Chapter 27 #2
“Indeed,” the professor said. “I feel it makes sense for Miss Lionet to attend under the continued pretense of researching for her article. I know Dr. Rodriguez has seen you in relation to OneiroLabs multiple times, so if you have a strong alibi on the night of the, ah, infiltration, you shouldn’t come under any suspicion.
” Dani had to admit this actually made sense.
“You’ll also be able to tell the other team when OneiroLabs does their presentation.
It’ll be your job to communicate the exact timing every step of the way. ”
That wasn’t so bad. She could do that.
“Once their presentation wraps up, we’ll have Miss Amari here deploy a diversion—its nature to be determined—that will, with all luck, create more confusion for OneiroLabs and their communication with security back at HQ.”
“And you?” Wyatt said. “What’s your role in all this?”
“I will be at the gala to make sure nothing goes wrong on that end,” Silva said, ignoring the note of accusation in his tone.
“Once the formula is secured, we’ll all meet at a point of my designation, which I’ll share in the week leading up to the operation.
You’ll receive your payouts, and your part in this will be finished. ”
And wouldn’t that be a wonderful day.
The more Silva spoke, the more Dani couldn’t ignore the unfortunate truth she had finally arrived at: She had to break up with Kass, and soon. Before it got any harder.
She didn’t realize she had tears in her eyes until McKenna put a hand on her knee and squeezed.
“We still have two weeks to shore up the plan,” Silva said.
“There may be a few lingering tasks, and I’ll need to arrange for both Miss Lionet and Miss Amari to get fitted for appropriate attire.
” McKenna said nothing, but the excitement coming off her was like static electricity.
“We’ll resume our meetings as normal next week.
For now, take some time to rest and attend to your schoolwork.
You may go—except Mx. Izumi, if you’ll accompany me to my office? ”
Everyone shuffled off in their different directions: Professor Silva and Oliver down the hall, McKenna and Katya to class, Wyatt to the bathroom, and Dani to—well, she didn’t know where.
She had an hour free right now, but no money for lunch, and not enough time to go back to her apartment to slurp some ramen.
She didn’t have much of an appetite anyway, her newly made decision regarding Kass hanging over her like a shadowy doom.
She left the OS building with the vague idea to wift and wander until she had to get to class.
The rain had let up during their meeting, providing a rare pocket of dry outside time, which meant that students were lingering on the steps.
A surreal, dreamlike feeling fell across Dani as she wove through and down to the sidewalk.
She passed two girls jabbering excitedly about some rumor they’d overheard in class, a group of friends making plans to meet up that night, a guy posted up on the edge of the steps reading a book.
They were all just having a normal day. She wasn’t sure if she’d have a day like that again—or if she’d ever had one in the first place.
She had always felt out of sync with her peers, but never so much as she did right now.
All of a sudden, she wanted very badly to break down and cry.
“Dani!”
Her stomach flipped as she recognized Kass’s voice, followed by the boy himself jogging up.
Her feet dragged as she moved over to meet him, taking in his tormenting cuteness, his eager smile, his precious ignorance to how deeply she had fucked up what they had.
The impulse to cry only grew stronger as they came to face each other; she swallowed hard to make sure it didn’t overtake her.
“Hi,” he said breathlessly, and leaned in to kiss her. She let it happen, forcing herself to smile when he pulled back. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, hearing how untrue it sounded. “Just not having the best Friday, I guess.”
“Maybe I can make it better?” he asked. “I was hoping to take you to lunch. I accidentally let my quartzpad die, so I couldn’t message you to find out where you’d be, but I figured most of your classes were here. I’m glad I caught you.” He reached for both her hands. “Do you have time?”
This wasn’t really how she’d wanted to do it, over a casual lunch in the middle of the day. But the sick feeling at her core wasn’t going to let her get through this otherwise. He didn’t deserve to have this drawn out. So Dani nodded.
“Excellent. I have a very elaborate date for us planned,” he said, undaunted by her subdued mood. “Just kidding, I figured we could just go to the dining hall since I have class in an hour.”
Could she really do this at the dining hall? Maybe she should grit her teeth and bear it for just one hour. Or should she do it here, now, with all these people around? Her heart was beating in her ears. She didn’t know what to do.
“What the hell is this?”
Dani and Kass both turned to see Wyatt taking the steps down from the OS building two at a time. The corners of Dani’s vision went black.
“What are you doing here?” Kass asked. He dropped one of Dani’s hands and faced Wyatt, his face hardening into an expression she’d never seen before. It was unequivocal dislike.
Wyatt ignored him, his gaze darting down to their joined hands, a disbelieving smile tugging at his mouth.
The emotions flickering in his eyes told her everything she needed to know: disgust mixed with a kind of twisted amusement.
“Nah, nah, you can’t be serious,” he said, talking mostly to Dani. “Are you messing with me right now?”
“Wyatt,” she said, her voice ragged.
