Chapter 10

10

D elina awakens the next morning to more lingering chill in the bed and a growing awareness of the dead bird outside.

She flops over onto her back and stares up at the open beam ceiling, letting her mind wander.

A bug crawls over the exposed bone in the bird, sending pinpricks of sensation towards Delina, and she hates it. Hates hates hates it.

The world no longer shines in gold, thankfully for her eyes, and despite the late-night walk through the woods, she's back to her normal time waking up early, as if she still has an office job and a gym routine.

The main room of the cabin is empty, cold, though the plastic door still stands against the wind and Chance the cat sleeps on one of the pillows, barely opening his eyes to glance at her before falling back asleep.

The espresso machine still summons a perfect shot of espresso at her touch, and Delina watches it, detached.

In all of this magic, in all of the stress of the day before, and her mother had still somehow coded the machine to her. It's almost obscenely silly in her mind, to bother doing something so small when the rest of the magic was so…big.

Scrounging up a slice of leftover frittata, she throws it in the microwave right as Maison wanders into the room.

He freezes at the sight of her. Delina doesn't know where he slept, but by the look of the circles under his eyes, it wasn't well.

"I don't want to talk to you," Delina heads off, clutching the chipped coffee mug to her chest, as the microwave takes the longest time possible.

"I gathered," Maison replies, guarded, moving into the kitchen.

Delina skirts around the counter to avoid being in the same place as him, her heart pounding.

He attempts a try at the espresso machine, and it does absolutely nothing for him, and a thrill of victory goes through Delina at his frustrated scowl.

"My bio-mom coded it to me," Delina says, after the third attempt at checking to make sure the cord is seated properly.

"Of course she did," Maison grumbles, then sighs. "I don't know what they've told you, your mother is dangerous."

"I should've been the one to decide that," Delina says, then, before she can stop herself. "Why are you still here?"

This seems to short out his brain. "What?"

"You got through the tree, you can get out." The microwave beeps, but he's standing right by it, and she's not about to skirt by him to get her food. "Why are you still here?"

He rubs his eyes. "Can I answer that after coffee?"

"No," Delina responds and, for some reason, he smiles just a bit, which makes her blood boil even more. "I own this cabin, apparently, and I want to know why you bothered to stick around."

He weighs his words, obvious even behind his bleary eyes, for far too long.

"I don't want a pretty answer, I want the honest answer," she says, after he doesn't say anything. "Stop trying to put it into palatable words."

"Safety, then," he responds, trying and failing again with the coffee machine. "You're in danger, I don't like that, and I'm gonna stick around until you're not."

She rolls her eyes, finally skirting around him to get to the still beeping microwave. "I don't believe you," she shoots, before taking her frittata and amazing coffee and slamming the door to her bedroom.

She doesn't emerge until she can one hundred percent hear Chloe and Gurlien in the kitchen, and she intentionally makes quite a few shots of espresso for them.

The air of the cabin is charged, but with what she could never tell. Something between eagerness and nerves, between fear and excitement, and all Delina can think about is the dead bird still outside.

Chance the cat is in rare form, batting at everyone's ankles as they walk by, then meowing pitifully when he inevitably got his claws stuck in Gurlien's pant leg until he carefully untangled him.

"Okay!" Gurlien says, after the strained conversation comes to a lull and the dishes are put away in the surprisingly modern dishwasher. "Going into town, let's do it."

Maison's gaze is once again on Delina, but she ignores him. "I should bring my phone to check in. Tell them everything is fine, nothing to worry about."

"No," Gurlien snaps, as Chloe audibly scoffs. "I don't know the codes anymore, I don't trust that."

Maison crosses his arms. "I'm coming, I'm not letting you two assholes be the only protection for this."

Chloe bristles, but Gurlien waves his hand at that.

"Yes, yes, you're powerful, we know, that's not news," Gurlien replies.

"I've worked too hard to separate from them, I'm not letting you blow that up," Chloe says, and it sounds a bit like a vow. "If I think you're going to rat us out I will put you in a trap circle."

Maison spreads his arms, like that's an insult.

"And I don't want them to know this place exists," Gurlien finishes. "The moment they do, then all the research in the basement will belong to them and they'll bury it."

"This place has a basement?" Delina interrupts.

"It's super creepy," Chloe responds, as an aside.

"I think it's better that I give them an ‘all clear, this is fine' than them suddenly wondering why I dropped all communication," Maison says, and it's so close to reasonable that Delina squints at him. "The first—and last—time I missed a check in was…not good."

