Chapter 313: You’re my women. Of course I worry

Getting Sydney to actually talk had taken some doing. Getting her to cry or rather, letting her cry, not pushing against it the way she usually would had taken more. But somewhere in the middle of all of it she had come through to the other side, and when she finally pulled back and straightened up, the evidence of it was written plainly on her face in a way she clearly wasn’t thrilled about.

Her cheeks were red. Not the flushed, animated color they went when she was laughing or being outrageous, this was something quieter and more reluctant, the color of someone who had been more honest than they’d planned on being and hadn’t quite made peace with it yet. She wasn’t quite meeting my eyes, her gaze finding the middle distance instead, that restless energy of hers now redirected into the project of pretending the last ten minutes had happened slightly differently.

It was, one of the most cutest things I’d ever seen.

Sydney was shameless in most of the ways that word applied. She worked without embarrassment almost as a point of principle, had weaponized her own audacity into something close to a personality trait. But this particular embarrassment, the vulnerability of having cried on someone’s shoulder, of having let the carefully maintained performance come apart at the seams in front of another person, that was different. That one she didn’t have a ready deflection for. She’d shown me something real and unguarded, and now she had to stand in the same space as me knowing that I’d seen it.

I didn’t say anything about it. Just reached over and took the shovel from her hand.

I finished the digging while she stood nearby, and then together, without needing to coordinate it or talk through it, we laid Penny to rest. The earth was dark and soft from recent rain, which made it easier. We worked quietly, side by side, and when it was done we stood there for a moment looking at the turned soil.

Sydney crouched down, forearms resting on her knees, eyes on the grave.

"Could at least have some flowers," she said.

"We’d find some if we looked in the right places," I said. I’d seen them during the drive into Atlantic City, small persistent things growing up through cracks in pavement and along the edges of abandoned lots, life being stubborn in the way that life was. "Wouldn’t take long."

Sydney nodded slowly, then pushed herself back upright, and when she turned to look at me the gentleness had pulled back and something harder had moved in behind it.

"Gaspar needs to be dealt with," she said.

"He will be," I said.

I meant it without qualification. What had happened with Mei, what had happened with Penny, the way he’d reached into our lives from a distance and pulled threads until things broke, there wasn’t a version of this that ended with him still living. He was too dangerous to leave in place and he’d already crossed too many lines to pretend otherwise. Whatever mercy I might have carried into this situation earlier, it wasn’t sitting in me the same way anymore.

"So we’re still going to the meeting point?" Sydney asked, watching me. "I’m guessing you’re not actually handing Lucy over. Not with an innocent person’s life on the line."

"No exchange," I confirmed. "That part of the plan is dead. But I still want to go. I want to see Mei. I need to know she’s alright with my own eyes before we move on the next step."

Sydney looked at me for a moment, and then a smirk pulled at one corner of her mouth, still a little raw around the edges, not quite back to full wattage, but her.

"You’re going through withdrawal, aren’t you," she said, shaking her head slowly. "A couple of days without the Chinese Princess and you’re already showing symptoms. It’s concerning, honestly."

"I do miss her," I said, shrugging, refusing to take the bait. "Yeah. I do."

"You should tell her that. To her face." Sydney’s eyes lit up mischievously. "I just want to see Mei’s reaction. I need it. For personal reasons."

"Keep your twisted little thoughts exactly where they are," I said.

She grinned, unrepentant, and then I looked at her more carefully and felt the concern move back in.

"You know you could sit this one out," I said. "We’re not doing the exchange, it’s really just a check-in, making sure Mei’s in one piece. You don’t have to push yourself."

The grin shifted into something more direct.

"You just stood here and gave me an entire speech about how much I care about the people around me," she said, one eyebrow arching. "And now you’re telling me to stay home while you go check on Mei? You want to look me in the eye and tell me I shouldn’t be there for that?"

I opened my mouth.

"She’s also someone close to me, Ryan," Sydney said, simply, before I could get anything out.

I looked at her. "I didn’t know you thought of her that way."

"You were off doing your solitary brooding hero thing after Jackson Township, you needed space, your boyfriend Christopher took off after Cindy, everyone went quiet." She tilted her head. "A lot happened inside that house in the time you weren’t really present for. Three months, more or less. You don’t live alongside someone for three months and come out the other side as strangers." A small, honest smile. "We’re far from strangers."

Something about the way she said it settled warmly in my chest. I’d worried, in the back of my mind, about the fault lines between the people I cared about, whether they held together on their own or whether I was the only thing connecting them. It was good to be wrong about that.

Maybe it was arrogant of me to think that but for Mei for example, I still think I was the closest to her along Ivy.

"Fair enough," I said. "But don’t overdo it."

