Vincent was careful not to disturb Marielle as he reached over her lovely frame, which was covered by the white sheet. He shut off the beeping alarm that had infiltrated his nightmare and brought him back to reality. Unlike so many others, the nightmare hadn’t ended with Marielle’s death. He hadn’t woken up in a cold sweat, and he hadn’t turned and punched the mattress until his knuckles hurt either.
Considering his circumstances, this nightmare might have been worse, however. It weighed heavily on him like a thick veil even in waking, filling his mind with guilt and dread. It was the same kind of sensation as walking on the train tracks late at night, only to hear a haunting whistle as the locomotive, invisible in the night, came barreling down the tracks straight at you.
But it hadn’t been a train; it had been two names… Two names that had appeared in his mind’s eye speeding toward him in the dark, threatening to run him over and smash him into the ground like a railroad spike. Two names side by side, that in his understanding of life, himself, his situation, God, the multiverse did… not… make… sense together. They never, ever made sense together. He had turned toward the speeding names, a wall in his mind pushing toward him at lightning speeds. Instead of running, he had braced himself, pulled out his tactical knife, and prepared to make a stand and tear the names apart. Then he’d awakened right before they had slammed full force into his body.
Forcing the dream from his mind, Vincent managed to forget about it entirely by the time he reached for his glasses and sucked his equipment back into his body, watching the gold dance down his skin as the guns reverted to nanobots. The tingling began first in his arms, then in his chest and down his back. It moved up to the side of his face, and he cracked his neck and took a deep breath, mentally preparing for another day as he slipped his glasses on.
He settled back against Marielle and tenderly dragged his fingers up her arm to her shoulder while he leaned in and planted a series of sweet kisses between her shoulder blades. She took in a deep breath and hummed, tugging the sheet up a little, but he grabbed it and slowly slipped it back down her body so he could look at the pristine beauty of her bare back.
At the chill, she shivered, now conscious. “Oh!” She giggled, putting her face into her hands as she recalled the night before. “Oh my gosh! Don’t look at me.” Trying to hide under the sheet, she pulled it back up, and over her head.
He chuckled, trying to yank it back down again. “Why not?”
They played tug of war for a moment. “Oh my gosh, Vincent… I’m a mess!” she said, realizing her makeup was probably smudged and her hair was fluffy, knotted, and uneven.
“Let me be the judge of that,” he said, winning the battle of the sheet and tearing it away from her. She blushed and covered her face with her fingertips, but he was on top of her now, looking down at her as he gently pulled her hands away from her face and pinned her wrists to the pillow.
Her green eyes twinkled as she looked up at him, half pleading for him to let her go, half asking him to share what he thought of her at this hour and to be kind about it. He simply stared for a moment, pressing his body against her harder, ready to claim it again.
“Are you serious right now?” she demanded.
“Oui,” he replied with a nod.
He leaned in and tenderly moved her hand away from her face again so he could give her a kiss. She tried to push him back a bit, but he insisted; his lips for hers. After their lips spoke to one another, he lifted his head, looking down at her again.
“I’ve missed this,” he murmured, bending and putting his lips on the corner of her jaw to leave a trail of electrified grazes there.
A brief memory occurred to her. He’d told her that day in the courtyard that he’d “so missed” her food. Why hadn’t she caught on to that? She must have known she was his wife on a subconscious level, but she had been both terrified to ask and praying that he’d eventually just tell her. Still, how had she missed it? Was there more? As he dipped farther to brush his mouth along her collarbone, she realized she didn’t care.
Later, she sat at the coffee table in the living room in nothing but the bedsheet, her matted hair in a messy bun, and watched Vincent expectantly as he brought her coffee, eggs and toast. She looked up at him with a grateful grin, which he returned over his right shoulder as he went to the kitchen, then came back with his own food.
Taking a seat on her left side, he took hold of the sheet and slipped it down her shoulder. It fell the rest of the way, exposing her torso, and he gave her a little kiss on the nape of her neck.
