My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 424

Sera

"She's standing, can't you see that??"

And then Mina's eyes went wide, staring at Amara. "Oh fuck," she breathed.

For a second, it was like she had forgotten all about the phone she was still clutching. But then her face shifted, like she had remembered she was supposed to be panicking about something else. She hissed, turned away from me again, slapping the device in the air and shaking it like a terrier killing a rat.

As I watched Mina slap the phone against her palm, water droplets flying, I felt my teeth clench.

"It has to work," she muttered under her breath, like saying it enough times would make it true.

'This is what happens when you ignore the real emergency,' I almost said, and bit the words back before they could slip out.

I watched her fumble with it, all thumbs, like it was some foreign creature she didn't trust. It never would have looked that awkward in my own hands. Phones like this had been ordinary things where I grew up, in the South, something you carried without thinking. Mina had spent her whole life up here instead, half Southern blood or not, and it showed in every clumsy motion.

Cursing under my breath, I strode forward. "Give me that damn phone, Mina. Now."

"What are you going to do?" She asked, but I snatched it out of her hand before she finished.

I looked the thing over. It was an old, rugged model, a glass screen, not watertight like the newer Southern models but built to last. The water just needed to get out for it to come back on.

I started prying it open, removing the back panel, then the battery. I felt a small, real pleasure holding actual tech in my hands, even old tech like this. My fingers moved with practiced ease, like conducting music I'd played a thousand times.

I shook the device in the air and felt tiny bursts of water come out. I did this a few times, then put the battery back in. I held the power button down.

It vibrated. I smiled.

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