Chapter 12
Lila and Dixon panted, their hands on their knees, gulping air. The hooded intruder had led them on a chase throughout the compound. They’d almost closed the gap before the figure had darted between two cabins.
When they turned the corner, the figure had vanished.
Connell raced to their side, a half-dozen purplecoats at his heel. “What happened? My people said they saw two outsiders sprinting through the compound.”
“Some asshole broke into our cabin.”
Connell’s brow furrowed. “Go search the area,” he ordered his people.
The six purplecoats sprinted away, all headed in different directions.
“Is anything missing?” Connell asked.
“We hadn’t gone inside yet.”
“What happened to your face?”
Lila touched her cheek gingerly. “The porch beat me up.”
Connell led the pair back to their cabin, drawing his tranq gun before he opened the door. He led with his weapon outstretched and pointed toward the floorboards.
Lila followed him, her tranq gun drawn as well, wincing at the purple toilet paper unfurled throughout the space. It hung from the exposed ceiling, trailed over the couch, and wound around the computer. It even snaked through the various tables and chairs.
Connell sighed and holstered his gun at his hip. “I’m sorry about this.”
“About what?”
“It’s the week of the winter solstice. The kids’ studios and workshops are closed. Many of them have far too much free time on their hands.”
A prank?
Connell nodded. “Some of them don’t like it when outsiders stay here. They believe that you’re all spies for the government militia or the highborn families. I thought Mòr had finally put the kibosh on this sort of behavior last winter, but it looks like the lesson didn’t stick. The idiots should know better than to try it right now.”
“Why?”
“Because she doesn’t have the energy to sit at trial these days, not for petty bullshit. Those sorts of cases are going through me, and everyone knows I’m a damn sight harsher.” He stepped over the purple paper and entered the kitchen, snatching an ice pack from the freezer. He tossed it to Lila. “I’ll send for Dr. McCrae.”
“I’m okay. It’s just a bruise. I hardly need a doctor.”
“You’re damn sure not okay. You got that on my watch. Did the punk hit you?”
“No, the door smacked me when it opened, and I fell into the bench.” She placed the ice pack on her cheek, wincing as the cold shot through her. “How’d you know this would be in the freezer?”
“It’s mostly other purplecoats who stay in these guest cabins, all visiting from other compounds. Training can get you pretty banged up. We always keep the freezers stocked.”
Lila recalled Camille’s wrist and lip at breakfast. Her own face would look just as bad by the evening, a trained militia chief bested by some rebellious teenager with a grudge.
She stepped carefully toward her computer and jostled the screen. Her snoop programs had not logged any new activities. After a quick check in her bedroom, she found her star drives exactly where she’d left them. “Nothing seems amiss. Truth be told, there isn’t anything to find. My work is encrypted, and the transcripts are still at the shop.”
Dixon emerged from his bedroom, shaking his head.
“Good,” Connell said. “If you find anything missing or out of place later, I want to know about it. This could have been the mole’s work. I intend to treat it as such until I know otherwise.”
“It’s stupid to show your ass when you don’t need to.”
“Maybe the mole’s desperate. We’ve gotten outside help now.”
“You had outside help with Dixon and Tristan.”
“True, but they never stayed the night. I’ll get you a gun from the armory. You need it more than that snoozer on your hip.”
“If I had more than this snoozer on my hip, and I’d walked in on this kid, then they could have been badly hurt or killed. I’ll take the snoozer any day. I don’t mind putting someone down for eight hours and gifting them a hangover. Your way is a good deal more permanent.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll have my people search the security footage. In the meantime, I’ll put this cabin on every patrol route. If anyone goes near it again, we’ll see them.”
“I appreciate it.”
Connell gave a curt nod and marched from the cabin.
Dixon and Lila snatched up the toilet paper and tossed it into the trash, sorting out the room in less than ten minutes. Once they finished, Dixon fished around in their refrigerator and retrieved a bottle of Gregorie. He lifted it expectantly, but Lila shook her head.
You don’t want any after this morning? I figured you’d bathe in it.
