bowl, and reached for a whisk. Her best chance of avoiding a lecture—albeit well deserved—from Dani was to pretend she’d crashed out early and slept for ten hours.
Maya came down first, her booted feet thudding on the iron stairs. She was still clad in her pajamas, a worn gray T-shirt and soft black pants, but she’d already twisted her dark braids up on top of her head. Her wireless earbuds were firmly in place, and the faint throb of pop music reached Nina before Maya tapped her watch to shut it off. “Hey.”
Nina pulled Maya’s favorite mug from its hook beneath the cabinet. “Good morning.”
“I guess.” Maya slid onto a stool at the kitchen island and rubbed her eyes. “At least there’s real coffee. I could smell it from my room.”
“Savor it, because we’re almost out.” She filled Maya’s mug and pushed it across the steel countertop. “We need more eggs, too. I’ll talk to Mrs. O’Dell this afternoon.”
Maya dragged the little tin of synthetic sweetener toward her and dumped a heaping spoonful into her coffee. “I finished listening to that engineering manual you found before we went out last night, so let her know I can take a look at her solar converter whenever she wants.”
“I will. How was the club?”
“Loud.” Maya sipped her coffee, and some of the tension eased from her face as she sighed with appreciation. “Dani didn’t break any fingers, though, so it was a good night. Or a bad one. Guess it depends on your perspective.”
“That it does.” There were dark circles under Maya’s eyes, like she hadn’t slept well. “Dancing it out didn’t work, huh?”
“It helped a little,” Maya lied.
Nina pressed her hands to the cold steel counter, then busied herself with pouring the beaten eggs into the waiting skillet. It was the only way to stop herself from making suggestions about other ways Maya could deal with her condition.
Maya had thought of everything. Tried everything. She wasn’t getting worse, but the stress had to be wearing on her. The human brain just wasn’t built to process and commit to memory every bit of auditory stimulus it received.
Finally, Nina broke. “You know, there’s one thing we haven’t—”
“Where the hell were you last night?”
Fuck. Dani stood on the top landing, both arms crossed over her chest. She was dressed for a workout, in stark shades of black and white that seemed to mirror her disapproval, and her blond hair was drawn back in a tight ponytail as severe as her expression.
“Wait, what?” Maya squinted at Nina over the rim of her coffee mug. “I thought you were asleep when we got home.”
“She wasn’t.” Dani descended the stairs slowly, her stare growing more focused and stern with each footfall. “I checked her bed.”
Nina stifled a sigh as she stirred the eggs. “That’s very creepy, you know.”
“Whatever. Where were you?”
“Dead drop.” Nina handed Maya a stack of plates and silverware. “The Professor came through last-minute on the Carver job. Had to do the pickup without you.”
Dani’s jaw tightened. “It couldn’t wait?”
“C’mon, Dani.” Maya juggled her mug and the dishes on her way to the scarred wooden table. “You really think the material would still be there this morning?” She distributed the plates in front of their chairs. “But you could have swung by the club for us, Nina.”
“I didn’t want to ruin your night.” Nina dished the eggs onto the plates, put the skillet in the sink, and pulled the pitcher of orange juice from the refrigerator.
Silence fell as they sat down to breakfast, a lull that went on for so long Nina started to think maybe she’d gotten away with it, after all.
Then Dani spoke again. “Did you have any trouble?”
Nina kept her gaze fixed on her plate and wished—for the millionth time—that she could lie worth a damn. “Eat your eggs before they get cold.”
Dani’s fork clattered to her plate.
Maya leaned across the table to poke Nina with the tines of her fork. “Whatever happened, just tell us.”
There was no avoiding it now. “I got jumped. But the good news is that you just hurt me worse than any of those guys did. And they’re dead now. End of story.”
“Shit. Who was it?”
“They didn’t introduce themselves, Maya.” Nina wrapped both hands around her mug. “They just shoved knives and guns in my face and demanded my bag. Which was obviously not going to happen.”
Dani studied her. “The small-time gangs are getting bolder. It’s been too long since the Protectorate smacked them around.”