Chapter 5 I

Jesús and I were sitting at the safe apartment, on the Hortaleza neighborhood. The street was very quiet and none of the neighbors  knew each other nor had much interest on doing so. It was perfect for us.

The flat was small. We had assembled to small cots on a room with two small closets. None of us lived there and we had few things there, aside of a bug out bag. The living room had a close view of the building opposite. Therefore we had put a living room up. the other room was a small crowded office, with desks, filing cabinets and a coupe of computers. One with internet connection and the other not. The best of all was that we had a couple of those IKEA chairs you can cradle yourself and put your feet up

Precisely there was I sitting  when Jesús threw me an envelope. It was the contact list I had prepared  and there it was. I pulled  the sheets of paper from the manila enverlope and glanced at the list of names.

It was not just names on the list, the people there meant something to me. Not only interesting people with the needed characteristics for the proyect. It was people I personally knew and I had carefully chosen. It was also people in whose hand I was going to put my own life, literally. We were going to start with those who I trusted the most, in order to build a tightly knit core.

the list was fairly long. I got goose bumps upon reading a couple of names. When one looks back there are always important people and important relationships. On the other hand well, I was not good with relationships... Anyway, I would have some difficulties facing some of those names.

Jesús chuckled and passed me a cup of tea.

-Are you regretting already? Facing ghosts from the past is not that difficult as it seems-  I stared back, blankly

-They also have been living these years you know, they changed and evolved, they failed, changed path and forgotten their dreams. Well covered by a routine wall.-  I nodded, there was not much I could say.

- ... And the ladies - he said pointing vagely towards the papers I had on my lap, while he let himself fall into the couch opposite from mine -  It's more about you than about them. You're an stupid pretentious for thinking you are making the right thing or thinking that you are fucking saving them ... - He rested his cup on the armrest  - You're no bloody knight in amour saving them. They have been accepted because they are good and they can do this without your self pity- Now I really did not know what to say.

Jesús smiled.

-Worry not, we'll start with the easy ones-

I nodded with more confident than I felt, but that is how it was with Jesús. We got started on the list and, before Jesús could get some Madness on the sterieo, I got an Ethel the Frog in and pressed play.  I could see Jesús rolling his eyes exaggeratedly and accepting the defeat. We got on plans for the first round of selections and we sorted the first candidates out and made notes on all the relevant information and the details we had to gather.

After a while, Jesús got up for a refill and patted me on the back on his way

-I did this for you back on the day... you're not worse than anyone... nor than myself-  He smiled - At the end of the day, here we are.-

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