“Wow, it must really be bad up there.”
“It’s not terrible. Most of the people are friendly.”
As I straighten up, Xavier suddenly grips my chin and pulls my face toward him.
For one outrage-laced moment, I think he’s going to kiss me, but all he does is bring his lips to my ear and whisper, “Have you spoken to him?”
I shove his hand away, leaning back with a grin. “Yes, and you don’t need to sexy-whisper in my ear. I’m jamming their audio.”
He looks impressed. “How’d you manage that?”
“I have my ways. You need to stop doubting my covert abilities.” I frown at him. “I hear you’re not cooperating.”
“With the ’fect assholes? Why would I?”
I reach over and smack him on the cheek. Lightly, but hard enough to mean business.
“Hey,” he protests. “What was that for?”
“For calling me a ’fect.”
“I wasn’t callingyouthat. I was referring to your friends.”
“I have the same abilities as them. So if you don’t thinkI’mdefective, then you need to stop calling them that, too.”
“I’ll take it into consideration,” he says in that mocking voice of his.
“Are they interrogating you in here or taking you somewhere else?”
“They bring me into a command room.” Xavier grimaces. “It’s usually the bitchy redhead questioning me.”
“Adrienne,” I say with a snicker.
“Yeah, her. Other times it’s Julian Ash’s brother, or this other asshole who sits there sulking and whining that they’re wasting their time and should just vote to execute me.”
“That would be Teriq.” I hesitate. “Look, you’re not going to like hearing this, but…I think it’s time you start talking. Try to strike some sort of deal.”
His jaw snaps open. “Fuck that.”
“What’s your endgame here, Ford? That Cross will extract you?Because he won’t. He can’t.” My anger comes rushing back. “He spent the last week shackled in a cell and didn’t think it necessary to tell me until today.”
Xavier snorts under his breath. “Does that really surprise you?”
“Yes,” I shoot back. “He’s been lying by omission for days. Acting like he’s on the base when he’s in the stockade.”
“Technically the stockadeison the base.”
“Don’t defend him.”
He just chuckles. “What did you expect, Darlington? It’s Cross Redden. He’s an impenetrable fortress. He’d rather keep everything locked up inside, even if it means pushing away the people who care about him. It’s how he’s always been. You just gotta accept it.”
Cross Redden might be an impenetrable fortress, but I knew him long before I ever met him. I knew him asWolf,and Wolf was capable of being vulnerable with me. Wolf told me about his nightmares. His hopes. His darkest fears. Sometimes it feels like Cross has forgotten I know those parts of him.
“He said they only ‘knocked him around.’ ” I lean into Xavier again, groaning softly against his shoulder. “I hope he’s not downplaying it. I want him to be okay.”
“Downplaying is this asshole’s middle name,” Cross’s best friend says, ruffling my hair. “There was this one summer when we were kids, maybe twelve, thirteen years old? We went on a hike in Ward E, just outside the Point. Well, first we broke into the General’s liquor cabinet and stole some grange—”
“Nope. There’s no way you can convince me that General Redden drankgrange.”
