Liam looks down in alarm, his face going blotchy with color, only to realize the joke.
I smile at that, and James doesn’t miss it.
He locks eyes with me and I feel the impact in my chest, knocking me deeper into my body. My smile fades as I watch his throat move. My skin seems to come alive. James is looking at me like he wants to come and get me.
It makes me feel winded.
“Whatever,” Liam mutters under his breath.
With a start, I realize then that Kian is staring at me. His steady gaze is guarded as he studies my face, then my coat, then my face again. “She looks like a marshmallow,” he says.
A child screams and James flinches, a faint tremor seeming to move through him as he turns away, directing his eyes to a wall. I track the room for the source: the mother of the distressed child picks a fallen toy off the floor, resolving the issue, and the crying ceases as suddenly as it started. James exhales, the breath moving all the way through his body.
I don’t understand why no one seems to notice this.
“I guess that’s one way to hide her in plain sight,” Kian is saying. “Always in costume.” He meets my eyes again, a wry smile touching his lips. “What, no tail today?”
Mortification catches me off guard.
Heat floods my face at once.
“Wow,” says Kian, brows lifting as he stares at me. “Cute. She single?”
James looks up.
I can see the change in him from where I’m sitting: the tension in his face, the rise and fall of his chest. He looks at me, then at Kian. Then looks at me again.
“Don’t worry,” says Allie. “He’s joking.”
“Obviously,” says Liam.
I watch Nazeera rest a hand on James’s arm, then send him an inscrutable look. This doesn’t seem to register. James has turned to concrete.
Kian glances at the door, faking a smile as he turns to face everyone. “Well, this was weird,” he says. “And we should probably get going.” He nods at me. “It was nice officially meeting you, Rosabelle. Thanks for the scars.”
“Sorry,” I say to him.
Everyone collectively tenses at the sound of my voice. Kian’s eyes widen in surprise.
“For almost killing you,” I clarify. “I’m sorry.”
Kian’s confusion is slowly displaced by a smile, his face warming with easy humor, and he looks like he’s about to say something to me when Nazeera beats him to it.
“So you guys are heading out?” she says forcefully.
“Oh,” says Kian, hesitating as he looks away from me. “Yeah. I just got a call about some weird activity over by the docks. Malik is on leave for the week, and I’m taking over some of his shifts—”
Without warning shrill rings chorus throughout the diner, the pitch cutting through the din, deadening the clamor. A palpable wave of dread moves slowly through the restaurant as at least a third of the occupants in plainclothes stiffen in tandem, all lifting their pagers at the same time.
So many hidden soldiers in one place.
Only then does it occur to me that I have no idea where I am within the city. James, Nazeera, Kian, Liam, Allie—all but Adam and Winston, I notice—receive the missive.
“What is it?” says Adam. “What’s going on?”
There’s a breath of stillness.
And then, all at once, a veritable stampede for the door.