“It’s barely nine o’clock, Dixon. Besides, I’m trying to cut down.”
You and Tristan both. He placed the bottle back in the refrigerator and slouched on the couch, kicking off his boots and resting his feet on the coffee table.
Lila couldn’t blame him. The couch was very plush, like sinking into a pillow.
Instead of succumbing, Lila plopped herself down in front of the computer, tossing her ice pack away in annoyance. She didn’t have time to fiddle with yet another bruise. She deserved what she got for not paying attention. If she hadn’t nearly fallen on her ass, she might have tranqed the jerk and Connell wouldn’t be wasting his time trying to figure out what child had decided to play a prank on the new outsiders.
And if the mole had come out to play, then they’d already have the case wrapped up.
Dixon cleared his throat. What are you thinking? Your forehead’s gone all crinkly.
She swiveled back and forth in her desk chair, wondering how to answer. It wasn’t just the child that had annoyed her so much. It was the ongoing problem. It was Reaper. It was La Roux. It was Christina Rubio. It was the entire succession of those who’d tried to take her life lately.
“I’m tired of people using me as a punching bag, Dixon. If I don’t learn how to defend myself, someone is going to kill me. I’m been in too many close scrapes lately. I need to learn how to fight, just like Camille.”
What scrapes? Reaper?
“That’s one instance among many.”
Let me talk to Connell. I’ll find out where the gym is. We’ll work on it together. He gave her shoulder a squeeze and slipped out into the morning.
Lila adjusted the tranq on her hip and drew it a few times in the empty room. Then she turned back to her computer and started digging through the logs again. She might have cut out ninety percent of the illicit data, but she had the last ten percent to work through.
Ten percent of an ocean was still vast.
Dixon returned around noon, pulling her away to the cafeteria. Connell told me about the training classes they hold on the compound. There’s a massive group that works out in the evenings together before dinner. He said we should join. He even offered to help me train you, said it was the least he could do for your assistance. The gym is rather nice, too. Very old school. No heat, though.
“Great.”
Don’t act so spoiled. You’ll warm up fast.
“I’ll remember that the next time you touch a heater.”
The pair followed the long line of people entering the cafeteria. The interior had the same theme as the administration building, with stone walls and a shallow wooden roof. Expansive windows had been cut into the space, with light entering the room at all angles. Purple silk banners draped over the exposed beams, the mark of the oracle on the center flag.
Lila didn’t know what the other symbols on the banners meant.
Neither did Dixon.
The chatty line moved quickly up the center aisle of the dining room. Tables sat in rows around them. Given the number, the cafeteria could have seated at least three hundred oracle children at a time. Pillows rested at the end of every other table, just in case the oracle had a vision at lunch.
Lila toed the polished concrete floor.
What a horrible thing to fall on.
Dixon pointed. A table sat at the front of the room only large enough for four people. Several rugs ran underneath it, the whole area likely reserved for Mòr.
It seemed like such a small, lonely space compared with the rest of the room.
Soon, she and Dixon reached the front of the line. Food sat in four massive buffet warmers, five pans in each, the steam keeping the food warm and ready to eat. They took up purple trays, plates, and silverware, then spooned out heaping portions of mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans before adding crispy strips of fried chicken and hot rolls fresh from the oven. Apple pie and tea cookies sat on another table.
Lila and Dixon got both.
The pair sat in a back corner of the room, watching the people around them. Lila found it difficult to concentrate on her task, though, for her crisp and salty chicken had been cooked to perfection, and the mashed potatoes had been blended with far too much butter to be legal.
Dixon went back for seconds.
Lila would have joined him if her stomach had allowed for it.
Connell entered the cafeteria after Dixon’s third plate, hauling a canvas sports bag. He tossed it at Dixon, who caught it midair. “Enjoying the food, I see.” He chuckled, glimpsing the empty plates stacked around Dixon. “I’ll let Mòr know. It will ease her mind.”
“Any news on the break-in?”
