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What a horrible thing to fall on.
Dixon pointed. A table sat at the front of the room only large enough for four people. Several rugs ran underneath it, the whole area likely reserved for Mòr.
It seemed like such a small, lonely space compared with the rest of the room.
Soon, she and Dixon reached the front of the line. Food sat in four massive buffet warmers, five pans in each, the steam keeping the food warm and ready to eat. They took up purple trays, plates, and silverware, then spooned out heaping portions of mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans before adding crispy strips of fried chicken and hot rolls fresh from the oven. Apple pie and tea cookies sat on another table.
Lila and Dixon got both.
The pair sat in a back corner of the room, watching the people around them. Lila found it difficult to concentrate on her task, though, for her crisp and salty chicken had been cooked to perfection, and the mashed potatoes had been blended with far too much butter to be legal.
Dixon went back for seconds.
Lila would have joined him if her stomach had allowed for it.
Connell entered the cafeteria after Dixon’s third plate, hauling a canvas sports bag. He tossed it at Dixon, who caught it midair. “Enjoying the food, I see.” He chuckled, glimpsing the empty plates stacked around Dixon. “I’ll let Mòr know. It will ease her mind.”
“Any news on the break-in?”
Connell shook his head. “Nico didn’t find anything in the footage. The intruder stopped in a space where we have a dead camera. I think Nico is a bit suspicious about why I’m so wound up about a prank, so he’s looking into it himself. He’s going to question some of the usual suspects after lunch. We might know something by this evening.”
“I appreciate your thoroughness.”
“It’s the least we can do for a friend of the oracles. That and lessons. I’ll see you at the gym at five o’clock. We’ll see what you’re made of then.” Connell winked and headed to the back of the line, hand on his flat belly.
Dixon said nothing more about their plans. Instead, they rose from the table and carried their dirty dishes to the back of the room. After scrubbing each in a short row of sinks, they separated everything into waiting bins. When one grew too full, a bored teenager in an apron hauled it to a waiting sanitizer, shoved it inside with a crash and a clatter, then closed the machine. It started up with a loud whoosh. Another teen stacked the previous load onto a cart and pushed it toward the steam trays, one wheel clacking with every revolution.
The clean dishes clinked together as she stacked them for the next people in line.
Once the pair returned to their cabin, Dixon snapped up a journal and wrote down his impressions of everyone they’d seen and every conversation they’d overheard. Or more correctly, the conversations he’d overheard. Dixon had been paying far more attention than she had.
She spent a few moments skimming through his work, noting his thoughts on Camille and Cecily. They’d both come into the cafeteria before Connell had arrived with his militia.
“I wonder why she’s staying here over the solstice.”
Most people don’t learn self-defense out of the blue. I don’t think she’d be so banged up if she wasn’t taking it seriously.
“Trouble at home?” Lila moved to the computer and plopped down in her seat. “She’s twenty years old. That’s old enough to get away from an abusive family. My money’s on an ex.”
At half past four, Dixon disappeared into his room, returning in a pair of gray track pants and a matching t-shirt with the oracle’s coat of arms silkscreened in purple on the front. He slipped on a gray zip-up hoodie, then happily laced up a pair of purple sneakers, likely wishing his entire suit had been made in the same color.
He held out another set for her.
“Connell lent us these?”
Dixon nodded.
Lila took the clothes and retreated to her room, quickly suiting up. After sweeping her hair in a ponytail, she lingered at the bathroom mirror, poking at the winged eye on her shirt. Silkscreen wasn’t stitching, and purple wasn’t Randolph red.
But another family had marked her clothes.
No matter how wide the gulf between her and her matron, it still felt traitorous to wear another family’s coat of arms. She didn’t have a great deal of options, though. Everyone might wear the same thing during workouts. She didn’t want to stick out or appear disrespectful.
After lacing up her purple sneakers, she twirled once more in the bathroom mirror and reentered the living room. “Okay. Let’s go learn to kick some ass.”
She and Dixon jogged to the gym together, a purple building in the back corner of the compound. It resembled a stubby warehouse, seemingly out of place among the picturesque cabins on the property. The painted cinderblocks had faded, and the tin roof had rusted. Someone had thrown open every set of dock doors along the front, exposing the entire gym to the cold. At least fifty oracle children worked out inside, groaning as they lifted weights, grunting as they smacked punching bags, or sweating as they exercised on a row of treadmills, stair climbers, and ellipticals.
Another hundred stretched in the grass out front underneath a tree.
