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La Roux’s baby still remained as strong and healthy as ever. Flickers of its life had begun invading her daydreams, but she still wasn’t sure if she wished to spend the next eight months paying the price for them to come true. Besides, even the unborn required money to survive, and her mother still had not returned hers. The deadline Lila had given the chairwoman had long passed.
Lila’s bluster had also passed. After all, did she really want to get involved with her mother again, pleading with her to return something she didn’t necessarily need? What if she found her own money, her own path, her own way from now on? The only thing standing in her way was the principle of the thing. Her mother had stolen from her. Lila didn’t give a damn about the dividends, but to take her chief’s salary and her pay from the hospital? She’d traded away her youth for both jobs. It felt like a slap in the face. Perhaps it was meant to.
Perhaps she’d give a slap back.
But she had better uses of her time, didn’t she? She still had La Roux’s network to untangle and the oracles to secure. Mòr and her people needed her, and it seemed like a nice way to live for a while. No one exploiting another’s secrets to get ahead. No one squeezing a few credits from broken bones or from broken men. The oracle’s compound ran on cooperation. Staying with them had been a nice change of pace.
Dixon seemed to agree. He had not yet returned to his old life either. He’d declared himself her nurse: cooking when she needed something to eat, fetching new books from the library after she’d finished the old, and managing the fireplace whether she wanted it managed or not. Blair visited in the morning and evenings, returning overnight to her tower. It was a good thing she didn’t stay then too. Dixon might be mute, but Blair more than made up for it.
At least their headboard didn’t thump against the wall.
When he wasn’t nursing Lila or spending time with Blair, Dixon worked. He’d helped Connell organize a brief evacuation of the compound so that the bombs underneath it could be disconnected, moved, and destroyed. He helped Lila search the oracle’s cabin for bugs, destroying at least one in each room. He’d also fetched a map so that Lila could work out how the compound’s security cameras might be used more effectively. She’d had quickly drawn up a list of equipment needed to fill the holes.
Connell had accepted her help gratefully, intent on securing his lover’s safety and the safety of his compound. He had trouble admitting that he’d let so much happen on his watch, but Mòr had not allowed him to resign.
Dixon also retrieved the radios from the two gatehouses on the property. Lila had unscrewed the casing and spent a long evening searching for Olivier’s tricks. When she found nothing, she’d trudged to the gatehouse herself and searched it with her snoop programs. Two chips had been hidden inside: a bug and a primitive jammer. After she removed the two devices, the static had lessened. It lessened further when she located another set in the south gatehouse and in the compound’s monitoring room. From the amount of static that remained, she could only assume that Olivier had hidden three more in the compound.
Lila offered to run her programs throughout the entire compound, but Connell had promised to ask Olivier instead. According to the chief, he remained in the basement, calling for his own death. The aftereffects of the truth serum flowed through his body, gushing from him in waves of vomit, piss, shit, and pain.
In the end, Connell didn’t need to give him the serum again. Olivier marked the bugs and jammers on the map as soon as Connell threatened him with another dose. Olivier knew there was no point in lying. He’d talk against his will anyway, and he’d have to endure the serum’s side effects.
After removing the bugs, the static had cleared completely.
The oracle had been so grateful that she’d given Lila a fine sum, the same fee that she’d earmarked for a company to troubleshoot the radios. Lila had been tempted to turn down the money out of pride, but she knew she couldn’t afford to any longer,
not if she decided to live the life of an exile. Besides, Dixon had assured her the money would be enough to pay her bills for at least a year, so long as she did not live extravagantly.
Lila had taken the money. She needed it, regardless of whether or not she kept the baby, and Dixon had helped her begin the search for an apartment.
If Helen had made the change, why couldn’t she?
A contract now sat on her bedside table, breaking down every single security concern Mòr had for her compound. The oracle would pay Lila well for addressing each item, adding a bonus if she could finish the list within the next three months. A similar contract from the La Verde oracle sat beside it, and Mòr hinted that other oracles might send requests soon.
Lila would not want for money, food, or shelter if she stayed with the oracles.
But Mòr had been right. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the gods were watching her. She didn’t want to stay with the oracle children, but if she did have the baby, it might be the safest place for her, a place where she could receive help.
At least for a little while.
Lila pushed open the door to the admin building, the place she always ended up after her walks. The lobby looked as it had the first time she’d seen it. An entire militia shift had scrubbed the blood from the stones, and the ruined rugs and couches had been replaced.
It didn’t seem as inviting, not after seeing Nico and Delilah struggle in their last moments on earth. She couldn’t help but recall Nico’s words the very morning of his death, that she was god-chosen, that death followed people like her, and that he didn’t want to die.
Lila sat heavily on one of the couches, the same couch she’d sat on after her first long walk through the compound. That night, one of the admins had settled beside her on the couch, telling her of Nico’s last words. He’d joked about his migas recipe at first, saying he’d left it on his kitchen counter. He’d wanted the woman to put it away for him, so no one would steal it while he recuperated. But when Nico realized that he wouldn’t make it to the clinic in time, he’d asked the woman to tell his parents and his siblings that he’d loved them very much.
Nico’s thoughts had turned to Lila next. He’d asked someone to fetch her, to ask her why she’d never come to his cabin.
Before they could, he’d closed his eyes and said no more.
She’d run off moments later, chasing Olivier.
Nico had died not knowing.
If only she’d not wasted time looking into missing children, if only she’d trusted her initial instincts and waited to apprehend Camille until she’d found the second mole, then Nico and Delilah might still be alive.
If only a lot of things.
Her palm vibrated. Come to dinner tonight, Lila girl.
