The Gender Fall (The Gender Game #5)(26)

She raised an eyebrow and gave me a hard look. “Your bed, Mr. Croft. I suggest you find it before you keel over. Or before I slip a sleeping pill into your next beverage.”

A startled chuckle dropped from my mouth. I couldn’t help it. The woman barely came up to my chin, and looked about as dangerous as a newborn pup, but here she was trying to put me to bed like an unruly child. I appreciated her concern, though. Truthfully, climbing into bed with Violet was all I had been thinking about in every free moment since before we’d left tonight—or, rather, last night. As soon I saw that the doctor was examining Violet and got Ms. Dale up to speed, it was going to be lights out for me.

“I’ll do that, Doc,” I said earnestly to Dr. Tierney, and she gave me an approving nod before turning back to continue barking orders at her group. Stepping around her, I moved toward the rear of the cargo bay, where Owen was lowering the ramp. He looked almost as tired as I felt, and that was saying something.

“We did good,” he said, and I held back a laugh. He was tired if all he could come up with was that generic platitude. Still, I couldn’t fault him—I didn’t feel like I was capable of much in the way of conversation either.

To be honest, I couldn’t think of anything to say other than, “Yup. I’m glad Amber talked us into going.”

He grunted in response. The ramp lowered and I was immediately greeted with the visage of Ms. Dale, standing at the bottom with her arms crossed and an irritated expression on her face. I gave Owen a knowing look before heading down the ramp. I was certain he did not envy me the task of finding out what was wrong this time.

“Hey,” I said, unable to muster more enthusiasm. “What’s up?”

“What’s up?” she replied archly, an edge in her voice. “Mr. Croft, maybe you could explain to me why your latest transmission was only ‘coming home’? Frankly, it was a bit alarming in its vagueness.”

I stifled a smile. “I’m sorry,” I offered.

Her gaze narrowed in suspicion. “Why do I detect a ‘but’?”

Rolling my eyes, I scrubbed my face with my hand, grimacing at the rough feel of stubble turned beard. “But, we couldn’t risk the message being intercepted. I didn’t want to reveal too much, just in case Desmond has scrounged up another computer whiz like Thomas to hack into our communication channels. Besides, allying with the Liberators gives us a unique advantage.”

She gave me a considering look, and then nodded. “I’d figured as much,” she said, her irritation dissolving. “Still, ambiguous messages are a risky business. I had no idea what had happened to you—for all I knew, you’d been taken and were leading them back here.”

I looked over her head at two cars that had struggled through the underbrush to meet us at the heloship’s location, both of which had armed refugees inside, and then back to her. That explained the welcome party; she must have been preparing for a fight. Ms. Dale shrugged in noncommittal fashion at my look, but her gaze soon turned speculative again. “So, why all the need for secrecy?” she asked.

I grinned at her, allowing pride to get the better of me for a moment. What we had been able to accomplish with the Liberators had been well above our expectations. I was still reeling from how quickly everything had shifted. Hours ago, I had been frustrated by so much, angered and worried for Violet, and exhausted. Now, I was still most of those things, but had managed to paint a much-needed silver lining onto those dark, overwhelming storm clouds.

Opening my mouth, I began to explain all the details of the plot—only to stop as Ms. Dale’s eyes went wide in surprise. “You got them to agree to spy on Desmond, didn’t you?” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” I said with a smile. “It’s why I kept the message short. I was going to tell you—but you just had to ruin the surprise.”

She laughed and patted me on the shoulder. “Sorry, Viggo. I just started thinking about it, and it was the only thing that made sense.”

“Well, don’t get too excited.” I grimaced, shifting my weight from one foot to another, explaining what the women had told me during our meeting. Desmond had been away on mysterious missions, as she often had been in the past, but she’d checked in often enough, dropping hints and plans, that it seemed pretty normal. And they’d been so worked up over their haphazard, last-minute transition from the Facility in The Green back to their base that they hadn’t been paying too much attention to her comings and goings. She had always been a very independent leader.

“Well, that isn’t surprising,” Ms. Dale said thoughtfully. “She’s got too many pokers in the fire at this point. The Liberators are isolated enough that it makes sense she would put them on the back burner.”

I nodded, having come to the same conclusion during my meeting with their leaders. “Well, at least it’s something. Meera is really fired up about going after Desmond, but we convinced her to stand down for the time being. Still, I don’t know how long we can keep them from going after her themselves.”

Ms. Dale frowned, her expression drifting away as she thought about it. Then she shook her head. “We’ll have to worry about that later.”

“Yup.”

One of the Liberator men came up to Ms. Dale and began talking to her about the amount of equipment and the room in the vehicles, and I took it as my cue to leave—I could walk back to the house and leave the cars to take the bulk of our equipment. After all, Dr. Tierney had practically ordered me to bed… I began moving toward the cars, ready to get back to the house and check on Violet. As I approached the lead vehicle, I started to slow, then came to a stop when I saw a man wearing handcuffs in the passenger seat. “Uh… Ms. Dale?”