Marielle felt self-conscious all of a sudden, lifting the sheet a little again. “You just want me naked all the time now?” She giggled as she bit off the corner of her buttered toast.
“You can dress whenever you please,” he purred against her temple, “but the beauty of Aphrodite shouldn’t be covered for too long.” He nibbled her left ear, his hand moving up her front and finding her breast.
She flushed. What he said was cheesy, and yet it stuck somewhere inside of her and made her want him again, even though they’d just made love not twenty minutes ago.
Then a thought hit her, and she gasped in horror as she pulled away. “Are they going to attack again? It feels like they will soon.” She looked around as if she’d forgotten where she was.
Vincent raised his fingers and put them to her full mouth, hushing her. “No,” he said plainly.
Growing anxious, she glared at him. “What?”
“They’re not going to attack today.” He sighed and gazed out the window. “They’re down seven—eight—members of their team,” he said, remembering Hazal. Then he recalled his brief encounter with KAY/O at Everett Linde and corrected himself again. “No, nine. They’re not going to attack, they’re trying to find a place to plant the spike,” he explained. “And probably beef the team back up from other dimensions,” he added under his breath.
Marielle bit her nails, eyes wide in dread. “How do you know?”
“I know Cory.” He let out a long sigh and added under his breath, “I know him all too well. I read his eyes the other night. He’s not going to do what we expect.”
She drummed her lip for a moment. “What do you think he did with Hazal?”
“He killed him.”
Marielle cringed, and a look of deep sadness crept over her face. “How do you know?”
“That’s just how Cory is.” Vincent stood, putting his hands on the small of his back and stretching for a beat before pushing his glasses up his nose. “Cory will be saccharine to you, then tear your throat out. Hazal disobeyed a direct order not to come here… He’s dead.” Vincent stood and turned away from her to eye the pictures on the wall.
“You said you were best friends with him?” Marielle dared after a few sips of coffee. She figured that since he was talking about it, he might want to continue.
He nodded, looking distant as he rubbed his sinuses under his glasses. “So were you.” She took in a deep pull of air; she could hear and see the truth in his words. “When we were trying to figure out who else you could pass through, he jumped right up and said, ‘Maybe it’s fear based!’ Then he extended his hand and you took it, and he pulled you against him in a hug and said, ‘If anyone would know, I would. Give your fears to me.’ And you tried. I’ll be honest, for a moment I thought that if it was going to be anyone else, it would be him.” Vincent shook his head sadly. “It wasn’t.”
She swallowed and looked away. “I knew him well?”
“Oui. You were very close with him long before you knew me or…” He cut himself off and looked down for a moment, as if fighting back tears. “He was the best man at our wedding.”
She lifted her eyebrows and put four fingers to her lips. “Who was our Maid of Honor?”
“Han,” he replied.
She nodded. That made sense, and it reminded her that she needed to talk to Han sometime soon. “We should get to Valorant.”
He nodded his agreement and sat back down beside her. “But first,” he said, “petit déjeuner avec l’amour de ma vie.”
***
Statues can tell you a lot of things if you take a moment to truly observe them. They can tell you about the artist, about what he or she was trying to convey and why. They can tell you about the material the artist used and how skilled they were with their tools. They can show you immense beauty in their carefully crafted folds, wrinkles, and lines, and they can speak to you if you listen carefully enough, just still yourself and stare.
Presently, there was no more melancholy statue anywhere on the grounds—and, Marielle suspected, anywhere in the world—than Austin Rancor. He was in the courtyard, sitting at a table… alone.
Marielle tried to read him from afar, suspecting he already knew she was there. His eyes were deep wells of sleep deprivation and torment. She didn’t know what kind of ghosts or demons he’d been fighting off, but she could tell that their taunts and lies still swirled around his mind and echoed in his ears. The battle was obvious; he’d tried to put them to rest and failed. He was so still he appeared dead, yet he retained every ounce of his beauty, which remained God’s precious gift to a man who had no idea how to use it for its intended purpose: faithfulness, love, and the ability to cherish his perfect features while they lasted.
