“No fucking way, Leo,” I say, adamant and mildly outraged that he would ask this of me. “He’ll kill you.”
“I think there’s a higher chance of him killing me with you showing him how much it would bother you if he did,” Leo reasons, like it’s just that simple. He turns his head as much as he’s able to so he can speak more directly to Dan. “Hey, cuddle buddy, I think we need to discuss boundaries. I want to help you, but I’d rather we did that without me being under threat of neck snapping, okay?”
Dan’s brows are furrowed so furiously that it looks painful; he’s clearly not understanding what’s going on. He must suspect some ulterior motive from Leo, but that’s just because he doesn’t know him like I do. Leo means it when he says he just wants to help, which will be almost impossible for Dan to believe, and Iknow that because it was equally as difficult for me to accept at the beginning.
“Alright,” Dan agrees after some hardcore scowling to himself. “We can talk.” He shoots me another vicious glare. “But only if we do italone.”
Hostility blazes, hot and bright and primal in my gut, and the urge to beat the shit out of my brother rises inside me like a tsunami of fire.
“Not a chance in hell—" I start, like I’m spitting out poison at him.
But Leo interrupts, catching my gaze and holding on as tightly as he always does, with that brutal empathy I will never understand the power of that’s rooted inside my partner like a millennia-old willow tree.
“Jack, please,” he says, too soft and too kind for this, for what he’s asking me to do. “Trust me.”
I don’t want to. I don’t want to trust him if it means walking away and leaving him to the fragile mercy of my brother. Moreover, I can’t trust Dan. He could kill Leo, hereallycould, and I don’t want to spend the rest of our lives trying to forgive him for that just because Leo would want me to.
Dan must see that, he probably sees it all, playing out across my face, and he doesn’t reassure me of anything. He doesn’t promise not to hurt Leo if I do this, he doesn’t even ask me to trust him, because he knows it won’t matter. Either he’ll do it, or he won’t, and no number of declarations one way or the other will change that.
In the end, I leave, not because of trust but because of something far more durable.Hope. For the hope that Dan is saveable and the faith that if anyone in this world has the ability to save him, it’s the one man who savedme.
Past
Rohan
When Aaron corrals me into his office after he gets back from overseeing the interrogation of Armitage, there’s a strange expression on his face, a mix of relief and disgust that kicks awake the creature that lives inside my stomach. I stand in front of his desk, waiting on whatever information has gotten Aaron so conflicted, trying to ignore the poisoned claws viciously mauling my stomach lining.
Aaron doesn’t beat around the issue, stating bluntly, “We were wrong. OI hasn’t managed to recreate Liquid Onyx.”
So there’s the reason for his relief.
My mind whirrs at a thousand miles an hour, contemplating what this revelation means about the children with black blood that we found in that OI facility. I didn’t ask Aaron about them, because I didn’t want to know what FISA did with them, but if Ihad to guess, I’d say they’re probably being kept on base or in a FISA safe house until their parents can be identified.
The options are extremely limited as to why those children could have Liquid Onyx blood, and their young age narrows those options down to only one that seems plausible, forcing me to come to a very dismal conclusion.
“Their parents are Liquid Onyx survivors, aren’t they?” I ask grimly.
Aaron doesn’t need to clarify what I mean. He nods, mouth pressed together in a firm, unhappy line, his amber eyes hard as stone.
“Are there any others?” I prod and then ask, “Does OI have the parents?”
Either is as likely as it is disturbing. OI wouldn’t kill a Liquid Onyx survivor, no matter the age. Even if they couldn’t turn them into agents, they would still keep them for the purpose of further experimentation. Their appetite for discovery is ravenous and unyielding. They’ll strip away everything a Liquid Onyx survivor has just to test the density of the bare bones that lie beneath.
“Yes, on both counts,” Aaron says. “Armitage didn’t know much more than that, but we’ve been given a lead by an undercover operative within OI who has confirmed a possible location worth checking out.”
It’s a struggle not to grit my teeth, or worse, to open my mouth and scream at the fucking nightmare of it. As if most Liquid Onyx survivors didn’t lose enough; now OI is taking their children, trying to subject them to the same horror their parents were subjected to without conscience. It makes my own black blood burn inside my veins, my power aching with a sweet pain to be let loose on those who deserve so much worse than anything they are ever going to get.
I tilt my chin up, exhaling through my nose and releasing some of the tension from my shoulders. “Guessing that’s our next mission, then?” I ask with forced steadiness.
Aaron doesn’t seem fooled by the pretense, but he doesn’t pull me up on it either, falling back on the necessity of our mission taking priority over how either of usfeelsabout it.
“We’re leaving within the hour, Agent.”
“Got it, boss.” I jerk a thumb over my shoulder. “I’ll go pack mycan-do attitudeand my positive-vibes helmet and meet you in the garage.”
“You do that, kid.” Aaron gives me that mean little smile again, baring white teeth that are a bit crooked along the bottom, like the turrets of an old castle. The imperfection suits him, and the glint of malice in his eyes does too. “Bad guys won’t stand a chance.”
…….
