Page 36 of Ezra
“That’s for Deion and the department’s benefit. And for organization’s sake. It’s connected directly to me.” He doesn’t seem keen on expanding on anything, his answers clipped, every word deliberate and thought out before speaking. Very businesslike.
“Deion?” I ask, arching a brow.
He glances away toward long crystal windows glistening with gray rain. “Detective Washington.”
“Oh.” I sip my smoothie slowly, like I’m trying to remember how to eat. Even this is difficult for me, but I know I need it. I need something to keep me going. Speaking with Ezra is helping distract me somewhat, so I continue. “You’re on a first-name basis. Do you primarily work with him?”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t tell you what to do?”
“He’s the lead investigator of the Artificial Crime Unit under Chief Jacobs,” Ezra answers. “I follow his orders. Same as everyone else on our team.”
“What about outside the office?”
Ezra is quiet for a moment. “Deion and his family are my family. They don’t command me. They ask.”
How my father would respond to hearing this. I imagine it would be one of the few times he could be dumbstruck. Not because of Ezra’s calm and stoic demeanor, the way he answers questions, how he mimics human conversation perfectly, but because of his intentions.
“So bionics at the police department, they don’t get placed in armories, they go home with their partner and reside there, sort of like police dogs?”
Ezra snaps his head up. The backlit glow of his white irises flicker, his lips turning thin. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Is that anger?
“Do I look like a dog to you?” he says flatly.
I’ve touched a nerve. He has patience and impatience, he’s capable of both gentleness and displaying a temper, which from what I can tell, he’s harnessing at the moment.
“That came out wrong,” I say. “Of course you’re not a dog. I only meant?—”
“That I’m sent home like a pet,” Ezra interjects.
“Yes—no—let me start over,” I say. You’d think I was an android myself, the way my body is beginning to overheat from embarrassment. “I don’t think you’re a dog or a pet. I’m just curious about your life, your routine, because you’re so different from other bionics. You wrecked that door like it was nothing.”
“Oh, I’m different?” Ezra’s annoyance is laced in his voice and unmistakable. He grunts, arching a brow. “And how many bionics do you know?”
I just keep digging myself into a deeper hole. “Not... many. Okay, you’re the first I’ve met beyond simple greetings.”
“My directives may be different from the standard housekeeper, but we are all assistants, and assistants are not pets.”
“I understand that?—”
“Do you?”
“Yes!” I insist, exasperated. “I didn’t mean to offend you. I just meant you’re incredible, and I—” I clamp my mouth shut.Shut up, Kat. I plop on the couch in defeat. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to talk to bionics very well.”
Ezra’s voice is flat. “Clearly.”
Chastised and knowing full well I deserve it, I let out a sigh. Charlie skitters down my arm and into my lap. The little mechanic spider chitters and twirls around twice in my lap like a cat before finally settling down with his legs curled slightly beneath him.
“At any rate,” Ezra says, sounding restrained, like he’s trying to settle himself down. “There’s hardly anything incredibleabout busting down a door. Any bionic assistant with a steel mainframe can do that. Some humans too.”
“It’s not just that, it’s—everything you are,” I say. “Dad and Dr. Lewis had such dreams for you, and...”
Ezra stops completely. The way he turns to face me head on, his hands at his sides, flexing into fists makes me almost wary. He’s a powerful machine. I know for a fact now that he could do harm if he needed to.
He’s my protector. He’s deadly. And I may have just pissed him off.
“What are you talking about?” he demands. “How do you know Dr. Lewis?”
