“What? That’s your question?” He shakes his head, scowling fiercely. “I mean this. You don’t want to get involved any more than you have already. The best thing you could do is drop him”—Rohan jerks his chin at the hallway—“back where you took us from.”
“We’ve gone way past that.” I make a waving motion with my arm. “We need to get that chip out of him and destroy it, so they can’t track him anywhere. You know FISA’s policy on the OI Liquid Onyx survivors. We’re supposed to rescue them if we can.”
“You can’t be serious.” Rohan sounds genuinely confused as to why I would consider this a viable option. “FISA came up with that ‘policy’ when the Liquid Onyx survivors were still children. When they were still victims. That bloke in there is many things. A victim is not one of them, not anymore.”
“If we can help him get away from OI, then we should,” I say because that seems obvious to me. Why wouldn’t we get the chip out of Jack if it’s really been put there to force him to act on OI’s behalf? Even if we ignore that Jack doesn’t deserve to be trapped into serving an evil organisation for the rest of his life, taking a superweapon away from OI sounds like a good idea to me.
Rohan looks increasingly disturbed and annoyed by my assertion that we should put any effort into helping Jack.
“Do you want to know what he does for them?” Rohan asks acerbically. “He’s an assassin, not a rescue puppy.”
“You can’t really believe it’s right to hand him back over to OI.” I don’t understand how he can be so cavalier about this. “I’m guessingyouhad a good reason to run from them. I know what they do to people.”
“You think you know,” Rohan barks, a kick of overt anger in his voice. “You don’t. You can’t. Not unless you’ve lived it.”
“Right.” I keep my voice purposefully flippant in the hopes of diffusing him. “Good. I’m glad we can agree OI are The Worst. Now let’s go de-chip my new friend, Star-y.”
That pulls Rohan up short for a moment. He does another one of those slow, deliberate blinks. He is definitely not one hundred percent yet, his inhibitions lowered by the remnants of the drug in his system. I don’t think he’d be telling me so much information if he was completely with it. I almost feel bad for taking advantage of him in this state.
Rohan doesn’t respond, but Damon does.
“Star-y?” Damon questions, looking just as baffled as Rohan.
“Yeah,” I say, shrugging. “Like stare and scary put together.” I press my hands together. “Star-y.”
Damon doesn’t look like he wants to touch that one with a ten-foot pole. He keeps his mouth shut, choosing to walk the far less treacherous road of making logical decisions.
Rohan is still standing there all perplexed and a tad huffier than I think is warranted. All I’m asking is for him to help rescue the assassin sent to capture him, who I have handcuffed to a toilet and guarded by my pet corgi. Why is that so complicated for him?
I walk out of the room before Rohan can gather himself enough to protest this. There’s no point. It’s happening.
“Come on,” I say to Rohan over my shoulder. “Unless you want OI agents to show up here.”
That seems to kick Rohan’s arse into gear. He chases after me, Damon bringing up the rear as we all march towards the bathroom to confront slash save Jack.
King has left his post by the door and padded over to where Jack is lying down on the bathroom floor. He’s climbed up onto Jack’s torso and plopped himself there, rather comfortably, it seems.
Far from the outburst of violence I would have expected from someone wound as tight as Jack, especially given what he is, the OI agent is just allowing King to sit on him. He doesn’t look perturbed to have a dog use him as a giant pillow. He appears to be simply ignoring King, like an older sibling might ignore a younger one in the hopes they will get bored and go away.
It’s odd. His placid behaviour, I mean.
If Rohan is to be believed, then Jack is an assassin for OI, a killer like my father. Except not like my father, because from what Rohan said, Jack didn’t get much choice in his career as an OI agent.
Jack turns his head to look up at me. His expression changes from painfully blank to semiferal in two seconds flat once he catches sight of Rohan.
Rohan comes to stand at my left shoulder, both of us having stepped over the threshold of the bathroom. We fill up the narrow space, forcing Damon to stay behind us.
Jack’s nostrils flare, and his pupils appear to dilate. He gives Rohan what could be termed an “I hope you die slow” look. It’s very intense. Rohan doesn’t seem at all bothered by it, or at least if he is bothered, he’s doing a great job of hiding it.
Rohan lifts a hand and gives Jack a sarcastic little wave.
“Wow, you really got cuffed to a toilet by a junior agent.” He smirks at Jack, enjoying the moment far too much for my taste. “Shoddy work capturing me, Roth.”
I whack Rohan lightly on the arm.
“Hey, no bullying Star-y. He is my guest. We don’t bully guests in this house.”
Rohan looks from me to Jack and then back again with raised eyebrows.
