Page 133 of My Revenant
The building Harper lived in was massive, all cold glass and steel, and I was met with scrutinizing eyes as I entered the lobby. The man behind the reception desk was wearing a suit that cost more than everything I now owned. His eyes were sharp and probing, lingering on the tattoo on my neck. “Mr. Weller, I presume.”
Something about him made me want to poke at him, to break through his composed exterior by causing a scene of some sort. He was clearly already judging me, and had I not been so eager to get back to my rabbit as quickly as possible, I might have dragged this out just to cause a little drama.
“Mr. Lorens has been expecting you.”
“I’m sure he has.”
“Hmm.” He pursed his lips, offering another judgmental once-over before he directed me to the elevators.
Harper’s penthouse was much larger than any apartment ever needed to be. The air was warm, but the aesthetic was cold. Dark gleaming floors and dark marble walls. Even the black leather sofa looked hard and uncomfortable, and I wondered why someonewith so much money would actively choose to live in a place with so little comfort.
Floor-to-ceiling windows took up one wall, offering a view of the city, but what really caught my attention were the glass panels that separated a wall length enclosure from the living room. It’s inhabitant, a huge, bright yellow python, curled around itself, bronze eyes staring back at me. The thing must have been fourteen feet long.
“You’re late.” Harper spoke, snapping my attention away from the snake. His arms were crossed, his clothing as dark as the rest of his apartment, and another much smaller snake coiled up his arm and around the back of his neck, this one as white as snow.
“I’m very busy, you know.” I offered his words back to him, enjoying the annoyed twitch of a well-manicured eyebrow.
“Are you forgetting this was a favor you specifically asked me for, Coyote?”
“Devil.”
“What?”
“It’s Devil now.”
“Of course it is.” Harper rolled his eyes. He stepped up to me, his presence feeling so much larger than the small body he existed within. “Here.”
He pulled a card from his pocket and slapped it—along with what I’d come here for—into my palm. Just holding it again brought me much-needed comfort. “How does it work?”
“Everything you need to do is on the card. Just download the app and follow the prompts.”
“I don’t have a smartphone.”
He huffed. “Of course you don’t. You know we’re in the twenty-first century, right? You’re asking me for stolen, experimental, top-of-the-line tracking technology when you don’t even have a smartphone?”
“I’ll get one. Just tell me how it works.”
Harper sighed, muttering something under his breath that sounded like “Neanderthal” before he continued. “It’s a low-energy GPS module—no lights, no vibrations, no sounds. Complete stealth technology. Pings its location every twelve hours, hence the need for the app, unless you’re expecting me to mark an X on a map every morning and send it to you by carrier pigeon.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re a little dramatic?”
If looks could kill, I’d be a dead man, but Harper continued. “Even if the fluid is refilled, the modifications should be completely unnoticeable unless you’re measuring the internal chamber down to the millimeter.”
“The battery?”
“Like I said, it’s a prototype. I wouldn’t expect it to last more than a year max.”
I traced my thumb over the engravings as familiar to me as my own skin.
“You’re welcome.” He waved his hand at me dismissively. “Now go away.”
forty-eight
Jonah - Past
FIRE.
I lied. Dex told me he was leaving, and I lied to him. I didn’t want him to go, didn’t want him away from me, but there was something I had to do, and he couldn’t be with me. He couldn’t know.