Connell shook his head. “Nico didn’t find anything in the footage. The intruder stopped in a space where we have a dead camera. I think Nico is a bit suspicious about why I’m so wound up about a prank, so he’s looking into it himself. He’s going to question some of the usual suspects after lunch. We might know something by this evening.”
“I appreciate your thoroughness.”
“It’s the least we can do for a friend of the oracles. That and lessons. I’ll see you at the gym at five o’clock. We’ll see what you’re made of then.” Connell winked and headed to the back of the line, hand on his flat belly.
Dixon said nothing more about their plans. Instead, they rose from the table and carried their dirty dishes to the back of the room. After scrubbing each in a short row of sinks, they separated everything into waiting bins. When one grew too full, a bored teenager in an apron hauled it to a waiting sanitizer, shoved it inside with a crash and a clatter, then closed the machine. It started up with a loud whoosh. Another teen stacked the previous load onto a cart and pushed it toward the steam trays, one wheel clacking with every revolution.
The clean dishes clinked together as she stacked them for the next people in line.
Once the pair returned to their cabin, Dixon snapped up a journal and wrote down his impressions of everyone they’d seen and every conversation they’d overheard. Or more correctly, the conversations he’d overheard. Dixon had been paying far more attention than she had.
She spent a few moments skimming through his work, noting his thoughts on Camille and Cecily. They’d both come into the cafeteria before Connell had arrived with his militia.
“I wonder why she’s staying here over the solstice.”
Most people don’t learn self-defense out of the blue. I don’t think she’d be so banged up if she wasn’t taking it seriously.
“Trouble at home?” Lila moved to the computer and plopped down in her seat. “She’s twenty years old. That’s old enough to get away from an abusive family. My money’s on an ex.”
At half past four, Dixon disappeared into his room, returning in a pair of gray track pants and a matching t-shirt with the oracle’s coat of arms silkscreened in purple on the front. He slipped on a gray zip-up hoodie, then happily laced up a pair of purple sneakers, likely wishing his entire suit had been made in the same color.
He held out another set for her.
“Connell lent us these?”
Dixon nodded.
Lila took the clothes and retreated to her room, quickly suiting up. After sweeping her hair in a ponytail, she lingered at the bathroom mirror, poking at the winged eye on her shirt. Silkscreen wasn’t stitching, and purple wasn’t Randolph red.
But another family had marked her clothes.
No matter how wide the gulf between her and her matron, it still felt traitorous to wear another family’s coat of arms. She didn’t have a great deal of options, though. Everyone might wear the same thing during workouts. She didn’t want to stick out or appear disrespectful.
After lacing up her purple sneakers, she twirled once more in the bathroom mirror and reentered the living room. “Okay. Let’s go learn to kick some ass.”
She and Dixon jogged to the gym together, a purple building in the back corner of the compound. It resembled a stubby warehouse, seemingly out of place among the picturesque cabins on the property. The painted cinderblocks had faded, and the tin roof had rusted. Someone had thrown open every set of dock doors along the front, exposing the entire gym to the cold. At least fifty oracle children worked out inside, groaning as they lifted weights, grunting as they smacked punching bags, or sweating as they exercised on a row of treadmills, stair climbers, and ellipticals.
Another hundred stretched in the grass out front underneath a tree.
Most wore the same outfit Connell had given them.
“We’re just about to warm up,” the militia chief called out from the middle of the group. Lila spied several teens, including Cecily and Camille, in the mix. Even Mòr and Kenna had joined them, abandoning their robes in favor of workout clothes and sneakers. Blair sat next to them, mostly yawning rather than stretching.
“Do they do everything together here?” Lila asked under her breath.
Connell blew a whistle before Dixon could respond. The entire group jogged toward the running track that wound around the compound, starting their first lap. Pansies and other winter flowers had been planted along it, flashes of color amid skeletal shrubs and naked trees.
Lila joined them, glad that she felt no pressure to slow down for the group. It seemed that Connell started and ended the run, but everyone moved at their own pace. Since she had always trained hard, she was one of the few who could keep up with the chief and the rest of his purplecoats. She began with their warmup pace, then soon let the others fade away. Dixon hung back, sandwiching himself between Blair and her sisters. He jogged with a smile as they chatted to one another.
