Chapter 16
VI
We're two blocks from the Rot when I see her.
Mara is standing just outside the gate, arms crossed, scanning the street in both directions.
When she spots us, she doesn't wave or call out.
She just holds her position and watches us cover the distance, which tells me before we've said a word that whatever is on her mind must be pretty damn important.
Rogue spots her at the same moment I do. His pace doesn't change but something in his posture does, a small tightening, and I know he's already running scenarios through his head.
Beside her, slightly back, is Kade. He's got his arms folded and his eyes on the street, giving Mara space without actually going anywhere. Hmmm.
I reach her first. "Mara. What’s up?"
She glances at the guys, then back at me. "He came to me."
"The man from the corridor?"
"He found me in the hub. Said he was looking for someone who could help him locate an old friend. Used Fischer's name." Her jaw tightens. "By name, Vi. Not Tommy. Fischer. Like he knew him."
"What'd you tell him?"
"That I didn't know anyone by that name and he should try the main office." She shrugs. "There is no main office. I made it up on the fly when I didn’t know what else to say. He knew that too. He just smiled and said thank you and walked away."
The way she says it, the smile, the thank you, makes the back of my neck prickle. That's not a man who got nothing. That's a man who got what he came for.
I turn to the guys.
Armen is already looking at Rogue. Something passes between them, one of those silent conversations they have that grates on my last nerve because it leaves me out.
"He knows she's connected to us," Rogue says. "Which means he wasn't just watching Fischer. He's been mapping the whole operation. Who talks to who. Who matters."
I look at Mara and realize that she was chosen specifically for this guy’s question, that his approaching her wasn't random. He picked her because he'd already watched long enough to know she was someone worth picking.
"Which means he's been here longer than we thought," Sting says.
Armen looks at Mara. "Did he threaten you?"
"No. Not at all."
Armen nods and I watch him work through Mara’s information. "We move. We're not waiting on anything else."
Nobody argues.
Kade steps forward then, just slightly. "I can sit on him," he says to Armen. "If he's still inside, I'll find him."
Armen looks at him for a moment. "Do it," he says. "But don't approach him, okay? Just watch him."
Kade nods and heads back through the gate without another word. Mara watches him go with an expression I plan to ask about later.
"You did the right thing," I tell her. "Waiting for us. Telling us first."
She nods but she doesn't look convinced, and I understand that. She walked through the Rot today carrying something heavy without anyone to help her carry it, and no amount of telling her she handled it right is going to make that unease vanish right off the bat.
I know something about that.
Armen touches my arm, just above the elbow, just for a moment. He's already looking past me at the gate, thinking ahead, and while the touch might be absent-minded, it sends chills down my spine anyway. He may not know it, but it means everything to me.
"Inside," he says. Not just to me. To all of us.
The metal gate clangs shut behind us, like it’s welcoming us back, and then the Rot closes around us the way it does, sucking us into its void immediately and completely, like a warm blanket.
I never thought I’d compare the Rot to a warm blanket.
But out there, where Merchant Street and my father's former office and a coffee cart used to make me feel safe, it’s no longer much more than a scary wasteland, the shell of a city I grew up in, all imploded and ugly.
The guys talk quietly in the corridor behind me, already planning, already moving to the next thing, and Mara falls into step beside me, her shoulder touching mine, not saying anything, not needing to.
Just a few months ago, I walked in here with nothing. New boots, a dead father, and a plan that was mostly desperation with a touch of silly arrogance.
Now, I have a law firm with a question mark beside it, a name nobody was looking for, and three men who will walk into a city that's been falling apart for years without blinking because I'm with them.
I also have a dead father who might not be dead.