Nick headed for the nearest crosswalk. The rest of the team followed him, and Kara followed them, distracted, detached, oblivious to her surroundings, oblivious to anything but the images playing out inside her head.

Somewhere on the dim, foggy periphery, they reached the lobby.

She was aware, vaguely, that Nick checked them in.

Knew it for certain when he stuck a room key in her hand.

Nick paused, took a good look at her face, pointed a finger at Juan and then at her, as if tethering the two of them. “Don’t let kiddo here get lost,” he said.

Kara’s cheeks flushed.

Nick was only half joking.

Her thoughts bolted back into the mental underbrush like terriers after a rat, and this time they caught something.

The guys had come for a shower and sleep.

All she wanted was the Internet connection.

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

KARA

SHE SAT CROSS-LEGGED ON THE BED CLOSEST TO THE WINDOW, LAPTOP in front of her, earbuds in her ears. Music drowned out the world, which in this case meant Juan toweling off wet hair and puttering from bedroom to bathroom and back again. She’d offered him first go at the shower, figuring that would get him out of her way faster.

Not that he was in her way, per se. Just that the room—a clean, efficient standard chain affair of bathroom, two beds, and a strip of window ledge that doubled as a desk—had a knee-knockingly small amount of floor area. She felt every nudge, every footstep, and the movement pulled her out of focus, made it harder to grip concepts she could feel and understand on a meta-level and turn them into something articulable.

Juan leaned in behind the computer and waved.

She glanced up.

He gestured toward the window.

She motioned him on ahead.

They’d been working together long enough now that he recognized the signs, knew she’d already started down the rabbit hole and might not surface for hours.

She didn’t need the light, but he never just assumed.

She liked that about him, the politeness. It mattered a whole heck of a lot on days they were cooped up and stir-crazy, and just generally made having another person up in her space far less stressful than it could have been, which was helpful considering this was the way the rooming always went when Angel put them two-in-one the way she had here.

Kara and Nick in separate rooms at Nick’s request because the two of them bunking together inflamed old rumors that refused to die. And Kara and Juan together at Kara’s request because even after eight months of living, working, and breathing as a team, Aaron Jefferson Lewis just couldn’t get with the idea that she was Nick’s number two due to her particular skill set and not some kind of favoritism.

She didn’t hold that ignorance against him.