Archer peered up at Priya. He cocked his head, a smile playing on his lips.
“I was just stating a fact.” Priya bumped her shoulder against his. Archer’s smile widened as he ducked his head into his chest.
Patrick slid into the seat next to me. “Good morning.”
“Dammit, Edan!” Gage’s voice rang across the cafeteria. Archer laughed, choking on his eggs.
I turned to see Gage pulling a boot out of the brown paper bags I’d discarded in the corner. He was wearing the other boot, and he hopped on one foot as he tried to put it on.
“I have no idea why your boot is there, Gage,” Edan called innocently from the food line. Gage flipped him off.
“Why does Edan keep taking Gage’s stuff?” Zoe asked.
“Because Gage is a dick and it makes the rest of us laugh,” Patrick said.
“Plus he thinks it’s funny to punch Edan in the face with nearly full strength during practice,” Noah said as he sat down next to Priya. “Julian hasn’t put a stop to it, so I think this is Edan’s revenge.”
“Edan could just punch him back,” Zoe said.
“I don’t think that’s his style,” Noah said. It certainly wasn’t. Edan barely threw any punches at all, and when he did, they were weak. I couldn’t imagine him fighting with Gage. I’d been with Priya the last few days, and I hadn’t noticed Edan and Gage paired together.
I polished off my breakfast as the team leader at the door called for us to wrap it up. I grabbed my tray and dropped it in the bucket near the kitchen.
Julian had instructed us to meet him in the big gym today, and I followed Zoe and Archer that way. Edan, Patrick, and Noah trailed behind me. Patrick smiled at something Edan said. It didn’t seem like there were any hard feelings about the attempted robbery.
Zoe and Archer stopped suddenly outside the gym door.
“That’s bullshit, Grayson.” It was Julian’s angry voice. I took a step forward and stopped when Grayson and Julian came into view. Grayson was holding the door open just a bit, giving us a glimpse inside the gym. It was empty except for them.
“We need people out there, and I think your team is a good choice,” Grayson said.
“Nests can have hundreds of scrabs,” Julian said. “We’re not equipped to handle that.”
“Of course you are. Your team came out of yesterday with zero casualties. And three of your members are cleared to use guns and explosives.”
“Most of our teams are weak, Grayson, including mine. Look at what happened yesterday. We need to take a few days. Rethink things. They’re going to get massacred out there.”
“Things will be less intense in the country. And I personally think our teams did a hell of a job at that battle.” Grayson clapped Julian on the shoulder. “I’m not sending you guys alone. Have a little faith.”
Julian said nothing in reply. Grayson pushed the door the rest of the way open, caught us all standing there, and winced.
“Sorry, guys, you shouldn’t have heard that. Julian’s wrong. You’re all doing great work, and you’re prepared for this.” His eyes caught mine for a moment, and he gave me a small smile before turning to walk away.
We trailed into the gym. Julian was typing furiously into his phone. He looked up at us and sighed. “We’re being sent outside the city to hunt nests. The scrabs make temporary nests for sleeping and reproducing. You learned about it in session, right? They move constantly, but if we can find them, it will be a big help. It’s not such a bad assignment.”
His anger at Grayson directly contradicted that statement. We all stared at him.
“Outside the city where?” Zoe asked.
“Some small towns around Paris. Just a few hours away. But we will need to leave the complex. You guys are leaving this afternoon, and I’ll follow tomorrow morning. Pack your bags.”
23
I walked down the stairs late that afternoon, my back-pack and weapons pack slung over my shoulder. I pushed open the door to the lobby to find Madison standing in the middle of it, alone.
The door slammed shut behind me, and I winced. I’d been hoping to sneak through without her noticing me. But she turned and immediately spotted me. I offered a weak smile and made a beeline for the front door.
“Clara,” she called.
I stopped and slowly faced her. “Yeah?”
She closed the distance between us, her boots squeaking on the tile floor. She was dressed in the same uniform as me, but she’d tied her shirt at the bottom so that it pulled tight across her stomach. Her blue eyes looked extra bright in the late afternoon sun streaming in from behind me. I wished I’d spent a little more time on my makeup.
“Listen,” she said with a sigh like she was annoyed that she had to speak to me. “It’s about Julian.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the hole in the ground where a scrab had shot up a couple weeks ago. I wished another one would pop up right now. I would take a scrab over this conversation any day.
“What about Julian?” It came out more annoyed than I’d intended. I’d been trying not to sound nervous.
“You guys are, like, together?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“OK, I just think you should know that he can be kind of intense in relationships.” Her words were clipped, almost angry.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He falls pretty hard. If this is your first relationship, I think you should be careful.”
“I’ve dated guys before,” I said defensively, even though that was barely true. I’d dated two guys, one for a few weeks, the other for two months. I wasn’t sure either qualified as a relationship. They hadn’t been anything like what I had with Julian.
“Whatever,” she said with a hand wave. “He just gets jealous, from what I’ve seen.”
“He gets jealous?” The words popped out of my mouth before I could stop them.
She raised one eyebrow