"I know," she said.

We went back and spent the remaining time on last preparations before moving out. Given that the exchange wasn’t happening the way Callighan expected, there was an argument to be made that the heavier preparations were overkill but going in without them felt worse. This was still Callighan’s territory, still a meeting on ground he knew better than we did, and Gaspar was a variable that didn’t need much of an opening to become a serious problem. Better to be overprepared and not need it.

The four of us, me, Sydney, Rachel, Cindy got ourselves ready and moved out from the Whitesun area, heading toward the Boardwalk where Marlon’s people would be waiting to back us up.

I glanced over at Cindy as we walked, eyes dropping briefly to the M16 she was carrying with a grip that was, fine, actually. More than fine. Practiced, even.

"You’ve actually used one of those before?" I asked. "The M16."

She turned her head and gave me a dry look.

"I have," she said. "But you wouldn’t know that, would you? You were a bit busy back in Jackson Township. Slipping out of the house, spending your time doing your solo wandering routine. Hard to keep track of what the people back home were up to."

"R..Right," I managed. "Yeah. Fair."

Sydney’s laugh rang out beside me, bright and entirely unsympathetic. "The loner arc," she said, like she was naming a Chapter. "Can’t really hold it against him, Cindy. He was going through his break up with Christopher."

"Loner arc, that’s a good sounding. I’m not sure he’s fully come out of it, honestly," Cindy replied, with a thoughtfulness that made it worse somehow.

"I have to agree," Rachel said from my other side, a quiet smile sitting on her face. "We’ll see how it holds up when it comes time to deal with Elena."

"Why am I suddenly the punching bag of this conversation?" I asked, and I could hear the groan in my own voice.

"Because you treat us like we’re always on the verge of collapse," Cindy said, something almost fond underneath the flatness of it. "Like we’re standing on glass and you’re the only one who noticed."

I thought about it for a second. Thought about the M16 question I’d just asked, thought about this morning, thought about most mornings if I was being completely honest with myself.

"You’re my women," I said, looking ahead, keeping my voice serious. "Of course I worry. Of course I’m going to treat you well. That’s just how it is."

The words landed and the silence came down all at once.

I registered it a beat after it arrived, process, what I’d actually said, how plainly I’d said it, with zero calculation and zero lead-up. Just the plain fact of it, out in the open air, in the middle of the street.

I felt the warmth hit the back of my neck.

When I did glance sideways, just briefly, the evidence was everywhere. Cindy’s jaw had gone slightly tight, a flush rising along her cheekbones that she was manifestly not going to acknowledge. Rachel was also blushing.

As for Sydney—

"Oh God, Ryan!" Sydney’s voice broke first, and then she was in motion, crossing the step between us in an instant, arms coming around my neck from behind, legs wrapping around me in a single committed leap that gave me no warning and no time to do anything except catch her by the backs of her thighs before we both went sideways.

I adjusted her weight and kept walking, because apparently this was happening.

"You can be so unbelievably hot when you actually try, you know that?" She said into my ear, the smirk audible.

"Sydney," Cindy called out. "We’re about thirty seconds from the Boardwalk. Off."

"Jealous?" Sydney asked brightly, peering over my shoulder at her.

"Absolutely not," Cindy said, with the speed of someone who had answered that question before she’d finished hearing it.

Sydney narrowed her eyes. Looked at Cindy with a focused attention.

Her head tilted then.

"You seem different today, Cindy," she said, slowly. "Happy. Settled." A pause. The narrowed eyes sharpened. "Did you sleep with Ryan?"

The color that hit Cindy’s face was instantaneous.

"Knew it," Sydney said immediately, laughing, deeply delighted with herself. "I knew it. Your face is a completely open book, I hope you know that, it’s a great a liability—"

"Sydney," Rachel interrupted. "Could you, just once, manage something in the neighborhood of tact?"

"You two have both had him in the past few days," Sydney said, pulling slightly on my neck and looking at me with complete seriousness. "I’m next, Ryan. That is not a request. Are we understood?"

"Yeah, yeah," I said.

"I need a verbal confirmation."

"Yes, Sydney."

"Perfect." She settled her chin on my shoulder.

"Do either of you actually remember," Cindy asked, voice bone dry, "where we’re going and what we’re likely walking into?"

"Obviously," Sydney said, without missing a beat. "Genocidal warlord, unhinged Symbiote Host who wants Ryan for who knows why. Terrible people doing terrible things." She paused. "I’m actually a little excited, if I’m being completely honest."

All three of us turned to look at her, or in my case, turned my head as far as I could manage with her still on my back.

We sighed in near-perfect unison.

Sydney grinned like she’d won something.