“So.” Sir clasped his hands and settled them on the table. “You got your tests out of the way?”
“That’s what he told me.” Cheyenne glanced at Rhynehart, who folded his arms and stared at her.
“And the results were inconclusive.”
“Okay, what does that mean?”
“It means the terms of our deal have changed,” Sir said.
Cheyenne shook her head. “I’m not staying here any longer unless you guys knock me out and tie me up. I’ve been cooperative since I woke up chained to a hospital bed, and you told me I could leave after those ‘inconclusive tests.’”
“You can. And you will.” With a nod, Sir reached into his back pocket and pulled out a cheap burner phone that looked like the one her mom’s housekeeper had had since 2010. “As long as you agree to do things for us when we tell you to.”
With wide eyes, Cheyenne glanced from Sir to Rhynehart and back. Their blank faces regarded her without any emotion. “You want me in your pocket?”
“We want this phone in your pocket.” Sir slid the old rock of technology across the table and folded his hands. “You’ll be on call. As raw and untrained as your abilities are, Blakely, we think we might be able to use them. And you.”
“For what?”
“For whatever we want. No questions asked.”
Cheyenne stared at the phone and pressed her lips together. I have something they want, but they’re not willing to tell me what it is. They think they can keep an eye on me by giving me my own crappy phone. “I have to keep this phone on me all the time?”
“Day and night,” Rhynehart said.
“In the shower,” Sir added. “It’s waterproof.”
“Right. And I’m guessing it’s part of the deal that every time I get a call, I have to answer.”
Sir blinked and raised an eyebrow at Rhynehart.
The operative shrugged. “She’s a lot better at guessing than she is at mastering drow magic.”
Cheyenne shot Rhynehart a warning glance. I’m gonna let that one slide.
“If you take that phone,” Sir added, pointing toward the item no one made a move to touch, “you’re agreeing to uphold every aspect of this little arrangement on your end. Understand?”
She studied the two men studying her, then reached toward the phone and paused. They think I can’t read the fine print. Or at least they’re hoping I won’t. Better lay some ground rules now. “If I take this phone, it’ll be on my terms.”
Sir released a dry chuckle. “I’ll add to it, Rhynehart. She’s better at negotiating than you are. Okay, halfling. What are your terms?”
“Nobody follows me. Anywhere.”
Sir’s and Rhynehart’s stoic expressions didn’t change. They waited for her to keep going.
“If I get a whiff of one of your guys within a hundred yards of me, I’m tossing that thing in the trash.” Cheyenne nodded at the phone. “Then you’re out one anonymous drow halfling living off the radar.”
“Done.” Sir slapped his hands on the table and turned toward his operative. “Show her the way out, Rhynehart. Take her wherever she wants to go.”
“Sir.”
Both men stood, and Cheyenne stayed where she was.
“Don’t let yourself get too busy, Blakely.” Sir nodded, looked her up and down, then shrugged. “You’ll need to start moving your schedule around soon.”
He turned away and clomped out of the common room in his heavy boots. Rhynehart stared at her when the halfling looked at him. He shot a pointed glance at the phone, and she slid it across the table before pulling it into her lap.
“All right, halfling. Let’s go.”
After she stood, Cheyenne slipped the burner phone into the pocket of her baggy pants and scooted her chair under the table, doing it mainly because Sir and Rhynehart hadn’t scooted theirs.
The man cast a longing glance at the giant TV over the fireplace, then sighed and headed across the common room toward the lobby. The troll still sat at the table on the end, but she glanced up this time when Rhynehart and the drow halfling, who looked like a disheveled Goth girl without her makeup, padded past. The purple-skinned woman lifted her fingers from the table and wiggled them. “Have fun.”
Whether the troll was speaking to the FRoE operative-turned-chaperone or the half-drow, neither of them knew.
Chapter Forty
The lobby did have an exit, a dull-slate-gray door with a crash bar and zero indication of where it led. Cheyenne squinted against the bright afternoon sun. Her vision adjusted before the door clicked shut behind her.
Rhynehart marched across a bare concrete parking lot surrounded by barbed-wire fencing. The fence went all the way to the tree line of the thick forest around the FRoE compound. Cheyenne turned to survey the vast, innocuous gray building stretching far in either direction, with trees around it for as far as she could see.
Two lines of Jeeps, Land Rovers, Humvees, and other SUVs stretched across the parking lot. Rhynehart strode alongside the row to their right and slid a hand into his pocket. Cheyenne limped to catch up.
“I get escorted off the FRoE premises in one of these monsters, huh?”
“Something like that.” Without taking his hand out of his pocket, the man unlocked a car from a remote fob. A vehicle at the end of the line chirped and flashed its headlights before Cheyenne could see what it was. “Where am I dropping you off?”
Not anywhere they can find me later. The halfling shrugged. “Corner of Plazaview and Berkley will work.”
Rhynehart turned around to shoot her a curious frown, then shrugged. “Sure. That’s not too far away.”
They reached the end of the cars, and the man stepped between the last glistening black Range Rover and a silver Toyota Sienna. He opened the front passenger door of the Sienna and held it for her. “Hop in.”
“Oh, I get it. The halfling didn’t sign on full-time, so the halfling gets driven around in the soccer-mom van. Nice touch.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. This is the one with a full tank of gas.”
“Whatever.” As Cheyenne walked past him