He hadn’t moved in a while, leaning on his knuckles over the table top. At last, he lifted a hand, picked up a playing card, and moved it to another stack. Then he reverted to being a statue, staring at the game of Solitaire he was playing.
–I’m so alone, Marielle. He rubbed his eyes with his palms, and then dragged his left hand down his face, trying futilely to clear the exhaustion from it with the swipe of his hand.
She finally approached and sat across from him. He didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, he moved a red two over a black three. Then he put the red ace of diamonds over that one and collected all the cards. He’d won against himself.
Austin shuffled them a few times and dealt five cards to each of them. The game had changed. He set the draw pile between them, doing all of this without looking at her once. He knew that the moment he did, he’d be able to read what had happened between her and Vincent—all of it.
Marielle picked up her hand, looking it over. Her cards were about as low as they could get, so low she wondered if he was cheating. She gathered them together uniformly and tossed them to the middle of the table as if saying she folded.
She finally broke the silence. “I’m his wife, Austin.”
He tucked his lips in for a moment. “That took you long enough,” he sighed.
She tilted her head, wondering how he could have already known that. Had it been obvious to everyone but her?
At this movement, he finally glanced up, although not on purpose. The moment he did, he hated it and closed his eyes. “So, you slept with him.” He looked at her again, and as he’d suspected, he could read it all. “More than once,” he said, incredulous. She looked down, trying to hide her gaze. “Wow… more than twice.”
He breathed out and ran his hands over his hair, leaning back in the chair a little. “Okay,” he whispered, and for a moment, Marielle considered how he always said “okay” when he was trying to settle something quickly in his mind or trying to accept some truth or reality that was beyond his comprehension. It was similar to the way he used “yeah.”
“I’m his wife, Austin.” He laughed ironically, shaking his head, then looked off, defeated. “Why is that funny?”
Austin lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t…” He restarted the sentence, his tone calming a little. “You don’t find it funny?” She glared at him, missing the joke entirely. “This guy just shows up, tells you a load of bullshit that you eat up, and then he tells you that you’re his wife, and so you sleep with him.”
–I slept with him before he told me I was his wife, Austin. Well… as he was telling me…
-Oh…
She crossed her arms protectively over her chest and met the intensity in his gaze. “What’s making you more upset right now, the fact that I slept with him and not you, or the fact that I’m his wife?”
Austin glared back at her, both of their eyes blazing. If she had been any other woman on the planet, he would have already reached across the table, grabbed her wrist, thrown her onto the table, and pressed his lips against hers to reclaim what he felt like he’d lost. “You’re not his wife, Marielle,” he whispered tightly, and she knew he was whispering because if he didn’t force himself to, he’d be screaming instead.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I am,” she said flatly.
“No, you’re not. Your double was in another dimension. You’re you here, and you never married Vincent,” he hissed.
“Why? Because I was supposed to marry you?” she bit back. Maybe I should have been called Viper…
Pain bled into his expression as he stared back at her. He said nothing, but she could tell the wheels and cogs were turning in his mind. Whatever he wanted to say, he just couldn’t say it. The silence drove her insane.
“I’m sorry that for the first time in your life, someone has made you wait. I’m sorry you’ve been given a no, but it’s a no,” she growled.
He glanced away again angrily. The expression he was trying to hide from her told her he was holding back tears. He picked up his cards and looked through them. “You’re going to find out things about him that you’re not going to like,” he said matter-of-factly. “In fact, you’re going to hate them.”
“Oh? You know so much about him?”
“I do know a lot about him, yes,” he snapped.
“Like?”
Austin paused and moved two cards in his hands, then tossed them to the center of the table, face-up. He’d won for sure, but he wasn’t going to answer her.
