Page 29 of Snag
“The pictures are a lie,” I whisper into that numbness coating my chest, my heart. “Just random moments captured in black and white —”
“The pictures are not a fucking lie!” Rath takes a ragged breath. “Zaya, please. This is just … bad communication and minor mistakes. You are fucking exhausted. I can fucking feel how drained you are. It’s just too much right now. Too much all at once. But we can move through this —”
The door bangs open at the base of the stairs. “Oh, nasty,” Coda grumbles. Loudly. “So much fucking paper. Ugh, it smells fucking terrible in here … like books. And old leather.”
Footsteps clomp up the stairs.
Rath’s shoulders sag.
“It’s bad,” I whisper, speaking more to myself than Rath. “If Coda is willing to leave their tech lair behind and report in person.”
“So many fucking stairs,” Coda grumbles from below. “Do you know how much money you have, Zaya? Try putting in a fucking elevator. Or better yet, keep your fucking phone on you.”
I turn to face the landing. Rath steps back to retrieve the chair — the only actual evidence of our fight — tucking it in place behind the desk. I’m pretty certain I dented the shelf with it. I’ll have to figure out how to fix that later.
Coda makes it to the top of the stairs, glaring daggers at me, leaning on the top of the newel post, and clearly trying not to pant. “I’ve been texting,” the awry tech snaps, a large laptop in their hands.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because apologizing is the quickest way to move forward with whatever info Coda has deemed explosive enough that they needed to come to me in person. “I actually don’t know where my phone is.”
Coda pushes off the railing, practically stumbling around the desk after eyeing Rath and skirting in a direction where they avoid interacting with the massive shifter. The tech falls into the desk chair, placing the laptop down on the desk and opening it. The screen is black.
“Don’t bite me, asshole,” Coda says, eyeing Muta over the top of the screen.
Muta disappears.
“What the fuck!” Coda shouts, freezing with their fingers hovering over the keyboard.
Preceded by the weight of his robust essence, the bushmaster reappears, draped over my shoulders.
Coda shakes their head. “New tricks for the death god? That isn’t fucking terrifying at all.”
“He’s always been able to teleport,” Rath rumbles, sounding just a little too glib for my liking. “To protect Zaya.”
I narrow my eyes at the shifter. “Coda is not a threat.”
Blatantly ignoring me, Rath crosses his arms, then says imperiously, “Show us what you deem so important, awry.”
Coda snorts. “Okay, Daddy Dragon.”
Despite the sarcasm, Coda’s fingers fly over the keyboard of the laptop. The screen remains black, but presumably the password or protections they’re activating are similar to the ones installed on the phone I’m terrible at carrying around with me.
“I’m going to imbed a chip in your ass, Zaya,” Coda says, as if reading my mind.
“Doesn’t work,” Rath says matter-of-factly. “Her essence fries it.”
I throw him another narrow-eyed look. Muta shifts, trying to get comfortable on my shoulders.
Coda chuckles darkly. “Not my tech.”
Rath takes a step closer, so he’s within Coda’s peripheral sight. “Remember, awry. Zaya is the fucking Conduit now.”
“The name is Coda,” the tech says sourly. They don’t otherwise argue Rath’s point.
Various programs open on Coda’s laptop screen, arrayed in small boxes. Coda clicks on one of the boxes, enlarging and pulling it forward. It appears to be a new still shot of the person we spotted with Kris at the salon.
Bellamy.
“Is that the dire mage?” Rath asks.
