Page 30 of The Whispering Night
He scrubs. His fair cheeks redden, almost matching his hair.
“I’m here because I know what you saw in the forest, Isaac, and I know you took pictures of it too.”
Now all the blood drains away. So fast, it’s like watching a time-lapse of a vampira sucking its target dry. “I… don’t know what you’re talking about.” He has about as much charismatic skill as Winnie does whenshelies.
“I don’t have time for the denials, Isaac. I need what’s in those photos, and I need them now. So hand me your phone.”
His eyes dart sideways, as if searching for an escape route. When he sees there is none, he withdraws the phone from his pocket. “There’s nothing on here.”
“Of course there is.” Winnie yanks it from his grasp, and he doesn’t try very hard to stop her. “What’s your passcode?”
“There’s nothing on there.”
She sighs. Then plugs in1–2–3–4–5–6. It unlocks immediately.Himbo indeed.While she moves to his photos (it takes her a minute; she’s not used to smartphones… or any other variety, really), Isaac picks up his ham-and-Swiss melt. Then puts it back down again. Then starts tapping the table with a knuckle.
“See?” he says after a while, when all Winnie can find are photos ofhis dog and his girlfriend. (Shelly Thursday?Really?Girl, you can do so much better.) But Winnie isn’t fooled. She finds his albums, scrolls down, down…
She taps “Hidden” then pops his password in again.
Isaac gasps audibly. “No.” Now he looks worried. He grabs for the phone.
“It’s okay, Isaac,” Winnie murmurs, “I don’t care about your gym selfies.” She doesn’t. And to be fair, there aren’t that many on his phone. Just a few photos of him flexing in front of a bathroom mirror, and then…
Ah, there they are: the dead hounds.
Winnie feels her own blood drain at the sight of them. A feeling she should have anticipated, except her spite has been focused so sharply… Well, she forgot about her ghosts.
Winnie’s fingers tremble; she hides it by quickly sending the photos to Erica’s phone. Then immediately deleting the messages.
Isaac, meanwhile, is hyperventilating on the other side of the table. “I could lose my job,” he rasps. “I could get thrown out of the scorpions—”
“You could get thrown out of the Luminaries,” Winnie corrects as she next deletes each photo one by one… then navigates to his trash folder and empties it. “And ten out of ten donotrecommend. But here. I’ve saved your butt, and now there will be no record of your lapse in judgment.”
She offers him the phone. Her hand still shakes—although not nearly so much as Isaac’s. “What are you going to do with those?” he asks. “What do you want from me?”
“I want access to everything the Lambdas are doing right now in the forest.”
Isaac looks at Winnie with a combination of horror, incredulity, and his default himbo confusion. “I’m an Alpha scorpion, though. We fight escaped nightmares and clean up kill sites. Lambda scorpions are the—”
“Witch hunters. Yes. I’m intimately familiar. But you all work in the same underground bunker of offices. So you’re going to get me those records from the forest.” Winnie points at Isaac’s phone. “And then I won’t share these photos you should never have taken.”
“But I can’t get you that!”
“Ah, but you don’t really have a choice, do you? I can assure you from personal experience”—Winnie snags one of his potato chips;crunch, crunch—“that being an outcast sucks.”
“I repeat,” Isaac says, leaning onto the table. His left elbow lands in pooled condensation. “I can’t justaccessLambda records, much less giveyouaccess.”
“Find a way.” Winnie shrugs.
It is at this moment that Erica appears next to the table. She is dressed in a sleek gray dress, her hair in a tight ballerina bun. She wears her school backpack, as if Sunday training only just ended. “Ah, so this is why I got some fascinating text messages.” She flashes her phone at Isaac.
And the poor guy gags. Like, full-ongagsand has to shove a napkin against his mouth to keep the vomit in.
“Awesome,” Winnie says, scootching out of the booth. “I think that means we’re done here. You’ve got Erica’s phone number and you’ve got your orders. Text her when you’re done, Isaac.” Winnie hooks her arm in Erica’s and drags her toward the kitchen.
And to Erica’s credit, she acts as if this is a perfectly normal interaction for them. Meanwhile, in a whisper snarl only Winnie can hear, she demands: “What are you doing here?”
“The same thing as you, I assume: tracking down our only lead.”
