“You don’t say.”
“But, inside”—he gestured to his head—“I just kept thinking, why don’t we do it this way? Why can’t we try it that way? You know?”
I nodded, keeping silent as his shoulders relaxed from his ears.
“And I thought maybe it was just because I was young and not an official hunter that my questions kept being pushed to the side. But after I graduated and tried to be more assertive, well…”
“The older folks wrote you off?”
“In a heartbeat.”
I laughed. “Yeah, that’s their MO.”
“I wanted to stand on their shoulders. Continue to build a foundation.” Jonah shoved his hand into his hair, shaking out the curls.
“Keep questioning,” I said. “Everything. All of us. I don’t care how much you admire me; if you think I’m wrong about something, you say it. I may not like it all the time, but to be better, I need you to share your thoughts. You need it, too, if you’re serious about building.”
His smile grew; the heaviness of his disappointment waned. “I’ll do my best.”
“And I’ll hold you to that.” I pushed out of the chair and limped over to our camera bags. The pipes were no longer creaking with the weight of running water. Octavia had finished showering. “I think we should get back to setting up.”
“Oh, I can do that!” Jonah offered, shooting out of his seat to beat me to the bags.
“No, it’s fine.” To avoid sounding too eager, I added, “You need to practice setting things up on this end. Placing the camera is the simple part.”
Not necessarily true, but I wanted to see her. Octavia was this blind spot I needed to shine a light on.
Jonah nodded, a small smile on his face, as if he’d been promoted in some way. I grabbed the bags and went across the hall, pausing at her cracked door for a deep breath before knocking.
“Come in.” Octavia’s voice sounded as if she were at the bottom of a well.
The door whined loudly on its hinges as I nudged it open. “Hey?”
She wasn’t there. What greeted me was a poster for a K-pop girl group dressed in all black with heavy eyeliner and mood rings weighing down their long fingers. Octavia’s bedsheets were a deep purple, bombarded with pillows upon pillows. Perhaps she was stuck under there, caught in the avalanche of fluff.
“Hi.” Octavia slipped out of the small, steamy bathroom. She’d piled her locs on top of her head. A black, waffle-textured robe wrapped tight around her waist, showing off curves I wasn’t aware she had underneathher baggy jeans.
“How’s the ankle?” She raised a concerned brow, her eyes trained on the tape job she’d done earlier.
“Manageable,” I promised. “Wilson set aside some ice packs for me.”
“Good. You should try to keep it off tonight.”
“Will do.” I toggled my gaze between her and the decor, trying not to appear so wanting for whatever she offered.
“Are we ready for setup?” She sat down at a vanity like a proper old Hollywood starlet. With her legs crossed, Octavia got to work on what I assumed was her intensive skincare routine, with bottles upon bottles of lotions and oils.
She crossed one leg over the other, exposing her ankle in the most delicate way possible. She frowned at me in the mirror after I remained frozen in the same position.
“Well?” Octavia’s hands paused in mid-air, covered in thick body butter.
I cleared my throat. “We are. Do you mind if I put these here?”
My gaze landed on the bench nestled at the foot of her bed.
“Go for it,” she permitted.
“We’ll make this as nonintrusive as possible.” I started at the bedside table, angling the camera toward the closet door, which was currently shut and the likely source of our problem. “There will be six cameras. Two are always directed at you while you sleep, the rest are set up to cover blind spots. There’s a movement tracker on two of them. The noise they make shouldn’t be loud enough to wake you. If it is, let me know, and we can switch to something quieter.”
