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Maddy is quiet. No one likes unpopular opinions.
My experience of the bombings might have been different—sitting it out in a nuclear shelter my dad and uncle built in the mountains of Pennsylvania.
But it was still life after death—emerging days later to find the world as you knew it gone.
46
ARCHER
I turnoff the phone for the entire day.
Marlow doesn’t show his face in the evening. Nor does Maddy, nor Bo, nor Kat, or anyone else—I get it, they are bonding over this little transition.
So be it.
I wish Droga would come over to discuss it, but he won’t. I’ll give him time, too.
Instead, I turn on the music and relax the rest of the night, read on my phone, drink, and think about Kat. She’s becoming an obsession, and the only way to control it is to limit our run-ins.
I orchestrated a little surprise for her. She never asks for anything. She only did shopping that once when she first got her Ayana account. It’s surprising, considering she has an unlimited budget. I hope my surprise puts her in a playful mood.
The next day, I go to the office and shut the blinds. I know that the Outcasts are in the Data Center next door. For some of them, the previous night was long, spent on calls with the mainland. Maybe, one of them will have the guts to come talk to me.
The only one who does is Maddy.
She looks tired, in her scrubs, her hair done in a bun at the back of her head. She takes a seat in the armchair across my desk, hands clasped together on her knees, and gives me updates about the Outcasts.
“Ten of them want to go back to the mainland for sure,” she says calmly, giving me an account as if she wasn’t one of them just weeks ago.
That’s absolutely fine with me.
“They spent the last twenty hours at the Center,” she says, “sorting out their financials, bank situation on the mainland, records of the deceased. Everyone who wants to stay needs to talk to you, Archer.”
“No. Spare me, Maddy. Pawn it off to Bo. He is officially taking over resort management as of next week.”
“Archer, those from the Eastside—”
“Maddy, it’s non-negotiable,” I cut her off abruptly. I meet her calm gaze and wonder if I should offer her the position of my assistant. We need people at the medical office, but she is so reserved and calm that it grounds me. I lack that in my life. “I’ll set Bo up with HR so he has a team who can handle this. It’s very simple. The Eastsiders want to leave—talk to Marlow and see when he can arrange for one of the cargo boats or my jet to transport them. They want to stay—Marlow can figure out what their accounts are. If they have family funds, they can pay for accommodation and talk to HR to see where they can work. If they need a job that is. If they don’t have funds or family—well, figure it out with them. There are plenty of things to do on Zion, and I have too many things to handle besides them.”
I am yet to figure out what to offer Droga and Callie to keep them close to me. Slowly, things are coming along and the wounds are healing, or so I’d like to think.
Maddy gets up and tilts her head to the side as she studies me.
She is one of the very few who doesn’t falter under my gaze or react dramatically to my anger or strict orders.
“You are in charge, Archer. And you need to sit down with them and do the peace treaty. Or whatever you want to call it. You might not want it, buttheyneed it.”
God, she is like a mother. I don’t answer, and she smiles softly as she leaves like she got a yes from me.
This Outcast business is ruining my mood and making me antsy, despite trying to convince myself that I don’t give a shit.
My blinds are shut, so I can’t see the wild thing, don’t know if she’s at work or not. I have an urge to watch her constantly. It’s not suspicion anymore but curiosity. Awe, maybe. Her persistence in anything she does is astounding.
But what do you know—it rarely happens, and when it does, it’s like Christmas in July—Kat comes knocking on my door.
No matter how much I try to think of something else during the day—anything but her—she tiptoes back into my mind. Naked. Or in a bikini. Or standing on a cliff on the Eastside. Or colored in blue light in my pool. I catch myself wondering what she is doing and have to restrain myself from checking where she is on the tracker.
She makes control hard.
