Chapter 387: Taking The Golden Nugget Hotel [3]

"That was a lame excuse, Ryan," Sydney said quietly as she kept pace with me, her voice low enough not to carry beyond the stairwell while Lucy led us up."What excuse?" I asked, though I already had a bad feeling I knew exactly which one she meant.

"The one where you split us up and acted like you were just being practical." She glanced at me sideways while we climbed. "Sending the others downstairs somewhere safer was a nice touch."

"I don’t think down there is safer," I replied.

"I do," she said. "Sweeping floors carefully is safer than running straight toward the place where the biggest problem might be waiting."

I didn’t answer right away.

The three of us kept moving upward, our steps quick but controlled, the stairwell walls catching the distant gunfire from outside and dulling it into a constant ugly rattle. Every few seconds a louder burst pushed through the concrete and made the sound feel closer than it probably was. The air in there was stale and warm compared to outside, with that closed-in smell of dust, damp paint, old smoke, and too many people having used the place for too long.

"You know you can’t hide much from me, right?" Sydney went on. "Chris probably figured it out too, but he didn’t argue. Which, honestly, very on brand for him. Good thing he’s your best friend and not your girlfriend, huh?"

"That’s the point," I said. "He understands what I mean fast and doesn’t try to stop me."

Sydney clicked her tongue softly.

"So that’s what bothers you?" She asked. "That Rachel and Cindy would actually go out of their way to keep you from getting yourself killed?"

"It’s not about that." I replied grumbling slightly. "I just don’t want to put them in real danger."

Sydney looked offended on purpose.

"What about me?" She asked, sulking exaggeratedly.

That got a small smile out of me.

"If we find Zakthar, your power is going to be really useful for getting him out fast," I said.

"Oh, right, now I see." Her mouth twisted. "So while you and the badass marine here risk your lives, I’m the delivery service?"

"I’m not saying there’s definitely some huge danger waiting for us," I said. "I’m just being cautious. And yeah, I’d rather Rachel, Cindy, Chris, and Ivy move carefully down below than come with us and walk into some trap with no room to breathe."

"At least you’re honest this time," she said.

"Hard to hide anything from you anyway."

"You can’t," she said with a quiet laugh.

Lucy kept moving ahead of us, saying nothing for the moment, just checking each landing before committing to it and then continuing up without hesitation. She didn’t move like someone guessing. Even now, with the whole hotel half awake and gunfire rolling through the building from the front, she still looked like she knew exactly how much speed she could afford and exactly where the blind spots were.

Sydney looked past me toward her back, then back at me.

"Anyway," she said, "I guess you picked me because I can grab Zakthar and get him out of here in record time, and also because I can run like hell if something truly awful shows up. Right?"

"Yeah," I said, nodding.

"Then what about Lucy?"

"What about her?"

"We need her to find Zakthar faster," I said after a pause.

Sydney raised one eyebrow.

"So you didn’t really factor her in if something dangerous pops out, did you?"

I stayed quiet.

That silence answered for me better than words would have.

Because she was right.

I had thought about Lucy in terms of usefulness first. She knew the hotel, knew the possible holding areas, knew the best way to move through it without wasting time. That was the reason she was here with us. Simple as that.

Or at least that was what I had told myself.

"Don’t fret over it," Lucy said from ahead without turning around. Her voice stayed calm, matter-of-fact. "You prioritizing your friends over me is normal. I’d always prioritize my brother over all of you."

Sydney’s head tilted immediately.

"Even Chris?"

I looked at her in disbelief.

"You really have no shame asking things like that, do you?" I muttered, genuinely impressed by how little embarrassment she was capable of feeling in any situation.

Sydney only shrugged.

"I’m asking based on observation," she said. "At first I was joking, sure. But since Chris saved her ass, she definitely feels guilty and indebted toward him. And she’s obviously not emotionless about it."

Lucy didn’t answer that.

Neither did I.

Mostly because I didn’t actually know what to say.

I had been gone most of the last week, and ever since Lucy started becoming useful to the group, I hadn’t exactly been around for every interaction. I knew the broad shape of things. Christopher had saved her. Lucy had stayed. They’d spent time around each other after that. I heard also he defended her or at least acted as guard against the others from Margaret’s community. Beyond that, I was missing pieces.

And when it came to reading people, especially with this kind of thing, I was terrible.

That wasn’t even me being modest. I had been told that repeatedly by Sydney, Rachel, and pretty much everybody close enough to me to be irritated by it. Feelings, tension, attraction, all those small shifts between people that everyone else apparently noticed without trying, I usually caught them late, if at all.

Still, even I had noticed something off.

