He opens his mouth, and I just know whatever is about to come out is going to make me want to throw him down the stairs like I did those OI guards.
"You took ages to come for me, psycho," Rohan accuses, flicking his gaze from me to the glowing shards with mild hostility. "What, did you literally check every single fucking building in the world before this one?"
I flash him a shitty smile full of teeth and malice, shrugging with a truly bitchy amount of nonchalance. "Didn't think we needed to rush. Figured maybe you'd want to spend some daddy-son time with Satan after so long apart."
Rohan gives me a dry look straight out of the Sahara. "Good call, Roth, thanks. You know, it has to be said, you're very considerate for a psychotic serial killer. I feel like people really don't give you enough credit for your emotional competency."
I make a low humming sound of agreement. "Hmm, yeah, at least Ian Stone raised one of us right."
Leo huffs an exasperated, "Children, please." His gaze flickers between us, that same tension-filled, unnerving energy buzzing around him and continuing to confuse the fuck out of me. When Leo meets Rohan's eyes, they share a look that makes it clear they're on the same page, so whatever it is, Rohan knows about it, might even be the cause of Leo's profound unease.
Maybe it's about what's on the backup drive. It must be important if Rohan was willing to risk everything to stop and grab it. I jerk my chin at the now-wireless black box Rohan has clutched to his chest. "That thing better have world-ending information on it, or I'm straight up going to punch you in the dick, Sathe." I glower at him, making sure he knows this is no joke. If he put Leo's life on the line for just more random OI fuckery, I'm going to lose my shit and finally get the rematch I've been hoping for ever since the night we fought on that road where Leo found us.
Rohan's response is appropriately scathing, a challenge in his dead-sun eyes. "I dare you to finally give me the excuse I need to make you piss yourself from agony, Roth. I. Fucking.Dareyou." He raises a hand to flex his fingers in obvious threat.
I'm suddenly reminded of how it felt to be on the receiving end of Rohan's bizarre touch-pain ability. When he grabbed my throat and let his power loose, it felt like every single one of the nerves under his hand was exploding again and again, like a dozen aneurysms setting off inside my head, the resulting sensation spreading out to attack my entire body. It was utterly paralysing. I consider myself quite adept at absorbing pain after all the practice I've had, my threshold unnaturally high even for a Liquid Onyx survivor. But what Rohan did was on a whole other level.
Before I can respond to Rohan's threat, Leo steps between us and asks, "Are we ready to go, then?"
"Go where?" I demand, keyed up from the storm and more than ready to put distance between us and anything OI related.
"Roof. We can go down the fire escape," Leo answers, meeting my eyes. He reaches out a hand to grasp my clenched fist, ignoring the shards of glass and stepping further into my space. His thumb gently brushes over the inside of my wrist, the touch coaxing. He waits for me to loosen my fingers so he can take my hand in his. "Come on, babe, this is almost done."
It feels like a lie. Worse, it feels like Leoknowsit's a lie. It's strange. Leo doesn't lie to me, not on purpose. He might lie to himself, and then me by proxy, but never deliberately.
There's a rare guardedness to Leo's face as well. He doesn't usually hide from me either. Not about things like this. His positivity about our ability to survive any situation, although insane and erroneous, is faultlessly genuine.
Rohan stops me from asking Leo what's going on by making a loud groaning sound. He steps out from behind Leo, showing the exhaustion of his body by how that one movement taxes him, and gives our joined hands a pointed look of antipathy. "Fuck me, I go away for a month, and now you two idiots are all touchy and shit. What the hell is this?" He shoots Leo a disbelieving frown. "Pleasetell me you're secretly a maniacal slag using your sexual wiles to manipulate him into not killing everyone."
"Go fuck yourself on a rusty screwdriver, Sathe," I bark at Rohan, feeling the intense need to backhand him across the room.
Leo snorts and gives Rohan a bemused look. "Mysexual wiles?"
"Well." Rohan tilts his head to the side thoughtfully, his gaze darting up and down Leo's impressive form. "You're not ugly." He rushes to add, "By traditional societal standards, I mean."
"Thank you, mate," Leo replies wryly. "Good to know I'm attractive by somebody's metric if not yours."
Rohan pretends not to hear the sarcasm and shifts around impatiently. "Come on, then, my saviours, it's officially time to fuck right off."
"Ok." Leo moves to let Rohan lean on him, taking his weight with ease. Rohan has lost some serious weight. Still, he's better off than he could have been, reinforcing my assumption that his father went easier on him than he would have on anyone else.
Leo lets go of my hand, for which I mourn, and switches his gun from the hand holding up Rohan to his now-free one. He jerks his chin forward and offers me an encouraging smile that doesn't come within a ten-foot vicinity of his eyes. "Lead on, partner."
There's definitely something going on, something I'm missing; I can feel it like one of those creeping suspicions you get when there's someone behind you. You know they're there, but you can't quite see who it is without turning around and confronting them.
But Leo is right, this isn't the time to get into a serious discussion. Whatever the problem is, it can wait until we're no longer under threat from OI.
We move in a swift, careful sweep out of the room and along the corridor to a fire exit. There's a metal staircase that leads up onto the roof. I have Rohan and Leo go up ahead of me until they reach the door at the top of the stairs. When I'm sure there is no immediate danger, I go up the stairs and open the door out onto the roof. It has a gravel floor and no ledge. Rohan and Leo stay behind on my order. After a quick check of the roof, I gesture for them to come out.
Leo was right; there's easy access to the fire escape from up here.
For the sake of conserving energy, I loosen the tight mental hold on my power and let the glowing shards of glass drop uselessly to the floor. It won't take any effort at all to pick them back up again if I need to.
I move to the edge of the roof and cautiously lowering myself to the floor as much as possible, not wanting to be spotted by anyone and wind up trapped.
Down on the ground, it's clear FISA has won the day. The storm went off alright, all things considered. Damon knows how to lead a team, I'll give him that. North basically got to sit back on his arse and do fuck all whilst Damon marched around issuing orders, looking and sounding exactly like his father in full-beast mode. None of the other agents gave me the usual side-eye I've come to expect, and they shot Damon fearful looks every time I went near them. It seems likely Damon gave them a good shouting at before meeting up with me, over how to play nicely with FISA's pet super assassin.
Regardless, the good news is, soon FISA should have the building locked down.
