#| plot drop 006

Feng had taken one look at Levi once they’d finally managed to drag him in and had all but forced him into the shower herself. 

He’d scrubbed the blood from his face, from his knuckles, until they were raw and then he scrubbed some more. But he couldn’t clean the sick feeling that had settled in his stomach no matter how hard he scrubbed.

His hair was still damp when they loaded into the cars that would take them to the airport and his face was oddly blank. He clutched the carry-on bag at his side like a lifeline, the books of code he’d swiped from Mortimer’s room weighing it down like lead.

Vald was there beside him and without even glancing his way, Levi asked flatly: “That kid you were helping back there. Did he make it?”

Now, even more than usual, Levi was bristling—all sharp edges and glinting teeth, waiting for someone to push him the wrong way. The thought of sitting through a twelve-hour flight to Russia was excruciating. He wanted to scream, or run, or punch a wall, or something. Being strapped into a metal tube hurtling through the air wasn’t Levi’s idea of fun on a good day, but right then he looked about ready to crawl out of his own skin.

Two hours until they were scheduled to be up in the air on a plane to Russia, and Levi hadn’t gone back to the hotel once. His dark trousers and the dim light made the blood that had soaked through around his calf almost invisible. He had personally canvassed ten blocks around Utopia and didn’t look ready to stop any time soon. His limp had become more pronounced, but if he noticed it he was absolutely ignoring it. “I should have fucking killed him,” Levi muttered, clenching his fists at his sides as he scanned for any hint of where Ivan had gone.

Levi was dressed to blend in; black slacks and a black button-down that hardly stood out in the dimly lit club. Waiters, not unlike spies, were meant to be neither seen nor heard, not unless absolutely necessary. 

The energy among the CODA team had been palpable going into that night. There was something different about being in the club than being at the gala; something more sinister.

The energy spiked when Sandra walked in. Levi did a quick glance around the club; there was Lena, there was Klara—he knew Mortimer and Eden were at the door. So far, things were going smoothly.

After delivering a drink order to a table of four, he made his way towards Sandra and Stewart’s booth. Christ, was that her bodyguard? Levi couldn’t remember the last time he’d met someone taller than him. He looked like a fucking mountain which was saying something.

Levi fixed his face into a mask he hoped read as ‘slightly bored and overworked but not out of the ordinary’. Waiting this table would be just like any other (except, of course, it wouldn’t be).

“Good evening,” he said, pausing beside their booth. “May I take your drink order?”