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“I’m not cranky, you’re overcompensating.” I held onto the soft fabric of the front of her sweatshirt, looking left and right to make sure we didn’t get flattened by a distracted taxi driver.
She trailed behind me with her hands in the front pocket of the pink monstrosity, hood up and tripping on the length of the thing. “That’s not very nice. My dick is a perfectly normal size. I don’t need to overcompensate.”
We reached the other end of the street and I turned suddenly, grasping either side of her hood and pulling her face close to mine. “What do you have on under this?”
She smiled like a cat. “Nothing.”
“Behave, or I’m taking it off.”
She gasped, smiling in disbelief. “You’d get me arrested for public indecency?”
“I’ll spank your bare ass in the middle of Times Square if it got you to stop pretending like you aren’t scared witless.” I took her chin between my fingers. “Either tell me what you’re hiding or keep quiet from here until we get back to your apartment.”
Mattie’s eyes softened, glassing over as she drew in a slow breath. But then she shuttered a mask over her emotions again, and reaching up a hand, she mimed locking her lips and throwing away the key.
I sighed, ending it with a growl. “Let’s go.” I led her down the sidewalk to a twenty-four-seven fast food restaurant. Without hesitation, I pushed through the doors with a yellow logo and into the quiet, mostly deserted restaurant. Mattie looked around with exaggerated indifference. Ignoring her, I weaved through the booths, searching for a familiar, tall figure. I found Tabitha where she said she’d be, sitting in a booth in the corner with her laptop plugged into the wall and a carton of fries at her elbow.
She looked up when we approached, and her bouncy black curls framed her face around the ponytail baseball cap she wore. She swiped her gaze away from me to Mattie and then back to me. “You babysitting overtime?”
Mattie scoffed and plopped herself down on the bench across from Tabitha. “That’s insulting, bestie. You know Kael isn’t a baby.”
I had an insane urge to grab a burger and shove it into Mattie’s mouth. Instead, I took the thumb drive out from my pocket and tossed it to Tabitha. “This has Remington’s finds on it. They’re pretty good, actually, thanks to the… er…” I glanced at Mattie’s curious gaze. “Your friends.”
Tabitha had scared the bejesus out of a pair of informants who used to work for Nexusum. I had also tortured them a little, like a year ago. Just a bit. They’d deserved it, and now they were already so terrified of me, they sang pretty songs about where to find the information we needed. Tabitha inserted the drive into her computer. “Good deal. You have Mrs. Thorne’s PC?”
I held it out, and she took the laptop and put it on the table beside her fries. I sat in the booth next to Mattie, glancing around to make sure we weren’t overheard. Fortunately, there was only a pair of teenage boys in the restaurant, and they were on the other side of the room. “Remington coded a virus into the info. He said you need to attach the files to the end of the presentation, and then it’ll glitch to display what he wants instead of the slides.”
“Sneaky,” Tabitha said with an impressed pout of her lips.
“He’s so cute but so scary,” Mattie commented. “Like a Gremlin.”
I cocked a derisive eyebrow. “Cute?”
Mattie gave me a prim sniff. “Cute.”
Tabitha eyed us both with quiet suspicion as she attached a black box to the USB port on Mrs. Thorne’s laptop. “Mattie, open your mom’s computer for me.”
Mattie slid the laptop across the table, opening it so it was between us, and the lock screen popped up. “I don’t know the password, though.”
“You don’t have to.” The other end of the box connected to Tabitha’s computer, and she started the algorithm program that ran through the processor. “This will find the password, but it’ll take most of the night, most likely. You guys can head out.”
Mattie burrowed into her hoodie. “I think I’d rather stay with you.”
Tabitha exchanged another look between us. She fixed a squint on me. “Why?”
“Mattie is lying about an asshole her parents want her to marry, and I’m pissed off about it,” I replied bluntly, scanning the restaurant again.
“I’m not lying. He’s cranky,” Mattie argued.
Tabitha made a disgusted sound. “Get a room, you two. Get out of here. I don’t want your issues distracting me. I’ll text you when it’s ready.”
Sighing, Mattie pushed me until I slid back out of the red booth, and she could shuffle toward the front counter to order food. I stood at the booth, hands in my pockets, and waited for Tabitha to meet my stare. When she did, I said, “She’s in trouble, Tab.”
“Clearly, you’re perturbed by something,” she replied evenly. “But is it possible you’re biased?”
“Biased?” I scowled. “Are you telling me my intuition is off? You know me better than that.”
Tabitha sighed, leaning a dusky brown cheek on her fist. “Ghost—Kael—you haven’t acted normally when it comes to this chick from the beginning. Are you sure she’s in trouble? She seems fine to me.”
