Luc scowled. “Why didn’t I get a hug?”
He was ignored.
“Sorry.” Kat’s voice was muffled. “I had to, you know?”
“I get it. But damn, girl, it might not have worked out so well,” Archer replied. “Could’ve all gone to shit, and then who would take me to Olive Garden so I can try out the endless breadsticks?”
Kat laughed, but the sound was thick and choked.
I stood where I was, telling myself that the ugly heat invading my veins was indigestion and not jealousy. Totally not that, because Archer had nothing on me.
But did he need to hug her that long? And that hard? Come the hell on.
Archer’s purple gaze met mine over her shoulder. Yeah. Yeah, I kind of do.
My eyes narrowed. I still don’t like you.
Grinning, he pulled back, relinquishing his embrace, and then reached for a chair. “You look like you’re about to fall down. Why don’t you grab a seat?”
Kat did look worn out as she eased into one of the metal folding chairs. “What’s going on, guys? Why are you all here and with her?”
Archer glanced at me again as he sat. “Where’s Dee?”
The pressure increased as I moved to the seat beside Kat. As I sat, tension flickered across Archer’s face, gathering around his eyes. “She . . .” I shook my head, at a loss as to how to explain what was up with her.
His hands clenched together atop the table. “She’s not . . . she’s not gone, is she?”
“No,” Kat spoke up. “She’s not the same. She’s kind of batting for the other team right now.”
Archer opened his mouth, but as he sat back, he snapped it shut. I wasn’t sure how much they knew about everything, but I couldn’t get into that stuff until I knew what the hell was going on here.
I turned to Luc, arching a brow as I watched him stack slices of cheese and ham on a cracker. “What’s going on?”
“Nancy’s going to play nice,” he said, nudging the cheese onto the center.
She had sat next to Luc and looked like she wanted to start breaking things. Her gaze met mine. “Trust me, if I had a choice right now, you’d all be dead.”
Luc tsked softly. “Now, that isn’t very nice.”
I didn’t understand. As Luc chomped down on his snack, I leaned forward. “What’s stopping you from taking us out?”
“Let’s just say everyone has an Achilles’ heel, and I found hers.” Luc set about making another cracker. “It’s not pretty. Not something even I wanted to stoop to. But oh wells.”
That didn’t tell us jack.
Kat shifted closer. “How did you all end up together?”
“I made it back to the cabin. And after I told Luc what went down at the store, we considered hitting the road,” Archer explained. “But we didn’t get the chance before Daedalus showed up.”
Nancy’s lips formed a tight line.
“She thought she had us.” Luc plopped a mini Oreo on top of his ham-and-cheese cracker, and well, that was just sick. “But—”
“You said you were working on that,” Kat said, glancing at a silent Nancy. “A way to deal with Daedalus? You found something?”
“I’m a very well-connected person,” Luc said around a mouthful of junk. “When they kicked down our door and Nancy strode in as if she was the biggest, baddest thing this side of the country, I proved just how well connected I am.”
“How?” I watched Nancy.
“Like I said, everyone has an Achilles’ heel. Nancy’s is pretty obvious.” Luc stabbed a straw through his Capri Sun. “There’s only one thing that she cares about in this whole entire world, that she’d throw her family in front of a tank for—if she even has a family, because I’m pretty sure she was hatched from an egg—and it’s those baby Origins.”
“Baby Origins?” I repeated.
“Micah? Those?” Kat asked.
Luc nodded. “Yep.”
“Fun fact is that most of the hybrids and older Origins, the ones who left with her to retrieve you guys, aren’t really thrilled with the Daedalus treatment.” Archer smiled, but there was no humor. “The ones who were loyal, well . . .”
“Bastards,” Nancy hissed. “Do you know how long it took to cultivate something that was so loyal and so tested—?”
“Something?” Kat’s voice rose. “See, that’s why you’re so messed up. The hybrids and the Origins, they aren’t a something. They are living, breathing people.”
“You don’t understand.” Nancy turned a dark look on Kat. “You’ve never created anything.”
“And you have? Just because you forced two people to have children and then ripped them away doesn’t mean you created anything.” Anger tightened Kat’s lips. “You’re not their mother. You aren’t anything but a monster to them.”
Something akin to pain flickered across Nancy’s face.
“Either way, they mean a lot to her, and I know where they’re being kept,” Luc explained, finishing up his last cracker. “Tell them what the bigwigs wanted, Fancy Nancy.”
She gripped the edges of the table. “After the arrival of the Luxen, I was told to dismantle the Daedalus project.”
“Dismantle?” whispered Kat, and I already knew what she meant. I think Kat did, too, but didn’t want to believe it.