Business Arrangement

Part 16

CHAPTER 16:

FOUR HOURS. EIGHTEEN minutes. Thirty-two seconds.

She has been awake for that long and hasn't spoken a word. I clench my jaw, Astrid opens the virtual grid over her physical body inside the cube to check her vitals. I pace behind her, "They checked to make sure she has no trackers or ways to communicate with anyone?" I ask again, wanting to make a hundred percent sure.

She nods, "A half a dozen times, we've checked. That's not what I'm worried about here though. Check this-her vitals are all normal, however she has traces of serums mutated in her system. We took a blood sample before she was conscious. Had it analysed. It didn't pick up on anything irregular, which is weird if my scanner can and it's not in her blood cells." She explains to me, I frown and move closer to see.

"Maybe it's not in her blood stream. Did you run a DNA analysis?" I murmur.

Before my phone vibrates with Ender's name on screen. Meaning it had been the three day period where he left me alone after we shared saliva. So to say, I didn't want to see it that way. The usual romantic notions of sensations when two pairs of lips touch is supposed to either elicit this electrical pleasant feeling in your chest or make you sick. I wasn't sure which.

"What's our reports on Ender and his team?" I question.

She hands me a security screen, "They are naturally freaking out with her disappearance. I had my team hack into their servers with another Bee-bot. There's a chaotic traffic light situation. They were on red for a day, have been on orange for some time and now are reacting impulsively. Whoever helped Lolita and the rest of the Wolves and Dragons want Ender to make some plans. He's likely calling to move up the wedding. At least a week or less from now. They want inside the Bee organisation first and will then follow up on other groups. It's hard to monitor everything without information on how many people we're dealing with here." She informs me.

I purse my lips, "Good to know. Have we heard from Mom or Dad?" I wonder.

She shakes her head, "They're likely on business or working directly with academy contacts. Or just off the grid for a holiday, who knows. So long as they aren't here." She shrugs, facing the screen again, before we watch Lolita stand up slowly.

I ignore the phone call and watch her move to the glass window that had no way of transparency, she ran her eyes over it, "Hello Lyra." She says.

I blink, "Bugger. She's psychic." I snort.

Astrid blinks at Lolita, watching her, "Do you wish to speak with her or do you want me to?" She asks me, glancing over.

I tilt my head, "She's the one who somehow convinced Lauren to become a attempted killer of her own blood, affecting you first. I'll let you question her, see what isn't on file and I'll work on her blatantly annoyed son." I mutter, tapping the plastic technology. She nods and I step out of the room. I turned my phone off and seeing twenty-two missed calls from Ender was a bit drastic, but then again, he likely knew his mother was AWOL, so this could be interesting.

I took the tunnels out to the main area and was en-route to the destination I traced back to where he last sent the call my way and parked in front of a wedding attire studio. When I stepped out with a yawn and in sweatpants, I figured this would be an interesting change when I step inside the awfully sophisticated shop and move past simplistically styled dresses to a foyer and a private room where one of Ender's men straighten and open the door for me.

I step inside to glimpse a look in the direction Payton stepped towards, a private women's room and a set of mens room on the other end. Ender is on a podium getting his blazer fitted when I see his eyes were on me in the reflection of the mirror he was in front of. Darren, looking stoic and taut, like a cold statue eyeing the distance, snaps his eyes to me.