The call

" Alright! " Lina exclaimed, she leaned toward Dana's face " so the question is obviously this, what is your real intentions? "

She frowned as if she didn't understand what she was talking about. " Don't play dumb with us, maybe you still don't realize in which situation you are trapped, " Natasha said with an annoyed tone, she was obviously of her tired turning around the bush, " look, with a single pressure of my fingers I could break your neck, so if you continue acting like you don't understand what she is saying I will rephrase it one last time for you so you better be sure to give us an answer ".

" You said wanting to meet Jamal, we won't ask you to give us the reason for you to see him, what we want to know, instead, is what are you looking for to do after seeing him? " she asked, the face severe.

Dana's cheeks turned red and her tears restarted overflowing and running on them, she wasn't able to control her emotions anymore at the thought of how cornered she was. She managed to articulate something between two breaths, " ... a saver... I'm just looking for a lifesaver ".

Natasha wasn't expecting such a reaction, she took a look at Lina to ask her what to do to end that embarrassing situation. The latter just nodded to her and Natasha directly understood what she had to do, she went on slowly letting loose of her grasp on the young girl and then left her some space and the time to stand up by herself. However, even after she let go of her, the little girl couldn't catch back her cool, she kept laying on the floor, covering her eyes with the back of her hands and kept on crying until she fell asleep just like a young baby, what didn't miss to amuse Lina.

Meanwhile, Matteo had the time to recover from his paralysis, even though he was still a bit dizzy, he stood up by leaning on the sofa and walked toward the two women. " You're such freaky and daredevil women, " he said, once he reached them, they were staring at the poor girl sleeping on the floor and after he joined the spectacle he asked them, " what if she kept on hiding stubbornly her 'secret', would have killed her... for real? "

" Speaking of secrets... " Natasha turned to him and, with her piercing eyes, she asked, " why didn't you warn us that she could fight so well? I almost lost face there ". Lina added, while still keeping her attention on Dana, " and she almost ruined my so beautiful dace, " she looked at him up and down, " looks like the little boy wanted to take revenge on me for always turning him down when he was trying to seduce me ".

He clucked " it would not have displeased me if she kicked both your buttocks though ".

" Hmm, now you're showing your true face, I didn't realize yet how ingrate you could be, " She said theatrical tone.

Matteo stopped laughing and repeated, " but more seriously what was your plan? Were you really resolved to kill her? ". Silence appeared in the room, Natasha calmly lifted Dana, who was deeply sleeping and carried her on her arms to go laying her on the sofa, " I would say yes, yeah, we were resolved to get rid of her if she had kept showing hostile behavior toward us, " she responded firmly.

Matteo frowned in shock. When he was watching them fighting while sitting helplessly on the ground, he had doubts that they were going a bit too far but he had the confidence that they were just faking it to force her to confess her true intentions, now he caught himself starting to lose faith in them and even fear them, " you can't be serious, she is just a teenage girl, how can you think about killing her ".

" We have to prevent Jamal from being exposed uselessly to potential dangers. He might be able to win against any enemies when he is facing them but he can't escape being backstabbed in the back by someone he trusted. So it's our mission to protect him from those potential traitors, " Lina coldly responded to Matteo.

" Would you have been able to do that to a young girl like her? " he asked Natasha while looking for a hint on her face that she was lying or joking as he didn't want to believe that those people he put his trust in would be so merciless, but she turned her sights away before he could catch anything and, " it wouldn't have been the first time I killed someone you know that ". He couldn't believe in his own ears, " even considering that, how could you... "

" You want me to tell you how, " Lina said, a slight of irritation began to be revealed in the tone of her voice as she had enough of the childish behavior of Matteo, " 149, this is the number of times people from this town tried to kill him, 75 of them were committed by youngsters just like this girl, 63 by youngsters he used to be friends with, 13 of them achieved to injure him and even though the rest of the attempts were all easily countered there was still 1 of them who nearly killed him, " her voice became scratchy as her throat was tied by the emotion, " and after each of those attempts Jamal didn't stop blaming himself thinking that he may have done something wrong while trying to guide those kids, what was comprehensible, who would easily believe that such young kids would be so filled with wickedness and murderous intentions that would lead them to betray us like that. But that's the reality that happened to us, so I will tell you that 'yes', to avoid such situations ever not happen again, we are resolved to stain our hands... even with kids blood if we have to ".

Matteo couldn't reply anymore, recognizing that he was the one wrong there he couldn't bring himself to argue further. He stayed quiet staring at Dana like everyone in the room, he had one more question to ask but he couldn't bring himself to do so, many minutes passed, stretching that awkward silence before he found the courage to speak, " so what are you gonna do to her now? " He said after a deep breath.

Natasha shrugged and shook her head, " nothing, even though you didn't see her face you should have noticed only by her voice that she wasn't lying, " she paused " well, I'm not skilled at finding out whether someone is lying or not but if it was the case Lina would have already told me to finish her off. Maybe we should just let her once she wakes up, " she suggested but Lina immediately rejected her proposition, Natasha turned to her surprised and asked " why not? " but it was Matteo, instead, who gave her the response.

" Because tomorrow is the big announcement, if we let her go now she might run to say to everyone what we have done to her and it will mess up all our efforts to prepare for this event, " he turned to Lina to check up if he was right and it seemed like yes as she calmly nodded.

" So what are we going to do about her? " Natasha replied while looking at the genius beside her.

" Isn't it obvious? " Lina said, " we will keep her with us until the end of the announcement after everyone has signed and accepted the contract ".

