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And the clicking of tiny fingers on a device that didn’t belong to him.
Shit.
“Hey!” Travis hurried up to the fridge. “Mortifer, you’d better not be texting Darien, or he’s going to be very mad—”
The Hob was nattering into the microphone—little bleating sounds that none of them could ever understand.
And then he literally chucked Travis’s phone at him.
Travis fumbled it, barely catching it before it smashed on the ground. He was about to scold Mortifer when he saw the name on the screen, and the timer on the ongoing call ticking away.
He lifted the phone to his ear. “Max?”
“I have no idea what he just said,” Max replied, every word tense. “What’s going on? Why’d he have your phone? Scared the piss out of me.”
“I don’t know, Lace and I are watching a movie. He took it when I wasn’t looking. Did you call me, or did Morty call you?”
“I called you. I wanted to check in. Everything good?”
“Uhhhhh…” He remembered the time they’d spent with Tamika today; her fear of being watched; her obsession with Spirit Terra. Remembered the hidden tunnels used by the Phoenix Head Society, and the group photograph with Cyra, Bleddyn Sands, and Roark and Taega Bright in it.
“Trav?”
“Everything’s…good…,” Travis began slowly, “in the sense that nothing…bad…is happening at present.”
A beat of silence. “What the hell does that mean? Should I be worried?”
“No, not worried,” Travis said quickly. “We learned some things, but they’re not really important ATM, you know?”
Another beat of silence. “Whatever it is, can it wait until we get back?”
“Yeah.” He ran his fingers through his hair, the strands still damp from his shower. “Yeah, I think it can. How’s it going over there?” He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water from the fridge.
“A couple weird things, but what else is fucking new. Can’t really complain. Have to wait until morning to continue, though.”
“You sound pissed about that.” Travis drank.
“How’d you know?” he joked. “You’ll call if whatever it is turns into an emergency, right?”
“Yeah, you bet.” He set the empty glass by the sink. “Have you…heard from you know who?”
“Nothing. I’m assuming that means everything’s okay.”
“Yeah. Hope so.” Whenever Travis wasn’t busy, his mind strayed to Roman and Paxton. A part of him felt envious that the others got to see his brothers instead of him. He wondered what Paxton looked like now, how much he’d grown. Wondered how Roman was. Wondered if they both thought about him as much as he thought about them.
Max said, “I’ll see you soon, then. In a few days, I hope.”
“You got it.”
“Catch you later.”
Travis hung up. Turned toward the fridge. “Morty?”
The Hob didn’t turn. He sat on the fridge with his knees tucked up to his chest, arms wrapped around him.
“You don’t need to be that way,” Travis scolded softly. “They’re going to be back soon. You’re overreacting.”
He disappeared in a puff of smoke.
