AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah, but you’d send a few words along with your picture, wouldn’t you? ‘Hey, Tristan, check out this cute picture.’ Then you’d add a title. Something. It’s human nature.”
“Ick, not to Tristan. He doesn’t like cats. He’s more of a dog person.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Lila spent a few moments outlining things Katia should flag. At the same time, she
downloaded a few batches of files that she had not gone through, saving them to a spare tablet. “Flag whatever looks odd to you. Even if you mark half of them, that’s still half I don’t have to look through.”
“On it.”
“Of course, you should keep anything you read to yourself. I pulled every user ID from the list, but I don’t think anyone on that compound would enjoy the thought of a stranger reading their private communications. If you’ve ever had any loyalty to the oracles—”
“I would never do anything against them.”
“Good. I trust you.” Lila handed over the tablet.
The weird thing was that Lila did trust the young woman. Katia was nice, sweet, and completely uncomplicated. No wonder Tristan had fallen in love with her. No wonder he’d never let her go. Being with Katia was like falling into a bed of rose petals, rather than shards of glass.
Lila flipped her hands over, studying the scars that cut across her palms. Perhaps Tristan had been the same for her.
Katia shoved the footstool back to the couch and sprawled out with her tablet, already scanning through the data she’d been given. Lila joined her, settling in with her laptop as she searched her own portion of the files.
Dixon startled her half an hour later, handing her a mug of hot chocolate. “Are you ready to go?” she asked, and blew on the liquid to cool it.
He looked unsure. He and his brother had talked, and Tristan had obviously convinced him to stay. What had his brother said to change his mind?
“Hood’s letting me help,” Katia said when Tristan snuck a peak at her screen. “I’m on the case now too.”
“Really?” Tristan snorted. “Usually Hood doesn’t trust anyone or anything but her own brain, her own computers, and her own programs. The rest of us—”
“Do you want to help too?” Lila asked.
“Am I needed? Do you want something from me today?”
Lila refused to rise to the bait. “Bring me a tablet, and I’ll give you some files.”
After a moment’s pause, Tristan wandered into his room. He returned with a tablet. Lila sectioned off a portion of the filtered logs and loaded it onto the device, then handed it to Tristan.
I should help too, Dixon wrote, his shoulders sinking.
Duty, then. Tristan had appealed to his sense of duty.
Gods, it was like being on the Randolph estate, watching as her mother pulled on someone’s strings.
Lila said nothing, though. It wasn’t any of her business. Dixon would have to stand up for himself, just as she’d had to push back against her mother the day before.
Lila loaded another tablet and tilted her lips toward Dixon’s ear. “We don’t have to be in the same room to do this, you know. You and I can go back to the cabin. They can send me what they’ve flagged.”
Dixon shook his head. How long will it take to go through this list if we all work on it?
“A day?”
Good. That means if we all work hard on this, you can get some sleep tonight.
Lila sipped her hot chocolate and returned to her file, a file much larger than what she’d given the others. Regardless of what Dixon had written, she intended on working throughout the night.
From time to time, Katia leaned over and showed something to Tristan, usually ending with him nodding and agreeing. It didn’t take long for the pair to get more comfortable. Katia shifted on the end of the couch and put her bare feet in his lap. While Tristan scanned through his files, his fingers latched on to her toes, absently pressing and rubbing.
It was another small cut among hundreds. Tristan had never liked her feet. He’d just liked feet. Or perhaps he’d been thinking of Katia’s feet while he’d massaged hers. The more she saw of Tristan and Katia, the less special she felt, the more she felt her entire relationship with the man had been a lie.
