Elliott patted her on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, too, kid. I know that's upsetting. But I'd be lying if I didn't say it makes me happy," he added to her alone.
She glared at him, saying nothing, before turning back to her breakfast, clearly annoyed at his glee.
"Well, Eliza will be here in a few minutes," Aaron mentioned, changing the subject. "So, now that we've had a chance to... sleep on it, what do you think about the mission?"
"Honestly, I think we should go for it," Elliott said, leaning back in his chair. "If we put those contingencies in place the way we had discussed, hell, why not? I think we can pull this off, just get it over with."
"Okay," Aaron nodded. "Cadence?"
She was mid-chew, so she took a moment to swallow. "I have my reservations," she admitted. "But, if everything goes as planned, I think we can at least get these four ass hats out of the picture."
Aaron continued to nod, slowly and deliberately, as if he was actually making the decision to go through with the plan right then and there. After a moment, he said. "All right. Eliza's almost here. Let's let her direct this. That way, we'll make sure we don't add in any extra information."
"I want to be there when you tell her she's off the hunt," Elliott said, a grin on his face.
"I don't want to be there," Aaron admitted. "Why don't you do it?"
"Okay!" Elliott exclaimed, assuming he was kidding but still willing to take him up on it.
Eliza threw the door open and entered like it was her own office. She looked a bit disheveled, but as well dressed as she had the day before in another black designer suite and heels. "Sorry I'm late," she said pulling the chair out at the far end again. "It's been a crazy morning. Ugh, so many fires to put out in San Fran."
As she sat down, Cadence glanced at Aaron, who was shaking his head, indicating there weren't really any fires.
Eliza was not deterred. "Oh, wow, Cadence--Starbucks. If I'd known you were going to make a run, I would have put in an order."
"Oh, I'm sorry. Next time, let me know, so I can happily not bring you any," she replied smiling. Eliza gave her the evil eye, but Cadence was in no mood to bullshit. "But that's right. I didn't get this for myself. Your ex-boyfriend brought it for me," she said patting Aaron on the arm possessively.
Eliza's glare narrowed, but she said nothing.
"There's coffee in the lobby," Elliott pointed out to her.
"Oh, great. Two sugars, thanks," she said, smartly.
Elliott looked at his friends, eyebrows raised, not sure what to do. He had hated Eliza before Cadence even joined the team, but Aaron shrugged at him, and he decided to comply so as to keep the peace. Clearly, Cadence wasn't going to be doing anything to patch things over today.
As Elliott went to get Eliza's coffee, she continued with her verbal explosion of too much information. "Oh, last night was crazy. I was out way too late catching up with some old friends--and some new ones. Woke up next to the hottest guy this morning," she added, as Elliott re-entered.
"Oh, my God! Me, too!" Cadence exclaimed in her best valley girl impersonation. "But, mine brought me breakfast."
"Stop!" Aaron cautioned her, but she could tell he was fighting to hold back a smile.
"I'm sorry," Cadence said only to him, an apologetic expression on her face, as Elliott burst out laughing next to her.
"What about Cale?" Eliza asked snidely. She took a sip of her coffee and made a face, as if to say it was awful.
"What about him?" Cadence asked.
Eliza guffawed. "Well, I thought you were seeing him."
"Well, maybe the next time you two have a heart to heart you can mention it to him," she replied tartly.
"Maybe I will," Eliza shot back.
"As comical as this is," Elliott chimed in, "I think we should probably get some work done, so I can get the hell out of here and do something constructive, like watch videos on YouTube of cats falling down."
"Eliza, we're going to let you take the lead on this discussion. We've decided to go ahead and commit to the mission," Aaron explained.
"Perfect," Eliza said, smiling. "It's nice to hear that you are capable of committing to something," she added under her breath.
Shaking his head and biting his tongue, he continued. "Just let her know that we're on board and see when she's expecting us. That's really about all we need to do."
"Sounds good," Eliza agreed. "She's calling on the phone, not Skype though, correct?"
"Yes. Let's keep it short and simple, all right?" he requested.
Eliza nodded, and they waited for the phone to ring. However, once Laura was on the line, Eliza was anything but concise. She let the renegades know they were willing to work with them, and along with a myriad of other questions, asked Laura when she thought they should make their move. Laura's team was ready to go the next day, but LIGHTS decided they would need another full day to make sure they had all of their equipment in order. About thirty minutes after the call had begun, Eliza finally hung up, a satisfied grin on her face. "Well, that went really well, don't you think?" she beamed.
"Good work, Eliza," Aaron said patronizingly. "I guess that's all we needed. You can head back to Cali whenever you're ready."
"What?" she asked, her smile cracking a bit. "But, aren't you going to get the rest of the team together and strategize?"
"Sure," Aaron shrugged, "but you don't need to stick around and wait for that. We'll fill you in. I know you've got a ton of... fires still burning out there. I'll arrange for a car to pick you up to take you to the airport in about an hour."
"Fine," Eliza said, her smile completely gone now. She made her way out of the room without so much as a wave goodbye.
"Ding, dong the merry-oh," Elliott mumbled once she was gone. "When are we getting the band back together?" he asked in reference to the rest of the team that would be going with them.
"I think we should meet this afternoon, make sure everyone's clear, give them a chance to reflect and ask questions. We can head out tomorrow afternoon, let Laura know where we are, and go from there."
"She mentioned meeting at Graegel. Where is that in relation to this Sierraville you were talking about, Cadence?"
She had no idea, so she pulled up a map. "Pretty close," she confirmed. "So, the info that Cale had could very well be correct."
"All right," Aaron said, nodding. "I'm not feeling great about this, but let's just do our best to make sure all of these moving parts are working together, and hopefully, we can pull this off.
"Come on, man, what's the worst that can happen?" Elliott asked, sarcasm dripping from his voice.
"I don't want to think about that," Aaron admitted.
