Page 94 of A Barista's Guide to Love & Larceny
But she wasn’t just angry—she was tired. She was tired of letting other people dictate what she should do. She’d thought she was taking control of her own life by rejecting her ability for so many years, when really, she was just letting her parents rule her in a different way. She’d thought choosing to help Silva was a sign that she was healing, that she had autonomy over who she could trust and what decisions she made, only to discover that the woman had been manipulating her all along.
Dani was sick of it. And she’d be damned if she let another adult’s actions determine what route her future took.
So she threw everything she had at Silva’s barrier in that moment, allowing the heat of her anger to fan the flames in her mind, willing it to burn down the wall that stood between her and what Silva didn’t want to say. Gingerbread’s talons dug into her shoulder, and she used the pain as fuel, the presence of Kass and the others behind her as strength. She wasn’t alone anymore, a lost kid trying to find her way in the world, hiding pieces of herself. She had people. She had a home.
Silva lifted her head, eyes widening, the muscles in her neck taut as she made one final stand.
“Tell us the truth,” Dani said. “You have to fuckingtell us.”
The flames rose up, and Silva let out a primal cry of frustration.“Fine!” she said. “You want to know the truth? Here it is. No, pure altruism didn’t send me here. Altruism doesn’t pay the bills.”
“Let me guess,” Katya said. The sirens were growing louder now, the police closing in on the museum. “Somnio does.”
“Yes, it does,” Silva said, “and I fail to see why that is such a sin. What does it matter who’s behind it, as long as we all get what we came for?”
“What does it matter?” The question tore out of Wyatt’s throat like he couldn’t keep it in any longer. “What does itmatter? It matters because this whole time we were sticking our necks out for you and you were lying to us. I guess this is why you never went with us on any of the missions, huh? Couldn’t risk OneiroLabs recognizing you.”
“You agreed to my terms, Mr. Shalhope.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I wouldn’t have, if I had all the information. How’d you manage to weasel your way into getting a professor spot here in the first place? You embellished your resume? Got fake references willing to lie for you?”
“I fail to see how that is relevant,” Silva said sharply. “I applied for the post, and Fox’s Leap accepted. If you all could stop being such children about this, you’d see that it changes nothing. Nowgive me the laptop.”
“Wyatt,” Katya said abruptly. “We’ve come this far. Just give it to her.”
“You can’t be serious,” Oliver said. They seemed calm on the surface, but underneath that, Dani sensed something deeper, a well of hurt. “You would just let her have everything she wants, after what she did?”
“I know,” Katya said, “and I’m not ha—”
“Itrustedyou,” Oliver said to Silva, prompting a mental swirl of red and black for Dani. “We all trusted you.”
“If you give her that laptop,” Kass said, “you’ll never hear from her again. Sure, maybe she’ll keep her promise to expose OneiroLabs,and the trial participants will be able to come forward eventually. But let me guess, that’ll only happen once Somnio has its own product to launch as an alternative, without all the problematic side effects?”
“Shit,” Wyatt said. “I bet he’s right.” This admission clearly caused him no small amount of pain.
Katya exhaled a frustrated breath. “Come on, you can’t listen to Gianakos’s son. He has every reason in the world to be biased.”
“Biased?” Kass said with a laugh. “I mean, sure. But I also know how these things work. I won’t stop you if you all want to give her the formula, I’m just telling you what’s probably going to happen.”
“We’re so close,” Katya said, looking to the others with a pleading note in her voice. “Are we really going to give up everything we worked for? The money she promised?”
Dani was studying Silva’s face carefully as Katya spoke, and she caught the almost imperceptible quaver that passed under her skin at the wordmoney. A sickly puce crossed Dani’s mind like a puff of pollen.
“There is no money,” Dani said slowly. “Is there?”
Silva paused, calculating her response. “No,” she said at last. Katya made a wounded noise. If there was no money, there was likely no job waiting for her, either. Silva ignored her; the woman seemed weary now, impatient. “And here I thought you were, ironically, the easiest to deceive. Brava to you for working it out, after all.”
At that moment, Gingerbread launched himself from Dani’s shoulder, up and over the iron fence, liberating a long, haunting call from the depths of his throat as he flew across the meadow. The entire group turned to watch him go, tracing his flight path over to the forest, where a cluster of figures was emerging from the trees. The shadows peeled away as they came forth, carving out the shapes of a gathering representative of the army rampaging inside: rabbits, a pair of foxes, a wolf in its new winter coat, scattered squeaking field mice and hedgehogs doing their best to keep up. There was evena small black bear standing side by side with the tallest quadruped of the bunch, an elegant auburn stag, his antlered head lifted proud above the rest, and on his back a creature emanating an ethereal light. Her body was phosphorescent from the scales of her gown, and as the stag stepped onto the open lawn Dani beheld the amber fire in McKenna’s eyes. She had never seen her friend like this before, not even with her strongest glamours. Dani had the feeling this was the full expression of her fae side, a power McKenna rarely called on.
A breeze moved across the meadow from the trees, carrying the scent of rotting wood and jasmine. Dani breathed it in, the smell of death and Elysium, the exhale from the lungs of a goddess, and she knew what she had to do.
Wyatt, she thought to him over the shell.We’re going to need you.
She expected him to come back with confusion, to question her further, but all that he thought to her was:Ready when you are.
“Enough of this,” Silva said. The sight of McKenna leading a host of animals out of the wilderness had obviously perturbed her, not to mention the flashing lights and screaming sirens now surrounding the museum from all sides. “Move aside, Miss Lionet.”
“No,” Dani said. She reached for Kass’s hand and threaded her fingers through his. She didn’t have to be the person anyone wanted her to be—not her parents, and certainly not Silva. It was time to prove it. “I won’t. And for the record, fuck you.
