“Are the beans actually gold-colored?” I ask.
Luisa nods. “They’re calledgranos de sol.The Tierrans still use certain words and phrases from their old language. I think it means grains of sun.”
“I saw a video of the harvesting process once,” Karra pipes up. She’s practically draped over Gray’s lap now, her chin resting on his shoulder. “When you crack open the pods for the first time, the beans look like little gold nuggets. It’s cool.”
“Are you all finished hijacking my story?” Mako asks politely.
Gray tries to ward him off again. “How about we save your saga for another time—”
“Imagine it, new girl,” interrupts Mako. “Agranos de solbirthday cake. It was the most glorious thing ever. Lu baked it for me—”
“It was literally just a cake,” Luisa whispers in my direction. “Like seriously unimpressive—”
“It was magnificent,” interjects Mako. “And of course, I shared it with my friends—”
“He allowed eight of us to share one piece,” Henley tells me with a snort.
“—because I’m generous like that,” Mako continues as if nobody but him is speaking. “Anyway, that night, there was only one slice of cake left. One perfect slice, my prize for surviving another year in this bleak, dark world.”
I glance around. “Is he always this dramatic?”
“Yes,” everyone says.
He ignores them. “I wrapped it up and put it in one of the fridges so I could have it for dessert the next day. And do you know what happened the next day?” he says, gaping at me. “I opened the fridge, the place where dreams are made—”
Saint chuckles softly.
“—and my slice was gone! Someone fucking ate it. What kind of sick bastard does that?”
“Maybe they didn’t know it was yours,” I hedge.
“Of course they knew. Everyone knew.” Mako is making wild hand gestures now, and with his size, that means the entire table starts shaking, rattling everyone’s cups. “So naturally, I launched an immediate investigation.”
“You know, if you channel all the energy you spend obsessing over this nonsense and redirect it to getting laid, you’ll be a lot more relaxed,” Henley says helpfully.
“Also, aren’t there security cameras all over this base?” I point out. “Couldn’t this have been solved in five seconds by checking the files?”
Gray’s lips twitch with humor. “If only.”
“The cameras on the Personnel floor were down for maintenance that day,” Mako says, utterly outraged. “What are the odds, Wrenny?”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“We do a system check once a month and ofallthe days to schedule it, they choose the day I’m betrayed. And those checks only lasttwo minutes.Two minutes, and my life is ruined.”
Gray sighs.
“So after I finished my interrogations—”
I can’t keep from laughing, though to be fair, I’m fully engrossed by the tale. “Did you really question people about cake?”
“What else was I supposed to do? Sit idly by while a criminal mastermind roams the Dagger?”
“And we think that woman over there is the culprit?”
He gives a decisive nod. “I narrowed it down to one suspect.Oneperson who was spotted entering the kitchen right before the system maintenance. Her name? Raven Persimmons.”
I turn to examine Pink Hair again. She’s still eating her cake, oblivious to the tale of betrayal and mayhem unfolding at our table.
