Page 20 of Snag
I think about that for a moment. I shouldn’t leave the intersection point when everything still feels so unsettled. “She’s near.”
“You know?” Rought voices that deceptively simple follow-up as if he knows on a different level what it means for me toknowsomething.
I pause, giving that question the consideration it deserves. Also, just in case the universe wants to chime in with a contrary opinion. It doesn’t. “Yes, Iknow.”
“Fine, good,” Coda grouses. “Give me some space and a few fucking minutes of peace and I’ll find her for you.”
Rought’s fingers twitch as if he wants to offer to help. But then he slides his hand across my lower back and waits for me to move toward the door.
I shudder under his delicious touch— but thankfully only internally. Perhaps even on an essence-only level.
“You were tracking Devlin for me,” I say to Coda, trying to keep on track. Then I add, for Rought’s benefit, “Disa’s combat mage wasn’t on the property.”
“I know,” Rought says quietly. “I’ve been looking for him as well. I’ve never been able to track Disa directly.”
That isn’t at all surprising. The universe wouldn’t allowits Conduit to be vulnerable to any sort of tracking, friendly or otherwise.
“I’ve got something for you. Took my algos way too long to find it, but …” Coda sounds uncharacteristically cautious. “You want to hear it in front of AD?”
Rought stiffens, though I’m not certain if it’s the condescending nickname or the inference that I might not trust him that bothers him. But he looks at me instead of responding directly to Coda.
“Do you need to keep secrets from me right now?” he asks, surprisingly gentle.
“Did we keep secrets from each other … before?” I ask, not at all certain why that’s a question I suddenly need answered.
His eyes narrow thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. Not you and me.”
“Yeah,” Coda interjects. “I’m still piecing together all this past shit you’ve all got going on, but secrets are a little too cutesy to encompass what might have happened here right before … you know.”
“Before I became the Conduit,” I whisper. My gaze is already riveted to the images Coda is pulling up on the screen. It’s mostly pictures of various people, including a recent shot of Disa that the tech got off my phone, and a few snippets of vid of locations and vehicles. Unfamiliar at first glance. To me, at least.
Rought jerks forward as if to get a closer look. Though with his beast rimming his eyes, there’s no way he’d miss any of the details of what Coda has uncovered.
“Authority agents like to run around with these little devices that knock out tech in a localized area.” Coda pulls even more images up on the screens, moving too quickly for me to follow the threads the tech is pulling forth.
“Black boxes,” Rought rasps.
“My algos didn’t key in on Devlin until I decided to look at the issue … let’s say through a different lens.”
Rought grunts, impressed. “You’re tracking the use of the black boxes.”
Coda shrugs offishly. “Let’s call it a hobby. I fuck with the Authority in my spare time.”
“You’ve got to be up the chain of command to have a black box,” Rought says. “Legally. Which helps narrow your focus … to anything the Authority might be trying to hide, specifically from people like you.”
“There aren’t any other people like me.” Coda’s tone is flat. Usually the awry tech is ecstatic while on the cusp of a major reveal. “A black box might be an impediment to any other hacker, though its focus is narrow. But me … I can grab the feed from the bank across the street, find what I’m tracking … in this case Devlin … and sharpen it enough to see inside the cafe.”
Coda punches a couple of keys, expanding a vid on the top middle monitor so it fills the screen. The footage clearly shows a light-blond-haired, tanned-skin male in his midthirties sitting at a corner booth by the windows, facing the entrance of a small but bustling cafe.
Seeing him after almost forgetting he even existed is disconcerting. Because of course I recognize my aunt’s chosen.
Devlin.
Devlin, whose eyes crinkled around the edges when he laughed. Devlin, who loved surprising my aunt with small treats, roses and seashells and hand-painted greeting cards from whatever city my aunt had chosen for our training sessions. Devlin, whose explosive essence, similar to Gigi’s but with many more years of experience and the connectionto my aunt to fortify it, parted crowded markets or sidewalks without any effort.
Devlin, who was much older than he appears in the vid. Just like my aunt’s other two chosen, Mack and Ingrid. Because the tie to my aunt came with almost enough advantages to outweigh its one gigantic complication.
My aunt dying — being murdered? — also killed all her chosen. Though I haven’t yet found Devlin’s body, an easy extrapolation puts the combat mage at Disa’s side when she died.
