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“Nadia is Sylvia's daughter,” James cut in from across the table before taking another bite of food from his plate.
Although Saff could see no resemblance between the two of them, and also no similarities personality-wise, she immediately put a guard up. Maybe that was why Nadia was paying so much attention to her. Maybe Sylvia had asked her to. Perhaps she was there to keep an eye on her. It made sense.
“Good to know,” Saff said coldly, looking away as she took another sip of her coffee.
Nadia’s smile faltered at that, but she remained watching her, waiting for an answer.
Saff kept quiet, her eyes scanning the exits around her out of habit.
Nadia seemed to catch on quickly, and to Saff’s surprise, she looked slightly disappointed.
After a moment, she pushed back in the chair and stood. “I guess I better go grab my own plate before I eat all of yours,” she said with a light laugh. “But maybe I'll run into you later,” she said, placing a hand on her shoulder and giving it a light squeeze.
Saff tensed slightly, not used to the unexpected contact. Nadia cast a quick smile across the table, then turned and sauntered away.
After a few moments, Maddie muttered, “Didn't realize you'd already made a friend.”
Again, Saff picked up on a slightly different tone that laced her voice.
“I didn't,” she replied.
Maddie made a noise that sounded something like a mix of a scoff and a grunt. Again, Erin shot her a curious look in between bites of food.
“Seems pretty friendly to be sharing food off of each other's plates,” Maddie added.
Saff sipped her coffee again, rubbing her left temple gently.
The headache from the night before had never fully gone away, and it was beginning to pulsate once again. Usually, she could keep it at bay for the first half of the day before it began to really bother her. But apparently, getting hardly any sleep had made things worse.
She looked up again, and now it seemed that Josh was also looking back and forth between her and Maddie. The look on his face, however, had changed from skeptical to slightly curious and amused.
Saff wondered what he was seeing in his sister that she wasn't.
Then suddenly, Carter spoke, breaking the tension. “Saff, maybe you should come with us to check out the patrol.”
Josh looked over at him in surprise. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Carter answered with a shrug. “She seemed to know her shit when we were traveling here. Might be a good person to have out there with us.”
Josh looked back at her, apprehensive. “I don't know if Sylvia would allow that.”
She desperately wanted to say ‘fuck Sylvia’, but knew that most likely would not go over well.
“I'll go,” Saff replied. “And if Sylvia has a problem with it, she can try to put me back in that cell.”
Maddie dropped her fork onto her plate with a loud clink. “Don't be stupid.”
“I'm not being stupid,” Saff replied gruffly.
“So, what?” Maddie asked. “You haven't even been here a day, and you're already ready to go out directly into danger?”
Saff studied the frustration rolling off of her. “No different from what I was doing before.”
Maddie scoffed. “Yeah, and before, you got stabbed.”
Every eye at the table bounced between them, watching the interaction, but with Maddie’s last comment, they all seemed to freeze, landing on her.
“And now you have a choice,” Maddie continued, “and you're going to choose to go out there? Right away?”