Natalie saw her mother out the front door while I dreamily watched television. She awoke my curiosity when she returned to the lounge with a huge bund...e of bed linen in her arms. On the carpet towards the fire Natalie spread out a large doona. She placed two stacks of pillows at the end of the doona away from the fire. In response to my questioning look she told me there was nothing better than laying in front of the fire in winter, letting the heat soak into her bare skin. To prove her point. Everything that he needed was here. In moments, he had a complete database, and he pulled up a three-dimensional map of the city on his visor. It was like a maze, winding streets and plazas creating a complex, interlocking web. That was to say nothing of the underground metro lines, and the above-ground walkways that weren’t shown here.He needed to either join up with his squad, if they were even alive, or he needed to exfiltrate. He wouldn’t last long if he remained in the city center while. I gave her the rest of the week off from work, and told her to just stay at my place and relax and not worry about her job, I would tell the bank president that I had okayed her leave, and that she was recuperating from an accident.I had told him that it was an accident on her bicycle, and she would be fine, just bruised. Nice thing about being young and fit is you do recoup really fast.The next week, with the aide of a little makeup, it was almost impossible to see that she had been beaten.. The stars are taking over, slowly.I look up at the light streaming from the window and tap my foot on the floor, ‘come on, come on,’ I repeat in my head, ‘switch the bloody light out.’Then I see a body flop onto the bed. Just the lower half from the waist down. Her legs are strewn across the bed with her ankles just off the edge and facing me. Her pink panties are hard to ignore in the mirrored glass. I rest my head on the back of the chair and take in the sight of her body. Not believing what.