"Now that’s unexpected from you but..." he said, smirking. "I love that plan."

"Good," I said. "Because I’m putting you in charge of convincing Lucy to come fully over to our side."

The smirk disappeared instantly.

The speed of it was almost impressive. I kept my expression neutral, but it took some effort.

"You have got to be kidding me..." He groaned.

"I’m not asking you to do the impossible," I said reasonably. "Come on."

"That woman is cursed!" He shot back, and there was a conviction in it that went beyond simple annoyance. "I nearly died because of her. I literally took a hit from a Symbiotic trying to keep her in one piece—"

"You were pretty quick to jump in and save her, though."

The voice came from the doorway. We both looked over.

Cindy was leaning against the frame, arms loosely crossed, watching us. She had a small smile on her face that suggested she’d been standing there long enough to follow the thread.

"That’s what Sydney told me, anyway," she added.

Christopher turned back with the expression of a man being ganged up on. "We needed her alive to get Mei back. That’s the only reason."

"Maybe," I said, before Cindy could follow up on that. "But it doesn’t change the outcome, Christopher. You pulled her out. Whether you meant it as anything more than a practical decision doesn’t really matter, what matters is that she knows you did it. She was there. She saw it happen." I looked at him steadily. "That gives you something none of the rest of us have. She’s more likely to actually hear you out. More likely to sit with it instead of shutting it down the moment you open your mouth."

Christopher stared at the ceiling for a moment.

"Using guilt and debt as leverage," he said. "I have to say, when you actually want something badly enough you do develop a slightly evil streak, Ryan. I wasn’t expecting that from you."

"It’s not that evil," I said, aware that my face was doing something complicated. "In the end, this works out well for her too. And for her brother. She’d sleep considerably better knowing he was in Margaret’s community than sitting inside Brigantine under Gaspar’s shadow."

"Speaking of which," Christopher said, pushing on it. "You’re planning to fold them into Margaret’s group eventually, is that right? You think that goes smoothly? Because from where Margaret’s people are sitting, Lucy and her brother came in from Callighan’s group. That’s not a clean introduction."

"Their situation seems different from the others," I said.

He didn’t look entirely persuaded. The skepticism sat clearly on his face, not hostile, just unconvinced.

"We’ll deal with that later," I said. "After Callighan and Gaspar are dealt with. That’s a bridge we cross when we reach it, not right now." I leaned forward slightly. "Right now I just need Lucy talking to us. Properly talking, not shutting down every approach. I’d go to her myself, but after the way things went last time I spoke to her, after she found out I’m a Symbiote Host the same as Gaspar, I don’t think I’m the right voice for this conversation. I’d spend the whole time fighting through her distrust before I even got to the actual point. You’re a better position than I am."

I mean I threatened her brother out of anger for what happened to Mei...It was going too far I knew it and I regretted it.

Christopher was quiet for a long moment. Then he let his head fall back against the cushion and exhaled through his teeth.

"What a pain," he muttered.

"We’re still going to the meeting though, right?" Cindy asked from the doorway, directing it at me.

"Yeah," I said. "Even if the exchange doesn’t happen the way Callighan expects, going gives us a chance to actually see Mei. Check on her directly. That matters."

"I can move, you know."

Christopher was attempting to push himself upright again, getting his arms under him with a determined expression.

"No."

Cindy and I said it at the same time, both of us turning to look at him with a shared flatness that apparently communicated itself clearly, because he held our gaze for exactly two seconds, then lowered himself back against the headboard with a sigh that came from somewhere defeated.

"So it’s you, me, Sydney, and Rachel?" Cindy asked, turning back to me.

"That’s the four of us, yeah. And I spoke to Marlon this morning, he’s going to send some of his people along to back us up. We’ll have more than just ourselves watching the perimeter."

Cindy nodded, but her expression shifted slightly concerned. "Going in empty-handed though, not bringing Lucy, not doing the exchange — won’t that put Mei at risk? If Callighan realizes we never intended to follow through—"

"As long as he believes I still have Lucy, he has every reason to keep Mei safe," I said. "She’s his insurance. The moment he hurts her, he loses his leverage entirely and he knows it. I just need him to stay patient long enough."

"But he’s going to ask why we haven’t brought her," Cindy pressed, working through it carefully. "We can’t just show up with nothing and no explanation. And we can’t tell him about the threat Gaspar made against her brother, Ryan, if that comes out—"

"I know," I said. "We don’t touch that. Under any circumstances."

"But why—"

"Because if Callighan finds out that Gaspar is making that kind of move behind his back, it could rupture whatever control structure they have between them. And right now Mei is in that building under Gaspar’s reach." I kept my voice low and calm, but I felt the edge underneath it. "If Gaspar realizes Callighan knows, if he thinks his position is threatened, if it pushes him into a corner, I don’t know what he does. I don’t want to find out while Mei is still in there."

The room was quiet for a moment.

"Right," Cindy said softly. She nodded once, slowly, the concern still there but settled now into something more resolved. "Right, okay."

