The Red Nights

5- The Barrier

The dawn was just coming when Jamal woke up on the bed with Lina laying gracefully and naked beside him. He tried to move out from there without disturbing her sleep, with very slow moves, trying to be as stealthy as possible but in the end, she had woken up too before he left the bed, anyway.

" It's already time for you to go? You're very mean, you know? " she sighed while stretching out, " so you are the kind of guy who, after having sex, sneaks out and leave the woman there alone with only her shame and sorrow as her company? " she was faking like if she was hurt, " so for you, I'm just a toy you can use to play with and throw it away once you get finally bored? "

Jamal rolled his eyes and just ignored her before he headed to the bathroom.

Lina waited a few moments before she followed him. " You're very a boring man you know? " she said a bit disappointed.

Jamal turned his head to get a brief look at her. " You wanted me to come at you while rushing, pretend to seek your forgiveness, and promise you to never try leaving you again? " Jamal extended the corner of his lips and asked with a fake bored tone.

" Yeah for example, or at least you could show a little sign of reaction to my jokes," she said when she reached his side. She suddenly took a serious tone and lowered her voice as she passed her arms around his waist, " do you really have to go there every morning? Could you not skip your duty for today and stay with me ... just for today? " she said while she was hugging him from his back.

This was the type of questions Jamal would ask himself every morning when he prepared for his patrol. [ Why do I have to go? Why someone else doesn't do it instead of me? ]. The answer would always remain the same [ Because you have to do it... because you are the only one who can do it ].

His elder sister never stopped telling him that a real man never complained, he would recognize the hardships but still would carry on, he would do his best to achieve his duty whatever it takes and he never gave up. At that time, he would always ask her why she was telling him that as she was not a man and he remembered she would smile and reply, " you're right of course I'm not a man... but you, soon you will be, I'm raising you to be one, and when that time comes, when those days of hardships come, I hope you will remember my words and achieve your duty in the manliest way possible ".

Sometimes he wondered if she knew from the start what would happen, before she disappeared, or if she would have done better than him to protect the city and its people. She was the person he admired the most and always look up to, all the actions he has done until then were always inspired by his sister. [ I'm seriously far from the man you had seen in me though ] he thought, imagining talking to her.

He turned and faced Lina, " is that really what you want from me? To abandon my duty and stay here kissing, cuddling, and having sex until the end of the day? "

She revealed a naughty smile as she said, " I'm not especially talking about having sex, you pervert. Just having you by my side... ".

" Even though many people might suffer? " Jamal interrupted her, his eyes fixing hers. Her face became gloomy. It was like that almost all the time, she could never be happy for a long while with her own boyfriend because his duty of protecting the town's people always passed before her. It was not like she didn't like this aspect of him, to devote himself to a greater and noble cause, it was, on the contrary, one of the reasons she loved him so much. However, she was like any woman, looking for some more attention from her man and wanting to spend as much time as possible with him.

" You're right, I'm kinda too selfish. You can go protecting everyone, " she slowly let go of him as she was stepping back, " after all, that is how I lov- " she could not finish her phrase as usual and it was really frustrating her.

It didn't matter how much she tried, it was beyond her forces. 

She never could express verbally her love for her man, and the result would be that sometimes she couldn't even bear crossing his look. [ Why can't I tell him? The one who told me uncountable times how much he loves me ], she kept on repeating to herself, frustrated. " Sorry, I... I should go back to my bed, tell me when you finish ".

She turned around and wanted to rush to her bed and hide under her pillow when Jamal quickly stopped her by grabbing her hand. She didn't want to show him her face, she reluctantly turned toward him but she had her eyes fixing the ground. Jamal what to do in those moments to calm her down a bit, he dropped gently his hands to go squeezing her soft naked ass.

" You don't have to be like that any time you failed to tell me ' I love you ' ", he paused, " sure it would feel pretty good to hear you say it once or twice but since I already know that you do love me, words are not so important when you don't miss to show it to me... moreover with such a big and nice giggling but how can I not be happy ". He lowered his head so he could have a look at her face and when he saw that she was smiling, he gave her an enormous kiss which lasted more than one minute. She felt like she was the luckiest woman on earth, having the kindest and the most handsome man as her boyfriend.

•••

" You're late, " Natasha said somehow looking a bit irritated and impatient, " You were the one who pressed me to come on time, and yet you're the first to break your rules, " she smacked her tongue, " I swear you're such a hypocrite of a teacher ". She has been waiting there for more than 20 minutes before she saw Jamal, from afar, running towards her.

" Sorry it took me more time than usual to get ready, " said Jamal not even breathless from the long race he ran to come there.

