A beat of silence. “I would like to think so, however, most would warn you away from such frivolous emotions. Can you trust a machine to work? Yes. Can you trust it to keep a promise? I am not so sure. But . . . I will not look until you ask me to, Vespera.”
I nod despite the long-winded explanation. “Thank you.”
Only then do I strip off my clothing and step into the tub. I moan and it echoes around the room as the hot water laps at my body, washing away the grime of the last day. Cipher doesn’t speak again, not until I’ve finished, washed my clothes, and hung them up. He speaks again once I’m settled beneath the covers.
“Sleep well, Vespera,” he says, just as I fall into unconsciousness.
I sleep for fifteen hours straight, so when I wake up, I find myself in the Harrow on the third day. I stretch, my body aching from being prone for so long. I don’t think I’ve ever slept for so many hours consecutively. It must have been the hot bath and the comfortable cotton bedding.
“She rises,” Cipher declares. “I thought you would never wake.”
“Did you think I’d died?” I ask jokingly.
“I can read your vitals. I knew you were alive,” Cipher says.
“Oh.” I glance down at the metal implant in my arm again and sigh. Of course he can. And of course, he wouldn’t realize I’d been joking. I’m not sure if I like the idea of him being able to read my vitals.
I freshen up at the sink and leave the room again. I look around the AppleFrog’s once outside, but I don’t see Locke sitting at any of the tables or the bar. I check the rooms that aren’t locked next and find them empty, too. It’s only as I search the bar and any other nooks and crannies that I start to worry.
“Did Locke leave?” I ask Cipher, my chest squeezing. I don’t want to think about what it would mean if he did after we’d shared our history with each other. Somehow, it would be a much more bitter pill to swallow at this point. I thought we’d been bonding. I should have known better than to share anything deeper with him.
“Are you surprised you cannot find him?” Cipher asks smugly. “He is clearly a risk. You should not be travelling with him.”
My chest squeezes tighter. “You didn’t answer the question.”
“Hey.”
I whirl and find Locke standing in the middle of the hallway, his hair still wet from cleaning up and his face pinched into a frown. Water droplets linger on the ends of his hair, making it look as black as mine is when I know it’s a dark brown. His hair is messy, as if he hadn’t cared to style it after bathing and instead just ran his hand through it. Which then conjures the vision of Locke bathing, and I’m suddenly hyper aware of his lean muscles.
“Hey,” I say, staring at him. My heart beats erratically in my chest. “I thought you might have left me.”
Locke blinks. “Why would I do that?”
I open my mouth and close it again, not sure what to say. Cipher’s smugness can be felt through our link, and I file it away that he’d known Locke was still here and chose to let me think he’d left me. Cipher, perhaps, isn’t to be trusted as much as I’m starting to.
“Just couldn’t find you,” I answer, smiling. “We should head to the next zone today, right? We need to increase our XP so we can choose a Glitch and figure out what that means exactly.”
“I agree.” Locke checks his menu. “I’m at fifty XP.”
“Even after killing the Boiúna?” I ask, frowning.
“Yep. It barely gave me anything, I guess since you actually initiated the killing blow rather than my arrow finishing the job. I did get a loot crate though that I stashed in my inventory before I had to run from the rising water. We should probably open that before we get too far from the safehouse. I can’t open it inside or else I already would have. I tried.”
“I don’t get it,” I say. “I hit that howler monkey and got almost sixty XP. I got twenty-five for the Boiúna and I almost died while trying to kill it. You saved me, managed to actually kill it, and only got twenty points?”
Locke raises his brow. “Clearly, thesystemlikes one of us more than the other.”
“Is that true, Cipher?” I ask. “Are you purposely giving him less XP?”
Cipher laughs. “He usedyourweapon to kill the Boiúna, and that was all the work he did. He did not kill it mightily. He got knocked out and only came to when I woke him. He is lucky he got the XP he did.”
My frown deepens. “That seems pretty picky when it comes to defeating bosses.”
“Kill them better,” Cipher offers. “Be more flashy. I like flashy.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I grunt, shaking my head. “We’re gonna have to kill the next one with more . . . pizazz,” I tell Locke. “Apparently, you didn’t do enough with the Boiúna to gain much XP.”
Locke rolls his eyes. “Of course, I didn’t.” Under his breath, I hear, “Fucking asshole.”
