Page 124 of Cold-Blooded Creatures
“Do you have access to more? Anything regarding the schools or lists of fertile citizens and their residencies?”
Greyn returned the piece of tech back to the third drawer from the top, not a screech from the well-oiled hinges and tracks as he closed it. “No, we can only program the chips for now. But we’re working on it.” He tried to smooth out the tangle of his blond hair, as if he was too tired to run a comb through it this morning.
A stark contrast to Gedeon and Kali. Their dark strands were always shiny and smooth. Like silk flowing through your fingers while they slept, oblivious to your presence.
Greyn surrendered to the mess of his locks, and balanced on two legs of his chair, scanning the room. “Nelle, any news?”
“We’re trying to see if we can get into their systems. But nothing yet. We’ll call you if we get anywhere,” she shared, tapping at her keyboard as furiously as the silent treatment she was giving to Samuel, who pleaded with her to listen to him.
Shit. No access meant we had to explore other possibilities of tracking Alora. I wasn’t going to break our deal with Kali. She’d admitted that breaking her promise to Alora that they both would be okay taught her to be wary of all one-sided agreements. Everything had a price in her eyes; everything had to be reciprocated or compensated. Bargains had become a lifeline for her.
I had to deliver on ours.
I couldn’t save my sister in time, and I wasn’t going to watch her lose hers too. Not when I knew what it did to you. How it stole your life from you.
“So instead of running away,she accepted your tattoo. I have to give it to her. In a week since youtookher, she persuaded you to agree to ink her. I’m impressed.” Damia scooped up the dried leaves from the glass jar and dropped them into her clay cup, its sides a child’s painting of a house and a mother and a daughter holding hands. Nara had made it for her a year after Damia had taken the orphaned nine-year-old kid under her wing. “But it seems the invitation to your celebration a month ago has slipped my attention. Lost in travel, I suppose?” The water in the kettle reached the boiling temperature, and the steam rose from the spout as high as her accusing eyebrows.
“I fucked up.” Damia was barely older than me, but damn if she hadn’t mastered ruling over us already when we were as little as when her daughter had painted that cup. So all of us, Conall, Gedeon, and I, did what we had to—admitted our sins to her. “Sorry about that.” I rubbed my nape. “Didn’t invite Conall either.” Taking both our cups, I brought them into a veranda hugging Damia’s house from two sides. “And it’s not going as well as you think it is.” I placed the tea between us on the bench pressed against the wall, the fresh coat of sky-blue paint matching the cloudless sky. Damia always took care of her house, like the people she cared about.
“What’s the problem?” She blew over the steaming liquid to cool it down enough to drink. “Gedeon would’ve never agreed to give her the tattoo if he didn’t believe in her.”
“She’s broken.” A flurry of colorful withering leaves swirled around my ankles, carried by the breeze signaling the end of autumn was near. “I know it because she’s like me. Lost and unfixable.” That was how it felt. Part of you stuck on the day everything had changed, and part of you living out the current day, the distance of time tearing you apart into shreds, the sole reprieve causing others to scream and beg so you didn’t have to hear your own voice. “She keeps repeating she’s here because of a deal. That she’s trading herself for what she calls our compound’s army. Offering her body in exchange for our help.”
“Zion, I’ve known you since we were kids, and I don’t doubt you don’t use her like that. But acceptance is a tough choice to make. Because it is a choice. Moving forward and believing you deserve more than survival is a tough pill to swallow. It takes time.” Damia grimaced from how the first sip must’ve burned her tongue. “Like this cup of tea.” She put it down on the polished surface of the bench. “Right now, it’s too hot to drink. The tea is practically boiling. But give it a minute, two or three, and the temperature will go down. Same with Kali. She hasn’thad a good life. Neither of us has. But she will cool down in time and her mind will clear up enough to see. Then she will choose,” she said, gazing into her yard.
A strong gust of wind moved the set of swings, and the withering foliage of an old oak rustled, complimenting the creaking of the hinges. A dozen leaves floated down to the gnarled roots peeking out of the soil.
Damia didn’t push me to talk, didn’t require an answer, didn’t seek to fix me. She simply sat beside me in silent comfort, unfazed by my internal conflict gutting me with the knife Kali had deciphered to be the blade that took my sister’s life. The one Gedeon had been side-eyeing since.
“How is Gedeon, by the way?” Bending her knee, Damia rested her foot on the bench and reclined against the wall, her cream-colored sweater snagging on the uneven surface, the bumps having formed from the multiple layers of paint.
“Stubborn.” A game match I could never win.
“He’s not blind,” she said, then added, “Okay, maybe he is. He can act like an idiot sometimes. Like you. And don’t deny it. You both have done some incredibly stupid things. But that”—she indicated my burn scars hidden by the long sleeves—“messed with his head as much as it did with yours. Give him time too. Eventually, he’ll come to it. I know you both too well. My tea has cooled down enough to see it.” She nudged my side with an elbow and wiggled her eyebrows. “See what I did there?”
I snorted. Her sense of humor was truly terrible. Horrible. Spectacularly so.
“I do.” I sipped from my cup, savoring the heat flowing down my throat and wishing the bitterness could wash away the taste of the twelve years I’d spent with the scars I’d received for seeking to save my family. “Thank you.”
“That’s why we stick together.” She smiled lopsidedly, just like when we were teenagers, and she’d come up with somethingmischievous that would get us in trouble later. “And I know my joke was terrible, so please don’t tell anyone about it.”
I snorted again. She’d always made me feel at ease. Even after I’d developed my…more flavorful tendencies.
“Have you resumed your operations?” I asked.
“Yes. We’ve had two successful runs as of two days ago, and Ardaton doesn’t seem to have realized we’ve cracked their security yet.”
“That’s great.” It demonstrated that the programming worked. If Sadira, Ryder, and their team could manage to adapt it to our chips and Ilasall’s systems, we could stop the next auction scheduled in two weeks.
“It is,” Damia murmured. From her relaxed posture, most would guess she was content. But it was control, her ability to appear calm on the outside, no matter the events.
I put down the cup. “Damia, tell me. You know I’ll take care of it.”
She gave me a faint smile. “We’re too big. We can’t screen each person escaping from Ardaton. Or coming to us from the other compounds. How would we even approach it?”
A gust of wind sucked the warmth from my palms. “Who died?”
“No one. So far.” She toyed with her clay cup, tracing the image painted on it. “A person who’s been with us for years, one on my closest team, attacked my daughter. Three nights ago, he slunk into her bedroom and attempted to slit her throat.” She blew a heavy breath. “Nara knew enough to defend herself and managed to kick him out through an open window.”