" What happened? No, let me guess... " she closed her eyes to give a thought, " Lina pouted again, cried, and tried to convince you that instead of coming you should stay on her bed a little while, right? "

Jamal didn't know whether to be astonished or embarrassed, he stayed there and for a moment he couldn't reply. " How do you even know that I was with her? "

Natasha rolled her eyes, crossed her arms below her chest, and gazed at him for a few seconds, maybe expecting him to find the answer himself before she made a sign to show something on his neck. She checked on her bag, took out a little mirror, and handed it to him, when he took it to check himself out, he looked at it for a short while before he found on the side of his neck a little hickey. He immediately tried to erase it while doing what he could to hide his embarrassment. " I can't believe she did something like this ".

" I can believe it very well though, " Natasha sighed while looking away and faking like she was interested in something in that direction, " and I'm pretty sure she did it on purpose, " Natasha said in an almost inaudible tone of voice " she wanted to tease me ".

She sighed " I think it's time to go, isn't it? How shall we proceed? "

Jamal looked at his watch and frowned, " As you said before, you can defend yourself alone, so I will ask you to go watch one half of the barrier and I will take the other half, got it? ".

Natasha looked surprised, she didn't expect him to let her go alone, she thought they would go inspect the whole barrier together and then he would tell her to go alone looking for some fugitives in a part of the city. " Are you sure? I mean it's okay for me to go on my side? "

" Of course, though it's not the very dangerous part of the patrol, you must be okay alone, " he shrugged, " moreover, I already showed you how to manage to find signs of intrusion, how to fix the barrier in case of intrusion, and even how to reactivate the security system in order to prevent any kind of escape from the criminals during the day ".

Indeed, during the fighting training,  Jamal used to teach them, especially Natasha, the different steps of the patrol, starting with the inspection of the barrier to the patrol in the city. One of these steps was the reactivation of the security system.

Even though Lina ensured him that the criminals would never dare to try to cross the barrier during the night, the rest of the population wanted a real certitude, so Jamal and some engineers managed to add a security system on the barrier which would alarm the whole city if someone crossed it. However they couldn't manage to make it work 24h/24, instead, Jamal had to reactivate it every morning during his daily round.

All the steps, Natasha knew them on the top of her fingers, that was not the problem. What was confusing to her was all the trust Jamal was giving her to achieve the mission.

" What is it? " She asked suddenly.

" What is it what? " Jamal replied a bit confused.

" Previously you were totally opposed to letting me join you on your patrol and now you're telling me to go on my side " She paused " Why this sudden change of behavior? "

" I figured it out... " he sighed while putting his hands on his hips, " this morning when Lina told me to stay with her, I have been forced to recognize that I would never be able to do this only by myself anymore... I didn't want to acknowledge it before, but I can't run away from the reality of things and the reality is that I need help ". Before Natasha could say anything, he added, " So I will go on my side and you will go on yours and at the end of the morning, and only then, you will give me your response whether you want to continue on this path with me or not ".

Natasha wasn't back yet from her astonishment, however, she has been attentive to what he said and thus she managed to articulate a reply, " Why not now? Why couldn't I respond to you right now? I want to tell you now that of course, I will walk with you on this road of yours ".

Jamal, without reply to anything, headed toward the direction of the barrier, and Natasha didn't insist but just followed him, doing her best to hide her irritation of being ignored that way.

They walked for about 10 minutes overpassing house after house, building after building before they arrived just in front of an abandoned building and behind it we could see the long barrier in a sort of desert area, running the length of the city, it was a structure composed of thick metal grids and metal spars of about 3 meters of height. Each spar was distanced from another by 20 meters of grids and on the top of each spar were laid surveillance cameras which, with other movement detector devices, composed the kit of the security system and all these devices were linked to the control post which was located in a locked room in the abandoned building which only Jamal had the keys.

" We will separate from here, I will take the right part of the barrier and you the left, okay? " Jamal ordered while pointing to the two sides with his hand. Natasha nodded completely knowledgeable of what she had to do.

In brief in this part of the patrol, she had to walk along the barrier verifying whether there were signs of someone who crossed or not. When it was found that there were, it meant that whether the barrier or the materials of security were messed up or just destroyed. In that case, she should take note of the places where the criminals crossed into and then reported it to the post of control in order for it to be fixed. It was quite simple and easy though.

From there, each of them headed in the direction indicated. It took more than one hour for Natasha to finish inspecting the barrier. She noticed two traces of infraction in two different and the two cases only the barrier itself was messed with, so after she noted the locations she headed back to the control post to register them.

