He smirks. “You can be. Don’t forget I watched you smash a howler monkey to death with a rock.”
“Yeah, well you stabbed an anaconda, so . . .” I smile despite the situation, despite missing Dox, and despite this place trying to kill me. “Look at us. Two murderers.”
“Yeah,” he replies, grinning at me.
I’m suddenly hyper aware of the heat his legs give off beneath the table again. His knees close a little, brushing against mine when they get too close, but he doesn’t move them. He just watches me.
“I wonder if there will be any hyenas here,” I comment, my eyes trailing back up to the television.
“Maybe there will be,” Locke says. “Maybe you’ll be the hyena.”
Something hangs in the air between us, some tension I can’t place. When I look back at him, he’s just watching me carefully, cautiously, as if I’m dangerous. Maybe I am. Maybe he is.
“You are getting too attached,” Cipher says, interrupting the moment. “Stop it.”
I ignore him and drink the rest of the water in my glass. “I think I’m going to go clean myself up,” I say, remembering how dirty I am. “We should also get some more rest.”
Locke nods. “I agree. We spend some more time in the safehouse, stock up on food, rest, and then figure out how to level up our XP enough to choose our Glitch. Then we make all the motherfuckers at the top pay.” He grins, as if he can’t wait for that part.
“Sounds like a plan,” I say, standing. But my plan has an extra step in there. Find Dox. And it’s the most important. “Good resting.”
And then I walk away from him.
I can feel his eyes burning holes into my back the entire walk to the healing room.
CHAPTER15
VESPER
Ireturn back to the room I’d woken up in to find the bed made and the room tidied. My boots are now standing side by side at the foot of the bed and the blankets have been smoothed out. I close the door behind me and lock it before I venture toward the bathing basin.
“Can you see me in this room?” I ask out loud.
“I see everything,” Cipher answers.
“I’d like you not to look at me when I undress,” I say, studying the basin to try and figure out how to get water out of it.
There are two knobs just like back in Dross. There, only one of the knobs works so I try that one first. Water sputters out of faucet quickly, cold as ice. After a second, I turn the second knob and the water rushes faster. When I put my hand in it, prepared for the ice I’ll have to clean up with, I instead find it hot. I jerk my hand back in surprise, and then reach forward again.
“Does the hot water no longer work in Dross?” Cipher says. “I thought the mechanisms for heated water would last longer than that.”
“No,” I rasp. “We only have cold.”
I quickly plug the basin and watch as it starts to fill up with the steaming water. I’m going to enjoy this for as long as I have it. I reach for the edge of my tank top and hesitate.
“I want you to look away.”
“I am just a machine,” Cipher says. “Seeing your naked body is not something that needs to be worried about.”
“We both know you’re not just a machine,” I comment, looking around the room as if I’ll find some sort of machine watching me. “Give me privacy. Please.”
Cipher hums. “I cannot turn off my awareness, but I can make your room into a temporary dark zone. I will still hear you, but I will not see you until you reinstate my vision. Is that sufficient?”
“Yes,” I breathe. “Let me know when it’s safe.”
“It is safe.”
Still, I hesitate. “Can I trust you?”