“What about you? What were you doing last night?” she demanded. He leaned back against the chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. The move was subconscious, but she understood it. “Oh.” He dropped his hands and half rolled his eyes, realizing what he’d done. “You don’t get to lecture me about who I sleep with, Austin.” She narrowed her eyes at him.
He rubbed his bottom lip with his middle finger. “Yeah.”
There was an uncomfortable amount of silence. Marielle heard a bird chirping in the arbor over the bench.
“Can we stop this?” he asked quietly. “Can we stop… sniping at each other? I don’t want to do this.” He gathered all the cards again and set them to the side. “I don’t want to fight with you.”
The seriousness of the statement broke her because she heard how true it was. He wanted to do anything but fight with her, regardless of how much he was hurting. The breeze caught his hair and dragged several strands across his forehead, and words struck the back of her mind from their night at the beach.
“I’m thinking about your hair, and how it’s stuck on your face by the wind… and how you haven’t moved it, so that means you want me to.”
She swallowed hard. Her fingertips ached to brush his hair back from his eyes. Normally, he would have already put it behind his ears. Was he thinking of that night on the beach now? He was… She could see it in his expression. Those same words were haunting him, too.
He combed his hair back, apparently realizing she wasn’t going to. Not that he thought she would, but maybe he wanted to remind her of that night. Somehow, things had been less complicated then.
“If you want to stop sniping at each other, then tell me… with your mouth,” she demanded. He clenched his eyes shut and mouthed the words “Please, don’t make me.” “What did you do last night?” He caged his face with his hand and let out a long sigh. “You told me you wouldn’t lie to me,” she whispered, tears welling.
“And I won’t,” he replied even more quietly. He took in another ragged breath, keeping his eyes closed. If he didn’t see her, she wasn’t there—he was just talking to the wind. “I paid the waiter to blow me in the back of my car,” he said quickly, as if ripping off a Band-Aid so the sting would last only a moment.
Marielle never broke gaze with him. “And you think I have any pity for you and your jealousy?” she said through clenched teeth, a tear rolling down her pale cheek.
He combed over one eyebrow with his fingertip and pulled his right sleeve down before scratching his arm. He had won the game and she’d won the moment, but neither felt like winners.
“You’re right, I have no right,” he replied dejectedly. Then he rubbed his face again. It was more obvious now that he hadn’t slept. “Side note, though…” He cleared his throat lightly. “I’m not one bit proud of what I did.” He looked up at her, his eyes begging for her to still have a single ounce of pity or love left for him. “I never am,” he whispered.
She wiped away the tear. “Are you going to get help?”
“I’ve tried, you know?” he murmured, looking distant. “It’s not that I don’t want to sometimes—I’ve tried. I saw someone in college. A therapist, I mean.”
Marielle sniffed. “What happened?”
He shook his head and rolled his eyes until they closed again, chuckling silently, resignedly. “I slept with her.” Sighing, he looked away from her face again and leaned over his knees, digging into his eyes with his fingertips. “I don’t always think that everything can be fixed. I think some things are just… too deep inside. There’s a button to change it, yes. I just… haven’t found it yet.” Austin gazed at her like she was the ocean, and his pleading eyes were a dry, desperate desert. “But I want to, often.” He licked his lips; they were cracking due to the September sun and his lack of sleep. “I want to be…” He reached for a word that was beyond him in every way.
“Innocent,” she finished for him, sensing the word. “You want to be innocent again.”
He almost gagged at the reaction that crept up his throat and through his entire body. His fingertips hurt, his arm itched, his eyes felt like the Sahara, and his groin ached. Innocent? What was that? He laughed ironically. “I was never innocent.”
He couldn’t keep his eyes open for a few moments. Then he leaned forward, looked at the cards and shuffled them again, dealing once more. Silently, she picked up her hand. She’d play his game.
Marielle looked at her cards fanned out between her fingers, then looked left and right to see if anyone was around. Not a soul. They could be making out, and no one would be the wiser.