Arriving at the building she surprisingly found that Jamal was not at the entrance, she inferred that either maybe he hadn't finished yet his part of the patrol or he wasn't even waiting for her arrival. As he previously explained to her where was the control post's room, she decided to enter in to complete her part of the job. The door was not locked so it was without any surprise that she found Jamal there inside, sitting on one of three chairs in the room, his attention caught by the screens on the wall in front of him.

" How many did you note? " He said without turning his head or even taking a glance at her.

" Only two actually and none materials were messed, only the barrier, " She said while she was reaching the desk next to him. She used another computer to register the location of the infractions. She finished and turned towards him. " And you? How many did you find? ".

He turned his chair,  faced her, and said " only one and no broken materials registered as well, on top of that, I also identified who are the trouble makers today, " he paused, looked at the screens, and continued " Ed from the books store on my side and Paul and Edna on your side. Ed and Paul are surely after some little girls to assault and Edna is surely here to try to kill Nadine... whom her husband used to cheat on her with ".

Natasha checked at the surveillance video and suddenly, she opened wide her eyes and said with a point of anxiety " it's been only 20 minutes since they came to this side of the city. We have to hurry. It seems like only Edna has a weapon but anyway we have to still be careful ".

She made a move to stand up but with his right hand, Jamal stopped her, his voice was relaxed when he told her, " calm down we can't just run outside along the streets and look for them blindly. The residences of each person in this town are quite well equipped to resist any kind of intrusion attempt, so unless there is anyone who decided to break my rule and go outside of their homes before the permitted hour they should be safe, " he glanced at Natasha while saying that and the latter immediately understood he was referring to what happened the day before, she couldn't know how to respond to that so she just stayed silent and accepted the blame. " So we will wait here for alerts and the calls of help in order to identify who is attacked and where. All people were warned to lock their doors very carefully, so they will resist until we get there ".

While they were waiting, Natasha started asking some questions, " Why the surveillance cameras are working 24h/24 but not the rest of the devices? And why do the outlaws only wait until hours like this to cross the barrier, can't they do it at another time of the day?"

" First, I don't know, the technicians are still working on it. Second, that is because during the day the security system is fully operational, moreover, those guys out there know who I am and what I have been doing, they only dare to come to this side of the city at hours like this in the hope of catching me off or slip under my surveillance, but during the day, I suppose they are too afraid to face me head-on, " Jamal responded his eyes still focused on the screens.

Natasha thought for a little while and finally spoke what she wanted to say from the start, " You'll not ask me what I obtained from Matteo ".

Jamal rotated his chair to face her, his eyes as sharp as ever, " It was a private conversation between you and him, I cannot come and order you to tell all you know,  it's up to you to reveal them to me if you don't mind ".

Natasha rolled her eyes with the corner of her lips extended on a slight smile, " You're acting quite innocently even though it was you the one who told me to interrogate him ".

" Yeah... but only for the purpose to help, people feel better when they entrust their fears to a trustworthy person, doesn't it? ".

After he said that Natasha blushed a little bit, she cleared her throat, quickly gathered her thoughts, and told him " anyway, listen, Matteo told me that he was special too, in the sense that he has some powers just like me... not exactly like me because his powers seem to be different from mine, but it is just like you said there are other people like me and I guess Matteo is one of them ".

Jamal was not looking as astonished as Natasha expected, instead, it seemed like he was wondering about something. He gazed deeply at her when he asked her, " did he say something about his powers? Do you actually have a clue of what he can do? ". As she didn't have any clue, Natasha shook her head " He just told me he was kinda like me and went to bed. Why? What are you thinking about? "

" Do you recall how he was when he told me to bring you with me? I had the feeling that he was right and it was crucial for you to come with me, though I still don't know why exactly, " Jamal said or rather he wondered out loud.

At that moment, Natasha wanted to add something but suddenly a slight red light started to flash accompanied by an alarm, letting them know that some people were calling for help. Jamal hurriedly checked at the screen and shouted, " They are coming from two different places, one from Nadine's house, as I thought,  and the other from a new citizen's house. I'm heading to rescue the new citizen and you will head to Nadine's place, there are some motorbikes at the garage of the building, no time to discuss, let's go ".

In the garage, when Natasha was on her bike Jamal stopped her and handed her a knife the model being just like his usual one. and it looked new as if it has just been freshly manufactured.

" What should I do with this? " She asked as she took the knife.

" We will see if Matteo was wrong or right, I told you before that you will have to make a choice ". Jamal got on his bike without responding to her question or giving some more explanations, " Here we go ".