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Wrong move.
He totally shuts down.
One minute, he’s teasing along with me, looking almost human and like he might be having fun.
Then his eyes shutter.
His mouth thins.
He goes right back to being the irritable, unapproachable frost king he shows the world—the same man I met in his office when he insulted me to my face.
I do not miss that man.
I also have zero desire to spend more time with him.
Clearing my throat, I try to ignore the fact that I nudged him as we start moving again, still close enough to touch in our silence.
Ignore him, ignore him.
Right.
That’s about as easy as ignoring a rampaging bear barreling at me.
Although maybe a bear would make less noise.
“Careful where you step with the leaves,” I tell him, pushing aside a few long strands of grass. “We don’t want to scare anything away.”
“That’s what this is for, isn’t it?” Without another word, he throws the small drone into the sky like he’s pitching a baseball.
It whirs to life instantly, hovering above us like an overgrown bee.
It’s the total lack of noise that catches me off guard.
The little machine is bizarrely quiet, you wouldn’t know it was there if you didn’t see it.
I’m legit impressed.
“Let the bug, as you call it, do the searching from here, Destiny,” he tells me, brushing his hand against mine.
I hold my breath, wondering if he’ll take it, but he moves forward again.
Ass.
Mysterious, uptight, annoyingly generousass.
We continue along the back of the beach quietly while I hold in my sarcasm. With the drone deployed and moving just ahead of us at a comfortable pace, it’s all about the otters now.
My eyes feel sharper than ever.
Every black piece of seaweed, every distant ship, makes me think of them.
But no, after trudging half a mile along the uneven shore, there’s nothing. My eyes are tired and my shoulders slump.
I’m already feeling defeated as the drone slows and scans, turning in the air a full three-sixty.
It makes me wonder if we should waste more time here or cut our losses while we still have plenty of time to move to a better spot.
But then I see it.
