Chapter 5 #2
Both Evlynne and Neema stare at me in disbelief.
Fortunately, we’re interrupted by the arrival of another guy who sinks onto the chair next to Neema, long fingers curled around a coffee cup.
His dark hair is cut short, and his eyes are a deep, lush green that reminds me of the forest at twilight.
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t speak. But something about his presence captures the attention without him having to say a single word.
“This is Saint,” Gray tells me, indicating the attractive newcomer. “Saint, Wren.”
I nod in greeting. Saint’s gaze sweeps over me. Utterly unreadable.
“Welcome to the Dagger,” he says, and his voice is low and measured, just like I knew it would be.
“Are you gonna finish that?” Mako asks Evlynne, then swipes the coffee cup from her hand before she can respond.
“Jerk,” she grumbles.
Mako is mid-sip when he suddenly freezes. Eyes narrowing. “Wow. Look at her, just eating that cake with her pink hair like a smug asshole.”
Confused, I follow his indignant gaze to a table across the room, where a pixie-faced, pink-haired woman sits with two other Mods, chatting as she cuts a piece of banana cake with her fork.
“I don’t understand.” I turn to Gray for help. “Do we hate the pink hair or the cake?”
He gives me a look of warning. “Just forget it. Once he gets going—”
“Let me paint a picture for you, new girl,” Mako announces, and several groans ring out.
“Please don’t,” begs Henley.
“It’s a man’s birthday,” he begins, as if performing a dramatic reading. “A handsome, strapping man, about to celebrate his twenty-second year of existence. And this particular birthday is a special one, Wrenny—”
“Nope,” I warn.
“—because it coincides with the arrival of a new shipment from those prickhead Tierrans, who possess not a single redeeming quality except for one: gold chocolate.”
“Gold chocolate?” I echo. “Is that a real thing?”
“Oh, it’s very real,” Mako confirms.
“It’s a rare cocoa bean,” Luisa tells me. “Only grows once a year in Dey Province.”
Tierra Fe is divided into four provinces, and from what I recall of my geography classes, Dey Province is in the northernmost point of the continent.
“Are the beans actually gold-colored?” I ask.
Luisa nods. “They’re called granos de sol. The Tierrans still use certain words and phrases from their old language. I think it means grains of sun.”
“I saw a video of the harvesting process once,” Karra pipes up. She’s practically draped over Gray’s lap now, her chin resting on his shoulder. “When you crack open the pods for the first time, the beans look like little gold nuggets. It’s cool.”
“Are you all finished hijacking my story?” Mako asks politely.
Gray tries to ward him off again. “How about we save your saga for another time—”
“Imagine it, new girl,” interrupts Mako. “A granos de sol birthday cake. It was the most glorious thing ever. Lu baked it for me—”
“It was literally just a cake,” Luisa whispers in my direction. “Like seriously unimpressive—”
“It was magnificent,” interjects Mako. “And of course, I shared it with my friends—”
“He allowed eight of us to share one piece,” Henley tells me with a snort.
“—because I’m generous like that,” Mako continues as if nobody but him is speaking. “Anyway, that night, there was only one slice of cake left. One perfect slice, my prize for surviving another year in this bleak, dark world.”
I glance around. “Is he always this dramatic?”
“Yes,” everyone says.
He ignores them. “I wrapped it up and put it in one of the fridges so I could have it for dessert the next day. And do you know what happened the next day?” he says, gaping at me. “I opened the fridge, the place where dreams are made—”
Saint chuckles softly.
“—and my slice was gone! Someone fucking ate it. What kind of sick bastard does that?”
“Maybe they didn’t know it was yours,” I hedge.
“Of course they knew. Everyone knew.” Mako is making wild hand gestures now, and with his size, that means the entire table starts shaking, rattling everyone’s cups. “So naturally, I launched an immediate investigation.”
“You know, if you channel all the energy you spend obsessing over this nonsense and redirect it to getting laid, you’ll be a lot more relaxed,” Henley says helpfully.
“Also, aren’t there security cameras all over this base?” I point out. “Couldn’t this have been solved in five seconds by checking the files?”
Gray’s lips twitch with humor. “If only.”
“The cameras on the Personnel floor were down for maintenance that day,” Mako says, utterly outraged. “What are the odds, Wrenny?”
“Please don’t call me that.”
“We do a system check once a month and of all the days to schedule it, they choose the day I’m betrayed. And those checks only last two minutes. Two minutes, and my life is ruined.”
Gray sighs.
“So after I finished my interrogations—”
I can’t keep from laughing, though to be fair, I’m fully engrossed by the tale. “Did you really question people about cake?”
“What else was I supposed to do? Sit idly by while a criminal mastermind roams the Dagger?”
“And we think that woman over there is the culprit?”
He gives a decisive nod. “I narrowed it down to one suspect. One person who was spotted entering the kitchen right before the system maintenance. Her name? Raven Persimmons.”
I turn to examine Pink Hair again. She’s still eating her cake, oblivious to the tale of betrayal and mayhem unfolding at our table.
“She denied it, of course,” Mako says with an exaggerated eye roll. “But I’m a human lie detector. I detect lies. And until she owns up to what she did, there will be no peace.”
“For you or for her?”
“For us,” Evlynne mutters.
The ridiculous conversation comes to an abrupt end when loud static crackles out of the ceiling speakers. A second later, a PA system blares to life.
“Attention, all base personnel.”
A tense silence ensues as everyone waits for the announcement.
“Please stand by for a broadcast from General Travis Redden.”