She waited a beat, then took a single card and slipped it across the table, but kept her finger on it. “I’ll make you a deal,” she whispered, cracking the silence with each rounded word. He looked at her with interest. She was shaking inside, her own inner voice whispering, What are you doing? “Stay clean the rest of the day, until sunset at least, and I won’t walk away from this… yet.”
He eyed her, his eyebrows knitted together in an inquisitorial fashion. “This?”
She didn’t answer for a moment. She left that word dangling in the air for him to follow around in his mind like a carrot on a stick. “This,” she repeated, and she looked at her hand, holding the card down like she was drowning something—or someone.
He followed her gaze and reached for the card. Their hands brushed as she refused to lift her finger, and electricity shot through them both, causing the jolt one feels when they reach for a doorknob. They both registered it and chose to ignore it.
“I’m going to ask you at the end of the day, and you can’t lie to me.” Glaring at him harder, she leaned over the table. His eyes immediately dropped to her breasts, then darted back up. “Nothing… You can do nothing.” He swallowed hard. She took her finger off the card, an obvious signal for him to look at it. “Am I clear? Nothing.”
He reached over and flipped it up, not knowing what to expect. Oh… Queen of Hearts… Red.
Austin’s eyes widened, and he met her straightforward stare. He swallowed and also glanced around. “What are you telling me?” he whispered shakily.
“What are you telling me?” she returned, daring him to say what he’d wanted to not five minutes ago.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he took in a deep breath and picked the card up, studying the exquisite classic woman in the red, black, blue and yellow dress. He swallowed sharply.
“Guess we’ll just have to be silent then,” she whispered, accentuating the word “silent” with her gorgeous pouty lips.
Austin fingered the card. She didn’t say the next bit, but he read it all the same. This was a secret between them.
–Shhhhhh.
“Promise?” She knew that if she could get him to promise, it’d be true.
Leaning forward a little, he pulled his wallet from his back left pocket and opened it, slipping the card inside to think on later. He understood it, of course… It was the Queen of Hearts, the Red Queen, the Queen of Love… But why had she given it to him? Did she love him? Did she want him to admit to loving her? Red queen… Was she telling him without wearing red that she wanted him? He knew he’d have no satisfying answer anytime soon. A stranger thought occurred to him… The Queen of Hearts… Wonderland… Off with his head! Was she going to kill him?
Austin winced. “Oh, Marielle,” he breathed, and the words came out like he was being actively tortured. It was torture… all of it. “You want me to… stop… when I know that tonight you’re going home wi—”
He stopped himself. Too far. Too much. He was already shaking.
There was a long pause before she said, “How long are you going on here?”
He looked at his watch. “About three hours.”
“Let’s see you make it to twelve.”
Austin let out a long breath, “I’m with you,” he whispered. “I can…” He paused; a pregnant pause. “But I want something from you.” She shrugged as if to say, “We’ve already established that… like fifty times over.” He shook his head. “No, not that. I mean, yes, that, but that’s not what I am asking for.”
“What are you asking for?” His eyes glistened a little, and she knew he wanted her to move through him as she had in his dining room what seemed like forever ago. He wanted that connection again, the total completion he couldn’t feel with anyone else. “No.”
His eyelids fluttered a little. “Please,” he breathed. “I’m not getting on my knees here—I don’t get on my knees for anybody—but I’ll beg if I have to.”
She drummed her lip for a moment. “No.”
“You don’t know what it means to me.” He leaned toward her a little. “I—”
Marielle shook her head. “I think I do, actually, but I’m still working you out in my head.” She paused. “I can’t give you that because I do know what it means to you.”
His fingertips dug into his palm as he shuddered. “Please,” he mouthed. She shook her head. Taking a deep breath, he looked down into his empty hands and let out a ragged, defeated sigh. “I promise,” he finally replied.
The quiet of the moment died away quickly after that, and he gave her a soft, accepting smile. He riffled through some of the items in his wallet and eventually pulled out a photo book.
