Page 94 of Harnessed in Gold

“Yeah. And because they’ll probably end up at O-Chi for the rest of the night.”

“All night?” He sounds breathless and urgent. “Liv isn’t coming home?”

“Probably not. Why?”

“Then let me come get you.”

I sit up. “Why?”

“Because I don’t like the idea of you being alone.”

“Because she knows I saw her?” The probability has been low-key haunting me since I ran out the door of McDougal’s.

I’ve put myself and everyone else in danger with a one-millisecond glance.

Graciously, Leo says, “I’d feel better if you were here.”

Ashamed and afraid, I glance about my lonely, dark room. I could worry, or I could be safe. I could wallow in guilt or I could make plans with the team.

I could be alone or I could be with Leo.

I snatch my overnight bag out of my closet. “Okay.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A freshly showered,shirtless Rime sits on the couch, skillfully tapping away on his phone.

“I’m updating Avery and Aaron,” he says with a quick glance up at Leo and me.

As I toss my coat over the back of a dining-room chair, I hear the shower running in the bathroom down the hall. Sounds like Topaz is home, too.

On the way here, Leo told me that Rime and Topaz followed Brier’s team to a basement apartment on Magnolia Street, just a short jaunt from Beta Rho Nu.

“I’ve got five crows scouting them,” Rime tells me now.

“Scouting them? How does that work?” I perch on the edge of the recliner. “They can’t tell you where Brier’s team goes, can they?”

“No, but they can lead us to them.”

Oh. “But what if one of Brier’s cronies is a bird weaver too?” Or any other kind of animal that can scout and follow.

Leo sits on the couch’s armrest and tosses a sharp look at Rime. With a smirk, Rime takes his t-shirt from the cushion beside him and makes quite a show of putting it on. Muscles in his arms, stomach,and chest contract and flex as he stretches the tee over his head and down his torso. A striptease in reverse, performed for no other reason than to annoy his ‘friend.’

I watch, of course. But I don’t get the vapors.

And if the little performance was intended to make Leo feel insecure, I don’t think it worked. Without missing a beat, he answers my question, “They would have to know we exist in order to follow us.”

“And that’s the goal, right?” I cross my legs and rest my chin on my palm. “Lie low, keep an eye on them, and find the macguffin before they even know it’s here?”

“Exactly.”

“Assuming I didn’t blow it by looking right at her.”

Rime finger-combs his damp hair. “They would know by now that some humans can see them.”

I’m shocked he’s reassuring me. And even more shocked he isn’t flipping out over me being here right now.

“Did you recognize any of them?” I ask. “Do you know what kind of weavers they are?”