Kaz grimaced. “Dude, what the hell?”
“I could still work without a tongue,” Berga replied as if that was the most logical answer he could give.
“How are you going to run the interrogation part, genius?” Flix quirked a blond brow.
“You’d have to help me out I suppose.”
“Answer the damn question,” Baikal interrupted them sharply.
“Oh.” Berga tipped his head and considered it. “Nothing more than the average person. My mother is a big December Trace fan, so her music was constantly streaming on the holo-player in the living room day in and out. I probably saw her face more than I did my own mom’s.”
It was tempting to tell him what his mother’s idol got up to in her spare time, but since he’d promised he’d keep the secret, Baikal didn’t bring it up. He wouldn’t betray Rabbit like that, not him, and not before he’d gotten everything he wanted from his tiny obsession first.
Besides, it wasn’t like he could really judge when he took into account where the four of them were currently standing.
The Bunker was an underground location used by the Brumal, a location even the Imperial family didn’t know the whereabouts of. There were three levels and the lowest, the one they were on, was designed as a labyrinth of sorts. Soldiers who’d wandered down here without proper orders or instructions had gotten lost in the past, some not found until they were near death thanks to dehydration.
When he’d been nine, he’d snuck in without his father knowing to explore on his own. He’d been a cocky little shit even at that age, confident he wouldn’t get lost like those losers he’d heard stories about. And he hadn’t.
All he’d had to do was follow the screams.
“What do you know about her relationship with her son?” With everything else going on in his life the past year, Baikal’s obsession with the musician had been pretty narrowed into focus on the present. He hadn’t been lying when he’d mentioned buying a magazine with Rabbit’s face on it the other day, but the interview questions had all been about his future, with little mention of his past. “I assumed they weren’t close because she’s never around.”
“December Trace is pretty private about her home life,” Berga said. “But from what I recall, anytime her son was brought up, she’d talk about how talented he is and is going to be. Sounded a lot like she’d written his future from start to finish for him already.”
“Sounds kind of familiar,” Kazimir grunted, sending Kal a knowing look when his glare turned disapproving. “What? The two of you have something in common, that’s all.”
Flix’s brow furrowed. “No way, you have a thing for the prodigy?”
Kaz rolled his eyes. “Where have you been?”
“I’ve been careful,” Baikal argued, only to have his cousin tsk.
“Not careful enough. Sending him flowers? Attending all of his performances? Did you really think no one was going to notice?”
“I mean,” Flix leaned toward Berga and lowered his voice, just not low enough the words wouldn’t travel, “he wasn’t entirely wrong since no one other than Kaz did. Right? Did you have any idea?”
Berga shook his head in the negative.
Baikal had stopped listening to them again. Perhaps Rabbit’s mother was overbearing, despite their distance. There had to be more to it—there’d been too much fear in Rabbit’s eyes for it to be as simple as that—but he’d get to the bottom of it. Now that it’d been brought to his attention, he’d chip away at all those secrets one by one until he had his little bunny vulnerable and splayed out before him.
Kazimir’s multi-slate dinged and he checked the message scowling.
“What is it?” Flix asked.
“There’s been another break-in,” Kazimir swore.
“We should—”
Baikal whipped out his blaster, aimed, and shot the prisoner they’d been interrogating between the eyes. At everyone’s silent stare, he shrugged. “He had his chance to be useful.” He turned to Kazimir. “Where did they hit this time?”
“Keep that thing handy,” he indicated the blaster, “You aren’t going to like this.”
Chapter 10:
Rabbit came out of the bathroom drying his hair and noticed the green light flashing on the side of his multi-slate, which he’d left on the end table in his bedroom. He didn’t rush to check the message, heading toward the dresser to pull out a pair of gray sweatpants and a T-shirt first. He was exhausted and his left shoulder was aching a little, probably due to the fact he’d lost track of time and had spent over six hours in his practice room replaying the same four notes over and over again.
It’d been years since he’d made a breakthrough, and it was starting to feel like the only reason he was still looked favorably upon in the music scene was because there was no one else currently on planet that was at his level.
