8. A Brief Debrief
8
A Brief Debrief
Antonio
That fucking asshole was not right behind me.
I’m not even five feet from the exit when I turn around, only to find that Darius has once again disappeared. Cursing my own idiocy, I don’t bother going in search of him, instead returning to the van where I left Lilith.
I pound on the rear doors as I whisper-shout, “Lilith. It’s me.”
I pause and press my ear to the door, hearing some squeaking in there, but she says nothing, so I rap on the door again. “Let me in.”
“What’s the password?” she whisper-shouts back.
I frown, this time slapping the door with my palm as I sputter, “What fucking password?”
She laughs, the locking mechanism disengaging as the door opens outward. She’s standing there, grinning at me. “Just fucking with you.”
I sigh deeply, shaking my head as I climb up in the back of the van and close the doors behind me. “How can you joke at a time like this?”
She quirks a brow at me as she backs up to where she’d been sitting and sits in front of the monitors. “Are you being serious right now?”
“Yes, I’m being fucking serious.”
She tsks and then rolls her eyes obnoxiously but says nothing. I wait for a moment. Eventually, she turns back to me and asks, “What?”
“Goddamn it, Lilith. Can’t you ever be fucking serious?”
This time, her smile is humorless, and she responds, “I’m always serious, Antonio. Which means I have to use the odd joke to lighten the mood.”
It’s not like this is a real surprise or anything, knowing this group of people as well as I do. And even from what I don’t know personally, word on the street is they’re a bunch of insufferable little shitheads, something I’m learning firsthand to be absolutely true.
I sit heavily in the chair beside her, turning my attention to the monitors where we can see the girls still hanging around. Antoinette no longer has that odd, haunted look on her face, but she doesn’t seem to be having as good of a time as she was previously.
We continue to watch them in silence, and after a while, they start heading toward the exit. Agatha says her goodbyes and then walks off, leaving Camilla with Antoinette. We look on, a bit perplexed, waiting to see what Camilla is going to do next. We’re both startled by a loud rapping on the door, and this time, I slide over, listening intently.
“It’s Aggie.”
I lean in a little closer and say, “What’s the password?”
“The password is go fuck yourself,” she replies impatiently.
I unlock the door and push it open, glaring at her. “You’re just as bad as your mother.”
“Don’t fucking call me that,” Lilith sputters from behind me.
I turn and look at her over my shoulder, shaking my head as I ask, “Don’t call you what you are?”
Agatha laughs and climbs into the back of the van. I pull the doors closed and relock them. Agatha takes the seat I just vacated, and Lilith asks, “What’s Camilla doing?”
Agatha’s smile is beaming as she responds, “She’s giving her a ride home.”
Lilith frowns. “Well, that seems a little peculiar.”
“It is, but Cami doesn’t give a fuck.”
“But it quite obviously could be a trap,” I interject. “Are the guys going to follow to check for a possible tail?”
Agatha nods. “She’ll try to get in at least to use the restroom, so she snagged a couple of bugs, hoping she could find an inconspicuous place for them that will also be useful.”
“I think Matt told her to try to plug into the alarm system,” I respond with a tired sigh, lack of sleep suddenly catching up with me.
Agatha sighs, a weird expression falling over her features, and Lilith places her hand on her forearm as she asks, “What is it?”
“I don’t like Camilla going in there by herself.”
“Have you met Camilla?” Lilith retorts with a laugh.
Agatha smiles and nods. “Yeah, I know. If anyone can hold their own, it’s going to be the Chameleon.”
They fall silent for a moment so I add, “And don’t forget Kaian will be pretty close behind her.”
Lilith looks at me in surprise. “Oh, is he with Matt and Tony?”
“No,” I respond. “They decided earlier that in any situation where someone had to leave the party, Kaian would tail Tony and Matt. Because you can’t be too safe in this situation.”
Agatha releases a long breath, her body relaxing slightly. “Well, that makes me feel better.”
Then Lilith turns to me and asks, “What the fuck happened to Darius?”
I groan and roll my eyes again. “The fucker took off on me, like usual.”
“That sounds like Darius,” Agatha retorts.
Lilith starts shutting the electronics down, and Agatha makes her way up to the front of the van, dropping into the driver’s seat. Lilith turns to me, motions to the front, and says, “You may as well sit up there. I got some stuff I want to go over before we get back to Declan’s place.”
I don’t argue with her; I just strap myself into the passenger seat and pray for my own life as Agatha does her best Baby Driver impression on the freeway.
Camilla and the rest of the gang show up not long after we’ve gotten ourselves fed and situated in Declan’s living room, and then we all sit there, feeling somewhat pleased with the progress we’ve made in such a short amount of time.
Luck would have it, Antoinette’s residence isn’t too far from Declan’s estate. Not being a believer in coincidences or luck, for that matter, this revelation has cold unease running down my spine.
“There’s no way this isn’t all one big, giant fucking trap,” Camilla says pleasantly, given the fact she’s telling us that we’re all a bunch of gullible idiots.
Matt shrugs then replies, “Doesn’t matter if it is. All we can do is prepare for all contingencies and do our best to stay one step ahead of a still faceless enemy.”
“So, business as usual,” Lilith mutters.
Camilla sighs, shifting closer to Kaian and resting her head on his shoulder. “I did determine that this Dmitri hasn’t been in town. But there’s a whole bunch of thugs in that house. It was a miracle I managed to put the bugs where I wanted them.”
“You promised me you’d at least attempt to be careful,” Kaian grumbles.
She laughs, craning her head back to look at him as she says, “I was fucking careful, dickhead. I just prefer to go into those types of situations with somebody else’s face.”
He glares at her but says nothing. After a long pause, Matt says, “Good work on the alarm system. That place has been professionally rigged, so there are at least two sets of varying alarms. One for internal and one for external.”
“Why would they need an internal alarm? Do they have the police in the house?”
“No,” I answer. “The internal alarm is likely for when they have an emergency inside the house that they’d rather take care of on their own. You know, for those goings-on that they wouldn’t want proper authorities to be privy to.”
Everyone falls quiet, and then suddenly Agatha says, “Antonio?” I look over at her with raised brows before she continues, “Did you happen to hear what Darius said to Antoinette at the party tonight?”
I smile, another sigh falling from my lips as I respond, “Yes. I heard what he said to her.” Everyone stares at me, and then Agatha waves her hand around impatiently until finally, I add, “Wake up, baby girl.”
Camilla laughs and then says, “Well, no wonder she was fucking confused.”
“Yeah,” Agatha retorts. “I did explain to her that Darius is a fucking weirdo, and since that’s not a lie, I don’t feel bad about it.”
“And then the fucker just disappears.”
Everyone has a quiet laugh, and the room falls silent again, all of us lost in our own thoughts. I know how difficult it must be for everyone to leave Antoinette in a foreign place. I know it’s difficult enough for me, and I haven’t had nearly the type of relationship these people have.
Matt gets to his feet, shoving the top of his laptop with a dull snap. “I hooked up their alarm system to Declan’s, so if anything weird happens there, we’re gonna know immediately.”
Lilith grimaces, also getting to her feet, with everyone quickly following suit. “You guys know the drill. Sleep when you can, eat when you can because we never know when all hell is going to break loose.”
Everyone nods because every last one of us knows what she’s talking about.
Fuck-around time is almost upon us.