“I realized I never showed you these,” he explained. He came to her side and squatted next to her, handing her the pictures so he could look at them with her.
Another amazing collection of glorious red after glorious red: mouths, eyes, flowers, leaves, fruit speckled with dewdrops, lights, a dress, candy, a nude or two—and as far as nudes went, these were tasteful and lovely enough that she could call them art.
One was of a skinny woman lying on her side languidly. Her eyes were fixed on the cameraman—Austin—in a come-hither stare. Her short black hair was slicked back from her face, and her eyes were dark with smoky makeup. Her mouth was a deep, blood-red. The shot showed only her upper half, and the angle of her arm covered enough of her body that nothing too personal was being shown.
The other was similar. The length of a woman’s back, showing off her spine. Her hands, clad in elbow-length red gloves, held her shoulders as if she were giving herself a hug. Marielle couldn’t see her face, but the hair told her that it was probably the same woman. Besides the striking red, both photos were otherwise in black and white.
She smiled softly. “They’re beautiful, Austin.”
He smiled a bit abashedly and looked down. “Thank you.”
“A lover?” she asked, gesturing to the woman.
“At the time,” he replied with a nod.
Marielle looked at the first one again. She could read the desire in the model’s eyes, and it hadn’t been faked for the camera. “She’s beautiful,” she commented in awe of both the woman and the picture, a twinge of jealousy making its way in there somewhere. In that moment, Marielle felt that she must be equally obvious to everyone, including him.
He let out a small, ironic sound, eyeing the side of her face. “Not even close,” he whispered. She knew he meant to add “to you,” but he didn’t.
She gazed into his eyes for a moment, reading him. “You want photos of me like this, don’t you?” She could see him salivate, preceded by a hard swallow. “That’s a yes,” she smirked, looking back at the pictures. He tried to hide a knowing smile, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore.
One photo in particular spoke to her for some reason. It was of a grove of red trees, thick and full of life, like the fairy tales her mother used to tell her. She smiled at it, then looked at Austin.
–There could be a witch in there! she thought, and the voice in her mind sounded like a little girl’s.
He narrowed his eyes at her playfully. –There is.
Both of them broke into laughter, little children…
Him about eight, his stunning blue eyes giving him away, even though one of his teeth was too big and overlapped the other, her around six or seven years old. He grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the trees, their feet thudding against cool grass as he led her toward… danger? Protection?
-I’ll protect you, Marielle. I’ll die first.
The red leaves and brown branches enveloped them. He pulled her along, running through the flurry of autumnal colors as leaves fluttered down around them like feathers.
Then, in an instant, they were both adults again, and he was pressing her against one of the large tree trunks, his forehead against hers, his strong hands squeezing both of her bare forearms gently… pleadingly.
They stood like that for a moment, matching one another’s breathing as they panted. Both of them knew she was anticipating a kiss. Then she broke away, laughing, a little kid again, pointing ahead at something neither of them would ever see, and he darted after her, transformed again as well.
She dodged him and whirled behind the giant elms, trying to make herself small and invisible. Each time, he snuck up and found her, only for her to run again, giggling, and he always followed her, laughing and desperately wanting to hold her against him.
He finally cornered her against a large boulder, and put his hands up, bridging her in. Both laughed heartily, then he leaned toward her right ear. “I want to finally get a kiss,” he whispered in his little boy’s voice, the words beautifully rounded and over-enunciated in the way children speak.
She cocked her head at him, her big green eyes beaming with wonder and purity. “What’s a k-kiss?”
He smiled. “I’ll show you,” he whispered like it was a secret.
They both blinked at each other, back in the courtyard, their stunned expressions searching one another for answers. Austin was just inches from her face, and she felt hot and uneasy. Had they both just shared the same fantasy?
Innocent… she thought, then looked away from him. He stood, putting his hands in his pockets and stroking his chin.
Vincent walked up. Since neither of them was doing anything remotely compromising, nothing about this looked odd. He nodded at Austin, then looked at Marielle. “They want to talk,” he explained, and he took her hand and helped her up.
