Jacob scowls. “Not the talking. The awkward answers, the pointed hesitations.”
I grimace right back at him. “I’m doing my best. Forgive me for not having socialized with anyone in four years. It wasn’t by choice.”
“If you go on about that sob story with the—”
“People!” Andreas breaks into our conversation with a brisk voice and a clap of his hands. When Jacob shuts up, he smiles and slings his arm around my shoulders.
It’s the first gesture of physical comradery the guys have offered me since I broke them out of the facility. The first timeanyonehas touched me in an affectionate way since Griffin, right before…
I tense up instinctively, even as the rush of heat through my body sends my thoughts into disarray. I almost miss the rest of Andreas’s comment.
“I’m glad you two enjoyed your class, but you haven’t even heard the good news yet.”
He lets go of me, just a brief, casual embrace, and I don’t have time to miss it anyway. My stomach is sinking.
Somehow I don’t think I’m necessarily going to agree about the “good” part of his news.
But Zian perks up. “What’s up?”
Dominic steps into view from the living room, his parka exchanged for his lighter trench coat. “We found out who Ursula is.”
Jacob nods, still scowling. “Ursula Engel. But we don’t know for sure. She just seems to be the most likely person.”
“There was a picture,” Andreas puts in. “Not the best quality and from twenty-five years ago, but she matched the impression of her I got from the few memories of her I nabbed from the guardians.”
“And she’s a biochemist who did a bunch of work in this state up until around the time the facility must have been founded,” Jacob continues. “Some of it for private security companies—the kinds of people who’d know how to set up a facility like that. But we couldn’t find anything more specific than that.”
“So, now what?” I ask, resisting the urge to hug myself.
Andreas aims his warm smile at me. “While those two were busy putting those pieces together, I tracked down someone who can help us find out all the details that aren’t public on the internet.” He pauses. “But of course, that help comes at a price…”
Ten
Riva
Istare through the moonlight at the waterfall tumbling fifty feet down the narrow cliff in front of me. “Oh, hell, no.”
Jacob folds his arms over his chest, fixing me with a hard look. “Backing down already?”
I sigh. “No.” Just extremely displeased with where my life has taken me.
Thankfully, Andreas insisted on coming along for the drive out into the wilderness too, and he balances out Jacob’s harshness a little. He steps closer and gives the tip of my braid a gentle tug.
“I know you don’t love the water, Tink, but you’ve got this. You’ll be in and out in no time.”
The warm confidence in his voice along with the old nickname—and the fact that he’s showing any faith in me at all after the way the past few days have gone—steadies my nerves.
I don’t actually mind water in general. Showers are fine. I can enjoy a quick dip in a warm swimming pool.
But immersing myself in the stuff sets my nerves on edge… possibly because of the same part of me that produces the claws from my fingertips and the pointed tufts of fur on my ears when I really give myself over to my animalistic side.
There’s a reason Jacob used to call me “Wildcat.”
And the faint spray lacing the air has already told me that this water is going to be cold. My skin is recoiling from it as if it thinks it can peel right off my body and avoid the whole production.
I square my shoulders and flex my fingers, feeling my strength. There’s no running away from this expedition. It’s the one thing Andreas’s hacker wanted in return for his help—because there isn’t much a hacker that good can’t get on his own.
Right before we drove out here, Jacob let Dominic heal me. I can only feel the slightest prickles of the poison still coursing through my veins. But now he’s watching me with a hint of a sneer.