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“No fucking way,” she says.
“What?”
“I’m not going out with you like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because if someone shoots us, I’m not gonna be identified laying next you on a slab wearing that fucking outfit. No, it’s too embarrassing. My father will be like,I really think she should have seen this coming …”
I roll my eyes. “So sorry, let me go find something business-casual in my backpack.”
“You can borrow something of mine.”
“I could if you had better clothes …”
“You own sequin pants and two jackets with fringe on them. TWO. I’ve seen them.”
“That information was privileged.”
“We were never married—I’ve told your secrets to everyone.”
“That explains some looks I’ve gotten.”
We grin at each other, flushed with the adrenaline of what we’re about to do.
“I could maybe borrow an outfit,” I concede. “Give me a minute.”
I re-emerge from Ilsa’s room five minutes later, wearing her gray suit. She’s broader in the back but I’m bigger in the chest, so it fits better than I expected.
“Discreet enough for you?” I say.
“Yes.” Ilsa looks me up and down, her lips quirking up on the right side. “You know how I feel about a woman in a suit …”
“You’re goddamn right I do.”
* * *
We driveover to the lab. Because there’s no raw materials to work with, Hakim isn’t there. I punch in the code, shaking my head when I see Adrik hasn’t changed it. He really doesn’t know me at all.
Ilsa and I gather up everything I want, stowing it in the back of her car. The most valuable item is the custom pill-press. We take anything else that’s mobile, bemoaning the fact that some of the best equipment is too large and too permanently-attached to move.
As I’m grabbing the centrifuge, I knock a rack of glass vials onto the floor. They explode when they hit the boards, sending glittering glass fragments everywhere.
“Oops,” I say. And then, because that actually felt pretty good, I grab another beaker and deliberately smash it on the ground.
Ilsa snorts. “Is that your revenge? You’re gonna make Adrik sweep?”
“Yeah,” I say, grabbing the rim of the massive sterilizer unit and yanking with all my might, “He’s gonna sweep a whole fucking lot.”
The unit topples, crashing to the floor.
The noise is immense and invigorating. I’m sweating from the effort of hauling all this shit, face flushed, a dark, furious energy rising inside me.
Standing inside the lab again is painful. I’m remembering the endless hours I worked with Hakim in here, how excited I was when we finally figured out the god-awful process of synthesizing our own LSD, how Adrik picked me up and swung me around when we told him the good news.
He was only excited because he knew how much money I’d make for him.
I was just his fucking employee.
