Once we’re a decent ways from the base, we stop to regroup. Rohan parks the van down a vacant side alley and joins us in the back of the van to discuss our next move.
After a lot of back and forth, it’s decided that we should continue on with our original plan, going after Ian Stone and prying the information we need out of him, by any means necessary. It’s a difficult decision since Leo is worried about all the people left behind at the base, his aunt and his agency friends, not to mention our handler, who I keep forgetting is Damon’sdad.
Getting to Stone and figuring out how to undo what was done to Dan, and now Damon, is our priority. After Stone is dealt with, we can go after the machine if that’s still a problem by then. Snow sent a local team out to the location Dan gave thembefore Obsidian Inc. attacked, so part of me is hoping they’ll have already destroyed the fucking thing.
It should only take us about fourteen hours by car, twelve at a push, to get to the other side of the country, where Rohan’s tracking chip is telling us Ian Stone is. A train would get us there quicker, but with Dan in tow, there’s no chance we can risk it. Besides, I wouldn’t put it past Stone to be monitoring public cameras for any sign of our faces.
Being trapped in an enclosed space with my brother, who hates me and Rohan, as well as Rex the demon doctor, sounds like a unique brand of hell that I have no interest in sampling, but there’s no real choice unless I want to start shooting people, and I think Leo would really throw a bitch fit if I splattered anyone’s blood all over this nice, clean agency van.
Rohan must feel the same repulsion at this whole scenario because he insists on driving the entire way there without a break. Leo uses his weird manipulative powers of empathy and annoyingly effective charm to convince Rohan to swap out with someone else every three hours as well as convincing him to stop multiple times for food and other necessities.
Rex spends the first five hours of the trip sitting beside his unconscious boyfriend, staring at him with a hope that feels tense and potentially explosive. I start to think that Damon had better wake the hell up; otherwise, Rex is going to kill some people about it. More people, I mean. Possibly innocent ones at a service station, like a sullen barista who gets his order wrong. As entertaining as it would be for me to watch a moody teenager wearing a vintage T-shirt with the logo of a band he’s probably never listened to get choked out by our resident twink doctor, I also think Leo would disapprove and get all sad-face again, and I can’t have that.
Unlike Damon, Dan wakes up in the first hour of our journey, but thankfully pretends he’s still out, using the controlledbreathing technique we were trained to use as kids if one of us was captured, and we wanted to listen in on whoever took us. I don’t tell the others Dan is conscious and spying, because they’d just get all arm wavy and dramatic about it. Or worse, in Leo’s case, he’d probably want to “talk” to Dan and try to “see how he’s feeling about all this.” No, Leo, no. I can’t think of many things more disturbing to me than my partner trying to befriend my psychotic twin out of some misguided sense of decency he seems to have ingrained in him for no discernible good reason. Leo should really be more of a prick; it would be so much easier for me.
When Leo takes over driving, Rohan stays up front with him to chat about whatever it is those two have apparently decided they have in common. I stay in the back of the van, sitting beside Dan in a mirror position to how Rex is hovering over Damon, and make the awful decision to try my hand at some compassion or whatever.
“He’s a tough bastard,” I say, getting Rex to look up at me with lightly raised eyebrows. He seems to be expecting more of an explanation for why I’ve decided to get social with him, so I push it a little further, nodding at Damon. “Your boy doesn’t go down easy. I’ve seen him fight a few times now. If anyone could survive getting fucked with by OI’s chemical bullshit, it’s probably him.”
Rex seems genuinely perplexed by what I’m going on about, but then something clicks behind his eyes, like he’s come to an important realisation. His wary frown smooths out, mouth flipping the razor edge and curving upward in acerbic amusement. I’m bracing myself for impact before he even speaks.
“Roth, are you trying to be nice to me right now?” There’s a definite mocking edge to his tone. “Is that what this is? You and me. Having amoment.” He flutters his eyelashes dramatically, the little bitch.
“Fuck off,” I growl, regretting my attempt at civility.
Rex tips his head back and laughs, the sound harsh and raspy but real. If I cared more about making him happy, then I might say it was worth the embarrassment to see the easing of tension in his shoulders and the returning brightness to his blue eyes, like sunlight glittering off the Mediterranean sea.
“You must really love him,” Rex says once his hyena cackling has tapered off.
My brows draw together in confusion at the non sequitur until Rex gives me a significant look while jerking his head toward the front of the van.
Still, I don’t want to make things easy for Rex, so I just stare back at him, waiting for him to either elaborate or let this line of conversation go. We both hold out for a lot longer than the acceptable levels of awkwardness should allow before he make his decision.
“You making like a decent human,” Rex says. “I’m guessing that’s mostly for my cousin’s benefit. I don’t think you’d give a fuck about being kind to me if you didn’t know how much Leo cares about both of us.”
He’s right, and he knows it, so there’s no need for me to confirm the truth we’re both fully aware of, especially since Rex doesn’t seem bothered by it. If anything, he appears reassured by the knowledge that my benevolence toward him is almost entirely spawned from my feelings for Leo.
“I’d do anything for him,” I admit because it’s true, and because it’s the only part I think Rex cares about.
Rex offers me a more blunted curl of his mouth, not quite a proper smile but not a smirk either. “Good,” he says decisively, then pins me in place with a harsher look, protectiveness rising up and spilling out across his face. “I don’t care if you’re nice to me, Roth. Just don’t fuck with Leo, and we’ll get on just fine, alright?”
There’s an implicit threat behind that nonquestion. It curls around me like barbed wire, ready to be pulled tight at any moment, its spikes digging in and drawing fresh blood, metal teeth ravenous for the torn flesh of a struggling combatant.
“Got it.” I dip my chin in a nod, acknowledging the warning for what it is, accepting the consequences should I fail. It’s a relief in a way. At least I know that Leo has someone who won’t let me hurt him, or if I do, then someone who will make me fucking pay for that supreme lapse in judgment.
With the important threats and promises out of the way, Rex and I lapse back into silence although I allow myself the fantasy that it’s a less contentious silence this time.
Damon claws his way back to consciousness a little while later, jerking upward with a choked gasp as if awaking from a terrifying nightmare.
Rex gives himself exactly two seconds to bask in the relief before he slips into doctor mode and fusses over Damon, bossing him about like he’s an errant patient who tried to escape medical’s clutches. Damon bears it, doing everything Rex tells him to do without complaint, still a little out of it. He catches my eye once the worst of Rex’s forceful check over is done.
I can read the mix of bone-deep fear and chemical-induced confusion that comes from having your body violated by science because I felt the same things when OI drugged me up with that blue shit.
And because I’ve already decided to try this whole expressing empathy thing out, I tip my head at him in an expression of shared understanding.
“Like getting dragged naked through a fucking glacier, right?”
Damon stares at me, eyes bright like they’re burning with fever, the skin around them pallid and grey as if his face was drained of blood, of life, that freezing-cold nightmare seeping into his flesh and making a home there.
