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“Cave did.”
Cave, who is already on his second serving of pancakes, also shakes his head. Ouch! Such betrayal while eating a breakfast I made.
“What about my phone dying three steps into the cemetery? It was almost at full charge since I had it plugged in at Nixie’s office.”
Cipher’s ears go pink. “Your phone’s on the island’s network now. I had a little help from Clay. It came back on before we hit the bluff.”
“That is the most terrifying thing any of you have ever done.”
“Thank you,” Cipher says with a smile.
She stares at him for a second, then leans across the syrup and kisses him, and his ears go from pink to red.
“One more question.” She wipes her thumb across Cipher’s jaw where he had a smidge of syrup. “Whose idea was the bluff?”
Cave taps his chest.
“Of course it was. And the bag over my head?”
He nods. Cave planned almost every step, walking the path to make sure there were no obstacles in our way so we didn’t drop her, and he may have killed us if we did. Hence, most of the time it was him and Cipher carrying her.
She gets up from her seat and goes to him, and he pulls her onto his lap. She says something into his neck, and whatever it is, his eyes close.
Cleanup of the island starts around three; Nixie has no time for mess. We all walk together as far as we can until the path splits. Valli has to head to the office, Cipher to pack away the generators, Cave to his field, and me to my dead people, or lack of dead people. Valli kisses all three of us goodbye, and I watch Cave stare at her until she is out of sight. Then he stands there another few seconds, watching the empty path until I bump his shoulder.
“We will see her at dinner. It’s a shift, not her walking away.”
He looks at me and taps my chest once. Then he peels off toward the corn, and I bounce off toward the cemetery to see what needs to be done.
I love the island after Harvest Moon. Everybody works together and is nice, which is deeply unnatural for us. It usually lasts about three days, and then it’s back to normal. I head toward the main part of the island first, needing trash bags, as I forgot to bring them from the shed. I cut through the alley and Rue flags me down from the bar, telling me before I go home to pick up the food he has made for us.
“Nixie is in a good mood. So feed your girl, we need you to keep her happy. I think she is a good fit here.”
I laugh at Rue. “I keep her more than happy,” I say with a wink.
His face pulls up in disgust. “The numbers came in this morning. We broke every record.”
Right on cue, I hear Nixie—her voice carries when she is happy. “Next year we are doing it bigger and better, and you will be running a zone.”
I step forward to where I can see Valli’s face; she isn’t sure what to say. I grin the rest of the way to getting the garbage bags from the storage room.
On my way back, I snort when I see a crate of tomatoes on the security office steps. There is a note on the crate, and I’m nosey so I take a peek.
Sorry about the footage, you know what I mean;)
The office door is open, and Vesper is sitting in front of the wall of screens with a tomato in her hand, the Jester standing to her right.
“You watched it back?” he asks, sounding delighted about something.
“I watch everything back. It’s one of my jobs.”
“But you liked it, didn’t you?”
Vesper throws the tomato at his head, and he catches it, then takes a bite. “Needed one more day on the vine,” he muses.
I keep walking and find Cipher behind a theme park ride, halfway under the contraption, his boots and legs sticking out like the machine is eating him. There are parts laid out on a tarp beside him in a perfect line, left to right, and I know better than to touch any of them. I’ve done it before, and he didn’t talk to me for a day and a half.
“Knock, knock,” I say, tapping on the machine.
