Shades of Gray - By Jackie Kessler & Caitlin Kittredge Page 0,84

be arriving later that day, according to a message left by Taser.

Jet had woken to the smell of freshly brewed coffee, which had all but yanked her off her cot. She hadn’t had a decent cup of liquid caffeine since … well, since before New Chicago had imploded. Following her nose, she staggered into the kitchenette. And then she’d nearly attacked the four strangers standing there.

Okay, so she hadn’t exactly been expecting the Runners to be at Squadron HQ already. Whoops.

After making her apologies, she tried to help them clean up—one of the four had dropped a tray of muffins (muffins!) in her surprise—but the Runners wouldn’t hear of it. One of them, a lanky man who introduced himself as Lowell, ushered her out of the tiny kitchen and promised that breakfast would be ready in ten minutes.

Indulging in a second cup of coffee, Jet realized just how much she’d missed it. She picked at the remaining fruit on her plate, nibbled a strawberry. When she’d asked where the credit had come from to pay for all the extravagance, Meteorite had smiled sweetly at her.

“Courtesy of Corp,” she’d replied. “Did I mention that we’d finished downloading all the files? Wouldn’t you know that one of the first ones we decrypted were charge codes? Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she added in a huff. “As far as I’m concerned, Corp owes us all. The least they can do is buy us breakfast.”

Jet had wanted to argue, but the coffee overpowered her sense of right and wrong. At least she had insisted on a status report before she’d allowed herself to be seduced by carbs and caffeine. The numbers of rogues and rabids at large hadn’t changed, but so far this morning, there had been no extrahuman sightings, no in-progress crimes reported—nothing out of the ordinary, according to Meteorite. The lull was startling, to say the least.

But look: doughnuts.

Curled in one of the numerous booths of the main room, Jet held the porcelain cup close to her and enjoyed the feeling of warmth against her fingers. Sometimes, she forgot how cold her hands were when she didn’t wear her gauntlets.

She sipped, marveling over how relaxed she felt. She hadn’t even finished getting battle-ready yet: Though she was in her skinsuit, boots, and belt, her gauntlets were on the table, her hair snaked down her back in a loose tail, and her optiframes rested high on her forehead. Her cloak was in one of the back rooms, draped over her cot. It almost felt like she was on vacation.

The back of her neck tingled, and Jet stiffened abruptly before she cast a glance over her shoulder. Frostbite was looking at her oddly, his mouth pulled into a lopsided smile, his gaze on her but also somewhere else. She quirked a brow, and he let out a rueful chuckle.

“Flashback to Second Year,” he said. “You and Iri, and me and Samson, overdosing on coffee during midyear exams.”

A startled laugh escaped her as she remembered Sam, so big and so strong, jittering like a junked-up cat after he’d downed his fourth cup. “We’d run out of milk,” she remembered, “and the kitchen was closed because it was three in the morning.”

“So from that point on, we took our coffee black,” he finished.

They shared an easy laugh, and he raised his cup to her in salute. She did the same. Turning back in her seat, the smile stayed on her lips as she swirled the coffee in her cup. Thinking of Sam hadn’t hurt for the first time in … well, forever. It was a bittersweet memory, to be sure, but it didn’t dig a hole in her chest and threaten to scoop out her heart.

Maybe she was finally letting him go.

She ate another berry. “Still nothing?” she called out.

“Christo,” Firebug muttered. “Someone put junk in your coffee? Calm down, Joannie. If we’re needed, she’ll tell us.”

Jet knew that. But after a week of threat upon threat, she didn’t trust this sudden lack of crime.

A trio of Runners marched in, carrying an assortment of boxes. “Personal goods from the Complex,” one of them announced with a grin. “Not much, but it’s the best we could do on short notice.”

“And we had to wait until there was a security guard we trusted,” said another, laughing. “Still had to pretend we were looters.”

The Complex: Corp-sponsored housing for all Squadron soldiers when they were off duty. When everything had imploded, Jet and the others had found out