Hi, my friends!

It’s Wednesday excerpt day.

Thought we could all use a nice chunk of Connection Concealed this morning!;)

Happy reading,

Sigrid

“Finally,” El snarled at the guard who led Louise into the bunker. She was sitting at a conference table. “What took you so long?”

She pointed at a chair. Louise assumed the gesture was meant for her. She shuffled to the table and sat down across from El.

“Ma’am, she has no clearance. We had to make sure she wasn’t armed,” the guard answered, sounding a bit stunned.

El waved at him dismissively. “Leave us.”

Her mood certainly had not improved in the 10 minutes or so it had taken to search and scan Louise. They hadn’t found anything on her, of course. The terminal was still in El’s office after all.

“Yes, ma’am,” the guard said nervously and stepped out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

The sudden silence in the room was deafening. All Louise could hear was the humming of the ventilation system. She felt her mouth go dry. El closed the notebook that had been lying in front of her.

“I’ve been sitting here, thinking,” she said, more calmly than Louise had expected. El had an uncanny way of going from genuinely upset to perfectly composed.

Louise put her hands on the table. They were trembling again. “I know I have a lot of explaining to do,” she said with difficulty.

El picked up one of her old-school pens and fidgeted with it. “I have a question I want you to answer first.”

Louise looked down at her hands. “Okay,” she replied.

Much to her surprise, El got back up and walked around the table. The sound of her heels echoed in the bunker. She pulled back the chair next to Louise and sat down.

“I need you to be completely honest with me,” El stated.

Louise shifted in her seat, turning towards her. There was no anger in El’s eyes. If anything, she looked uncertain. Louise nodded slowly.

El searched her face for a long moment. She straightened and closed her eyes briefly as if urging herself to continue.

“Okay,” she said finally, her voice slightly less steady. “Let me be blunt. Why did you have sex with me?”

Louise’s lips parted in shock. She blinked a few times before she stammered, “W-what?!”

El ran a hand through her curls. “Why did you have sex with me?” she repeated.

“Because I’m in love with you,” Louise thought. The words had popped into her head out of nowhere. Her cheeks started burning.

This was a question she had not seen coming. She had been ready to talk about Hobbs, Michelle and the Global Coalition’s plans. That would have been a difficult discussion for sure. But this? This was impossible.

She moved her hands to the edge of her chair to hide that they were shaking. El rested her elbows on the table. She took in a deep breath. “I’m asking because…” She stopped.

Louise’s mind was struggling to come up with something to say. Something other than the truth that was still echoing in her head. Her heart was drumming in her ears. “Just say it, just say it, just say it,” it seemed to be singing.

“I really need you to say something,” El said.

Louise swallowed nervously. She wasn’t even sure her voice would still work. The back of her throat felt like sandpaper. “I didn’t expect this question,” she finally managed to stutter.

El’s shoulders dropped. Louise knew she had disappointed her. She balled her hands into fists. Telling El the truth was just not an option, though. She simply couldn’t.

Being honest about how she felt would ruin her, she instinctively knew. She was already a traitor. She had slept with the enemy after all. But admitting she had fallen in love on top of it, was one truth she would never confess to anyone.

“Okay, you know what,” El sighed. “Never mind.”

El pushed herself up a little too quickly. She almost tripped over the legs of her chair. Without thinking, Louise grabbed her arm to help her keep her balance.

El spun around, pushing Louise’s hand away furiously. “Do not touch me!”

Louise stood up and reached for El again. “No, no,” she pleaded. “Wait.” She managed to grab El by the shoulders.

El tried to wrestle herself out of Louise’s hold, but Louise was clinging on for dear life now. “Please,” she begged. “I can’t say it.”

This gave El pause.

“Can’t say what?” she asked, her eyes searching Louise’s.

“Don’t make me say it out loud, please,” Louise whispered. She lifted her hand and stroked El’s cheek. El let her.

“I don’t understand,” El said. The corner of her eye was twitching again.

Louise blew out a shaky breath. She thought her knees would buckle any moment. “If I tell you, I won’t survive it,” she blurted out.

El arched an eyebrow. Louise got goosebumps from embarrassment. That sounded way more dramatic spoken out loud than it had inside her head.

“I mean,” she tried again, “If I tell you, it’s real. But…” She ran her fingers through El’s soft, bouncy hair. “It will hurt too much.”

Louise felt a chill run up her spine. This was her real story, she knew. She had fallen in love for the first time since Michelle. But she knew her heart would be broken again. And it would happen very soon.

El covered Louise’s hand with her own, leaning into the touch. “I need to know if this is real,” she whispered.

“It was,” Louise replied.

El froze. “Was?”

Louise sniffed loudly. “It is! It is real,” she hurried to say, “But…” Tears stung her eyes.

The frown on El’s forehead deepened. “But you have to leave,” she said quietly, reading Louise’s mind.

“Yes, and soon. We’re leaving early,” Louise replied before taking a moment to consider her words.

El took in a sharp breath. Her hand dropped. Her mouth opened slightly. Her eyes glanced left and right. She was clearly thinking things through. Louise used the moment to study El’s cheeks, her neck, the hummingbird pendant. She tried to memorize every single detail.

“Is this why you asked me to stop the inspection? You don’t want to leave?” El finally asked.

Louise shook her head. She let her eyes rest on one of the white walls of the bunker. It was empty apart from the Fireblue Republic emblem that was hanging in the middle of it. Louise recognized the hummingbird at the center of the image. It was the same one as El was wearing around her neck.

“Not just that,” Louise admitted.

El took a step back. “I think it’s time you tell me what’s going on.”

Louise gestured towards the table. “Maybe we should sit down.”

El pursed her lips. “I’m fine,” she replied, lifting her chin in the air.

Louise smiled sadly. She loved how strong El was. Strong with a touch of stubborn.

“Okay,” she said and stepped towards the wall. She traced the bottom line of the emblem’s frame with her finger. “My leadership is going to retaliate for the attack even though they know you’re innocent.”

“Of course they will,” El immediately replied.

Louise’s head snapped to the side.

El laughed sourly. “You thought I didn’t know that this is all some fucked up game?”

Okay, I have to stop sharing now. Gotta have something left for this weekend! In case you missed it: I posted a short behind-the-scenes video on the community while recording this script yesterday. *waves* Hi! See you Saturday 🙂

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