The Gryphon Project by Carrie Mac Page A

just been some low-life pretending to be like them. Phoenix was going to throw up. It had to be a joke. “All I can say is that this better be your sick, twisted idea of a prank. You can go tell Gryph and the guys that they got me good. Ha, ha. Very funny.”
    “Wait!” He gripped her wrist hard as she turned to walk away. “You promised you wouldn’t tell! You can’t go back on your word. And you can’t tell Nadia. You can’t. You promised!”
    “How can you expect me to keep this kind of secret?” Her unease leaped from her stomach to her head and pounded at her temples. “If you’re even telling the truth.” She wanted to give it back. She did not want to know this. She couldn’t know this! She shouldn’t.
    “She’s coming.” Saul glanced over the crowd at Nadia’s black head bobbing in their direction. “You promised, Phee. Don’t forget. I know you won’t betray me like that.”
    “Me betray you ?” She rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you’d even say that after what you’ve just told me.”
    “You promised.”
    “I heard you. I get it, okay?”
    “Okay.” Saul’s reply was tiny, just a nervous whisper. “Thank you.”
    Nadia dodged between commuters as the crowd thinned and the platform finally cleared. She stopped a short distance away and planted her hands on her hips. With a practised swish of her head she sent her long, dark curls behind her shoulders.
    “Well?”
    Saul stepped forward and pulled her to him. “I’m sorry, Nadia.” He looked at Phee as he said it. “I’m so sorry.”
    Of course it made sense for him to apologize to Nadia for his behaviour earlier, but to Phee there was no doubt that he was apologizing to her . Or regretting his decision to tell her his secret.
    Nadia, with a quick wink in Phoenix’s direction, clasped her hands behind Saul’s neck, leaned up, and kissed him long and hard, pressing herself against him in a way that was not exactly appropriate for the train station.
    Sure enough, the sax solo was interrupted and a tinny voice recited the rules and regulations against loitering while the thin blue light scanned across their faces, matching them up to their profiles.
    “Nadia Balkashan, Saul Morrisey, and Phoenix Nicholson-Lalonde, you have been identified as being in violation of loitering; bylaw C58, section one. Proceed to the nearest exit immediately or tickets will be issued to your parental accounts, with fines due within forty-eight hours.”
    “They missed the train,” Phoenix said as the happy couple pulled apart. “And I live in this sector. You should know that.”
    There was a pause as the system processed the information. “Phoenix Nicholson-Lalonde, proceed to the nearest exit immediately. SaulMorrisey and Nadia Balkashan, the next train will be arriving in three minutes and twelve seconds.”
    “I better go,” Phoenix said as the familiar countdown started. She had one minute to get off the platform or the loitering ticket would be waiting in her parents’ inbox online by the time she got home.
    Nadia pecked her cheek and hugged her. “Thanks, Phee.”
    “… thirty-four, thirty-three, thirty-two …”
    Saul gave her a quick hug too, whispering as he did. “No matter what you think about me, no matter what you think about any of it … you promised.”
    “… eleven, ten, nine …”
    “Run!” Nadia laughed as Phoenix made a dash for the stairs. Phoenix took them two at a time. At the bottom, she leaned against the wall and tried to calm down. She had to slow her breathing. She sat on the bottom step and dropped her head into her lap.
    “In through the nose,” she told herself. “Out through the mouth.” She dug in her pockets but knew she didn’t have her inhaler with her. This was no time for an asthma attack. If her parents had known about her asthma before she’d died the second time, they could’ve requested that her recon include a built-in ventolin response system. But the asthma had only really