“Good.” I bob my head. Then I ask wryly, “Did you cut your fist on any unsuspecting agents?”
Dan’s head twitches to the side slightly, like a puppet who had his strings suddenly jerked. “You got someone in mind?” He seems genuinely intrigued by the notion. “Anyone you want me to tune up for you next time I’m getting dragged to my cell?”
Draggedseems an unlikely scenario, unless Dan was out cold. I can’t imagine Dan doing anything but fighting like hell if someone tried to drag him someplace he didn’t want to go. There’d be bloody nail scratches down the damn walls.
“Heard from the medical staff that you were a real treasure to have as a patient. Wouldn’t want to ruin that reputation so early on,” I say ruefully.
“Don’t know about that,” Dan muses, his gaze intense, almost like a physical thing reaching out to blast heat on my face. “Seems like you’d be worth ruining a lot of things over.”
There’s a dig in that statement, a first strike officially dealt. I can feel the bite and venom in it even though Dan’s easy smiledoesn’t slip. Although given the way his eyes dart over to the one-sided glass window, I’m guessing it wasn’t a blow meant for me but rather the man standing on the other side of it.
I’d be an idiot not the realise that part of the reason why Dan wanted to meet with me specifically is about getting at his brother. I knew that going in, but that doesn’t mean I like the idea of being used to hurt Jack.
I want to tell Dan how much Jack tortured himself after he thought he’d killed him, what a horrible state he was in mentally, how losing Dan almost destroyed him. But something tells me it wouldn’t matter what I said to Dan right now; all he’d hear is how Jack gave up on him, left him behind with OI to be broken down by them over and over again, but this time alone, without his brother there to keep him sane—even if that isn’t fair or true.
“Thank you,” I say instead.
Dan’s focus snaps back to me with the suddenness of an unexpected bullet. “For what?”
“For letting my mum go.” Because he didn’t have to do that. He could have killed her or at least threatened to kill her, but he didn’t. He let her run, and it’s probably the reason why he was caught by FISA.
Dan seems genuinely confused and more than a little suspicious, which is definitely fair.
“I only did that so she wouldn’t get in the way,” he says defensively, like I’ve accused him of some misdeed rather than thanked him. It reminds me of how Jack can be sometimes, so quick to lash out at anything that seems too good to be true, like he wants to rip open the smooth, clean surface to see the muck and razor wire that he thinks must be hidden beneath.
“It doesn’t matter why you did it.” Although I’m almost certain he just didn’t want to hurt an—ostensibly—innocent woman if he didn’t have to. Not exactly the mark of a saint but certainly not the actions of an innately cruel man either. “I’m still grateful.”
Dan stares at me then, eyes squinting ever so slightly, like he thinks I might be a trick of some kind. A magician with a disappearing bunny hidden behind a mirror. It makes me want to laugh, but I suppress it, given how I don’t know what Dan’s reaction to being laughed at would be. Just because I don’t want him chained up does not mean I’m unaware of how psychologically compromised he is. I have no clue what his triggers are, and I’d rather not end this interrogation—if that’s what we’re really calling it—by testing out my new Liquid Onyx durability.
As if reading my mind, Dan tries to argue, “But I stabbed you and shot you up with Liquid Onyx.”
“Yeah.” I sigh wearily, like he’s caught me out. “Okay. Thanks for that too, I guess.”
“Thanks for that … too?” Dan looks so bamboozled, it’s hilarious.
“You saved my life.”
Dan makes an indignant noise. “AfterI got youshot.”
Everyone is really hung up on this whole “me being shot” thing. I’m not even bleeding anymore; come on, turn the fucking page.
“Jack shot me,” I point out, testing the waters by mentioning his name outright.
Dan jerks forward in his seat, arrogant laziness momentarily put aside and replaced with a whirlwind of anger and incredulity. “You jumped in front of his bullet, you lunatic!” He sounds defensive again, but this time it isn’t for himself, it’s for Jack, which sets off a firework of hope inside me. Things can’t be completely lost if Dan still cares enough to fight in his brother’s corner even if it is subconscious.
“Yeah, and he’s never gonna let me forget it, trust me. He’s like if a shrew and an elephant had a kid. He’ll die mad about everything,” I huff, crossing my arms loosely over my chest andleaning back in my seat, forcing some casualness in the hopes that Dan will mirror it.
Dan doesn’t respond right away, the quiet stretching on and on. There’s a loaded quality to it as if the moment is teetering on the edge of something potentially explosive and ultimately devastating.
Then he thumps backward in his seat and slumps down, emulating the posture of a moody teenager, the rage draining out of him so fast that it gives me whiplash. In the blink of an eye, Dan has returned to his relaxed state, no trace of his earlier anger as if he never lost his temper at all. It makes me wonder if he really did, or if that was for show, maybe to see how I would react to his aggression.
“How’s it been?” he asks; then at my confused frown, he adds, “The whole ‘being a Liquid Onyx survivor’ thing.”
Honestly, it’s been kind of shitty. My new senses have been going haywire ever since I left medical. I have to ignore how bright all the lights are, how they burn my corneas if I let my eyes wander too close to them, or even sometimes if I don’t. They’re so sensitive. And where there would have been silence before, I can hear noises like they’re happening right next to my ear: the sound of Dan breathing, the scratch of the metal chairs every time one of us moves, the sound of the oxygen generator, and the buzz of electricity from every wire and bulb.
I tap my temple with two fingers. “Got a major fucking headache.”
Dan nods, like that was what he expected me to say. He doesn’t seem to feel guilty about what he did to me despite the fact he tried to use it as an argument as to why I should be pissed at him earlier.