"When was that?" Delina asks, and he avoids her glance. "No, it was my life, I deserve to know."

"And what happened to make it ‘not good'," Gurlien follows up. "Define not good."

Maison scowls at him. "Delina had a personal emergency," he reports, "we were out of contact for two days because the mountain had no signal."

Delina blinks at him for a few seconds. "Do you mean when my dad broke his ankle up at the Horse camp?"

He nods, though Gurlien scoffs.

"They didn't let me see my mother for three months," Maison continues, quieter. "They didn't let her outside of the compound and see the sky for the entire time."

Chloe and Gurlien recoil back, and Delina stares at him, hard. Maison just scowls, crossing his arms and not looking at any of them.

No wonder he never spoke about his mother.

Gurlien recovers first. "So that's how they've been keeping you in line, I always wondered," he says. "It didn't make sense why you didn't go freelance."

"Gurlien…" Chloe trails off, rubbing her face. "Okay, Freddy, that makes complete sense, sorry."

There's a lump in Delina's throat, another crawling horror.

Maison's jaw twitches, like he wants to flee the conversation but is forcing himself to continue it.

"So yes, I would very much like to do a check in that everything is fine and say Delina surprised me with a trip," Maison says. "Combined with nobody knows who or what is going to come out of the woodwork because she—" he jerks his thumb at Delina, still not looking at her, "—is a beacon right now to who knows what out there." He then pushes himself up, striding off into the wing of the cabin Delina hasn't explored yet, his shoulders a long line of tension.

Chloe blinks over at Delina, twisting her hands together. "You didn't know?"

"Of course she didn't know, she didn't know anything," Gurlien says, though his brows are drawn together. "Explains why he took a long-term contract and stuck with it."

Long-term contract, that must be Delina, and it still doesn't taste any better.

Explains why he was so patient with her and why even at their worst, he didn't want to break up.

"Chloe, bring your laptop to town, let's see if we can find records of his mother," Gurlien commands. "Use the cached version we have of the surface records, don't try to hack, not right now."

"Do we know if his mother was the demon or his father?" Chloe asks, standing up with something resembling purpose. "That'll narrow it down."

"Mother was the human," Gurlien calls after her, as she walks briskly into the other side of the cabin, then he glances sideways at Delina. "I want to make sure he's telling the truth before we let him."

She had thought she knew all of Maison's tells when he was lying, but apparently not. "I've never met any of his family."

"And you were with him for five years and you didn't find that odd?" Instead of being skeptical, Gurlien leans forward, like he's honestly curious and bewildered by that. "I thought that would be odd for most people."

Delina leans back, desperately not wanting her personal space to be filled by anyone at this moment. "I take it you haven't had many relationships where one party has things they don't discuss."

Gurlien just shakes his head, as Maison strides back in, carrying the navy not-quite rain jacket he practically lives in when it's blustery outside.

"You and Chloe wouldn't know subtlety if it hit you over the head," Maison says. "I'll give you my mother's exact name and cell number if you need verification on your records."

Oh, he's angry. And still avoiding looking at Delina.

"That'd be nice," Gurlien replies without a trace of irony.

"Here," Maison says, then tosses Delina his phone, without even looking. "Have her hold it until you determine I won't rat you out."

The phone is off, cold, but the case is the one she bought him a year ago when he got a promotion.

If that promotion was even real.

"I know your dad has your new number, I'd leave that behind because they could use him to trace it back to you," Maison tells her, jaw tight. "That's where you'd have to worry about the tracking, I at least knew to turn off my phone when going to an unknown location."

"There wasn't any signal," Delina protests, and he looks at her, really looks at her. Like she's transparent, like he can see every thought and instinct and hurt that she's having right now, and none of it is good enough. "And, to be fair, I'm new to this conspiracy stuff."

"Well, you seemed to get a good grasp of it quickly," Maison shoots back. "Quick enough to run away."

Chloe tromps back in, a normal school backpack over her shoulder making her look even younger, then stills in the doorway, caught in the uncomfortable moment, until Delina gestures her in.

"I'm bringing my kit this time," Chloe says, and by their nods, both Gurlien and Maison know what that means. "If we get caught off guard, we'll have some materials for me to work with."

"Good," Gurlien says, then honest-to-god puts the gun in his coat pocket, completely unsecured. "Let's do this."