Dies.
“Traitor,” I rasp, still grinning like. Like it’s not. Like none of this is real. Like I’m not spinning and spinning and spinning, trapped in a spiderweb of bullshit.
I taste hot copper, and I don’t even know if I bit myself hard enough to bleed at some point, or if it’s all in my head. The ghost of a memory.
Stone doesn’t move closer to me, because he’s not a moron, but his left hand twitches where it’s wrapped around the bed railing. He tightens his fingers, knuckles turning white from the pressure. This must be a bed specially made for Liquid Onyx survivors because the railing doesn’t break or groan or bend in his grip like it should.
I meet his eyes, locking on hard. A dare without leverage or an endgame.
There’s another flash of animal, a spark of heat and flame, like two pieces of coal igniting inside a fire pit.
I wink at him. The flame flares, taking on more oxygen and growing into something that makes me ache. I want to reach out and touch it. Claw at it. Fight it.Hurtit. Let it hurt me back. It would. He would. And I would take everything from him. All that rage and pain and violence.
I could show him every single one of my broken, bloody pieces. I could use my razor-sharp edges to slice into him. I could let him see the fractured prism his father made of me.
“Agent Sathe,” Snow reproves, shooting Stone an unmistakable look of disapproval.
It’s like a spell has been cut off at the root. All air returns to the room, that oppressive heat fading away into the background again.
Sathe. Snow called him Sathe. That was his mother’s maiden name. She’s dead, now. Tried to run too. Seems he was more successful in escaping his father than his mother was. He ran right into the arms of the enemy.
Stone doesn’t take his eyes off me when he says to Snow, “You wanted my honest assessment, right? That’s why I’m here.”
His voice is harder now. There’s steel wound through it.
Snow lets out a short sigh, like she can’t believe she’s been stuck dealing with either of us. I can’t blame her for that. I’d be pissed too if I had to put up with an expertly manufactured serial killer and whatever Stone is.
“That was rather the point, yes, Agent Sathe,” Snow says dryly. “I didn’t bring you in here just to stare soulfully at him and then act like a prick about it.”
I snort, which earns me a half-hearted glare from Snow. She’s annoyed but not angry. I haven’t seen anger from her yet. I’ve heard it, though. When she told that agent, Agent Holder, not to shoot me. I remember that. The words are scorched on my memory like a brand.
I flip Snow off with both hands and give her a genuine smile. Snow doesn’t quite roll her eyes, but it’s a close thing. If she’s not completely full of shit, I might even like her.
Stone, like the little bitch he is, ruins the moment.
“Either put him down or let him go.”
The tone of his voice is set to neutral, but I can still hear the cold fury that lies just beneath the surface. It’s embarrassing how easy he is to read. The twisted creature that lives, caged, inside Stone’s mind is barely leashed and chomping at the bit to be let loose. I can imagine it panting out bated breaths, pressing up against the flimsy bars that hold it. I keep expecting Stone’s creature to bare its fangs at me, razor sharp and tipped with poison.
Stone has let himself become too used to hiding from real people. Real people, who see what they want to see and not much else. That isn’t a criticism. The truth of us, what we are, is just beyond comprehension for them. Beyond understanding. Beyond morality and sanity and all the shit that keeps the world from burning itself down to the lump of charcoal we absolutely deserve for it to be.
I think about all the training it must have taken for Stone to make himself react to situations like a rational person. To behave as if he isn’t one of life’s most terrible, terrible things. It seems like a lot of effort just to make an agency full of strangers feel safe. Unless that’s the point. Unless there’s an endgame here that I can’t see yet.
An agency full of seals has let a shark into their ocean. How sad. How reckless. They won’t see the mistake they’ve made until it’s too late. They won’t see the blade when it arcs, throats slitting open, blood spraying the walls.
I would start laughing again if my throat weren’t so dry. I might need to risk it. If they want to poison me, well, there are worse ways to die. I doubt FISA would go for something too painful. Even OI usually prefers efficiency when it comes to chemically induced murder.
I grin meanly at Stone, flashing teeth. All of them. Stone’s face remains impassive for a moment, but then. Butthen. The left side of his mouth quirks up ever so slightly. Halfway between a smirk and a snarl.
Challenge accepted.
I remember a grey room. I remember glass smashing on the floor.
I’ve got no idea what we’d be fighting for, Stone and I. But that’s never stopped me before.
We’d probably have kept going like that, tipping carelessly over the precipice, if it weren’t for Snow. She’s subtle about interrupting us. Subtle but firm.
“Is that the extent of your assessment, Agent Sathe?”
