For a moment, it still feels so normal, so perfectly natural, that I forget we don’t have this kind of relationship. Pulling back, I look up into his golden eyes again and remember.
I have to flee. I roll over onto my elbows and knees and shimmy down the vent.
7
Ellis
I haven’t been able to think about anything except the kiss Lacey gave me. I don’t know what to do with that.
Obviously, I don’t do anything; she doesn’t like me, she’s said she won’t date me. End of story. I need to practice some self-restraint and stop asking her out, because really, it can’t go anywhere. It won’t.
While I can absolutely believe that the door was just wide open for Lacey Vigil to waltz inside, I can’t believe she actually showed up here. The hideout is gross. I would never bring a date back here, personally. The hallway is creepy at best and there’s always something dripping down the walls. You have to watch for puddles of weird oily liquids.
The problem is I’m such a sucker for a thigh high that I’ll let her lie to my face and just play along to get another moment with her. This crush is steadily teetering toward actually bad for my job. I did hope that her dump-truck ass would be too wide for the vent and give me a good reason to put my hands on her hips, really take a handful of how soft her body is, and keep her there up against me. When she kissed me I nearly did it anyway.
Coming back inside from securing the outside vent against any more reckless investigative weathergirls, I find Maestro and Vin in the control room looking at a map of Goethal up on the largest screen.
“It takes Steel a minimum of thirty minutes to suit up and roll out when he’s caught off guard,” Vin says as he moves different sticky notes around the monitor. At least my favorite analog idiot has stopped circling things in permanent marker on the screen.
“So, if we can set up a distraction for him, we can get into his laboratory and unload the equipment into the truck. We just take the important things, leave what we can,” Maestro says, his voice a quiet rasp. “All that’s left is how to get into the building.”
“I’m working on it,” Vin mutters.
“Hopefully you have something soon. There have been far too many mutant attacks.”
One of Maestro’s compression socks is bunched up around his ankle. I slip between the two of them as they point out different escape routes to take and push his pajama pant leg up so I can fix it for him. He doesn’t always have the strength to wrestle the socks all the way up to his knee, especially in the winter when he needs it the most.
Maybe it’s just when Vin looms nearby like an irritated bouncer that Maestro looks smaller than he used to, that the way his skin sags off his bony limbs makes him look ancient. He’s always been old and gray, but always he carried himself with vitality and an endless supply of spite.
Of course, as soon as I’ve fixed one of his socks he gets out of his chair and wobbles off to the kitchen to avoid being fussed over.
Channel 6’s musical stinger catches my attention and spikes my pulse in a Pavlovian way. One of the smaller screens plays their weather segment, the four inches of powdery snow accumulating on the streets.
Maestro hasn’t said anything about my recent TV appearance, and I’m hoping that means my fifteen seconds of fame went by unnoticed. I stand and turn the TV off, just in case. Vin blows out a breath like he has something to say.
I glance sidelong at him. “Hey, uh, he hasn’t been watching the news the last couple days, right?”
I might as well have asked the wall. Vin keeps his eyes on the screen, like he’s pretending I don’t exist, again. He’s been pissed off at me ever since I stepped out of the lab wall’s intake vent yesterday and scared him. He’s annoyed enough that he hasn’t even asked how I got out of the tube on my own, or what I was doing in the vent.
“He did read that article about Steel Spire’s toxic dumping settlement. He’s mad they’re getting off with a slap on the wrist,” Vin replies without looking in my direction.
“I mean, we all knew how that was going to go.”
Vin shifts his weight from one foot to another, deciding it is worth speaking to me as long as it’s chastising. “You can’t just start changing the plan, you know. Maybe you’ll get the weather girl’s attention, but the boss is gonna notice.”
“I didn’t save her on purpose, I just . . . I wasn’t thinking.”
“You never do. We need you to focus on the family business. Now’s not the time to have divided loyalties.”
“I’m so loyal, dude, I don’t even watch other weather channels. Not even once.”
Vin never laughs at my jokes, but he doesn’t even give me the satisfaction of that irritated twitch in his grimace he sometimes does.
“Look, it was just the one time. It won’t happen again, I swear.”
He just sighs and scrubs a hand over his face, clearly disbelieving. “I don’t understand why Maestro couldn’t have engineered a better backbone for you.”
“We’ve been over this—lighter, more flexible bones are better for flying,” I return, sidestepping his point. I don’t care if he thinks I can’t stand my ground when I need to or if I’m not disciplined enough for his liking. “The real question is why you didn’t inherit any of his brain cells.”
