They all looked at Gia.
That was the thing she hadn't planned for.
She had said it quietly. To no one. The specific, internal statement that had escaped through a gap in her containment without her permission. And now all three of them — Celia, Aisha, Meijin — had turned their heads toward her with the specific, synchronized quality of people who have heard something and are waiting for it to be followed up.
Gia's face, in the moonlight, was doing several things at once.
"Gorgeous," she said.
Celia blinked.
"I meant—" Gia's voice had taken on the specific, clipped precision of someone in rapid damage control. "A gorgeous monster. That's — that's what I meant. As a — it was an aesthetic observation. About the—" She stopped. Her jaw worked. "I am standing here watching my friend get—" She gestured at the beach with the specific, frustrated economy of someone whose vocabulary has failed them at a critical moment. "And I am—"
"You said he's a monster," Aisha said.
