Page 74 of Savagely Yours
The conversation ended.
I peered around the corner just as a server set a plate on a cart, turned it counterclockwise, and headed for the elevators. A middle-aged-looking man wearing a green uniform watched the server, a young girl, as she left the cafeteria. Then, he raised his chin, did an about-face, and walked off. As he passed me, I noticed a shine covering the whites of his eyes.
“Excuse me, Larke Tapley?”
I looked up into the eyes of a guard with medium-brown skin and hair that reminded me of a baby lamb.
“Yes, that’s me,” I said.
“Captain Harding has added to your funds.”
“Thank y?—”
Poison.
It was poison.
And that food was going to the conference room.
The conference room wasn’t on the seventh floor, but Class Ones lived on the seventh floor. They also happened to be having a meeting today. I didn’t pick up on it before, but one of the units I’d cleaned with Tamra the same day I ran into Dez was 720. Unit 720 had the same map on the wall as Dez’s.
They were going to poison Dez.
My weirdo.
My love.
“Why’d your ‘Captain Harding’ wait so long to add to my funds?” I asked the guard with the soft curls. “Harding is a joke. He thinks he owns me because he has a little bit of fake money?”
The guard’s jaw twitched. “Miss Tapley?—”
“Do you have a radio?” I scanned his equipment. “Call him, or are you not allowed? He couldn’t even come down here himself, and then he’s forbidden most of you from speaking to me. What does he think I’ll tell you? What’s he trying to hide?”
The guard raised his radio to his mouth, eyes on me. “Captain Harding, this is Wade Marshall, over.”
Dez’s voice came through, and I nearly ran ahead, up to the eighth floor. “Go for Harding.”
“Sir, I have Miss Tapley with me in the Woodhaven mess hall. She needs to speak with you. It’s an urgent matter.”
“Marshall, go to 9 and give the radio to Miss Tapley.”
Marshall switched channels.
“Good afternoon,” Dez greeted. “I hear you have something you need to say to me, Counselor?”
He’d called me Counselor.
Only the Dez clones called me Counselor.
“Yes, I do,” I hissed. “I don’t want your blood money.”
“You will take it, and you will eat.”
“I’d rather starve.”
“You’re no use to me dead, and you’ve proven very useful for my needs when you’re alive and warm. Now, I won’t repeat myself.”
Anything else I said would be dripping with honeyed lust, so I handed over the radio.
