The Nameless Luna novel · Chapter 22 of 32

Chapter 22: Headsets

We woke Warrick up.

He came into the kitchen in his shorts and a flannel shirt buttoned wrong, squinting at the light.

"Who died?"

"Nobody," Gussie said. "That's the point."

She held up the headset.

"Oh," he said, and sat down hard on the bench.

Gussie put the headset on the table between them.

"You say my roll name. Full. In the Alpha voice. And you tell me to do something stupid."

He pushed it back toward her.

"No."

"Warrick."

"I've never used it on you. I swore I wouldn't. I watched what it did to Dad."

"That's why it has to be you," she said. "You're the only one in Alaska I'd let."

He looked at me.

"She's right," I said. "Better you, in a kitchen, than him, in a hall."

He rubbed his face with both hands for a long time.

"Something small," he said finally. "Something that can't hurt you."

"Stand on one foot."

"Fine."

"Control first," I said. "No headset."

Gussie stood in the middle of the kitchen floor in her pajamas.

Warrick stood up.

His shoulders came down and his voice went low and heavy, a sound I'd never heard him make in two months.

He said her roll name.

Then: "Stand on one foot."

Her right foot came up off the floor.

She stood there on one leg, wobbling a little, and her eyes went wide and furious.

"I hate that," she said. "I hate that so much."

"Release her," I said.

"Put it down, Gus."

She put her foot down and punched him in the arm.

"Now with it," I said.

She put the headset on and flipped the noise-cancelling switch. She tapped her phone and turned the music up.

Warrick took a breath.

He said her roll name again, in the full Alpha voice, from four feet away.

"Stand on one foot."

Gussie stood there, on two feet, watching his mouth move with polite interest.

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