Page 64 of Hidden

"Lileah." Something in my voice stops her. It’s not the volume, I haven't raised it yet, but she knows my tone well enough to know that I’m not having this conversation for fun, I’m being serious. "Does it look like I'm messing around with this?"

She searches my face. Whatever she finds there makes her go quiet, that doesn't happen often with Lileah. She's the loudest Crawford by volume and by instinct. Silence from her means she understands.

"No," she says, quieter now.

"Wear them. All the time. Don't take them off." I hold her gaze. "Please."

There’s a beat before she puts the bracelet on. She fastens the earrings next. Then she looks at me one more time like she wants to ask the question I'm not going to answer tonight.

"Fine," she says, “Miles, I don’t know what's happening, but I’m a Crawford, I’ll fight, I'll scream, and I’ll kill if I have to.”

I stare at her for a moment. I know my sister can fight; we taught her to. But this isn’t about fighting, this is about making sure she doesn’t have to see the ugly side of life and hate herself.

“And I pray I stop anything coming before they do.” She gives me a small smile and walks away to go to her friends.

I watch her go and track the signal on my phone, which is already live, and already logging her position in real time to the encrypted partition running on my system at home. The burner phone in my inside pocket connects to the same channel, untraceable, and not linked to anything with my name on it. If anything flags on the network while I'm here tonight, I'll know before anyone else does.

I put the phone away and go find Mason. I find him straight away, he’s by the drinks, of course. He’s already made three new friends in the time it took me to handle Lileah, which is approximately his average. He hands me a beer.

"You look like you've just had a serious conversation," he says.

"I'm fine." I look around for Lileah and Sadie.

"Right. Harte did well. I’m working out how many girls I can get on their knees tonight.” Idiot, he’s always thinking about his dick.

I scan the garden again. Lileah is with her friends, Declan is there with them, so if anything is out of place at least I know he’s there, and then I find my girl.

She’s wearing the red bikini under a swimsuit cover-up; her hair is down and damp at the ends where she's already been in the water. She's with Juno and Maya, and the three of them are at the far edge of the pool.

Then she looks up.

Not at me, but at the party in general. It’s a slow scan of the space, she’s clearly looking for someone without wanting to look like she’s looking. Her eyes move across the crowd, across the patio, across the group where I'm standing with Mason.

Her eyes move past me, and then they move back again.

It’s only for a fraction of a second, then she looks back to Juno, back to the story she was telling, and she's laughing again like the scan never happened.

She's looking for Ghost.

The realization lands with a warmth I don't examine too closely. She's standing at a party surrounded by people having a genuinely good time and she's scanning the room for someone whose face she doesn't know, yet she sees me every day.

I take a sip of my beer and stay exactly where I am.

Mason pulls me into a conversation with two people from business school, something about a bet, and about a pool table. I contribute enough to pass as present while the other part of my attention stays fixed on the far edge of the pool. Sadie has moved closer to the water now. Juno says something and she laughs again, that full laugh where her head tips back slightly.

I watch her for thirty minutes without moving toward her, then Mason pulls me onto the makeshift dance floor at some point, a cleared section of patio.

There's a girl. She has dark hair, an easy smile, and has been nearby for the last twenty minutes in the way that means she's been deciding something. She closes the remaining distance on the dance floor and I let her, because this is useful. It’s cover, context, and a reason to be in the middle of the party rather than standing at its edge looking like exactly what I am.

She dances well. I'm present enough, engaged enough, the performance convincing enough that Mason doesn't look twice. Across the pool Sadie's eyes find the dance floor.

Then they find me.

For a moment she just looks. She’s taking it all in, taking me in, the dark-haired girl, and the closeness of the dance floor. Something moves across her face which she rearranges quickly, which is very interesting. Then she looks away.

Juno says something in her ear. Sadie shakes her head. I can't hear what she says, but I can read the shape of it from here.

The girl in front of me says something which I don't catch. I bring my attention back to where it's supposed to be, the party.