Griffin sighs. “Fine, but I want you with us just in case. Morrow’s a nasty sucker.”
“I’ll run comms,” Zoey says. “Eden can come so she’s not alone here, as long as she feels up for it.”
“I do,” I say. I’d crawl there if it meant watching the Game Master get trapped in a jar.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Griffin says. “It was risky enough having you in the van when we searched the buildings, but bringing you directly to Morrow for the extraction? What if the extraction fails? What if he sees you, Eden?”
“We’ll be safe in the van,” Zoey says firmly. “Morrow’s seen it before, so we’ll have to park out of sight, anyway.”
“It’s not like I’m going to wheel up to him screaming and waving at him,” I say.
“Underestimating Morrow is how you and Nico got taken in the first place, and Donny—” Griffin’s voice cracks.
“I get it, I do, but right now, Morrow probably thinks he’s killed half our team and scared us away,” I say. “If the extraction fails, he’ll probably hide until he finds a way to pick the rest of us off so we can’t get in his way again. If that happens, he’ll want us all dead, and it won’t matter if I’m in the van or stuck here because when he starts hunting you guys, he’s going to find me eventually.”
“This is what we signed up for,” Zoey adds.
“Fine,” Griffin says. “Call DJ.”
Zoey looks like she just swallowed something sour, but she dials, and the phone rings twice before DJ picks up.
“What?” DJ snaps.
I flinch at her clipped tone.
“Hello to you, too, Daisy,” Zoey says flatly. “Got you on speaker with the team. Griffin wants you in the field for a possible extraction this afternoon.”
“Yes, I can—I’m coming—but, um—” DJ sounds out of breath. “Nico just woke up.”
Every muscle in my body tenses.
I roll my wheelchair closer to the phone. “Can I talk to him?”
“He’s resting right now,” DJ says. “The doctors gave him something for the pain, and he’s pretty out of it.”
“Please,” I beg, and Zoey casts me a sympathetic look over her shoulder. “DJ, please, can you just tell him I want to talk to him?”
“I’ll tell him,” DJ says. “I promise, Eden. He seems okay so far, but I’ll have more of an update this afternoon.”
Zoey drives my car to Henley’s neighborhood. I’m too preoccupied thinking about Nico to think of a single thing to say on the ride, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
What if Nico doesn’t want to talk to me? What if hearing my voice reminds him of everything that happened in that bathroom, everything he had to do? Everything I made him do?
Zoey pulls up next to the van at noon. We’re parked at the mouth of a side street that branches off from Henley’s block, just around the corner from his house. There’s a fence that comes up to about window level—high enough to hide the van from everybody who’s not really looking, but low enough that we have a clean line of sight.
Griffin and Benji help me onto one of the seats. Bob sits in my lap. I couldn’t leave him all alone so soon after coming back.
Ten minutes later, DJ’s car pulls up behind us. She steps out of the driver’s seat and yawns into the crook of her elbow. Her usual energy seems dimmed, like her brightness settings have been turned down.
Somewhere deep in my mind, I’d accepted the fact that I’d never see her again. Seeing her now undoes me.
The second she opens the van door, I nearly fall off my seat in my rush to get to her. She opens her arms, and I fling my good one around her, burying my face in her shoulder.
“Oh my God—” she says, hugging me tighter. “Eden, I’m so sorry—you have no idea—we tried so hard to find you, and that?—”
“I’m okay,” I mumble into her shoulder.
She pulls back to look at me, and tears are streaming down her cheeks. “You’re not okay, you fucking liar.”
