“How you holding up?” Gage asks, his voice pitched low.
Lark shrugs. “I’m good. Promise.”
Dean inclines his head. “Ms. Dawson.”
She shifts closer, hip brushing my shoulder as she leans in.
“I take it our vibes are not immaculate?” she says.
“Depends on how you feel about being slightly more popular on the dark web than you were yesterday,” Ozzy says.
She looks at me, silently asking.
I don’t sugarcoat. “Luka doubled the bounty,” I say. “More people looking. Worse people.”
Her fingers tighten around the mug. There’s a flicker of fear in her eyes. Also something else.
Anger.
“So what?” she says after a beat. “We run? Hide until he gets bored? Hope he cancels the listing because we’re not fun anymore?”
“Nobody here is suggesting waiting for Luka to get bored,” Dean says. “We’re working angles. We just need you to be alive long enough to cash in on them.”
“Recommend you both stay put for now,” Ranger adds. “We’ve got better sight lines on you here. You move, we lose control.”
Lark nods slowly, absorbing it. “So we’re… what, exactly?” she asks. “Sitting ducks with no Wi-Fi?”
“Ducks with teeth,” I say.
She snorts. “That’s not how ducks work.”
“It is in my metaphor.”
She looks at the screen again. “What can we do on our end?” she asks. “Besides panic and make out?”
Arrow chokes on nothing. Ozzy grins. Dean’s eyebrows go up a hair. And Gage just stares, blinking. He hisses low and deep.
“You better not be making out with my sister,” he growls.
I want to tell him I’m not, but I also don’t want to lie to him. Thankfully, Dean interjects.
He clears his throat, dragging the conversation back on track by sheer force of will. “You can do three things,” he says. “One: stay alert. Knight knows the drill—perimeter checks, sight lines, no predictable routines. Two: dig. The more you two can uncover about Luka’s local footprint from that side, the better. There’s only so much we can see from here. Three: rest when you can. You’re no good to anyone burnt out.”
“Copy that,” Lark says. She looks at me then. Really looks.
I see the fear in the tightness of her mouth. The determination in the line of her shoulders. And under it all, the same stubborn streak I’ve always loved and always cursed. “Are you okay staying here?” I ask her quietly, forgetting for a second that a bunch of sets of eyes are still on us.
She thinks. “I’m not okay anywhere someone wants me dead,” she says honestly. “But if the choice is running blind or hunkering down where we at least have eyes, I vote hunker.”
“You sure?” I press.
“Knight.” She nudges my leg with her knee. “I’m scared. That doesn’t mean I want to bolt. You don’t get to lock me in the metaphorical car now.”
Arrow smirks. “She got you there.”
“Shut up,” I tell him.
Dean steps back into frame. “We’ll update you the second we have anything actionable,” he says. “Until then, you have your parameters. You’re not alone in this, Knight. Remember that.”
