trouble. And to watch him.” He pointed at Abasi, who saluted him.

“It could be worse,” Elle said, trying to lighten the mood. “The place is clean, there’s free Wi-Fi and internal parking, and Megan bought me a laptop.” She patted the machine Megan and Dimitri had handed her before they left Marcus’ safe house. When Elle had thought they were upstairs, going at it on every bed they could find, they were actually out buying her a laptop.

“We got the memory upgrade,” Megan said cheerily. “And we picked the one that’s easiest to customize. That way, if you like it, you can add bits or upgrade crap to make it more like your baby.”

“It’s perfect, thanks. Waaaaay better than the last one. It was already glitching on me.”

“Technically, you should be thanking David,” Megan said. “His credit card paid for it.”

“I’ll pay you back,” she told David from the other side of the room. She’d been trying to keep as much distance as possible between them, which was kinda hard in a room that barely fit three beds, a dresser and a mini-fridge. “The last one wasn’t a bad choice. It just wasn’t suited to what I wanted to do with it. I appreciated it though.”

His jaw clenched, but he didn’t reply, which was fine with Elle.

“Okay,” she said. “Looks like the girls are bunking together tonight.” She turned toward the other room, which was even smaller than the one they stood in.

“Guess that means I’m sleeping on the floor through there, then.” Abasi followed her.

Dimitri went from laid-back American to full-on predator within a fraction of a second. “You’re not sharing a room with my wife.”

Abasi appeared unfazed by Dimitri’s threatening demeanor. “Marcus ordered me to watch over his sister. If Elle’s in there, so am I.”

“Then so am I,” Dimitri said with finality.

“Uh…” Elle held up her hand to speak. “One question. If you and Megan are in the same room, what are the chances of you being able to keep your hands off each other?”

“Slim.” Megan snapped the bubblegum she was chewing. “We’re exhibitionists. We can’t help it. Also, we can totally multi-task. We can have sex and guard you at the same time.”

“Technically,” Dimitri said with a despairing shake of his head, “she’s the exhibitionist. I’m the enabler.”

Ryan scrunched up his face in the universal expression for TMI. “You two need boatloads of therapy. You know that, right?”

“Okay,” Callum snapped, clearly exasperated. “Megan and Dimitri in the private room. The rest of us out here, where we can all keep an eye on Abasi while he keeps an eye on Elle.”

Elle stared at the three beds. “That isn’t going to work.”

“I tell you what isn’t going to work,” Megan said as she came out of the bathroom. “One toilet and one shower for seven people. There aren’t enough towels to go around either. I pity the family that gets stuck in here. There’s no space to move, the only person who’ll comfortably fit in the shower is Elle because she’s tiny, and I suspect the walls are made of cardboard. You can hear everything through them.”

“Maybe we should go back to reception and ask for more rooms,” Ryan said, his gaze also on the three beds.

“Suck it up,” Callum told him. “You were in the army; you’ve suffered worse.”

“Don’t know if you’ve noticed, boss, but I left the army because of this crap. Sleeping on shitty beds, feeling cold all the time, getting blisters from all that bloody marching. That’s why I went private, so I could sleep in a decent bed, wear shoes that didn’t hurt my feet, and eat meals that didn’t come liquidized in a metallic pouch.”

“I’ve figured out how we can make this work,” Elle said in an effort to keep the peace. “I’ll sleep on the floor. I’m small and can make a pallet out of the pillows. That leaves three beds and four men. One of you will always be awake, so you can rotate. How’s that?”

“Not going to happen,” David said. “I’ll sleep on the floor. You get the bed.”

“What he said,” Callum agreed, eyeing Ryan. “Elle can have the bed farthest from the door. You want to check the other two beds to make sure they’re soft enough for you?”

Ryan gave his boss the one-finger salute.

“Or,” Megan said, “you could shove all the beds together and sleep in a big puppy pile.”

Callum pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered something about how much he suffered. Once done with his pity party, he pointed at Ryan. “Go get food, drinks, and toothbrushes.”