“The man you’re seeing?” Kyle clarified.
Why was he asking about Mason? It was weird. And very much out of the blue.
“Yeah, he’s fine.” I tried to be offhanded. I didn’t want to talk about this with Kyle.
“You’re my friend, Hannah. I just want to make sure I don’t have to bust anyone’s kneecaps,” Kyle remarked, pretending to punch his palm.
I chuckled. “No busting of kneecaps required. Promise.”
I changed the subject. Badly. “What kind of sandwich do you want?”
Kyle rolled his eyes. Then narrowing them, he said, “You don’t want to talk about him. He must be special.”
I gave him a tight smile but didn’t respond. Kyle stared at me a little too closely. It was as if he was looking for something.
“I hope they have those chicken and stuffing sandwiches. I love those,” he said after a while, and all talk of Mason was, thankfully, over.
“Me too. We should start a petition to have them every day,” I suggested with a chuckle.
“Changing Holt IT one chicken sandwich at a time,” Kyle joked, and we were both laughing, the awkwardness gone.
We got off the elevator and made our way to the cafeteria. It was empty. Probably because it was only ten-thirty in the morning. Everyone else was actually doing their job.
My phone started to buzz in my pocket and I had a brief moment of elation, thinking it might be Mason.
I pulled it out and looked at the screen, my jubilation dissipating instantly.
I handed Kyle a twenty-dollar bill. “Go get a sandwich, and I’d like a Danish. I’ll just be a minute.”
Kyle frowned. “Everything okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Everything’s fine.”
I slipped out into the courtyard and answered the call.
“Why are you calling me again? I thought we had said everything we needed to say last time,” I snapped.
“I told you I’d do some digging. I thought you’d want to know what I found out,” Rose responded nastily.
“I can do my own digging, Rose,” I snarled into the phone.
“Chill out, Han, seriously. I’m just trying to be helpful given what’s at stake here. Remember, in the chaos you have to find calm.” I hated Rose’s fortune cookie bullshit. It had always pressed my buttons, now even more so.
And that particular line of garbage annoyed me. She seemed to wheel it out whenever she wanted to seem extra poignant.
“Well, I looked around and I didn’t see my name anywhere. How is it that you’re seeing something that I can’t find? I think it’s a little strange.”
“What exactly are you accusing me of, Hannah?” Rose demanded.
After Rose had told me about my name being mentioned in relation to Freedom Overdrive, I had asked Toxicwrath about it.
22:01 I’ve seen nothing like that. Who told you this?
22:01 A friend. She says it was during an encrypted chat.
22:02 I’ll look around. But I wouldn’t believe it. If you don’t want to be found, no one can find you.
Neither of us found any indication that my real name was floating around the Web. Which made me question what Rose was up to.
