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"It's my job to follow you around. Isn't that fun?" he said as he grabbed her menu out of her hand. "At least you picked somewhere I could come inside this time."
"You've been following me around since Harper and Co.?" she asked skeptically.
"No, no," he grinned, "I didn't start following you until you passed back through town with that gray-haired one of yours. I was waiting for a good show, and you certainly gave me that once Renly came back."
"Why are you doing this? Putting the blame on me?" she whispered.
"I'm following orders. I'm sure you understand that." He flipped through a few more pages before he settled on something. "Besides, I thought we were becoming fast friends. You know, I shoot you, you stab me. In our circles, that could be a marriage proposal."
"If we weren't in public..." she muttered under her breath, but in the mostly quiet restaurant, he heard her.
"What would you do, if you could? Hit me? Stab me?" He wiggled his eyebrows. "Kiss me?"
"I'm done playing games," she hissed. She stood up and gathered up her bag before she started to head towards the entrance of the restaurant. A hand on her wrist stopped her before she could get away from the table.
"Okay! I promise I'll stop," he pleaded, looking up at her. "I don't want you to go hungry. I’ll get in trouble."
She looked him over. His expression bore pure honesty and she was almost sure she could see fear in his eyes. She could work with fear, which was the only reason she sat back down, or so she told herself.
"Fine, but I want information."
The waitress came back to her table with her coffee in hand. "Oh dear, I didn't realize you would be eating with anyone else. Would you like anything to drink, sir?"
"I'll just take orange juice, if you have that," he answered.
The woman wrote that down on her pad of paper before she looked at Mykie. "Did you have enough time to order something to eat?"
Mykie nodded and smiled. "I'll just take a chicken quesadilla."
"Would you like anything extra on the side for it? There's an option for salsa or sour cream," the older woman asked as she scratched her order into her book.
"Salsa, please."
"Now, what about you, sir? Did you get a chance to look through the menu or would you like a few more minutes?" she asked, sending a sweet, grandmother-y smile in the Vulture's direction.
"Just an All-American Burger, if you could," Zack responded with a sweet smile. Mykie couldn't help but think that he didn't have a sweet bone in his body.
"Well, that was easy!" The waitress laughed as she tucked her book into her apron. "I'll have your meals out in a jiffy, along with your drink!"
The woman left and went towards the table with the couple on the other side of the restaurant, leaving the two of them alone again.
He shook his head. "I can't give you any information. Just like you can't tell me anything about the Cantil and your involvement."
"How about telling me about something that connected our two groups: Jared Andrews and Adam Young. Which one came to you first?"
"Adam talked to the Vulture King almost a year ago, I think. They set up a consistent information exchange schedule. Adam would tell him everything he knew about the Cantil, and in return, the king would feed him small tidbits of information so Adam would still be in a position of trust. Adam kept his own secrets, however, which is why we had to..." He blinked and shook his head. "Never mind."
"No. What is it?" she asked, leaning forward. She knew she was crazy for sitting with the man who was currently trying to ruin her life, but she knew when to admit when she was at a disadvantage with a lack of information. As long as he kept answering her, she would stay sitting.
"He never told who exactly the Snake King was. We had to take it into our own hands to figure it out, though." He shrugged. Mykie had a feeling that that wasn’t what he was going to say previously.
"Do you?" She swallowed noisily. "I mean, do you know who it is?"
"We have a pretty good idea," he murmured. "Only a few people know, however. Chance has the answers to everything. Whether he’s the King or not is still the question. Adam said things were shifting, but that could mean so many things.”
"What about Jared? What was his purpose?" Mykie asked, fingering the handle of her coffee. She grabbed a few sugar packets from the little container at the end of the table and poured two in, curious if Ryker was right about sugar in coffee. She lifted it to her mouth and was pleasantly surprised. Maybe he had good taste, after all.
With her drink figured out, she thought more about the man in front of her. Why was Zack so free with information? And what did all that mean, that things were "shifting"?
