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“Repurposing, I was repurposing. Wanted to get me some cool wheels. Yep,” I say in my crazy Azrael speech. I’m back in the barracks at Elliot’s headquarters, trying my best to keep it together while Onyx practically interrogates me.
“And did you?” Leaning against one corner of my desk, Onyx pulls up the tube shirt she’s wearing. Her boob-growing efforts are paying off. She’s graduated from mosquito bites to golf balls, much like a prepubescent girl. She still hates the male body she got stuck with and is bent on morphing herself into a curvaceous vixen. She’s nothing but determined.
I dig in my backpack and take out the sealable bags with Dad’s t-shirts in them. I set them on my desk and lovingly lay a hand on them. The plastic crinkles.
“Nope, nope. Didn’t find what I wanted. Won’t rest till I do, though.”
I have to go out again, have to talk to James, have to know if he’s been lying to me, have to find out if Aydan is all right?
Aydan, what did you do?!
No one came after me, not another beast, not another car. Wondering what happened is killing me. I almost turned around a million times as I drove out of SeaTac but, instead, I kept my foot on the gas and told myself I had no other choice. I can’t fall in Hailstone’s clutches again—not after learning what I’ve learned. This has never been about me or Aydan or any one person. And now that I know their plans, much less so.
“What exactly are you looking for?” Onyx smacks her purple-painted lips and dabs a finger against the corners of her mouth. She adjusts her top again. It’s stripped with hot pink and white horizontal lines.
“A Harley. Supped up, shiny, no scratches.” My answer is clipped as I sit in front of my computer. I need to send James a message, but I can’t do that while Onyx sits here wiggling inside her blouse and using me as entertainment to relieve her boredom. It’s not my fault her life as the head cook of Elliot’s private army has lost its luster, and she’d rather spend the day learning new make-up tricks to hide her stubborn mustache.
I wake up my computer and fire off Space Invaders. Hoping to send a clear bug-off message, I begin playing the game, banging on the keyboard at a frantic rate and making inane shooting sounds.
Onyx tries to make further conversation, but I ignore her.
After several attempts, she huffs. “You and that stupid game.” With a hurt expression, she gets up and walks away, her four-inch heels clicking as she exits the barracks.
Just as I get ready to send James’s message. Lyra strolls in. I notice her out of the corner of my eyes, her strides confident and lithe. I curse inwardly and pull up the video game once more. I wouldn’t normally hide my IgNiTe related activities from her, but this is different.
If she finds out what I now know, she would make good on her promise to kill me. She’s been working for years to defeat Hailstone and discover their grand plan. If she gets even a whiff of the role I play in that stupid scheme, she’d slice my throat before I have time to count her whiskers.
“Where have you been, Cher?” Lyra asks, sitting on my bed and flicking her penetrating green eyes to the game on the computer screen.
“Out and about,” I say.
Her ears flicker, which I’ve learned happens when something bothers her.
“I met James,” I add in a low voice, choosing to give her a bit of the truth before she decides I’m up to something. She has a very suspicious nature. So cat-like of her!
“What about?”
“I hadn’t seen him since the battle here. He wanted to thank me . . . for saving him, you know.” It’s true enough. I saved James from that curly-horned Amazon after she shot him in the chest. He would have died under her gun if I hadn’t intervened. Come to think of it, I also saved him from Tusks, and his crazy jeep stunt. It took that much to convince James that I was still me and not the crazy Eklyptor who killed Oso.
“Ah, oui.”
Just to make sure Lyra stuffs her questions, I give her a bit more information. “He took my blood. They’re going to try to develop a test so they can tell whether or not I’m still me.”
Lyra makes a very French dismissing gesture with her hand. “Why bother? You’re the only one of your kind. I’m fairly certain no one has come back from full-fledged. You are a freak.” She laughs, her pointed canine teeth touching her lower lip.
“Says the human kitten.” I flip her the bird without even deigning a look in her direction.
“Well, try not to disappear again. Lamia has been riding mon derrière, asking where you are. You know she doesn’t trust you. Today she pointed out that you were out when those scouts were killed. You didn’t have anything to do with that, non?”
“Umm . . . I might have.”
“Oh, mon Dieu! Tu es folle?!”
“Yeah, you too, lady.” I have no idea what she just said, but it sounded like an insult. For good measure, I flip her the bird again. “Just FYI, the scouts had captured a girl. I couldn’t let them take her. Maybe you would have, but not me.”
Lyra drops her angry expression, and her eyes become rounder and bigger. She almost looks cute. “I would not. Every human life is worth a battle. Je suis désolé.” Head lowered, she stands and lets me be.
Her contrite reaction and apology surprise me and make me wonder if there’s a person she wished she could have battled for.
I watch her leave. Her back is slightly hunched and her nose pointed to the floor. She’s so dejected she doesn’t even notice Lamia as they pass each other by the door. The lizard woman gives Lyra a contemptuous look, but her worthy effort is wasted. Lyra exists as if her steps will take her into a different dimension, one very far away from this one.
Finding herself ignored, Lamia’s eyes search the barracks for another victim. Her toxic levels of disdain are too highly curated to go to waste. Unfortunately, I’m one of her favorite targets. Her gaze flies directly to mine, even though my bed is at the very back of the large sleeping quarters.
Her long, barbed tail goes up behind her in a sort of threat or challenge. Which? It makes no difference to me. I don’t have time for her ass. I turn to the computer and ignore her, even as I feel her mean gaze like a poke on my side.
Quickly, I type a message for James, send it, and go back to playing my game.
I hope he’ll understand the urgency in every word of my short message.
WE. NEED. TO. TALK. IMMEDIATELY!