***
Austin was on his second cup of coffee, and he still looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.
Once again, Vincent stood at the front of the room with everyone’s attention on him. “I know Cory well, so I understood the instant I saw him with Hazal that he planned on surprising us. He knows that I think he’ll attack this weekend, which means he won’t.”
“Why does that mean he won’t?” Jamie asked, leaning over the table with his palms pressed against the top.
“Because that’s how he does things.” Vincent sighed. “If I had to guess… I’d say that he’s looking for a place to plant a spike.”
Han slowly lifted a single finger. Vincent nodded, urging her to speak. “They’re going to plant it in Venice.”
Vincent turned to her more fully. “How do you know that?”
“It’s why I came back from Japan.” She looked around the room at all the other faces staring at her. “Kingdom… They’re trying to help Cory. I think the other me was in Venice yesterday,” she continued wearily. “She was spotted, and because everyone knows who I am, everyone thinks I caused the destruction to the city.” Han glanced down as though she felt guilty.
“You understand that you didn’t do this, right?” Vincent asked.
She nodded. “I do, but… I was still scared to tell everyone.” Her eyes darted around the room nervously. Tayane patted Han’s forearm and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Vincent turned to Klara. “Klara, can we do a scan for radianite in Venice? I want to know if there are any specific areas that match what they might be looking for.”
Klara looked to Liam, whose expression urged her to help. “I can absolutely do that,” she said with a smile.
“What do we think this has to do with Kingdom?” Liam asked from the front of the table near Barbara.
“I’m not certain,” Han began, pressing her index fingers together rapidly a few times. “But a witness said something about them, and about… teleporters?”
Vincent looked down, remembering Everett Linde. That facility was really fractured now. He wondered where Chamber was. Even though he knew Chamber would respond the next time he called, sometimes he actually missed the guy. Right now, he was conflicted. He knew it was only a matter of time before someone in Valorant found out about what he and Chamber had done at Everett Linde… And when they did, what would happen? How hurt would Marielle be? Vincent glared at Austin for a moment, even though he wasn’t looking at him. What would Austin do when he found out? What was the trigger?
He shook his head. He’d worry about that when the time came.
“So, what exactly is the play here?” Tala asked from the back, combing through some of her blue hair and blowing a giant pink bubble with her gum.
Vincent glanced at her, coming out of his train of thought. “Right now? The biggest objective for us is to stop them. In other words, figure out where they’re planting that spike and shut it down at all costs.” His gaze flicked to Klara, then to Liam. “I still have no actual go-ahead on whether we’re building our own spike so we can go to the other side and try to take them out.”
Liam stroked his chin and glanced at Wei Ling, who dragged her eyes from Sasha to him, then shrugged. “Up to you,” she whispered.
Sabine gave him a similarly vague answer when he prompted her. “I think for me, soldier, I’m in a ‘wait and see’ kind of mode…”
“Understandable,” Vincent said, glancing at Marielle. She nodded, pursing her lips lightly. “You need more information.”
“Let’s not be foolish, though. We need to fight back if we’re going to keep getting mercilessly attacked like that,” Tayane piped in. Klara nodded at her girlfriend and laced their fingers together.
There was a pause as everyone in the room thought.
“I agree, I agree. If we’re attacked, show no mercy. But we need to handle whatever they’re trying to do on this side with the spike,” Wei Ling reiterated. Then she fell silent again, her eyes drifting back to Sasha. He wasn’t looking at her.
“I want you to work with John today,” Liam said, turning to Vincent. “And to help us better understand Cory and Finola. Which means I want everyone in the training department by thirteen hundred, understand?”
Marielle looked at the clock on the wall. It was 10:30. She had enough time to rest and eat before meeting back up with everyone.
Han gently touched her elbow. “Let’s go to your office and talk,” she whispered, stealing glances at Austin and Vincent.
Marielle nodded, and the two women got up and walked out together.