“Yes.” She edged out to the side. Aleks didn’t stop her this time, but he kept his body between her and the drone. She pointed to one of the small cameras on the ground. “See the logo on the side.”
Aleks studied the crumpled black metal and the tiny cameras. One looked like it was still trying to focus. He took two steps forward and stomped on the drone, grinding it into the pavement until all the lenses were crushed glass.
“That won’t stop them,” Portia said. “The footage was likely transmitted to the studio before it even hit the ground.”
Chapter21
“We should get under cover,”Aleks said. “Do you think there will be more?”
Portia stared down at the drone and shrugged. “Probably. They’re all over the place.” Everywhere. All the time.
She was so damn tired of being in the newsies’ crosshairs. They’d ruined what had been a perfectly nice morning, the first one in a very long time. She’d forgotten what it was like to justbe. Or maybe she’d never even known.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what? Saving you from a drone?”
Portia pursed her lips. He was frowning again and she wanted to make it go away. “Well, yes. No one has ever done that for me.”
He blinked at her. Like he wasn’t quite sure what to say. Was that because he was still processing it? Or because she had stymied him? She really wanted to know how his brain worked. He seemed to think that it was some kind of terrible curse, but the whole time they had spent together, it had never appeared to be a problem.
“Uh, you’re welcome.”
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Portia admitted. Not doing anything to turn the newsies against them had been drilled into her since she was a child. With Tommy at her side, she’d been able to resign herself to their presence. With Aleks at her side... Well, that opened up a world of new possibilities.
“My father expected me to just deal with them. ‘You’re a goddamn Tremaine,’ he’d say.” She dropped her voice to emulate him. “He’d say, ‘If you want them to stop, make them.’”
Aleks shifted closer to her side. She soaked in the warmth that his proximity brought. “How were you supposed to do that?” he asked.
“No idea. I used to dream about buying them and making them stop.”
His laugh made her smile. “And your husband?”
Oh, Tommy. She’d loved every reckless, charming, wild inch of him with all her heart. But every once in a while, she’d wished he was the steady, serious one and she... wasn’t. “He loved the attention and could never understand why I didn’t,” she admitted, although it almost felt like a betrayal to say the words out loud.
The words hung between them and Portia held her breath. When he didn’t respond, she said, “We should get out of here. If the drone got any clear shots of us, more newsies will swarm the area.”
Aleks grabbed her hand and let her to the nearest alley. She wrinkled her nose—hiding in an alley wasn’t her first choice—but the dark, narrow spaces were probably more difficult for the drones to maneuver.
“How did you do that?” She wanted to keep the conversation going. This place was creepy. Her hand tightened around Aleks’s.
“Basic training.” He didn’t add anything more. That must have been when he was still intended to work for security.
Something skittered in the darkness and she leaned closer to Aleks. Dark places had never bothered her until she’d been trapped after the bombing. Thankfully, Killian had been with her. She would have lost her mind if she’d been all alone, but the fear and pain of that night had imprinted on her soul.
“You okay?” Aleks asked.
She pondered whether to answer honestly. He’d been open with her, so she decided to respond in kind. “No. I developed a... dislike... of dark closed spaces after the bombing.”
“Dammit! I didn’t think about that and I should have.” He looked back the direction that they’d had come. “Do you want to go back?”
She shook her head vigorously. “No. Who knows whether they’ve sent another drone—or worse, an actual newsie—to that location. We should keep moving.”
Staying close to Aleks’s side, Portia drained the last of her coffee and dropped the empty cup into the nearest dumpster. She shuddered and snatched her hand back.
Aleks didn’t say much as they traversed the length of the alley. Glass crackled and crunched under their feet.
Portia stepped on something small and round and almost turned her ankle. She grabbed onto Aleks for balance. When she set her foot more firmly, whatever it was she’d stepped on broke with a small crunch.
