I sighed. “And the new dream bands are supposed to wake us if we’re indistress.”
He rubbed his temples. “Yeah, it didn’t work. We need to go back to the drawing board. The ghouls are pulling us in deeper, Isuspect.”
I flashed back to the conversation we’d had in the hallway. “You said someone hacked the government, that they saw chatter about them wanting to keep the cuff for themselves. It was you, wasn’t it?” He’d been able to set off the fire alarm in Santiago’s house way too fast. He must’ve been doing stuff like that for a longtime.
A rosy blush colored his cheeks. “I can neither confirm nor deny thoseallegations.”
I couldn’t help but grin. “Weapons billionaire by day and hacker by night. I never would’veguessed.”
He tucked a stray lock of blond hair behind his ear. “Well, Kit, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.” His eyes peered into my soul then, and I suddenly felt uncomfortable. When shit got too intimate in my life, I just short-circuited andran.
“Do you have a home gym? I need to train Tatum before she goes home. It’s a part of my contract with her mom,” I told him in my typical military short-clippedtone.
Please God, don’t let him soul-gaze into my eyes anymore. Especially notshirtless!
He looked at me for a moment longer and then nodded. “Downstairs. Mr. Hansen can showyou.”
“I’ll talk to my team and review any data you send. We’ll vote tonight, and if we decide to stay with your family, we’ll only be sleeping every twonights.”
It was safer that way. Staying up for forty-eight hours wasn’t too bad, and it meant less time in the Dream Wars attracting sentries. Then I spun and left the room. I didn’t like the conflicting thoughts I was having, so I decided to shove them down and focus on somethingelse.
When I opened the office door Ronnie was there, doing inventory on her medical supplies. She looked up at me with tired eyes. “I would’ve loved six hours, but I guess four will do. How do youfeel?”
I shrugged. “I’m going to train Tatum, shower, and then let’s head to the loft later for ameeting.”
She nodded. “Four sentries. I can’t believeit.”
It was insane, and yet it almost made me want to protect them more. The more dangerous it was, the more I wanted in. What was wrong with me? But what if he really could make a cuff that would stun or injure them or whatever so they couldn’t touchus?
The sentry was stunned after he’d come into contact with the cuff. They were on to something forsure.
I quickly changed into dry clothes and found Tatum waiting for me, her messenger bag slung over hershoulder.
I held out a hand. “Let me see your algebrahomework.”
She rolled her eyes. “No offense, but didn’t you say math was your worstsubject?”
Damn kids hold everything against you, and they don’t forget anything you say. What a shitshow.
“I’m going to have Ronnie look it over while we train,” I toldher.
She pulled out the paper and handed it to me. I popped into the makeshift clinic Ronnie had set up directly across the hall where she was now checking out a bruise on Brisk’sshoulder.
“When you’re done patching him up, can you look this over?” I askedher.
Shenodded.
I looked at the Marine. “Loft meeting tonight. We need to decide if we want to keep this job ornot.”
He seemed conflicted, butnodded.
It was common sense. We didn’t need the moneythatmuch, and I could have another client in a second. I had a six months’ long waitlist of people who weren’t actively trying to get my family and I killed. People who weren’t attracting boatloads of sentries and experimenting with tech. But I still felt like a shithead for even thinking about going back on myword.
Tatum and I walked the hall in silence. “Was it really bad?” she finallyasked.
I just nodded. I didn’t want her to grow up any faster than she already hadto.
“You still taking the birth control?” I askedher.
