61
“Hey,”Mike called to her as if they stood yards apart not inches.
“Hey, yourself.” Holly was still trying to figure out what the numbers meant. Miranda clearly knew. Maybe it was some sort of a secret code.
“No, Holly. Look around.”
She did. They were in the lap of an obscene amount of luxury and religious fervor. None of which surprised her. Well, maybe a little. She’d spent too many years in battle zones where the religious fervor was highest where abject poverty ruled.
Bitch Clarissa, Drake, and a Chinese general who she didn’t recognize were nattering away like they were old friends. The four stars on the jacket draped over the back of the elderly Chinese man’s chair matched Drake’s, so that was fine. Let the four-stars do whatever it was that four-stars did.
Susan and Sadie sat at the edge, a part but not at the center.
And Andi sat at the far end, hunched into herself.
“What the hell happened to her?”
Susan looked over. “Andi hospitalized the other Chinese general. Barehanded. The reactions were…mixed.”
Holly should have noticed the vacant seat next to the other Chinese. It was askew. All of the other unoccupied chairs around the table were in perfect alignment.
Christ, she was too tired to be walking into an unknown situation. She slapped her face to try and clear her thoughts.
The back of the misplaced chair was scuffed, the others all so perfectly finished as she’d expect for visiting dignitaries of this level. One, two, three spots of blood on the white marble. A half-meter area still miscolored with dampness.
Holly pictured the fall of the chair in her head based on the scuff. A wet spot off to the side where something had been cleaned up, blood or vomit, but not quite dry yet. In the present humidity and temperature, that meant it had happed within the last hour.
“Zhang Ru.”
“What, really?” Mike twisted to look at her.
“Oh yeah.” She went over to Andi, but the reaction was wrong. She wasn’t rubbing her knuckles as if to remove blood that wasn’t there or as if they hurt. Her hands were clenched white. So white that it was going to hurt like hell when she finally unclenched them and released the blood flow.
Holly dragged over a seat, spun it to face the other way and dropped into it so they were thigh-to-thigh but facing in opposite directions.
“So, Wu, you finally beat the shit out of Zhang Ru.”
She nodded.
“About fucking time someone did it.”
She nodded again.
“If you look up, I’ll give you a high-five. We’ve all wanted a piece of him for a while.”
Andi shook her head.
“Okay, so that wasn’t it. You gonna run a guessing game. Gotta warn you, I still haven’t slept since we launched to Alaska, so my guesses will be stupid as shit.”
Andi shrugged.
What the hell was going on with this girl? Holly looked around and spotted Miranda out in the sunshine having an earnest phone conversation with someone.
Well, sometimes you had to test a lever to see quite how big it was.
“You know that you’re really worrying Miranda.”
Andi knocked the chair over backward as she bolted to her feet. Her legs had turned to such Jell-O that she’d have faceplanted into the next chair over if Holly hadn’t grabbed her. Keeping a firm hold, she kicked Andi’s chair upright once more, then shoved her into the seat.