Lila hoped Blair would remember his name this time.
One of Connell’s purplecoats soon settled beside her. He had the muscular body of a sprinter and speed that he had not begun to use. Nudging her elbow, he winked. A cocky grin spread across his clean-shaven face. He sped up, looking back over his shoulder to see if she followed.
Lila hadn’t run in days, and she missed the trail she’d run at the cottage, just letting herself go as fast as she could between the trees. Like the lake, no manufacturing plants or factories coughed smoke nearby, filling her lungs with the stench of industry.
Lila sped up.
The purplecoat matched her, staying just a few paces ahead. “Is that the best you can do, mystery woman? Nice bruise, by the way. You didn’t have it this morning. Who’d you piss off?”
Lila cocked her head at the familiar voice.
In the mood for a chase, she sped past Nico. The purplecoat closed the gap between them, keeping pace. They ran as a pair, breathing hard and lapping everyone. On the tenth lap, Lila’s pace finally began to flag.
As they crossed in front of the gym for the eleventh lap, the purplecoat sprinted forward at the last minute, raising his arms like he’d placed first in a race.
He turned, running backward. His breath steamed in the chilly air.
“Hang back,” he said, panting. “Warmups are nearly done.”
Lila slowed her pace, and they jogged side by side.
“I never learned your name this morning, mystery woman,” he said.
“I know. I didn’t tell you, mountain man.”
Nico rubbed his hand across his chin. “I earned that one, I suppose. I had a spare moment this afternoon to de-fur. Un-fur? To shave. Things have been hectic lately. Would you rather I’d kept it?”
“Does it matter what I want?”
“Maybe. Did you like my hash browns?”
“They were okay.”
“Just okay? I’ll have to try harder next time. Clearly they weren’t my best.”
A bell clanged behind them. Connell had returned to the tree in front of the gym, mallet in hand, striking the sides of a metal triangle.
“We should turn around,” Nico said. “When you hear the bell, you’re supposed to finish your lap or cut off early and head to the gym.”
“Too bad. I have loads more in me.”
Lila sped up again.
Nico chuckled and chased her around the track.
Both panted and caught their breath as they reached the front of the gym once more. To Lila’s relief, much of the group had already descended on the machines and weights. Others had picked up jump ropes or started on punching bags. In the back corner of the gym, a defense class had started. Camille and Cecily stood in the first row, following along as their trainers lead them through a warmup.
It looked like burpees were on the menu.
Lila snorted. She hated burpees.
She and Nico trotted toward the opposite corner of the gym, which was set up for another class. Dixon, Connell, and Mòr stretched their legs upon the mat-strewn floor.
“You run fast, Lila,” Mòr said. “Really fast. Crazy fast. You made me tired just watching you. You’re a sprinter?”
“In college. I’m getting a bit slower in my old age.”
“I highly doubt that, Lila.” Nico grinned as he said her name, then lifted the hem of his shirt. He wiped his damp forehead, baring his ridged abdomen in the cold air.
Connell kicked off his sneakers and rammed them into a wall of cubbies, gesturing for Dixon and Lila to do the same. “Nico didn’t find out anything about the break-in at your cabin.”
“I didn’t find anything out yet. Give me time. I’ll figure out which little punk did it.”
“Plug the hole in your security instead,” Lila said. “Fill in the cameras where the kid disappeared and move on to something more serious.”
“This is serious. We don’t let our young treat outsiders like this.”
“We’ll handle it,” Connell said. “In the meantime, let’s see what sort of hand-to-hand training you’ve had.”
“With an audience?” Lila’s eyes flicked toward Mòr and Nico.
“Nico helps with the beginner class, and I train Mòr. I thought she could help demo a few things.”
Lila’s head whipped around to the oracle. “Wait? You fight?”
“I didn’t turn Connell’s head because I’m the oracle. I pinned him a few times.”
