What do you think I found?”
“Probably not what you expected,” he says.
“No,” I reply. “Did you know why Mother sent me there before? Who I was supposed to kill?”
He clears his throat. “You weren't supposed to kill anyone,” he says. “That's not what the Grove wanted.”
Somehow I'm not surprised to hear that response. “Come on, Callis,” I laugh at him. “When have I ever not done what Mother explicitly asked me to do? When have I ever gone off the mission parameters?”
He doesn't bother to answer because anything he says isn't going to help him.
“Do you know what Escobar Montoya is doing?” I ask.
“Saving Arcadia, even if Arcadia doesn't want to acknowledge it is in danger.”
“Are you sure?” I ask. When he doesn't answer, I ask a different question. “Did you know Talus survived?”
“Talus?” His voice isn't as confident as it was a moment ago. “What are you talking about?”
“Talus never checked in with you after the incident on the boat?”
“No,” he says. “I haven't heard from him.”
“Who did call you?”
“Just you and… and Phoebe.”
I nod, glancing out the window at the valets swarming the cars in the roundabout. “Was he supposed to check in?”
“Yes, and when he didn't—when none of you did right away—I knew something had gone wrong.”
“Oh, something had definitely gone wrong,” I laugh. “Why didn't you answer when I called the other day?”
“I didn't know it was you calling.”
“Bullshit, Callis. It could have been any one of us. You didn't have any insight into what was going on. You're sitting by the phone now, dying to know what's happening. You've seen the news. You know that the top floor of Montoya's building is gone. You know things have gone off the rails. You're blind and you're sitting there, wondering just how fucked things have gotten.”
He's quiet for a long time. “Okay, Silas. Things have gotten out of control. I may have erred in not giving you the intelligence you needed earlier. I'm sorry, old friend.”
“Apology accepted,” I reply.
He coughs lightly after a moment. “And…?”
I spot Phoebe in a red sedan, pulling up in front of the hotel. “And Talus is dead. Phoebe shot him in the head. Probably a cleaner death than he deserved. I killed Escobar's grandson. And he has absolutely no intention of saving Arcadia. Oh, and do you remember that weed killer I mentioned when I was still in Australia? It's owned by a human corporation, and it's been engineered specifically for our physiology. That, old friend, is my report. Tell the Grove if you want to or not. It doesn't matter to me. I'm not going to answer to them any more.”
I drop the phone on the ground and shatter it with my heel.
* * *
The car is a full-sized sedan and Phoebe waves Mere toward the driver's seat. She slips into the back on the passenger's side and I climb in behind Mere, putting the case on the hump between the back seats. The other two cases must be in the trunk since I don't see them. The car comes with an in-dash GPS and Mere starts punching buttons in an effort to figure out how to reset the language to English.
Phoebe sits, her hands in her lap, waiting patiently, and I'm about to turn and tell her what I just said to Callis when our car is struck from behind.
Mere's airbag deploys, slamming her against her seat, and since the handbrake is still set, the car grinds across the pavement. Phoebe and I bounce off the front seats, and I'm nearly brained by the aluminum case as it bounces around the back seat. Whatever has struck us has a big engine and it growls noisily as the driver of the other vehicle tries to force our car into one of the columns that ring the roundabout in the front of the hotel.
A burst of gunfire shatters the window on Phoebe's side. Several rounds bounce off the case in my arms, and I feel the burn of a bullet as it streaks across the outer edge of my left shoulder. A black cylinder flies into the back of the car—too big and too slow-moving for a bullet.
Flashbang grenade.
I'm already in motion before I consciously identify what it is. My hand finds the door latch, yanks it, and I tumble out onto the sidewalk.
The flashbang goes off, and in the wake of its noise and light, I hear someone screaming but it may be nothing more than my sense of hearing being