Page 29 of One Step After Another

9.

Penny

PENNY was right.

She usually was.

The call had come directly from Dare, and without information as to why, Penny found herself walking the familiar halls of The League’s complex again. She suspected her handler called her in for a job, or something related to their plan for the group known only as The Elite.

What else would it be?

Rounding the corner at the end of a long hallway that led to the stairwell where she would head up to Dare’s office, Penny was entirely unsurprised to find Cree waiting on the bottom step. Legs stretched out and ankles hooked one over the other, the man almost appeared to be sleeping with the way his eyes were closed.

Penny knew better.

“Since when do you lie in wait?” Penny asked, approaching the steps.

She stopped in front of Cree.

He cracked one eye open. “You called Jewel tonight.”

“And? I call her frequently.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” Cree reached up to grab the tail end of his long braid before flicking it over his shoulder. Pushing up to stand to his full, towering height so that she was forced to stare up at him, he turned with a wave of his hand toward the stairs, saying, “Ladies first.”

Penny didn’t move. “Did she call to tattle on me and complain that I had her do her job?”

“Actually, she was doing what she was told.”

Oh?

“Which is?”

Cree shrugged. “Filling us in. When you call, she calls. We like to know what you’re doing when you’re doing it. Especially when it deals with a situation where you might end up doing more harm than good.”

“To already bad people? Or by making sure there’s no information about me to find on the—”

“By exacerbating your PTSD, Penny.”

She let out a hard breath, meeting Cree’s gaze when she replied calmly, “I’m fine. And occasionally doing a scan of the dark web for anything I find interesting or that relates to me, and this job doesn’t make my PTSD any worse than it already is.”

“But it does when you find things about yourself. Your old self.”

That had her jaw tensing. Her teeth clenched so hard, there was no hiding it or ignoring the pain it caused in her molars. Guessing from the way Cree’s gaze darted down before coming back up to her face, he hadn’t missed it, either.

“Cree—”

“Jewel mentioned something else, too. Luca Puzza.”

Penny tried to remain as still as possible. It was the easiest way for her to appear like nothing was wrong and needed that. She needed to be the unbothered, cold human these people had trained her to be even if it wasn’t true.

“So now you’re having people report back on everything they talk about with me?” Penny scoffed, adding just as fast, “And she brought him up, not me.”

“Yes, fishing. Because I asked her to.”

“What?”

Cree chuckled. “There are only a handful of people you willingly talk to on a regular basis. Jewel is one of those because of the very nature of your relationship with her. Even if it is all business. Dare was trying to put feelers out about your feelings regarding the Puzza man trailing you and getting close. You gave nothing away; he still wanted more. So yes, I had Jewel bring it up to see what you would say to someone who wasn’t above you on the paygrade, so to speak. Someone you might consider a friend of sorts.”