Page 183 of Hunters and Prey

Let Them Eat Cake

IT FELT LIKE I’D ONLY been lying on my bed for about fifteen minutes when the doorbell went off in our sixtieth-floor apartment.

I fought back and forth as to whether I should answer it.

Black wouldn’t ring the doorbell, obviously.

I couldn’t think of a single reason why anyone else would come in person.

I’d felt every seer on our infiltration team, including Black, poking around inside my light for however-long I’d been lying there. I could even feel and hear snippets of their conversations as they discussed what they found––despite the fact that I was trying to block them out, and despite the fact that my head had started to throb again.

If they needed to ask me something, they would just ask from the Barrier.

If it was a human, and it was something important, they’d just call or text.

Then my phone rang.

Jumping, since I’d left my phone near my pillow, I looked at the name that came up, and sighed.

Angel.

Exhaling in frustration, I just stared at it a few seconds.

I could practically hear her grumbling under her breath at me to pick up.

I hit the green button.

She didn’t bother with a greeting.

“Let me in, Miriam,” she said, using her cop voice. “Now.”

I hit the hang-up button and flopped back down on the bed.

The doorbell started up again. That time, she really laid into it.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

Dragging myself up from the comforter, where I’d sprawled wearing all of my clothes, I left the bedroom and walked down the hall to the front door. Unlocking it with a flick of my wrist, I was already walking back towards the kitchen by the time she opened it.

“I hope you brought wine,” I called over my shoulder at her.

She didn’t answer.

When I got to the kitchen, though, she was carrying three stacked boxes of something I could smell from where I stood. I wasn’t able to pull apart all of the smells, but it was definitely food. I turned around from where I’d been looking in the freezer for coffee grounds, and frowned, watching her set down two large coffee cups in a carboard tray next to the boxes.

She arranged everything in a line on the marble bar, then pulled out one of the leather-topped stools and sat down with a sigh.

“Black made me bring it,” she said, seeing my face. She motioned with her jaw towards the food. “He also made me promise I’d nag you to eat as much of it as I could get you to eat. Especially the heavy stuff. Bread. Meat. Potatoes.”

I nodded, but couldn’t help frowning a little.

She gave me a faint smile, and I saw the worry in her eyes that time.

“I think he’s suffering from separation anxiety,” she added. “He let everyone have it after you left. Told them all to stop being assholes. Said you’d heard it all from him already, in stereo, and that you didn’t need any more assholes in your life.”

Her mouth firmed as she watched my face.

“…He also said you met with Brick to keep him from signing all of our lives over to Charles.”

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