What an asshole. “Since Alling took the hive out of me and you got what you wanted, I’m giving your million bucks back to you.”
His bushy eyebrows shot back up. “I never actually transferred the money.”
I ignored that. “I only ask that no one finds out Mom stabbed Carlo 2.0. And you never bother us again.”
In the doorway, the original Carlo glanced back warily and slammed the door shut.
I huffed again, not quite a laugh. “Look, Alling hoovered the bugs right out of me. I’m burned out, got nothing left. See?” I waved my hand again.
Dane’s gaze flicked to my blistered fingertips. “I still need a full explanation of what transpired. Your mother’s report was inconsistent, confusing, and frankly, inadequate.”
“Your face is inconsistent, confusing, and frankly, inadequate.”
“And you have no discipline and maturity—”
“—which is why whoever you work for will totally believe you when you explain to them that there’s no reason to keep bothering me.” I smiled at him. “Hell, you can keep the million for yourself if you want.”
His brows crashed down again. For such a stone-faced troll, he really had expressive eyebrows. “We cannot risk—”
“But you did risk. And me and my mom paid the price.Wegot us out. Not you. We did that with a pair of scissors and a fire alarm.” Hunger put an edge on my fight. “You should be focused on BantaMatrix. How did Alling advance the tech so far without anyone else knowing? How did he lose the hive to Brayden? Wasn’t anyone watching? Shouldn’tyouhave been watching?”
Now his eyebrows were one unified mass of writhing fury. “If you had done as I asked—”
“I’d prolly be dead.”
“You almost died anyway.”
“But I saved my mom, jerkwad.” Being hangry was nothing compared to thinking about how close I’d come to losing her. “You didn’t even think she was worth saving.”
He took a deep breath. “In the grand scheme of things—”
“Yeah, Alling talked like that too. In the grand scheme of things, in the history of the world, blah blah blah. And I call bullshit.”
“Oh?”
“I may have been the first infected,” I told him, “but I won’t be the last.”
“That is, in fact, my agency’s concern.”
Pfft.“It’s not just a concern,” I told him. “It’s a fucking certainty. It’s probably already happened. If BantaMatrix and Alling in Phoenix, of all places, have figured this shit out—and let itget out—then somebody else has figured it out too. Moths could be out there flying wild right now, right this very second, while you’re here still bothering me.”
Dane moved his jaw from side to side as if he were chewing on that lil bit of wisdom.
I gave him a minute to swallow and digest.
“I don’t believe you’re telling me everything that happened,” he finally said. “But I don’t have time right now to make you talk. You can’t leave the Phoenix area without my permission, and you can’t tell anyone else about these events.”
I scoffed. “Where else am I going? Who’m I gonna tell about what? And like you say, who would believe me anyway?”
He paced, three steps back and forth in the cramped room, and he was agitated enough that his nice loafers actually clomped. “I’m serious, Imogen. I’ll be watching you.”
I refused to dignify that threat with any sort of response. Except for the very tiny shiver down my spine. Whatever. “You’ll have to get my job back at the Freeze.”
His glare would’ve iced over all the slushie machines in a heartbeat. “You can’t be serious.”
“I have to make a living somehow.”
Did he think Iwantedto work at the Desert Freeze? That place was where thirsty souls went to be juiced with acai and celery, where sixteen ounces of sugar-infused ice made people believe their lives were better, at least until the ice melted. But it was simple. And safe. A known entity. Maybe I needed some of that after the nightmare of the last few days.
