Chase headed to the chow hall alone. She swallowed hard, but the feelings wouldn’t go down. Pippin was…upset about something. Did it have anything to do with the Canadians?
With Chase?
She caught herself searching the crowded cafeteria for Pippin. She watched for him in the food line, swathed in loud conversations and moving toward the buffet a few steps at a time.
Until Sylph stepped in front of her.
Instinct kicked in. Chase held her tray before her face.
“You’ve finally done it. You’ve broken my RIO. His hand at least.” The blonde sighed and pushed down her shield.
“Are you going to kill me?” Chase watched Sylph’s expression morph into an assassin’s smirk. “Oh God, you really are going to kill me.”
“I should,” she said. “But I’ve been making a study of you, and I think you can’t help it. You’re drawn to people only to push them away. It’s like a disease.”
“Better step back, Sylph. I might cough on you.”
“There was even a moment freshman year when we could have been friends, but you had to be so bizarre.”
“You mean the forty-two seconds you were my roommate before you demanded to switch?”
“I don’t remember it that way.” Sylph plucked a few grapes off the fruit bar and popped them in her mouth. The chow line moved forward, and Chase elbowed Sylph out of the way. Sylph didn’t seem bothered, though, and her calm was a lot more frightening that her usual fervor. “Nyx, I’ve decided you should use your unhealthy skill set on our new enemy.”
“Excuse me?”
“You should slay Arrow. It’s obvious he likes you.”
“You want me to seduce him? On purpose?” Like Pippin, Sylph must have read into the way Tristan pulled her out of the centrifuge. “You’ve got the wrong idea, Sylph. Nyx was the Daughter of Chaos. Not the goddess of lust.”
“Like you even have to try. Just do that thing you do. Lead him on…and then…” She lifted the corner of Chase’s tray and let go so that it slapped down on the food-serving cart like a gunshot. Three people in line spun around until they saw it was Sylph—which made them turn back even faster.
“Why do you hate them so much?” Chase asked. “I’ve never seen you so motivated. Except when you were trying to beat me during the pilot ranking.” Sylph had been merciless in those days. They hadn’t known then that there was more than one Streaker, and Sylph wanted it so badly that she did everything outside of poison Chase. When Kale revealed that the top two pilots would be chosen, Sylph had backed off like a tiger receding into the jungle.
Something clicked. “Sylph, why don’t I go ask Kale if they’re going to cut one of us? Then you don’t have to do this ‘snake in the grass’ thing.”
“Maybe I like being a snake.” Sylph’s face was sly and leaning in. “So what do you think about seducing the Canadian?”
“I think you’ve finally started drinking your peroxide shampoo.”
“I’m not the one getting summoned by the shrink. Kale asked me to pass this on.” Sylph tucked a slip of paper in the front of Chase’s uniform and stole her tray, hip-checking her out of the line. “Oh, and Kale said no ducking out if you want to fly the hop tomorrow.”
“We’re flying tomorrow?” Chase flooded with relief. “Thank God.”
“You better thank Dr. Ritz if you want to fly. And bring her a cake. That woman has wanted to put you on the Down List since the moment you arrived.”
“That’s because I don’t take her crap.” Chase headed to the psychiatrist’s office. Without flight in her veins, she was all wound up, and spinning her wheels against Crackers actually sounded like fun.
? ? ?
Chase banged her way into Dr. Ritz’s office without knocking. The psychiatrist sat at a small table with Tanner of all people. He looked shirtless for a hot minute, but that was only Chase’s memories making a cruel play.
“Crackers. You wanted to see me?”
Dr. Ritz touched her forehead like it pained her. “Wait in the hall please.”
Tanner picked up his bag. “I’m okay.” He caught Chase’s eye. “I’m done here.” He shut the door right before she remembered his love vampire reference. She should have snapped her teeth at him.
Ritz stood by her desk. “Chase Harcourt, you get your way once again. Have a seat.” This was always the tricky start to Crackers’s system. There were only two spots in her office: a couch with a box of tissues on the armrest where the psychiatrist could sit beside her or the small table where Crackers could stare her down, eyeball to eyeball.
Chase chose the chair at the table where Tanner had been.
Ritz sat opposite her. “I’ve called you in because I spoke with Garret Powers in the infirmary earlier.”
“Who?” Chase asked.
“Your boyfriend.”
“Try again.”
“Your ex-boyfriend then. The one who will bear scars from you for the rest of his life.”
“Yikes.” The woman had a gold star in melodrama. “You mean Riot. We were never dating. Just friends. With some benefits.”
“There are no call signs here, Chase Harcourt. In this room, we use our birth names.”
“Wrong again, Ritz. I wasn’t born with this name.” In her excitement to show up the shrink, the truth had slipped out.
The tiny woman sat up and rifled through Chase’s file. Christ. Did she keep it on hand at all times? “Your last name was Tourn until you were twelve. Let’s talk about that.”
“Oh, let’s.”
“I should remind you, Chase Harcourt, that you need my approval to keep your wings.”