I look away, jaw tight. “Feet off the desk.”
She smirks at me, thensloooowlylowers them. The boots hit the floor with a thud. “Better?”
“Barely.”
The music changes tracks. Something even more bubblegum.
I gesture at the speakers. “Turn that off.”
She jabs a few keys. “Rude. You know, Mozart isn’t the only playlist option in the world.”
“I don’t listen to Mozart.”
“Youfeellike a Mozart person.”
“I feel,” I say flatly, “like changing every password we have.”
She laughs, leaning back, totally at home in a place she should not be anywhere near.
Ozzy shuffles in from the kitchenette, hair messy, t-shirt crooked, holding a mug of coffee that may not technically contain coffee. He blinks at us.
“Oh,” he says. “You told him.”
I turn slowly. “Told me what?”
Lark wiggles her fingers. “That you’re getting a promotion. I’m your new nightmare.”
Ozzy sips, winces, and mutters, “To be fair, she’s been our nightmare for a while now.”
“Ozzy,” I say through my teeth, “why is she inside our secure operations space?”
He shrugs, dropping into his rolling chair. “Because she knows where all our digital bodies are buried and she’ll happily dig them up and parade them across the internet if we say no?”
Lark lifts her bag of cheese curls. “Also, I brought snacks.”
“This is not a democracy,” I growl. “This is a very illegal paramoral operation that requires discipline and trust and?—”
“Big words,” she says. “Very inspiring. Ten out of ten, would ignore again.”
I step closer, lowering my voice. “Lark. You are not going on missions with us.”
She cocks her head. “You mean like I didn’t go on the last three?”
I freeze. “You what?”
Arrow stirs on the couch, scratches his chest, mumbles something about “idiots cleared to channel four” and then goes back to sleep.
Ozzy looks up from his screen briefly. “You didn’t know she was following you?”
“No,” I snap.
“I did,” Ozzy says. “She brought donuts once. Good ones.”
I stare at him.
He shrugs. “What? It’s hard to find a decent maple bar in this city.”
My head feels like it’s going to explode.