Christopher had been more reactive lately whenever Sydney started teasing Lucy. Not indifferent. Not just mildly annoyed the way he usually got when Sydney was being Sydney. It felt sharper than that. Like the jokes were landing too close to somewhere he didn’t want touched, and instead of ignoring them like he usually did, he was getting fed up.

That should have meant something.

It felt stupid as hell to be thinking about any of this right now, in a dark hotel full of armed men while gunfire echoed from below and we climbed toward whatever danger might lay up there but the thought stayed there anyway.

If Christopher really had started feeling something for Lucy—

Then this changed things.

Until now I had treated her like a temporary ally. Useful, armed, competent, and on our side for now. If she died, I wouldn’t have liked it, obviously. I’m not that cold. But I also wouldn’t have broken over it. I would have filed it under bad outcome, kept moving, and maybe felt guilty later if there was room for that sort of thing.

But if Christopher cared about her—

Then it stopped being only about Lucy.

Then her dying wouldn’t just be the loss of a useful ally. It would hit him too, and that mattered. Which meant whether I wanted to admit it or not, I had to revise the whole way I was treating this.

I looked ahead at Lucy again as she slowed near the next landing and put one hand lightly against the stairwell door before listening.

Not expendable.

Not if Christopher cared.

He was my best friend.

After everything that had happened with Cindy, more than anything, I wanted Christopher to get something good for once. Something that wasn’t a fight, or blood, or another problem dropped into his lap. If there was even a chance he might find love in the middle of this ruined world, then yeah, I wanted that for him. He deserved it.

"He’s too young for me."

Lucy said it so suddenly that both Sydney and I looked at her.

Her voice stayed flat, but not cold. More like she had heard enough of Sydney’s nonsense and decided to cut straight through it before it got worse.

"Seventeen and twenty-five isn’t even that much," Sydney replied without missing a beat. "And he’ll be eighteen in less than a year."

I glanced at Sydney, faintly amused despite myself.

At that point I was pretty sure this had gone beyond her usual habit of annoying Christopher for sport. This felt more like she was doing some completely deranged version of helping him. A wingwoman, in the most aggressive and shameless way possible. Which, for Sydney, was probably the only way she knew how to do anything.

Obviously she would rather die than admit that but that was just her own way of caring about Christopher.

Lucy went quiet after that.

I couldn’t tell if she had decided the whole conversation was stupid and beneath her, or if Sydney had actually managed to hit something real. Maybe she did feel something and was just stuck on the age. That would make sense.

Christopher was seventeen, yeah, but he didn’t feel like it half the time. He carried himself older. Spoke older. Had that heavy, tired kind of maturity that came from seeing too much too early and getting used to it instead of breaking from it. Even in Margaret’s group, plenty of older women noticed him. I had seen that much. He was definitely popular, even if he acted like he didn’t care.

"Goodness, don’t be so uptight about age," Sydney said suddenly. "Ryan is currently nurturing the love of a thirteen-year-old girl, just so you know."

I turned my head so fast I nearly missed a step.

I glared at her.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I am trying to convince her. Just follow my lead," Sydney whispered back to me, except she whispered it much too loudly to count as a whisper at all.

Follow what lead?!

Lucy was looking at me now, and not in a neutral way either. More like I had dropped several levels in her estimation in the span of two seconds.

And for God’s sake, I was not ’nurturing’ Shannon’s feelings!

Maybe Shannon had some kind of crush, sure. I wasn’t blind enough to deny that completely. But what was I supposed to do, start acting cold toward her for no reason? She was bright, kind, and good to be around. That didn’t mean I was encouraging anything.

I opened my mouth to defend myself properly, but Lucy stopped walking so abruptly that both Sydney and I nearly ran into her.

"Stop."

We stopped.

Lucy raised one hand slightly and pointed up toward the ceiling.

"The twelfth floor," she said. "No more useless talking. Zakthar should be up there."

Hopefully yeah.

"Yeah," I said, quieter now.

Sydney nodded too, and just like that all of the stupid conversation dropped out of the air.

Because the second we stopped and listened, I felt it.

A pressure.

Faint, but there.

At first I thought it might be the Nexon Battery, but the feeling was wrong. The Nexon Battery had a particular pull to it, one I had already noticed lower in the building. That was the whole reason I had asked Christopher and the others to check the floors below while they moved. If it was anywhere nearby, Rachel and Cindy had a chance of finding it too.

This wasn’t that.

This felt different.

Lucy had noticed something too. Maybe not the same way I had, but enough to make her posture shift.

"Stay focused," she warned.

I tightened my grip on the Beretta and nodded.

Sydney did too, her face losing all trace of that earlier amusement.