“You know this guy?” Kass asked her.
“We’re in a group project together,” she said weakly.
“For what class?”
Wyatt didn’t give her time to provide an answer, not that she had one. He was laughing now, a maniacal twinge in it. “This is too much,” he said. “You’re not—you guys aren’t, like, together, are you?”
“What’s it to you?” Kass challenged.
A wide, disbelieving grin split Wyatt’s face. He kept shaking his head. “You’ve got to be fucking joking me! This is too rich.”
“Wyatt,” Dani tried again. “Please, you don’t—”
“This whole time, you’ve been dating Gianakos?
” he said. Colors spilled into her mind, a mix of red and yellow and cotton-candy blue, like Wyatt couldn’t decide what he wanted to say or how he wanted to feel.
It didn’t really matter—either way, he was saying more than he should, and she needed to stop him. “Did Silva put you up to this?”
“Who’s Silva?” Kass asked. “Dani, what is he talking about?” She could already hear the hurt in his tone, whorled with confusion. The urge to cry was more powerful than ever, but she fought it off.
“Of course she didn’t,” Dani said to Wyatt. “Silva doesn’t know about this. And Kass has nothing to do with anything. Can we talk about this later? Or at least somewhere else?”
“I don’t think so,” Wyatt said. “I think we’ll talk about it right here, right now.” He at least glanced around to make sure no one was listening, then took a step closer. “Dani, you know who his father is. You can’t be messing around like this.”
“This is about my dad?”
Dani would have given anything in that moment to rewind the morning by half an hour, or at least by thirty seconds—anything to make it so Kass didn’t look at her with such abiding disappointment.
“No!” she said, loud enough to attract a few looks. She felt Kass pulling his hand away, and she tightened her grip. “Kass, no, wait—”
“I thought you were different,” he said. His eyes were big and sad, like a puppy who’d been promised a forever home only for it to be taken away at the last second. “I thought you just liked me for who I am, not because of who my father is.”
“I do,” she insisted. This time, he succeeded in tugging his hand out of her hold.
Tears were filling her eyes now and blurring her vision, his betrayed face swimming before her.
“We’re just in a group project, it has nothing to do with your father.
I didn’t know who he was when we started dating, I swear—”
“Unbelievable,” Kass said, and the pain in that single word was almost enough to kill her. Panic started to rise when she realized he was turning to walk away. She lunged after him and grabbed hold of his arm. He stopped in his tracks and stood stock-still, refusing to look at her.
“Please,” she gasped, and people were openly watching them now. “Please, Kass, let me explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain,” he said, his voice empty. “I just hope you got what you came for.” He pried his arm from her grasp and started to walk again, his steps quicker this time, like he was determined to get away as fast as possible.
“Kass,” she said, but he had already been swallowed by the current of students moving down the sidewalk, and after only a moment he was gone from sight.
Dani stood there, shaking, tears burning lines into her cheeks. The world was still moving around her, some people giving her sympathetic looks as they passed. A few drops of rain had started to fall from the gray sky.
She didn’t notice any of it. All the life had slipped from her body and pooled at her feet, like it had only ever been a dress she was borrowing.
She didn’t know what was left now that it was gone.
A deep horror had passed through the membrane of every single cell of her being, and in that awful, claustrophobic moment, she felt certain it would never leave her.
“Dani.”
She had forgotten about Wyatt. But she remembered him now, as his hand found her shoulder and he rotated her toward him.
As she looked up into his face—his annoying, asshole face that had destroyed everything—she had the desire to scream at him, worse than she had at OneiroLabs.
But the rain began to fall in earnest, and as it did, she felt her defiance put up a white flag of surrender.
She was too heartbroken, too exhausted. She truly had nothing left.
“I, um,” he said, like he was looking for words. “I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t have reacted that way. But were you really dating him? Like, for real? You couldn’t tell that was just a time bomb waiting to go off?”
She blinked slowly at him; her eyelids were heavy. Everything was. “Don’t tell Silva” was all she could think to say.
Wyatt frowned. “I dunno, Dani, it seems kind of important.”
“Don’t.” Dani squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “Wyatt. Do this for me. Please.”
When she opened her eyes again, his lips were scrunched to one side, considering. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. But if he interferes somehow—”
“He doesn’t even know what’s going on. He doesn’t know,” she repeated at his clear skepticism. “He’s already gone, Wyatt.” Each word was like a paper cut to her soul. “What more can you want from me?”
A moment, then he shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “I won’t tell.”
She didn’t have it in her to thank him. He didn’t deserve it, anyway. “Please go,” she said. “I can’t—please, just go.”
Wyatt reached out to touch her again, but she jerked away, unable to meet his eyes.
He made an awkward patting motion in midair, opened his mouth as if to say something, but instead turned and headed in the opposite direction.
Dani stood alone on the sidewalk, the rain plastering her clothes to her shivering body, her heart well and truly broken.