Free Devil Inside by Brandy Isaacs Page B

separated the kitchen area from the living area.  Seeing that she was finding calm, Levi opened a cabinet and removed a bottle of Jack Daniels and two glasses.  He sat opposite her and opened the bottle, Harley watched him poor a few swallows into each glass.  He pushed one towards her and she accepted it gratefully.  Now that the numbness that came along with the shock was wearing off she needed something to help numb the feelings that were threatening to overwhelm her.  She wanted to take the edge off as much as she could before the walls finally came crashing down.  She took a deep breath and swallowed half of what was in her glass.  She shuddered and blew a shaky breath to relieve the fire that followed the liquor down.  She could feel the heat of the drink spread through her limbs and begin to warm the chill that radiated from inside her.  Levi drank half of his drink and turned the glass slowly between his hands.
                  “OK.  Talk to me,” Harley prompted.  “What the fuck was that?  Who were they?  What did they want?  And where are we?”
                  Levi took a deep breath, “One question at a time.  I’m not entirely sure what they wanted,” he admitted.
                  Harley felt her hackles raise and she slammed her fist on the table, “Bullshit!  You know SOMETHING,” she insisted.  “Who are you?”  She knew it wasn’t fair to be this mad at Levi.  He had helped save her life but she couldn’t help but take her frustration out on him.  She was suddenly, painfully, aware of how little she knew about him.
                  Levi looked at her steadily.  “I guess a better question would be WHAT am I?” he responded looking away from her to stare out into the blackness beyond the kitchen window.
                  Harley watched him bewildered.  “What does that mean?”  Harley braced herself for the answer.  CIA, NSA some other set of letters she had never heard of, surely.  How in the world did this actually happen?  This wasn’t some movie.  Stuff like this doesn’t actually happen in real-life, Harley thought to herself.  Not for the first time that night she wondered if she had lost her mind or had been drugged without her knowledge.
    He rubbed his face with both hands and looked very tired.  He took a deep breath sitting back in the chair and folded her arms across his chest.  “I’m a part of a group called the Nocte Preasidio.  It’s Latin for Night Guard.”  He held eye contact with her and she refused to look away.  The look on his face was of calm confidence.  She could tell he wasn’t eager to tell this story, but judging by the look on his face he was laying it all out there.  She sensed a challenge behind his narration.  As if he was challenging her to believe the story he was going to tell her.
                  “And that is what exactly?”  Harley forced herself to be patient.  She felt like they should be doing something, not sitting here and talking.  They needed to talk to the police.  They would want to know what happened.  She would need to explain how she got away.  She didn’t know what she was going to tell them when they asked her why she left.  She felt the sharp pain of the reality of what had happened.  It was pushing at the cracks in the barrier.  It wouldn’t hold much longer and she would have to face what had happened.  Every time she came close to acknowledging it her breath caught in her throat and she felt a sharp pain slice at her stomach that sucked her breath away.  She struggled to deal with one thing at a time and she was getting more agitated because this was adding one more thing to all that she was having to process.
    Growing more frustrated, Harley waited without saying anything, her jaw clenched painfully.  “You are going to have to have an open mind and hear me out,” he began hesitantly.  “And you are probably