Matteo hid his face in his hands shameful while replying " beating a minor was not enough, now we became minor kidnappers, where is our the limit? "

Suddenly a ringtone started to resonate in the office, the three of them turned their heads at the same time in the direction of where the sound came from and then realized that it came from Lina's laptop. Both Natasha and Matteo didn't have the time to react to her speed when they saw her suddenly running hurriedly toward the device while missing to trip and fall on the floor.

Once she reached it, she began to tap frenetically on the keyboard while shouting " the speakers... turn on the speakers " to Natasha and Matteo they still didn't get the situation but seeing how excited she was they didn't try to discuss and directly obeyed. Once the speakers were connected they all sat around the laptop on the coffee table and waited.

Sounds began to be heard, however, there were some interferences and during the ten first seconds, only judders could be heard what ended up to install heavy suspense which was mostly felt by Lina as she was maybe the only one who knew what it predicted. The judders were later replaced by a masculine voice, so familiar and reassuring that it put a large smile on the faces of everyone around the laptop, making them forget, for a while, all the troubles which were occupying their minds.

" Hello... can you hear me?... Lina are you there? " Jamal said through the speakers.

Lina was so hypnotized by the sound of his voice that she didn't give attention to what he was actually saying, it was only when Natasha pushed her with her shoulder that she came back to her senses, " yeah my love, I'm here, I'm listening to you. What's up? " She articulated a silent 'thank you' to her friend for saving her.

The man sighed, relieved, " I'm sorry for not calling you earlier but I was pushed into the action the moment I stepped in the town and there were a lot of troubles. Seemed like they were not fully prepared for my arrival ".

" No, it's not a problem honey, you're all forgiven, " she wanted to express how much she was missing him but she changed her mind as she thought it would look too excessive for only 15 hours of separation, she instead said " how is the situation now there in Short-river? How long do you think you will have to stay before the end of the fight? "

There was a short moment of silence before he answered, " oh well, how to say that. The war here is already over, " then still through the speakers they heard very loud noises of people who were screaming, laughing and shouting that the war was finally over. The exclamations were so loud that Jamal couldn't speak clearly and even if he could, from where they were, Lina, Natasha, and Matteo wouldn't have been able to hear him even less understand him.

They waited until the crowd behind Jamal calmed down a bit what let them the time to assimilate what he just had said to them. " Wait, are you telling me that you went there and finished them all in less than fifteen hours? " Matteo asked.

" Oh Matteo you are there, I guess Natasha is also there. OK let me explain to all of you what happened, according to Lina's stats Short-river was the one city which was mostly needing help, she also gave me a little plan in where was cited the methods I should have used to end up with the war, but as I already mentioned things didn't get as planned when I arrive so I had to modify a little bit her plan and it seemed like it worked better than expected. So all thanks belong to Lina ".

" Don't joke with me, the plan you're talking about wasn't even a plan, just a stake of suggestions, " Lina protested against the unworthy lauds he was doing to her, " and there was no way you could make such an achievement with just that piece of shit ".

" Well, what is done is done no need to continue wasting our time with this, " Jamal said to change the subject, " so what about you? How are you doing well? Nat' how does your training evolve? " Natasha, who remained quiet until then, jumped when he gave her the talk, she was also moved by the fact he was caring so much about her even though she knew that for him it was just his role of teacher and friend of her, Lina caught all those feelings of her and smiled silently in her corner.

" Oh, here we are good nothings to worry about. As we thought none of the outlaws dared to cross the barrier so the patrol today was calm, I practiced a little bit by using the method you have recommended to me and you're right it was super effective, I feel like I will improve myself rapidly with it... " she continued talking to him about what she did during that day, about how she took care of all his tasks and how Lina was bothering her.

At a moment, while she was still talking they heard a woman voice talking to Jamal, " Hey, Mr.Hero, don't you want to join us for a drink instead of staying all alone here, " and even though Jamal refused courteously and explained that he was talking to his friends, the woman didn't agree to leave him and insisted with her seduction game, " if you're too shy to mix with the others, I'll accept without no problem to stay with you, you know? " that woman voice started to laugh slightly and at that moment Lina turned mad.

She leaned toward the laptop and said " excuse me, honey, can you tell that whore beside you to go say those cheap words to someone else because there is no way you would want to fuck her dirty fat ass! " she purposely talked enough loudly to make sure the woman would hear her, they waited for few seconds and suddenly they heard Jamal laughing, " if only you could have seen her face. So hilarious. How can you say something like that on the phone ". They stayed there, chatting with each other for an hour before Jamal told them that they didn't have any more time.

" I envisaged to move today for the next city, I think I'm able to reach it before the nightfall. And one more thing, I might call you a bit later than today, so do not worry, " he explained to them.

They said goodbye to each other, Lina made a scene as usual before he hung up. They were about to comment about the discussion when they heard the voice of Dana on their back. They all turned their heads to discover Dana's surprised face, she was standing up just behind them shaking her head while repeating " no no no, it can be possible, no human can do that, " Matteo stood up and approached her and asked, " what is it? Why this reaction? "

The girl gazed at him dumbfounded, " there, in Short-river, when we left the city the number of outlaws was almost the double of those who were fighting them, not forgetting that all their attempts to counter-attack lamentably failed. They had almost lost that war it was a matter of time before they get all killed, that was what we were all thinking... how can it be possible that he went there and finished them all in such a short time? " Matteo turned to the women sitting behind him, glanced at them before he answered " that is how he is. An incredible guy ". Dana fell on her butt on the sofa and tried to assimilate what she had heard one hour before, which ended up increasing the esteem she had for him, " seems like he deserves all the praise people give him ".