“I’m serious. You don’t know what any of this is. What it could do.”
“So these other guys can play around with these powers,but when I want to use it for something, I should play it safe?”
“This is like horror-movie shit. You have to see that.”
Alexei slips his phone into his pocket and pushes to his feet. “You know, when I told you this stuff at first, I was in a cult. Now I shouldn’t be fucking with it because it might be dangerous. I thought you understood I need answers. Are you saying that back when you were wondering about your parents, if something like this had come along, a chance at giving you what you were looking for, you would have just moved past it without even being tempted?”
I think back about that time…the not knowing. The struggle and how it didn’t just become a preoccupation, but an obsession, getting stronger and stronger as my parents resisted.
“We swore,” Mom said.
“We signed an NDA,” Dad said.
But it only made me wonder more—because not only did my biological parents not want me; they didn’t even want me to know who they were. I know what it’s like to be in that nightmare echo chamber of whys, wishing for some relief from the pain.
Alexei’s about to leave my room, but I step in front of him and rest my hands on his shoulders, stopping him. “Hey, you know I would have. I’m sorry. Please let me have a moment to freak out about this.”
His shoulders relax, and he takes a breath.
I try to think where the fuck to go from here. “How do you even know these pages you grabbed will work?”
“When Preston was first telling me about this stuff, he’d done a background check on me, which is how he figured he could trade with me for intel. He said Finnegan had some questions about his mom. She killed herself when he was a kid, and that’s how he got answers—this guide they speak to, the One. What it said totally transformed Finnegan. Preston said he thought it could help me too, which is what convinced me to assist him and the Saints.”
“Why did he do the background check on you, in particular?”
“I’m guessing he checked out more people and got lucky when he found me, and then pulled a few strings so I’d room with Luke.”
I’m so suspicious of this crew and their motives, but I have bigger concerns. “But you don’t know that this…guide…will give you what you want.”
“Of course I don’t, but it won’t keep me from trying.”
Dissuading him is clearly an uphill battle, so I change tack to get answers to other questions that have crept up since I first accepted that maybe this crap Alexei was talking about wasn’t just a con. “So the guys tonight, they’re in this Saints group with Preston and his friends? But how does that work if he needs you to spy on them? Are they doing something on their own?”
Alexei’s gaze narrows. “Like I said, I’m not giving you a detailed explanation of what’s going on. You were worried about me, which I appreciate, but now you get this stuff is real and why I must do this.”
Which brings us back to those fucked-up pages.
I run through all the things I should say.
No, this is too much.
Don’t do this to yourself.
Please. I’m begging, Alexei. Don’t.
But I already know, between what he said and the determination in his expression, nothing I say will change his mind.
“So you’re just gonna find someone to fuck you…in all these different positions? Make him think it’s a kink you’re into?”
“I’ll figure it out, Matteo.”
I don’t doubt that either.
As I’m trying to figure out what to say next, there’s aclickat the door, and I glance over my shoulder just as Brad steps in.
“Hey, man. Hey, Alexei,” he says, looking exhausted as fuck. He plops down on his bed.
I’ve always been cool with Brad, but now I’m looking at him with suspicion, wondering who the fuck he really is and has been in all the time I’ve known him. Part of me wants to confront him and demand that he explain what he and his buddies were doing at the church, but Alexei’s dagger eyes keep me straight.
