Page 184 of What We Become
“It’s because you’re hot. Curls get the girls, am I right?”
I laugh. “Something like that. Wanna tell me what was going on in there?”
“Going on in where?” He tries to give me a look of innocence, but I’m not having it.
“I saw you come in, Milo. You looked like someone ran over your laptop.”
“Everything is fine.” His voice is too high-pitched, and the music is making it hard for me to sift through his Milo-ness right now.
“In here.” I find an unoccupied room and push him inside. The door closes behind us, muffling the club, and I flip the lock. The indicator changes to occupied. “Start talking.”
Milo looks around the room. Dim lighting. Leather seating. A rack of implements on the wall that I’m choosing not to inventory.
“Micah,” he says, “I don’t think Eli would be okay with this.”
“I didn’t bring you in here for—”
“I’m not sure how Holden would feel, either. I mean, Sage would be fine. She’s a really good sharer. Or maybe she’s a good taker. Of all of us. At the same time. It’s honestly hard to categorize her generosity because—”
“Milo.”
“—it spans multiple taxonomies—”
“I brought you in here to talk.”
He blinks. Looks around the room again. His eyes land on the wall rack.
“With whips? Oh, this looks comfy.” He moves to the bench, testing the cushion with both hands. “Actually, objectively? This is nicer than I expected. If I ever get kidnapped, I want it to be by rich perverts.”
I fold my arms. “Milo.”
He blows out a breath and drops the act.
That’s how I know this is bad.
He sits. Leans forward. Rubs both hands over his face. When he looks up again, the humor’s still there, but it’s sobered.
“I already saw the family message,” I say.
“Look at me, communicating before everything catches fire. Personal growth is exhausting.”
“What did Odin say?”
“Fenrir is auditing every node tied into his network. Odin is warning the other teams. My external relay stays isolated until Fenrir clears it, and if another probe lands, they take my node fully offline.”
His delivery is breezy. His knee is bouncing hard enough to shake the bench.
“And the diner footage?”
“A two-second blind spot and enough pixels to build a cardigan-shaped conspiracy theory. It could’ve been Stephen. It could’ve been some random asshole who shops at the same boring-man store. I can’t prove either.”
“So you didn’t find him.”
“No. But I didn’t prove he wasn’t there either.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I know the probe might not be him. I know that. But I feel him, you know? Like he’s this itch under my skin I can’t get to.”
I nod. I know the itch.
“Odin says he’s in the wind, but I don’t think he’s in the wind, Micah. I think he is the wind.”
