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“I didn't want to alarm Riley, but seeing that octopus there, I have a bad feeling. I've got my mate Sam looking into it, but he seems to think that she's just gone off on holiday or something. In my spare time, I've been trying to call around to her friends and get a bead on who her new boyfriend might be, but nothing so far.”
Saff shook her head. "You know the rules. You know them because you help drill this into new recruits every single fucking day. When there's a potential of being compromised, you tell someone."
“I know, Saffron. I know. But what was I supposed to do? I finally had a shot. A chance to do something real. I didn't want to get pulled off this assignment before I could even get started.”
She had one arm wrapped around her body, the other one pointing at me. I had fucked up. I knew I had fucked up, but I have no other choices. "We drill this into them every single day. Depend on your team. Count on your team. Why wouldn't you depend on us? Fine if you don't want to talk to Gabe, but me, of all people, for fuck's sake."
I swallowed hard. "I know. I just… This is my first time undercover in the goddamn field. Gennifer Goode is up my arse. She talked to me like if I didn't do a good job my arse was out the door. I don't know. I didn't say anything because I don't want to fail you. I don't want you tainted if I fuck up."
"Tabs, this isn't you. That's how we’ve all known that something was wrong ever since you got assigned."
"I'm in the middle of an undercover mission."
"I know that. When were you going to fucking tell us about Kira?"
I bit my bottom lip. My words were a whisper. "I don't know."
Saffron planted her hands on her hips. "What was that?"
She was pissed. I had never seen Saff so angry. Saff, as a general rule, did not let her temper fly. Unless it was at Gabe, of course. Though she'd shot Lock once. Was she mad enough to shoot me? Thank God we didn't have weapons.
I put my hands up and backed away, and she lifted a brow. "You think I'm going to hit you?"
"Well, I don't know if you realize it, but you just took a step toward me."
"You see, while I can take you down easily, you're my best fucking friend. My mate. You didn't come to me. You've been dealing with this for two weeks while you were under cover. The fuck is going on with you, Tabs?"
"I know, okay? You think I don't know any of this? I've been in a pressure cooker. I didn't know what to do. I still don't."
"What were you hoping to do?"
"I was hoping she would fucking turn up."
"And if she didn't? Jesus Christ, Tabatha, why do you always have to do everything by yourself?"
That stung. "I don't."
"Yeah, for unimportant things you lean on me. But the moment you need something critical, it's just you going off half-cocked to prove you can do shit on your own. You never reach out for help. When you were trying to figure out how to send funds to Riley for school, and you were afraid it was going to trigger a flag on your accounts, you went to a money launderer."
"One time, I went to a money launderer. Once. Hey, to be fair, that money launderer did work for Rogues. It wasn't like I'd gone to some random criminal."
"The point was, I found out after the fact when I could have helped."
"I'm just not used to depending on anyone. We didn't have anyone else but the three of us, and that’s my default, okay?"
Saff took down her braids, savagely shoving them into a half puffed down style, and then she started to pace. "Jesus Christ. I swear to God, I could honestly throttle you."
"You know what? I could throttle myself. I'm not really happy about this, okay? I fucked up."
"Fucking up doesn't even touch it. The real question is if you were compromised. As far as we know, Kira thinks you're an art curator. So how would they know who you are?"
I hadn't considered any of that. "I don't know."
"Right. You don't know. So, you could be walking into anything."
"I'm the one everyone counts on, okay? Me. Everyone counts on me to fix things, to make it better. And sometimes it's like a constant burden, and I don't know what to do, all right?"
Saff sighed, her eyes brimming with tears. She stalked toward me again, and I squared my shoulders, holding my ground.
