Page 91 of Snag
“Text messages, not as wiped as the baby awry probably thought …” Coda mutters in the background. “She’s been texting an unknown number … this routing code, though …”
“Authority?” I ask, walking right up to the open window of the SUV to meet Reck’s dark-eyed gaze. Then I deliberately look into the back seats. Empty.
“Who are you talking to?” Reck asks darkly.
I’m not certain he has another tone. At least not when addressing me.
“Who’s that?” Gigi asks over the phone speakers.
“I’m not sure,” I say. Then I say to Reck, “Are you my long-lost soul-bound mate? Or are you an Authority agent right now?”
He grimaces.
I’m not sure which option displeases him the most. But it’s likely the soul-bound thing.
“Carlos Guerra,” Gigi says, speaking to Coda somewhere in the background. “Sergeant of the Major Crimes Unit, Cascadian Division. Club name Reck. For obvious fucking reasons.”
“I have a fucking eidetic memory, you know,” Coda grouses.
I can hear the awry tech’s fingers flying over their keyboards now.
“Were the text messages to Presh from you?” I ask Reck.
Deliberately, dismissively, he shifts his attention to the front doors of the house. “Get in, Zaya.”
The strength with which he’s gripping the wheel and the tense way he’s holding himself gives him away, though. He’s angry, likely perpetually, but he’s not indifferent.
He’s pretty to look at in profile. But it’s clear that Reck doesn’t know me— past me or present me— very well. I don’t respond to demands from anyone but the universe. And the universe hasn’t moved me yet.
“I don’t have him.” Coda’s voice shifts closer to the speakers. “I don’t have his phone, Zaya. I should easily be able to jump from you to him.” There’s a brief pause, then a frustrated snarl. “Fucker. He’s running one of those Authority black boxes.”
Reck, still not looking at me, smirks like a total asshole.
I tilt my head, considering him. “I can see the resemblance now. I couldn’t before. Just a sense of the familiar. Of course, I had just died the day before I found the picture. Dying tends to make everything a little hazy around the edges for a few days.”
Reck turns his head just enough to narrow his eyes on me, assessing but also threatening. “Resemblance to who?”
“Your father. Though it’s an easy guess that Bellamy is your twin.”
Anger, maybe even pure hatred, etches across his face. “It’s not an easy guess!”
“What’s that?” Coda asks. “More info, Zaya. I’ve been asleep for a few hours, and Gigi won’t give me another energy drink.”
“You’ve had three in the last fifteen minutes,” Gigi snaps from the background.
“Oso Guerra,” I say, not quite certain why I feel the need to needle Reck. Because I honestly don’t think helooks like his father, and Coda already knows everything we know about Bellamy. “The Cataclysm.”
“You have a picture of the Cataclysm and you haven’t sent it to me?” Coda snaps. “What the fuck, Zaya!?”
“Rath has it,” I say, hovering my hand over the window frame of the SUV, reaching for all the essence spells layered over it, embedded into the steel and paint. Those protections are likely also restricting Coda’s reach. Or …
“Maybe the SUV is the black box,” I say.
“Don’t,” Reck snaps, as if he knows what I can do with a simple touch. “We might need that. Get in!”
“I’ll have the black box disabled in a few minutes,” Coda says. The tech sounds focused, present.
Reck jerks in his seat, as if he’s just stopped himself from making a grab for my phone.
