17: Absolute Best

SASHA POV

“All right, here we are,” I whisper to Rika, gesturing at the field where I spied on the lycans training a couple days ago. It looks a lot different now, in near darkness, than it did then; the sun is just barely starting to lighten the eastern sky. For Rika, we should have left earlier. We don’t have a lot of time before the sun becomes a liability for her, but I needed a lot of sleep, after that date yesterday and then texting with him last night—at first a variant of twenty questions, but then necessary intel for the work Rika and I are here to do.

My turn for a question, then. Do those muscles come naturally, or do you have a preferred workout regimen?—Nikki

I earn them. Are you looking for a personal trainer or something?—Drake

Not quite, but I do like to run, and the paths & trails around campus are getting a bit stale. Do you have any recommendations?—Nikki

The guys and I use a metropark near where we live for that sort of thing. It’s really pretty, and there’s a bunch of trails.—Drake

That could work. Does it have a name or an address or anything?—Nikki

Blendon Woods Metro Park. When you planning to go? Would you mind having company on a run?—Drake

I run super early in the morning, before stats. It all depends on the study schedule.—Nikki

Mornings aren’t my favorite. How early we talking?—Drake

Depends on the day. Aren’t we seeing each other again Saturday, anyway? Weren’t Callum and Effie setting something up?—Nikki

Maybe? Callum hasn’t said anything about it. I’ll ask him.—Drake

It was only a couple minutes later that Zoe got a text from Callum and the two of them started negotiating plans for us to go to an archery range Saturday afternoon.

“Describe how they used the space, when you were watching them,” Rika orders, bringing me back to the present while scanning the area carefully with her sharp eyes. Neither of us has any difficulty seeing in low light like this; as far as we’re concerned, it might as well be midday, only pre-dawn won’t burn Rika to death like noon would, at least without the proper protection. Right now both of us are wearing quite a bit of her scent-masking serum, leggings, running shoes, and light hoodies. I assume she has some of her extra-strength sunblock on, just in case, but I don’t know for sure.

“Whole space. Lots of running back and forth across it and around the perimeter. Sparring and stationary exercise, like pushups and stuff, towards the center,” I tell her. “Lots of banter throughout. They didn’t care about being stealthy in any sense.”

“Just as well for us. Properly surveilling the middle is a challenge, but I think I have the equipment for it. Stand guard for me. There’s only the one entrance?”

“As far as I know. I can run a perimeter check, if you want.”

“Do that. But don’t shift. It’ll mess with the serum if you do.”

“Copy.” I launch into a smooth light jog around the edges of the field, keeping my senses trained on the forest, looking for any trails or signs of disturbance in the foliage. Although this is a much slower pace than I would prefer just now, to maximize my powers of observation, this jaunt merely confirms our previous assumption: The deer trail we used to get here is the only thing resembling a path in and out of the field.

“Excellent,” Rika grins in response to this intelligence, showing her fangs.

“Do the deer path first, in case they show up,” I urge her.

“Good strategy. But tell me honestly. What are the odds that they will?”

“I’m…not sure. Drake indicated that none of them are naturally early risers, and when we saw them here the other day, it was rather later than this.” My hand goes involuntarily to my phone in my hoodie pocket as my thoughts go back to the texts I exchanged with him last night. “But he’s…rather eager to see me again.”

“You don’t seem terribly opposed to seeing him again, either.”

“Even if I was, it wouldn’t matter. We have a job to do.”

“A job you’ve said you don’t want to finish.”

“That doesn’t mean that I won’t. And as you pointed out, the more quickly I move things along, the sooner we can be done with it.” I’m not actually planning to rush the mission at all; I rather like the idea of annoying Anselm by dragging it out as long as possible. But at the same time, I’m interested in making sure justice is served, not in causing anyone unnecessary pain.

The way things seem right now, the longer we drag this out, the more likely it becomes that Drake gets hurt.

“What is it you see in him, exactly?” Rika’s voice comes to me now through a tiny speaker attached to one of my stud earrings, another of her inventions. I swear the WASP tech department will suddenly become half as successful and effective whenever Rika decides to retire. She’s halfway across the field now, having finished setting up her surveillance equipment around the place where the deer path meets the field and left me on guard duty.

“A passion for justice,” I answer quietly, holding the fake fitness tracker on my wrist close to my mouth as I pretend to fiddle with my hoodie. “And a chance to deeply irritate the person I despise most in the world.”

Rika’s cackling echoes in my ear, but her cackles fade out of my consciousness as I sniff the breeze, catching the unmistakeable odor of wet dog. With it come three subtle variations: Cajun spice and citrus; gunpowder and stale tobacco; and the combination of wood smoke with healthy evergreen forest and summer air just after a thunderstorm that belongs to Drake.

“Incoming,” I mutter to the fake fitness tracker. “I’m going out to the main trail. I’ll try to intercept them and keep them out of the field long enough for you to finish up. Leave through the woods at the southwest edge of the field and make your way back to the car as stealthily as you can. Once you’re there, text me and I’ll make my exit.”

“You’re sure it’s them? How far away are they?”

“I’d recognize Drake’s scent anywhere, and there’s two other lycan scents with his. They’re still partway down the trail from the other end of the deer path, but they’re not slacking their pace.” I’m already moving to put my plan in action, regardless of whether Rika agrees to it or not. As far as I can tell, it’s the best shot we’ve got to get out of this without compromising the mission.

“He likes you more than I thought, to be out here this early on the off chance that the two of you might run into each other.”

I fucking told you. I showed you the texts last night, when you suggested we do this and I wanted a cover in case they ended up catching us out here.

“Just—”

“I’m working as fast as I can. You should have no trouble keeping them distracted, if he likes you that much. And I’ll use the rest of your plan, too. Keep your mic on so I get a heads up if anything changes. Rika out.”

I hope she’s right, that I’ll have no trouble keeping them distracted. If it was just Drake I wouldn’t question my abilities at all, but Callum in particular strikes me as a cause for concern. He’s smart, observant, careful, and his head isn’t clouded by a strong attraction.

I’ll just have to be at my absolute best today.