Page 72 of Fuse

“And one of the people in this room who won’t be missed right away in that room?” I jerk my head the direction of the lab. “If Angie or I don’t show up for a few hours, everyone will think we’ve gone down for naps.” I spin back to face Wade. “But unless you can convince them all that you’re going to Arizona for a snack run…”

He tenses his jaw beneath his ginger stubble—for about two seconds. “Pfffttt.” Then proves there must have been an Amazon Prime deal on shrugs I somehow missed. “I’ll think of something. One of us is always breaking away to brainstorm. When I do, I play Shadow of Mordor, and they refuse to join me.”

“And they will actually believe you would play that for several hours?” Angelique winces. “When you have Breath of the Wild and Persona 5 sitting nearby?”

Wade blink-blinks at her. Then strips off his Nerf This T-shirt, balls it in his hands, and drops to the floor at her feet, wiping the toes of her ankle boots with it. “I’ve reached nirvana—and you are the goddess at its center.”

“Wade!” The shock beneath my exclamation is eased a little by the matching look on Angie’s face—until the guy rises, tempting us to succumb to full coronaries. “Wade!”

He jogs a perplexed glance between us. “What?”

“You…you have abs.”

“And biceps,” Angelique stammers. “And triceps. And”—her jaw drops as Wade pivots, giving us both an eyeful of how well his jeans fit him in certain areas better than others—“oh, merde.”

The guy ticks up one side of his mouth, looking for all the world like the July dude for the Geeks with Guns calendar. “Hey, exercise is good for brain cells.”

“Sure. Brain cells.” Angie murmurs, letting her head lope over to eyeball my friend’s ass like the shameless Frenchwoman she is. I’d give the moment a full giggle if my mental capacity wasn’t so focused on more vital things.

Accessing the mansion’s security cameras.

Confirming the Consortium—more specifically, their psychotic bitch of a leader—are still playing house inside that place.

And as soon as we’ve done that…

The field trip to RPV is on.

We’re so close. She’s so close.

And we’re just a few minutes away from being able to do something about it.

No point in even attempting to hide my anticipation about this convergence—a fact I expect Wade to take instant and full advantage of.

“So it’s settled? We’re a tag team on this one?”

Yyyyep. He’s right on time.

Angelique responds by assessing him again—completely north of the waistline this time. “Like the Three Musketeers then, oui?”

Wade is fast with his huff-smirk. “Or the Powerpuff Girls.”

“Oh, my God,” I mutter.

“The who?” Angie queries.

Wade winks my way. “I’ll even let you be Bubbles.”

“The what?” Angie demands.

“You can be Bubbles.” I glower at Wade while turning and making my way back down the hall toward the office. “Provided you get us into that security cam system and we confirm that Faline is still orchestrating her fuckery from that place.”

“Give me ten minutes,” he ripostes from two steps behind me.

“You have five.”

I use the three hundred seconds well: to race up to the bedroom, strip out of my pajamas faster than a pop starlet in a costume change, and then hurry into the custom black battle camos Alex designed and ordered three months ago, when Wade and Fersh suggested I have a set ready for an occasion just like this. As soon as that’s done, I punch a button to reveal our hidden bedroom safe and reach in for the sleek silver Glock that Reece bought me for Valentine’s Day. Right now, it means more to me than the diamond tennis bracelet that followed it.

All right, so realistically speaking, the weapon likely isn’t going to get me far when confronting Faline Garand’s goons—but once it’s in my palm, I’m emboldened a little more. My spirit grips my resolve the same way I wrap my palm around the pistol’s handle. And weirdly, I don’t feel one speck of guilt about it.