A few feet away, DeVille is grinning widely at the Benz, which he’s pulled up closer to the hotel bar entrance, and talking to Presh enthusiastically. The young awry looks bored out of her mind. The cu-sith has taken up a watchful position, sitting but alert, next to the doors on my far right.
Gigi sighs. Hands on her hips, hair a wild tangle of blond curls, as she continually scans the area. She wears tight cotton shorts under an artfully loose red silk peasant blouse. Her long-legged stance primed for an attack, the combat mage keeps herself between Coda and the cu-sith. “We talked about this,” she says to Coda. “Zaya is the Cond —”
“Fuck your talking,” Coda snarls, shoving blue-tinted glasses up their nose so viciously that it looks as if it hurts.
Gigi flinches at the vitriol in the tech’s tone.
Coda either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Adjusting the small satchel slung across their body, they pace back and forth in ripped, frayed jeans, a worn T-shirt printed with a logo for some old video game, and sandals that appear to be held together by duct tape. All of the ensemble is too large for the tech’s tall but slim frame.
“We got tossed off the property like fucking garbage!” Coda gestures wildly. “I couldn’t track you. I couldn’t fucking find you. Do you know what that’s like? Having everyone around me slowly going crazy because the one person, the person that fucking sustains them, is missing? Begging me … begging me, Zaya … to fucking find even a hint of you.”
“All of that was —”
“You got in that fucking SUV! With him!” Coda is shouting, pressing both hands to their face now as if trying to hold it all together. “I told you I didn’t have access to his phone or his tech. By the time I picked you up again and got Rought and Rath after your ass, it was too fucking late, wasn’t it?”
Gigi touches Coda’s shoulder.
The tech awry jerks away from her. “Fuck off, Gigi. I don’t need you constantly in my fucking face.”
She stiffens. Then she turns and walks away, back around the hotel toward the main parking lot.
Coda’s jaw drops, both of us just watching the combat mage until she steps around the building.
The tech awry visibly deflates, actually swaying on their feet as they murmur, “I haven’t been sleeping. I have more shit to do than just keeping tabs on you, Conduit.”
“We should come up with a plan,” I say steadily. “I need to know what to do when I get separated from my phone and I can’t contact you directly. Stupidly, I … I don’t even know how to get a direct message to you.”
“Pick up any fucking phone and …” Coda shakes their head. “Right. Conduit.”
“I did try to get myself seen on some cameras,” I say lamely.
DeVille clambers into the Benz and fiddles around with the controls, as limited as they are in a classic vehicle. Presh steps up beside Coda, angling her head until she forces eye contact on the tech. Then she flings herself forward into a fierce, one-sided hug. Coda, stiff backed and grimacing, clearly struggles to accept the contact, then awkwardly pats Presh on the back with a splayed hand.
“You should probably go after Gigi,” Presh says, voice muffled against Coda’s shoulder.
Coda’s gaze, still partially hidden behind the blue-tinted glasses, flicks to me. “Can I get back to my tech on the estate now? Instead of being continually fucking hampered by Rought’s inferior shit?”
With perfect timing, the gryphon shifter steps through the open door at my back with a huff. “I’ve gotten you everything you’ve asked for, Coda.”
“Days later than I needed it,” the tech says pissily.
“The estate should accept all of you again,” I say, touching my amulet and surprised to find that I didn’t tuck it under my dress, against my skin, as I usually wear it. “I’m not quite certain why it tossed you all out. It didn’t feel as if it was in stasis, not like it was when my aunt died.”
The awry tech just shrugs affectedly. “Then Gigi will find me on the estate when she’s cooled off. Are you my chauffeur?” Coda asks Rought, covering for being rattled and way outside their comfort zone by being an ass.
“Sure,” Rought says evenly, sliding his hand across my lower back. “Let’s call babysitting you when I’d rather be with Zaya ‘chauffeuring.’ ”
Coda scoffs nastily. “You’re overkill for a clandestine jailbreak, shifter. Zaya won’t need muscle or your average tech skills. You can release me now, rugrat.”
“Are you sure?” Presh asks sweetly. “Because you’re still being a total asshole to everyone, so I don’t think the hug has sunk in.”
“I’m always a fucking asshole,” Coda grouses.
Presh releases the tech from the hug, brushing her shoulder against mine as she crosses back to the Benz. She shoves the driver’s-side seat forward with DeVille still half in it. He leans to the side rather than getting completely pinned against the steering wheel while Presh climbs into the back seat. Of course, Presh wouldn’t have been able to move the seat even an inch if DeVille hadn’t been playing along.
“So compliant,” Coda mumbles. “Now that she’s getting what she wants. Scan your face on that fucking phone, Zaya … please.”
I obligingly lift the phone up to my face. Nothing happens.
