“Is he back?” Trips asks.
I turn so I can see all of them, but bunch my fists into Jansen and Walker’s shirts, tugging them so our sides touch, not able to let go now that I have them. Jansen drops his head on my shoulder, the newly short hairs prickling against my cheek, while Walker bands his arm around my waist. Then Walker nods, his face grim. “He knows about you and that guard who, you know…” he goes to motion slicing a throat, but stops before it’s done, concern across his face as he glances at me.
Swallowing down the weight of the life I took, I stay on topic. “But how?”
“We don’t know. There’s nothing on his phone or on his computer that would explain it.”
Terror and grief flood me, and before I can get my emotions back under control, Falk rounds the corner, his grin fading when he sees my face. “You’ve got thirty seconds, give or take,” he says, turning his back and giving us a moment of privacy.
Turning first to Jansen, I press a kiss to his lips: simple, sweet, and so much less than I want to give. “I’m glad you’re okay.” He smiles, and I can’t help but tease him, avoiding the weight that’s settled in my gut. “Be good now, Trouble.”
He leans forward, nipping at my lip, and I can’t help but laugh.
“I’m serious.”
“I’ll try, beautiful. For you.”
Turning to Walker, he bundles me against him, and this kiss is nothing sweet, so full of want and grief that it leaves me reeling. When he pulls back, I say what I’ve been thinking about for more than a day. “I’m sorry I missed your birthday. But I made a list in my mind of things about you we can celebrate once this is done.”
His smile is something between a smirk and a broken plate. “I’ll hold you to it.”
Trips must have been keeping watch, because I’m yanked from between Walker and Jansen, pulled flush to his chest. “Scatter,” he whispers, and I know the other two are gone. But before the hole in my chest gets any bigger, he tilts my chin up, his lips claiming my attention. When he pulls back, I’m panting.
“Jealous?” I whisper.
“Nah. Just wanted my turn, too. Trust that they’ll figure out the things you can’t while we’re stuck here. I’m going to.”
“Mr. I-need-to-know-everything-all-the-time-and-control-it-otherwise-it-might-go-tits-up is trusting his team?”
“I’ve done a lot of thinking these last few months. They’ve more than earned my trust. And we’ve got enough problems on our side without adding to them.”
The guard I scared earlier stalks up next to me and goes to wrench us apart, ready to prove that he’s bigger than his fear. Before he can, Trips snatches his wrist, squeezing it hard enough for the man to wince. “Hands off,” he says without looking at the man.
Then he kisses the top of my head, the both of us separating to go to class. I spend the time barelylistening. Instead, I add to my plans, trying to figure out where to push and prod so all my dominoes will fall one after the next in perfect synchrony.
Chapter 24
Jansen
Breaking into Bryce’s apartment is just as easy the second time as it was the first. The only difference is that I get to do it in the afternoon, and I had to get permission from both RJ and Walker to come. He’s out doing whatever unemployed pedophile snitches do during daylight hours, and I can’t say I’m too curious about what that might be. The only difficult part of this plan is finding a place to stash myself for later.
There’s a deep cabinet under the kitchen island, with a single new-looking muffin tin in it and nothing else, so I figure that will work for tonight. That decided, I crawl across the bedroom floor so I can avoid the framed photo Clara said holds a camera, and duck into his closet.
I barely hold back a scoff. I know Clara said he was particular, but I hadn’t spent enough time last visit looking at exactly what that meant—the man has a tool to evenly spacehis shirts on the rod, and a different one to space his shoes on the rack. It’s absurd.
Emma’s waiting out front to tell me if he’s coming, but still I hurry, pulling up the insoles of each of his shoes and stashing a carefully cushioned Airtag under the right foot, and just some regular semi-dense foam under the left. We wouldn’t want the guy to notice that he’s carrying around an extra bit of technology every day.
Sadly, I’m going to have to wait until he’s passed out to tag the shoes he’s wearing today.
Next, I hide a few audio recorders around the apartment. They’re battery powered, and don’t transmit, so I’ll have to come back weekly to switch them out, but it’s better than nothing. He’s getting information from somewhere, and it’s nowhere we know to look.
Hopefully, this will help.
Last, I search the place for a burner phone. After forty-five minutes of looking, it’s obvious he either doesn’t keep it here, he took it with him when he went out, or he doesn’t even have one. The last one seems unlikely, though, with the photos he’s sent. I sprawl across a destroyed but carefully restitched couch, just reveling in being outside of Black, while riding the whisper of a buzz I’m getting from breaking in.
I’m still not sold on the drugs. But I’m going to keep taking them.
The sheer volume of freakout that was directed at me for simply visiting the roof of Black was more than enough of a reminder of what my last episode cost the people I care about. What it cost me. I lost their trust. I didn’t mean to, butstill. There it is. And that hurts more than the still-healing hole inside me.
