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"Nope," he said without a hint of remorse.
Braless, shoeless, and pant-less, I followed Caleb out of a door on the opposite side of the building from where we'd entered.
Christian was there, car running, door opened.
I got to crawl into the cramped back of his super tiny sports car.
Christian hooted at me. "Looks like I missed the party. I suddenly feel overdressed."
I rolled my eyes at him.
Caleb got in quickly behind me. "Drive fast," he said brusquely, shutting his door very quietly.
Christian took off like the hounds of hell were behind us. That, or some very pissed off druids.
"I at least need pants," I complained, after we'd raced through half of the city, Christian finally driving rather sedately, for him.
"I'll have something at the house," Caleb said. "No bras, though," he added.
Beggars couldn't be choosers, and I'd be happy just for some pants. I was surprised that Caleb even had those, since he had no need for clothing that I'd ever seen. As he could mimic people, so could he mimic clothes. I'd asked him once if he ever got cold. He had simply said no, without elaborating. Typical Caleb. I was lucky to have gotten an answer at all.
Lynn had told me that she'd tried to touch his clothing once, to see if it actually felt like clothing, since it was obviously mimicked. She'd told me that I should never ever try that, and that the only thing she'd learned from the experiment was not to mess with Caleb.
I'd had plenty of casual contact with him, grabbing his arm, or having him adjust a weapons harness for me here and there, but I'd heeded her words. Leave his clothes alone. It was sort of like asking me or Lynn about our age. A touchy subject all around. No possibility of getting a useful answer, and endless potential to piss us off. Lose, lose.
We ended up in a neighborhood much like the one we'd begun in. A smallish house on a street crowded with cookie cutter houses. It was a quiet area, the neighborhood neither particularly good or bad. Which, being Vegas, made it kind of bad. But only one meth-house on the block was not as bad is it could be. Yes, I know, I'd make a horrible Las Vegas realtor.
I didn't mention that Caleb hadn't bothered to blindfold me, or that Christian had obviously known where this place was without needing directions. Either Caleb was growing more trusting, or he was planning to ditch the house soon. I didn't ask which, since he'd never give me a straight answer for a question like that.
Christian pulled his tiny car into the carport, and we filed out silently.
No one said a word as we entered the dark house. Like the other house, this one was completely dark, and Caleb didn't turn on any lights as he led us through it. He told us to stop in the hallway, approaching a door about six feet away by himself. He typed in a code, then did a tongue scan to open the dark steel door.
Yes, a tongue scan.
Only Caleb.
He pointed a finger at me. "No one is to know about the tongue thing," he told me.
I just nodded, eyes wide in the dark. Weird sociopath chameleon alien. So there was something distinctive enough about his tongue that it could be considered identifying. I hadn't particularly wanted to know that, in fact I found it disturbing, but I still made a note of it. In the very small mimic file in my brain, it went under the tab: More weird shit I've learned about Caleb.
Caleb led us into another basement, only turning the light on when we were all inside, and the door was shut behind us.
I started to walk down the stairs ahead of him once the lights were on.
"Wait," he called, his tone casual. Still, I stopped on a dime. In the world of heinously scary, crazy booby traps, I imagined that Caleb was King. And I didn't imagine for a second that what he claimed was his biggest weapons' stash in the city didn't have a failsafe, or ten.
He led us down the stairs, his steps very calculated. I watched his feet, seeing that he seemed to be stepping out a sort of pattern on the stairs as we descended.
"Do we need to follow your steps?" I asked him, hesitating behind him.
"No. Just don't go ahead of me. The system is set up to allow me two companions."
"What happens if there's less than two?" I asked.
"Nothing."
"What happens if there's more than two?" I tried.
