Page 63 of Amethyst Flame
I shrugged. “I was honest. I told her I’ve never blown anything up.” When Jacob scoffed under his breath, I glared at him. “I haven’t! Hardly. I mean, yeah, I’veblastedstuff. Which set a fire that triggered the gas that caused a shit-ton of damage, but that’s not the same as really blowing something up.” I glanced back at Dane. “She didn’t ask me to blow anything up. In fact, she told me to be careful. She said my hive couldn’t generate the amount of energy required to sustain any meaningful thermodynamic reaction.”
Dane gazed at me narrowly. “So she told you to be careful, and you’re going to listen to her?”
I scowled back. “Yeah. I can take advice when it’s, like, my life.”
Dane and Jacob exchanged quick but obviously skeptical glances.
With an annoyed grunt, I pushed back from the counter. “Adley says she trusts me and believes in me. Maybe you guys could try to have a little faith too.”
To my surprise, my knees wobbled under me.
Jacob was right there, catching my elbow. “Easy. You’ve been going hard all day, and even with all those calories, you need some time to refill the well.”
“Take her to the couch,” Dane ordered, and unlike me, Jacob obeyed without question.
I didn’t mind that since my head was spinning a bit. And suddenly the omelet was spinning a little too, which was much more problematic. “I just need to close my eyes for a sec,” I mumbled. I clung to Jacob’s arm, keeping my eyes squeezed tight, and stifled a groan as he tipped me onto the couch. It was a nice couch, soft and cushiony.
I lay there, with my eyes closed, listening vaguely as Dane and Jacob discussed my report. I was like a secret agent baby, falling asleep while my cloak-and-dagger parents whispered hush-hush stuff. It was sort of soothing in a weird way.
At least it was until Dane’s phone clanged. In his stern voice, he rattled off a series of numbers and letters, adding at the end, “Line secure.”
I cracked one heavy eyelid to peer at him. He had the phone pressed to his ear, his jaw flexed hard. “Yes, I did,” he said in a clipped voice. “I was there to—” At a harsh interruption from the other end of the call, too tinny and mumbly to make out the words, the tension in his jaw traveled down the corded muscle in the side of his neck. He was going to give himself a tension headache doing that. “Yes, I understand,” he bit out. “No, I won’t.” He was silent again as more words rattled from the phone. “An hour, yes, sir.”
Jacob was watching with both eyes wide. “Trouble?” he asked when Dane tucked the phone away.
“Maybe.” Dane spun away. “Keep an eye on her. Get some more food in her when she wakes up. I’ll be back later.”
I wanted to protest that I wasn’t falling asleep, but all I could muster was a slow exhale.
Fortunately, Jacob was even nosier than me. “Where are you going? What’s up?”
“Stay here. Don’t let her go anywhere.” Dane glanced at me, but whatever power I did have wasn’t sufficient to keep my eyes open. As I faded out, he told Jacob, “If I don’t come back, follow the plan.”
I wanted to yell “What plan?” but instead I said “whu?” and then I passed out.
Seemingly a heartbeat later, I jackknifed upright, saying, “What?” and almost knocked myself off the couch.
In the recliner across the coffee table from me, Jacob looked up from his laptop. “What?”
“What?” I rubbed my face hard.
He closed the laptop. “Let me get you some cake.”
From the kitchen, he returned with half of a Pepperidge Farm chocolate layer cake and a tall glass of milk. I wolfed it down, went to the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth, and when I returned, the other half was waiting for me. I ate that too and finally sat back with a sigh.
Jacob blinked. “You go, girl.”
“Where’s Dane?”
“He called a while ago, said he’s fine but won’t be back til morning.”
“What was all that about a plan?”
Jacob hesitated, but when I growled under my breath, he said, “This whole time, he’s had a contingency plan to keep you from falling into the wrong hands.”
“Sure,” I muttered. “He only dangled me above the wrong hands when he thought it might get him something.”
Jacob gave me an admonishing tsk. “He would’ve come after you if you hadn’t given us the all-clear. And he told me what to do if he had to pull you out and we had to run. He’s got a safehouse off the grid in the desert where we can all hole up.”
