“Burying your claws into some new poor soul that doesn’t know better than to get close to a cat that’s trying to find a soft place to land,” she said, coming to a stop at Scott’s bedside. She looked him over once, then took her stethoscope from around her neck and put it on, listening to his chest. “He’s hungover and tired,” she pronounced with a yawn as she finished. “Give him a good night’s sleep and he’ll be fine.” She gave me the evil eye again. “You, on the other hand—”
I sighed. “I don’t know why you’re upset with me. I never locked you in the trunk of a car; Kat did.” I gestured vaguely to where Janus was lying in the corner of the room, a feeding tube down his throat and a respirator quietly hissing, breathing for him. “I bet she’s in here all the time, you should take it out on her. Besides, that was months ago.”
“But who led the mission where she lost her mind?” Perugini said, still giving me a fiery look. “Hm? See? Everything is your fault. Always.” She turned on her heel and went back into her office, the automatic door hissing shut behind her.
“She’s really warming to you,” Ariadne said.
“Yeah, I know,” I replied. “Another couple months and it’ll almost be like having a conversation with you.” I regretted it after I said it. Ariadne had been mostly indifferent to me of late, but that lit a fire behind her eyes. I didn’t grimace but close.
“The telepaths?” she prompted.
“Right,” I said, trying to remember where I had left off in our earlier conversation. “It’s actually a good thing they’re dead, because they didn’t know anything and now we don’t have to worry about guarding them. That would have been a headache in and of itself since we don’t have an empath on staff to block them out.” I shrugged. “Plus now Century can’t storm our headquarters and recover them, thus applying them to their nefarious purposes once more. Because you know we would have been damned near powerless to stop them.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn’t. “They still could have had valuable intel. Something. Anything to get us closer to Century, to their plans.”
“Their plans are getting more and more screwed by the day,” I said. “They just lost at least half of their telepaths, which is going to slow down their extinction agenda by a lot. A hell of a lot.” I let out a long exhalation and took a deep breath of the medical unit’s cool, sterile air. “As far as victories go, I’ll take it.” I looked around for a wall to lean against but finding nothing, I placed a bare palm on the cold surface of Scott’s bed rail. “I need some sleep.” I looked from my mom to Ariadne. “If there’s nothing else that can’t wait until morning, ladies?” I looked over at Reed, and he frowned. “I’m not calling you a lady.”
“Damned right,” he said. “Again, back to the peeing standing up thing.”
“There is one other thing,” Ariadne said, and I saw a little nervous tension between her and my mom.
“Okay,” I said with a sigh. “Out with it.”
She hesitated. “Well. We got a flag from customs in Los Angeles.”
“Oh?” I shifted, and found myself suddenly a little more awake. I didn’t relish the thought of rumbling with a Century team in my present condition, but I could sleep on a plane on the way there, and a Red Bull or twelve would have me in fighting shape by the time we landed.
“Flagged at LAX,” Ariadne went on, and everything about the way she said it was dull. “Customs didn’t act on it because they had orders not to engage without sufficient backup, which they didn’t have—”
“Spit it out, Ariadne,” I said. “What are we dealing with here? Mercenaries? Metas? More telepaths? Because if we could mop those up, we’d really put a dent in Century’s efforts—”
“No,” my mother interrupted, and I saw the look she traded with Ariadne. “Potentially more problematic than that.”
I’m sure I looked mystified. What could be more problematic than any of those things? A slow, damning thought came to mind. “Weissman.”
“No,” Ariadne said, dispelling my rising discomfort. “No, I’m afraid it’s not Century related, exactly—”
“If someone doesn’t give me an answer,” I said, looking from Ariadne to my mother, “I’m going to start accusing you people of playing the role of Old Man Winter—”
I stopped speaking mid-sentence. My mother’s face exhibited a fairly obvious twitch at the mere mention of the name, and Ariadne looked away so quickly it was obvious. “Winter,” I said softly. “He’s back.”