Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1)(61)

“Sir, yes sir,” Cat says.

?????



“This toilet is not big enough for the five of us,” Kal says.

“It’s not my fault you’re seventeen meters tall, Pixieboy,” Finian growls.

“And it’s all we could afford,” I say. “So quit griping, they’ll be here soon.”

Me, Kal, Fin, Zila, and Auri are crowded into the small and grimy bathroom of a love motel on the lower side of the World Ship’s nightclub district. We’re pressed in like ration packs, Fin’s elbow in my ribs and Kal’s left boot in the commode. The room our bathroom is attached to has been booked under my sister’s name, and it’s a short stagger from the bar where she and Cat are hopefully working their magic. Any minute, we’ll hear them coming through the door, and then it’s game time.

But in the meantime …

“It stinks like my fourth grandmother’s underwear drawer in here,” Fin says.

“You know what your grandmother’s underwear drawer smells like?” I ask.

“My family were very cosmopolitan.”

“I do not think that word means what you think it means,” Zila murmurs.

“Um,” Auri whispers. “Sorry, but is someone touching my butt?”

“… Would you like someone to be touching your butt?” Fin asks.

Kal clears his throat. “If you wish it, I—”

“Shut up!” I hiss.

I hear the ping of the electric lock on the front door, muffled laughter. My squad falls silent as we listen to heavy footsteps, a drunken guffaw. The door slams, someone stumbles, a glass breaks.

“Oh noooooo,” says a male voice, muffled through the bathroom door. “Declan, you dropped the booze.”

“Did I?” comes a second male voice.

“You”—hic—“did.”

“Oh noooooo.”

“Declan, come over here,” someone purrs.

Scarlett.

“Lachlan, stay waaaayyyy over there,” someone growls.

Cat.

“Why are there (hic) three of you?” Declan asks.

“There’s just one of me,” Scar laughs. “You’re tipsy, come sit.”

“I kinda (hic) like the idea of three of you.”

“Believe me, handsome, one of me is way more than you can handle.”

“I think … I’m gonna be sick,” Lachlan declares.

“I know the feeling,” Cat sighs.

“No, seriously,” he burps. “Where’s the … bathroom?”

Inside said bathroom, the five of us exchange a brief, horrified glance.

“Can’t feel my feet,” Declan mumbles.

“All the more reason to get you off them,” Scar purrs. “Come on, come sit on the bed with me.”

“Seriousssly, I can’t feel’em,” he giggles. “What was in that las’drink?”

“Approximately twelve milliliters of benzothelemene,” I hear Zila whisper behind me. “If Scarlett followed my directions precisely.”

I hear a heavy thud, followed closely by another.

“Sounds like she did.” I smile, opening the bathroom door.

Sure enough, laid out flat—one on the floor, one on the bed—are the two security guards from the museum earlier today. Sitting on the bed beside Blondie is my sister, looking vaguely disappointed. Cat’s sitting on the second bed looking vaguely annoyed, her boots resting on the bigger goon at her feet.

“Okay, let’s do this,” I say.

Fin leans down to inspect Cat’s trophy. “If you’d told me he was this hot, I would have gone on the date for sure.”

“Shut up, Finian,” she replies.

We strip the sleeping guards and haul them into bed naked. Kal and I then pull on their power armor and loop their ID badges around our necks. Finian stares first at the photo on my badge, then up into my face.

“I gotta admit, the likeness is pretty uncanny,” he says.

I glance at the unconscious goon in the bed. “We look nothing alike.”

My Gearhead shrugs, hands me a small device. “All you dirtchildren look the same to me, Goldenboy. Now you need to plant this in the uplink nodes. Centr—”

“I heard you the first seven times, thanks.”

Kal finishes suiting up, smooths back his braids, gives me the nod. He cuts a pretty impressive figure, I’ve gotta admit. Good thing Lachlan here was so tall.

“The dosage will keep them sleeping for at least six hours,” Zila says, looking at the slumbering SecBoys. “They will remember very little.”

“Just make sure you have their armor back here by dawn,” Scar says.

She sits on the bed beside the sleeping blonde, and without further ceremony, clamps her lips onto his neck and starts to suck.

“Holy cake,” Auri whispers, watching with wide eyes. “Please don’t tell me that on top of everything else, vampires are real?”

“Evidence.” Scarlett comes up for air with a smirk, and I can see the angry, red love bite she’s left on the goon’s neck. Unclasping her bra, she tugs it out through her sleeve and drapes it over the bedside lamp, then writes thanks xxx on the wall in deep red lipstick. “Can’t have a crime without leaving some evidence.”