came over and dropped her hiking pack on the table. “Tai went to check out the projector. The neighborhood kids will have their nightly movies while we’re gone.”
“Good.” Nina nodded to her pack. “You have everything you need?”
“I think so. I wouldn’t mind bringing some extra lotion. You know, if Dani has any room between her rocket launcher and her armored tank.”
“Got plenty of room for you right here.” Dani raised her middle finger.
At Maya’s laugh, Nina pushed Dani’s hand away. “Just remember that we have to haul this shit to the rendezvous point. And we might end up carrying it on the road if things go sideways.”
Dani zipped her duffel bag with a flourish. “If this job goes that wrong, we’re ditching the soldiers of fortune. They’ll manage without us.”
Maya headed for the cabinet where they stored their freeze-dried food. “Rafe will be heartbroken that you don’t care.”
Dani scoffed. “First-name basis already? Don’t tell me you fell for his Romeo act.”
“Better him than the other one.” Maya shuddered as she sorted through the shiny silver packets of food. “The techie’s not so bad, but that sniper … There’s something dark in his eyes.”
Dani flashed Nina an are you hearing this shit? look and hefted her pack. “That’s it, Maya. I’m confiscating your tablets. You read too many Gothic novels.”
“Fair point,” Nina allowed. Then again, so was Maya’s. There was a darkness in Knox’s men—and in Knox.
Oh, he’d tried to hide it. Maybe he thought he had to now that he was outside the Protectorate, where they probably ate darkness for breakfast. But if he thought the people who lived in the TechCorps’ shadow would be all sweetness and light, he’d be sorely disappointed.
Maya returned with their rations, only to dump the whole armful on the table with a curse before reaching for Dani’s arm. “Shit, you’re bleeding.”
Dani glanced down at the blood welling from a ragged but shallow gash across the back of her forearm, then shrugged. “It’s nothing. Just a scratch.”
The sight turned Nina’s stomach. She could deal with bloody injuries, but this was different. Dani’s failure to notice the wound had nothing to do with its superficial nature. The experimental procedure that had altered her nervous system had left her with a single, potentially deadly side effect—an inability to feel pain.
Nina swallowed her tension. “We need to dress it.”
“I already packed the medical supplies,” Dani protested.
“There’s an extra tube of med-gel in the basket on top of the fridge.” When Maya turned to retrieve it, Nina met Dani’s eyes and lowered her voice. “You have to be more careful. You know that.”
Dani smiled. “Don’t worry about me, Nina. Worry about your captain and his pretty eyes.”
Nina looked away.
“He’s up to something,” Dani persisted.
“I’m aware.” She just hadn’t figured out his game yet. “He’s no Protectorate double agent. If he was, we’d be in custody already.”
“Agreed. So what does he want?”
If they were lucky, to get his hands on 40 percent of the haul from a fabled RLOC server. If they were slightly less lucky, to double-cross Nina and get his hands on all of it, leaving her team lying in a ditch somewhere.
“Nothing we can’t handle” was all she said.
Dani squared her shoulders, visibly gearing up to press the issue, but Maya came back with the medical supplies. She groused at Dani as she laid out the med-gel and a sterile dressing, and soon they were bickering like—
Sisters.
Automatically, Nina’s hand flew to her throat, but encountered only bare skin. “I left something upstairs,” she muttered. “I’ll be right back.”
After taking the stairs two at a time, Nina held her breath as she scanned her surroundings for the glint of silver. The floor was clear, as were her small wooden dresser, her bedside table, and her small jewelry box.
She found the necklace in the bathroom, dangling from the hook she’d screwed into the brick wall next to the sink. She snatched it up and put it on, finally exhaling as its familiar, comforting weight settled around her neck.
Nina didn’t have much left to remember her sisters by. Even some of her most vivid memories were beginning to fade, worn thin by the passage of time. But this pendant—three interlocking rings on a simple chain, identical to the ones her sisters had worn—was concrete. As long as she had it, she would always have a piece of Ava and Zoey.
She turned to leave the bathroom, and her breath nearly left her again as she caught a glimpse of herself