It was a strange thing to sit with, the idea that I needed Gaspar calm. Stable. Convinced that everything was moving exactly as he expected it to. The man had tried to have me killed, had a grip around Mei like she was a piece on a board he wasn’t done moving yet, and here I was quietly hoping nothing rattled him before we were ready. Because a rattled him could be unpredictable, and unpredictable meant dangerous, and dangerous meant Mei paid the price for it before we could get anywhere near her.

So yeah. For now, Gaspar needed to feel like he was winning.

I didn’t love that. But I could work with it.

"We should get moving and get ready," I said, standing from the chair and stretching my back. Then I looked at Christopher. "You are staying in that bed."

"Someone still needs to keep an eye on Lucy," he said, in the tone of a man already building his counterargument. "Rachel and Sydney are both coming with you. So who exactly did you have in mind?"

"She’s not going to try anything though, is she?" Cindy said, thinking it through. "Her brother is sitting in Gaspar’s hands. That’s not exactly a situation that encourages making trouble."

"Probably not," Christopher said. "But you don’t leave that to probably. She’s scared, her brother is in danger, and scared people do irrational things. We all know that."

He wasn’t wrong. Fear made people unpredictable in ways that logic couldn’t always account for. And Lucy sitting alone in a room with that hanging over her was not a setup I wanted to leave unsupervised on the assumption that she’d just stay quiet.

I turned it over for a second, then nodded toward Cindy. "Move Lucy up to the top floor, separate room, away from everyone else. We had Sonny watching over Penny before, borrowed from Kunta for the job." I paused. "Now that Penny is gone, Sonny can watch over to Lucy instead."

"Got it," Cindy said.

We turned to leave, and I caught myself glancing back at Christopher one last time, partly out of habit, partly because I knew him well enough to know that being told to stay put and actually staying put were two different things for him.

"You’re not going to wait until we’re down the hall and then quietly follow us, are you," I said. It wasn’t really a question.

"I’m injured, Ryan, not deranged," he scoffed.

"Maybe we should just barricade the door from the outside," Cindy murmured beside me. "Just to be safe."

"I can hear you, idiot."

"What are you all doing in here?"

The voice came from directly behind us and both Cindy and I turned at the same time.

"Hyaa—!" Cindy grabbed a fistful of my shirt with both hands, the sound coming out of her small and involuntary and genuinely startled before she could stop it.

I wasn’t much better, if I was being honest. My heart had jumped clean into my throat for a full second before my brain caught up and identified the source.

Ivy. Standing in the doorway as calm as always gave us her trademark impassive stare.

"Miss Ivy!" Cindy pressed a hand to her chest, composing herself with some effort and shifting back into indignation. "You nearly gave me a heart attack."

Ivy didn’t particularly react to that. Her eyes moved briefly around the room, settled on Christopher in the bed, and her expression stayed exactly where it was. "Nobody should be bothering him," she said.

"He’s all yours," I said, and I meant it with complete sincerity. "We’re counting on you, Ivy." I gave her a small smile, got the same neutral gaze in return, and took that as acknowledgment enough. I stepped out into the hallway with Cindy close behind.

The door clicked shut behind us.

"I’ll go check on Mark," I said as we moved down the corridor. "You handle getting Lucy upstairs."

Cindy nodded, then slowed slightly, her expression shifting into something more measured. "Some people aren’t going to be comfortable with this, Ryan. Having her inside the hotel at all, one of Callighan’s people, under the same roof as everyone else. That’s going to land badly."

She was right. I already knew she was right. The hotel was home now; people slept here, kept their things here, let their guard down here in a way they couldn’t afford to do anywhere else. Bringing someone from the other side of this conflict in through the front doors was the kind of thing that spread through a group fast and turned into something much larger than it needed to be.

I dragged a hand through my hair.

"Take the long way around," I said. "Avoid the main corridors, skip the front entrance entirely. There’s the back door, go through there and use the emergency stairs up. Keep it quiet."

It wasn’t a perfect solution and I knew it. Doing things in the dark had a way of coming out worse than just dealing with the reaction directly. But explaining the full situation, explaining that we were keeping a woman from Callighan’s group under the watch of what was essentially a mechanical guard dog wasn’t a conversation I had time to manage right now, and I wasn’t sure it would go over any better for being honest about it.

"If anyone does see you and asks," I added, "just tell them she’s secured in a locked room and that we’re personally responsible for her. Don’t elaborate."

"Alright," Cindy said, nodding slowly, already working out the route in her head.

"Cindy." I caught her arm before she could move off, and she turned back to look at me. "You’ll be fine on your own with her?"

She sighed at that. "I know my power only just came in," she said, "but I’m still physically stronger than a normal person. I can handle her. If she tries anything, I can fight."

Then she stepped in and kissed me and turned to go.

She made it a few steps before glancing back over her shoulder.

"Ryan," she said, her face turning slight complicated. "Check on Sydney too before we leave. Would you?"

I held her gaze for a moment.

"Yeah," I nodded.