We started moving, Code out in front like a man walking ground he'd already surveyed.
I took the back with Ingrid. She kept close enough that our arms brushed every few strides — the back of her hand against my sleeve, then the bare edge of her wrist, then fabric again.
"Did you take them food?"
I pitched it to carry up the alley.
Nothing. His shoulders kept their line. The blades at his sides didn't shift.
"Code."
"That aimed at me?" He didn't turn his head. The words came back over his shoulder and died against the brick.
"Who else is out here?"
"Could be her."
"The food. Did you take it?"
"To who?"
He stopped at the mouth of the alley, where the back of the CGI building gave way to the city. One step put him in the spill of a street lamp; the rest of him stayed in the building's shadow.
"The girls on the other side."
And that did it.
