Chapter 7: What Zero Means

Camille came in out of the rain and shook the water off her coat.

She stood just inside the door of the diner, with every head turned toward her.

The owner took a step forward and the cook came out from behind the grill.

"Evening," the owner said. "We're closed in twenty minutes."

"I'm not here to eat."

Camille's eyes went down the counter, past her own sister in the yellow raincoat, and landed on me in the kitchen doorway.

"Nolan. Get your coat."

"I'm working."

"You are not working in a diner."

"I'm washing dishes. It pays eight dollars an hour."

A man in a back booth laughed into his sleeve and tried to turn it into a cough.

Camille did not look away from me.

"I have a car outside. Dalton is waiting at home. You are going to come with me, apologize to him and sleep in your own bed."

Alana stepped between us.

"Camille, stop."

"Stay out of this."

"No."

Camille's mouth tightened.

I had seen that look cut a grown man in half across a boardroom table.

She was only five feet from me and I could feel her wanting to take hold of my sleeve and pull.

"You said yourself I'd be fine," I said. "Here I am, fine."

"Nolan."

"You told me to give it. I gave it."

"I never told you to throw away your whole life."

"Camille." I took a breath. "That's exactly what you told me."

The System spoke before she could answer.

"Host status update. The host has resigned his position with both targets and left their household."

"The mission has been classified as abandoned."

"The disclosure restriction on the penalty is lifted."

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