I chuckle. It’s not funny, but his tone is.
My nostrils are freezing. Soon I won’t be able to breathe. “I think it’s too late. You’ll make sure she’s all right.”
“Of course, always.”
We glare at the two garnets as ice tunnels into them from the outside.
Alana motions for Quinlan, who yanks an aquamarine the size of a beach ball out of his pack. “What do you want me to do with this?”
“Put it next to the two garnets. In fact, put it between the two garnets,” she says rapidly. “Kaz. Computers. Now.”
Kaz draws two laptops out of his bag, quickly attaching leads to the garnets.
“Keep them touching the aquamarine,” she orders.
She’s a bossy little thing. I wish I had an eternity to absolve her of that bad habit. Or even just a few decades. My breath puffs out white in the evening.
Kaz looks at me, looks at her, and then shrugs.
Quinlan pulls a rose quartz out of his bag.
Alana points. “Put my quartz on top of the other crystals.”
Quinlan does as he’s told while his sister watches along with Mathias in the doorway.
“Okay,” she says. “All right, everybody here has some charging ability. Kaz,” she calls out.
“What?”
I like his snappishness.
She doesn’t because she hisses. “Do you have any ability to charge?”
“Not in the slightest,” Justice answers for him.
“Okay, you start rapidly typing code,” she says and then frowns. “You’re almost the best, right?”
He puffs up. “I am the best.”
Her gaze swivels to Ella and thoughts scatter across her face. She blinks and a frown settles between her eyes. “Wait a minute. No, you’re not. Ella is.”
Ella turns beet red.
Fury lances through Alana’s eyes. “Ella? You and Nico seemed rather close. Right?”
Oh, shit. I stare at the little blonde.
Now she pales. “Yes, but I didn’t know he was a serial killer.”
Alana’s chin lifts. “But you did know he wanted to control all four social media companies. He said that to me, but I was so busy trying to survive that I didn’t catch it. What was his plan, Ella?”
Ella stares at the aquamarine. “You know I’ve studied crystals as well as coding. So did Nico. He actually came up with the idea of infecting the servers, the crystals, and finally Thorn. I just implemented the plan.” She blanches and looks at me. “Sorry?”
“Sorry?” Alana explodes. “You infected the man that I love!”
The little Rendale girl has killed me? I breathe out. Impressive.
Ella winces. “You didn’t love him when I first infected his garnet and then him with the freeze curse. Didn’t even know him yet.” She kicks a small pebble. “We all thought you were a cold-blooded killer.”
“I am,” I say softly.
Ella’s shoulders slump. “I knew about the interview with Jackie for Malice Media, and Nico paid her the money to upload the virus.”
Truth be told, I like Ella even more now.
Her gaze meets mine. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re forgiven,” I say, knowing Alana will need her friends once I die. “Did you make Jackie overdose?”
“No,” Ella says. “She did that on her own. Shouldn’t have given her the money, I guess. Didn’t know she was going to buy drugs with it.”
Alana whirls on me. “We’ll discuss this issue later. For now, everybody here is going to help fix this mess. Right, Ella?”
Ella nods and moves to the second laptop. “I want to assist, but the virus has progressed too far for me to reverse the damage. I can slow the bug down, though.”
“I’ll follow your code,” Kaz says, fingers already flying over his keyboard.
Alana nods. “Everybody should touch two stones and one of them needs to be a garnet.”
