Page 85 of Gambler's Conceit
I squeeze my eyes shut as the memories come back to me.
“Then one day… It was my friend Anabel. Polinski dressed her down in front of everyone. And then he told her to strip, because he didn’t like the way she was wearing the uniform, or some shit like that, and I just… I fucking snapped. Just months and months of listening to him do this shit, and I’d had enough.
“I beat him down, right there in front of everyone. Nobody tried to stop me. Nobody said ‘enough.’ But when the investigation happened… They all blamed me. Even Anabel denied what Polinski had done.”
Seven’s eyes have gone wide, and he stares at me. “I’m sorry, what?” he asks. “No one said anything? Not one person?”
I shake my head. “Not one of them. Because they knew if they tried to stand with me, they’d just get dragged down too. They didn’t want to lose their pensions or their benefits, however meager they are.” I squeeze my fist together and grimace at the pain. “Anabel told me she hadn’t asked for my help, and that I’d brought it on myself.”
“Well, Anabel was a shit friend,” Seven says, then swats at my hand. “Stop that. I’m not done yet.” He bandages my knuckles with a deft hand, quiet as he seems to mull over what I’ve just told him. “And it happened again? To someone else? Or are you still holding that shit with Polinskin against yourself for whatever fucking reason?”
I glare at him. “What? I got discharged for bad conduct and spent several months in jail. I’m basically unemployable, nobody will rent to me, and I’ve had to live off my mom’s and stepfather’s good graces and my meager gambling earnings for the past few months. And you just fucking saw what happened.”
Seven bites his bottom lip. “I…” He makes a frustrated sound. “I know it’s bad, but it’s not like you’re going around beating random people up. You’re not hurting innocent people like it’s some fucking game.” His lip briefly curls into a sneer before he seems to catch himself. “You fucked up. But it’s not the end. Irefuseto let this be the end of… of this. Whatever this is.”
“I guess it depends on how many people snitch this time,” I say, half-joking. Fuck, at least back at the base, it had been just fifteen enlisted in the room with me. This time there are cameras, and witnesses, andguests.
I don’t need a hospitality degree to tell me that this looks bad.
“Everyone’s gonna snitch,” Seven says. “Grant’s probably already dragged himself to Caleb’s office to complain. But it’s fine.” He doesn’t sound like he thinks it’s really fine. “Get your phone and call Caleb. Fuck, we should’ve gone straight there, shouldn’t we?” He sounds even more distraught now than he had when he’d tried to pull me off of Grant to begin with.
He leads me into the bedroom, where I grumble but I take my phone out and start a call to Caleb. I hand the phone to Seven, though, because I have no idea what to say. Seven curls up against my side on the bed while we wait for the call to connect.
Seconds later, we hear it ringing in the living room.
“Yes?” Caleb’s voice says, both through the phone speaker and from the living room, more muffled.
“Are you here?” Seven asks, bewildered.
“I am.” Caleb pushes the door open the rest of the way and leans against the wall, his phone still in hand.
“If you were here all this time, why didn’t you say anything, asshole?” I ask.
Caleb smirks at us. “I arrived twenty minutes ago. You two appeared to be having a heart-to-heart, and I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“Were you eavesdropping?” Seven demands, getting in front of me. “Because that’s fucking rude, Caleb.”
Caleb shrugs. “If the question is whether I heard all the details of your conversation, then the answer is no. I was looking for you, and you were both talking in the bathroom, so I turned around and left.”
For some reason I don’t understand, Seven looks more relieved than I feel by that.
“Grant was gonna grab me, or hit me,” he says without preamble. “Havoc stopped him.”
Caleb shakes his head. “Seven, I told you, that’s not how to negotiate. Don’t offer until somebody asks. What if I didn’t already know there was a problem? You just gave it away.”
Seven glares at him. “I’m not stupid enough to think that Grant didn’t go running right to you about it. There’s no ‘negotiation’ here. Just bullshit.”
“Grant told me nothing, because Grant had to go to the hospital to get his newly bruised face seen to,” Caleb says, and there’s no indication if he’s pissed about that.
Seven frowns at him, crossing his arms against his chest.
Caleb taps on his phone, and a few seconds later my phone dings with a new text. When I don’t move to check, Caleb says, “Go on. Please open the link.”
I sigh and click on the link he sent me.
One second in, I realize what I’m looking at.
It’s a video of Grant yelling at the server. It starts earlier than I even remember Grant speaking. Seven shows up to defend the server, and then I’m there, punching Grant and dragging him off.