Dara met his gaze across the room. He still had snow in his hair as he ran his fingers back through the curls, lips quirking in half a smile.
Shit.
“What is it?” the Texan said, head swiveling to look—and if he recognized Noam on sight, then hedefinitelyknew Dara Shirazi.
“Someone who’ll go home with me tonight, hopefully,” Noam said, and that was sufficient to make the Texan’s attention snap back to him on reflex. Long enough, at least, for Dara to slip into the crowd and vanish beneath the strobe lights.
The man shook his head slowly and stabbed his cigarette out in the abandoned glass. “Y’all really do think we’re all backward-ass hicks down in Texas, don’t you?”
“Aren’t you?”
“I was best man in my sister’s wedding to a lady named Wanda.” He snorted. “But I guess Carolinian propaganda’s a helluva drug.”
Noam discarded his own cigarette, even though he’d only taken the one drag. “All that antiwitching legislation y’all keep pushing through isn’t propaganda. So you’ll forgive me if I’m still a bit prejudiced.”
“That’s your prerogative,” the man said, and when Noam held out his hand again, he finally passed over the flopcell.
Noam’s heart was beating too fast, overly aware of Dara’s presence as if he’d somehow gotten specially tuned to it.
“I’m sure Claire’ll be in touch,” the Texan said, rising from his seat and extending a hand toward Noam, who shook it.
Fuck. This was all so fucked.
Dara was here, which meant Dara wasout in public, only a ten-minute walk from the goddamn government complex like a fuckingidiotfixing to get arrested, and the Texan guy was heading out the door, and Noam’s gun was cold against the small of his back and fuck fuckfuck.
Noam threw out his technopathy in a desperate net, and—thank god, Texan guy had a burner phone in his back pocket. Carolinian make, so no Texan wards against Noam’s power. Who knew if he’d hang on to it long enough for Noam to actually track him down. But.
Making sure Dara didn’t get himself killed was more important right now.
He shoved the flopcell into his back pocket and made his way into the crowd, pressing between the roiling bodies and keeping his magic extended, locked onto the tech of Dara’s burner phone.
He couldn’t help noticing Dara had gotten his text. Had read it, too; he’d just decided not to reply.
Because why reply when you can just show up in the middle of a goddamn drop?
Noam found Dara at the bar, perched on a stool and sipping a club soda, like he had every right to be here.
“Pay your bill—we’re going,” Noam said without prelude, and when Dara hesitated, he pulled a handful of argents out of his own pocket and slapped them onto the bar. “Dara.”
“He’s underage, you know,” Dara informed the bartender, gesturing toward Noam with his thumb. “Seventeen. He shouldn’t be in here.”
“We’re leaving,” Noam said, both to Dara and the bartender, who’d narrowed a suspicious gaze at Noam’s face. It took everything Noam had not to grab Dara’s arm and physically drag him off that stool.
Dara sighed and put down his soda, sliding off his seat and waving one hand toward the exit as if to saylead the way.
Noam’s anger seethed inside him as he pushed his way back through the crowd, growing more and more lethal the longer he held on to it. Dara knew he wasn’t supposed to leave the apartment. He knew how dangerous it was—not only for himself but for the entire fucking mission. And he did it anyway.
He barely felt the midnight cold as they stepped out onto the street, even though an icy wind had picked up from the east, tearing through their hair and making Dara’s unbuttoned jacket flap around him like black wings.
“How did you get here?” Noam asked.
“I took the bus.”
Noam laughed, a bitter sound that tore itself out of his lungs and left his throat feeling raw. “Right.”
Of course he did. Of course the one time Dara Shirazi deigned to take the fucking bus was when he had a missing person notice out for him. And they couldn’t walk. It was at least forty-five minutes from here to Dara’s apartment. That was forty-five minutes to get caught. Noam started off down the alley, cutting back around toward Main Street; he didn’t look back, but he heard Dara’s boots crunching through the snow in his wake, so at least he was following.
The Texan contact was already halfway across town, per his burner phone. And that was assuming he hadn’t done the smart thing and ditched it after meeting with a known technopath.