Connell put his fists on his hips. “I let you pin me because you were cute, woman. That cuteness fades when you goad me.”
“You didn’t let me win.”
“Did too.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“He did not,” Nico interjected. “I was there. You should have seen his face, Lila. He looked shocked through and through every time she got the better of him.”
“Shut up.” Connell fixed Lila with a stare. “What sort of training have you had?”
“Plenty. I just suck. I rely on my tranq and my speed to avoid fights, but…”
“Fights have a way of happening,” he finished for her. The small group did a quick warmup, the same warmup Camille and Cecily had suffered through.
It seemed that burpees were back on the menu.
Lila finished fifty, then suffered through several more sets of lunges, bear crawls, squats, pushups, and crunches.
“Pair up with Dixon,” Connell said at last. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Lila sighed, knowing she’d do nothing from that point on but embarrass herself in front of a gym full of strangers.
Dixon crouched and waited for her to attack.
Or lurch forward drunkenly.
To his credit, Dixon didn’t begin giggling until the fourth time she got caught up in her own legs. Connell didn’t have such restraint. He seemed downright jolly for someone who commanded nearly two hundred militia. Perhaps it was only because his lover had joined them, and she seemed to be having a good day.
“Let’s run through a few basic throws and see how you fare with those.” Connell posed Mòr a few times, showing Lila a basic throw she’d drilled for years.
Lila paid more attention than she had in academy training. She listened to every correction that Connell made as she flipped Dixon over her back. Dixon’s lack of words seemed to help even more. He merely pushed and shoved her into place, thumbing each muscle that needed to be altered.
She’d been doing some things wrong, things her trainers had never corrected. The group worked on the throw for ten minutes straight, only moving on to a second when Lila grew bored.
They spent the rest of the lesson alternating drills on the two throws, with Lila tugging her attackers over her back and dropping them onto the mat or shoving them off balance with a foot around the calf and a palm to the shoulder. She flipped and shoved a never-ending line of Connell, Dixon, and Nico, with brief, occasional pauses for the men to offer tips to improve her form.
Mòr sat against the wall.
Lila knew why she stayed away. She didn’t want to have another seizure after touching her.
“Fighting is a dance, Lila,” Nico said when they broke from drills and began to spar, Connell watching their every movement. Dixon sat beside Mòr, listening intently as she chatted at his side. “Do you like to dance?”
Lila nodded.
“Fighting is the same thing: action and reaction. You have to accept the dance. Stop fighting against your partner and just let it happen.”
“I thought fighting was the point.”
“Not for you. Not yet.”
Nico feinted toward her, and she flipped him over her back.
She pinned him before he hopped up this time, managing to grasp his arms in a lock so that he could not grab her.
“Who’s been pinned now?” Connell gloated.
It was the first and last time Lila managed to pin him at full speed, and it had nothing to do with dancing and everything to do with sheer annoyance.
Stop fighting so you can fight?
What the fuck did that even mean?
After fifteen minutes of sparring, Connell called for the pair to halt. “You’re doing better already. I suspect your trainers blew past the basics too quickly. Some people need more time than others to master it.”
Lila frowned.
No one had ever called her stupid before.
Connell clapped her shoulder. “No one is perfect at everything. You’re a damn sight faster than most men in my militia. Nico had to haul ass to keep up with you, and he’s one of the fastest.”
The compliment made her feel marginally better.
“Forget Nico’s nonsense about dancing,” Connell continued. “The mat isn’t a dance floor. You need to be a panther like my Mòr to win a fight. Move fast. Slip through your opponent’s fingers. Pick your moment and strike.”
Lila did not reply.
Panthers?
Dancing?
What was she even supposed to say to that?
After a few moments of leisurely stretching, Lila and Dixon returned to their cabin to shower, then walked to Mòr’s home for a quiet dinner.
The air smelled of beef stew and cornbread.
Lila ate enough for five people.
Dixon did not return to their cabin after they finished their meal. Instead, he stood up and followed Blair from the dining room, giving Lila a bashful wave goodbye.