Once I’m close enough, the fight turns physical and I get my chance to inflict some damage in return, snatching at their guns and turning them around, grabbing every inch of bared skin that I can, breaking bones and filling them with lead. They panic when they realise it’ll take more than a handful of bullets to kill me and that’s when things truly go to shit, because their reinforcements arrive.
Mind hazy from blood loss, it conjures up an image of Aaron hovering over me, shouting my name and telling—ordering—me tohold on, kid, just hold on.
He’s real demanding for a not-boyfriend, and an illusion to boot, but I do what he tells me anyway.
I hold on to him.
My last thought before the darkness of unconsciousness drags me under is that Aaron is going to be so broody with his grief when he finds out I died without him.
Present
Jack
Idon’t know what the hell Dan’s bullshit game is with Leo, but it’s frustratingly effective. If the point is to piss me off, which is the only outcome he can possibly have anticipated.
Leo seems oblivious to the fact he’s now become the favourite chew toy of two assassins. He comes out of the van with that blindingly optimistic grin on his face, the one that hurts my eyes to look at because it’s like staring directly into the sun, and he tells us that Dan has agreed to play nice, with the proviso that we’re going to figure out how to unfuck his memories.
Rex immediately takes it on faith, his trust in his cousin ironclad, as if some Nova blood rite has been performed. He shoves past Leo into the van and doesn’t hesitate at all to push himself into Dan’s space so he can give him a thorough medical check. Damon, still trusting of Leo but not quite as completelyas his boyfriend, chases after Rex, presumably to supervise and make sure my brother doesn’t snap Rex’s pretty little neck.
Dan is on his best behaviour, obeying Rex’s rapid-fire doctor commands with minimal fuss and not even a little bit of reactive violence. Leo gives me a triumphant look in response as if to say,See, he’s fine, everything is fine, stop worrying so much. It’s very fucking annoying.
Rohan’s clear distrust of Dan’s sudden turnaround is my only consolation. He seems just as resentful of Leo’s insistence that we can’t just knock Dan out again as I am. We share a mutual glower of exasperation before Rohan sighs heavily and walks away to climb back into the front of the van, abandoning me to deal with Leo’s madness on my own.
My general sense of hostility only hikes up another few notches when Leo tells me that Dan and I need to stay in separate parts of the van at all times from now on because his new best friend feels uncomfortably murder-y around me.
Dan doesn’t look at me when Leo explains his bullshit reasoning for keeping us apart. It makes me so angry I want to go slam Dan’s head into the floor a couple dozen times.
But Leo puts his hand on my arm and squeezes my bicep, giving me one of those open, pleading stares, silently asking me to trust him.
Looking back at him with an unimpressed stare of my own, I’m struck all over again by what a beautiful man Leo Snow is, with those blue, blue eyes and windswept dark hair set in permanent bed head, his soft mouth and stubbled jaw, and I remember how he lets me touch him, kiss him, fuck him, and come inside him. None of which is a reason to let him be an idiot, but it makes me want to give into him anyway.
“I get why you don’t like it, babe,” Leo whispers, just low enough so only I’ll be able to hear him. He leans in closer and brushes his lips against my temple. “But the last time I took achance on an ex-OI agent who needed someone to believe in him, I got the best thing that’s ever happened to me out of it. I like my odds on this.”
It shouldn’t work, but it does, the manipulative shithead.
I grasp the back of his neck and turn my head to take his mouth in a rough kiss. He gasps but doesn’t fight me, relaxing into the claiming attack on his mouth with such ease and trust and honest desire that it hits like a punch to the solar plexus.
He always submits to me like it’s nothing and everything at the same time as if the gift of that submission is inevitable, has belonged to me since the moment we met. It makes me want to strip him down and fuck him up against the nearest wall. It makes me want to take him somewhere far away from every possible threat and keep him safe, coveted like a precious object I stole and have no right to own but would still kill to protect.
When I pull back from the kiss, Leo looks at me with his red, puffy lips and lust-dazed eyes; a little breathy mew of complaint rips free of his throat that sounds ridiculous coming from such a big man, and I can’t help but think there’s nothing in this world more captivating than this absolute suicidal weirdo.
“He’s using you to fuck with me, you know that, right?” I prod, needing to confirm that Leo at least understands that much. I don’t bother to keep my voice low, unafraid of Dan hearing us. Let him. I want him to know I’m not falling for any of his shit. I’ve known the man all my life, and he can’t hide from me, not when it matters, and this, Leo, nothing matters more than him.
Leo gives me a wry smile as if he’s amused by the question. “That’s part of it, yeah,” he allows. “But it isn’t all of it. He’s lost control of so much; I can’t blame him for trying to take some of it back.”
I scrunch up my nose at him, more than a little sceptical of that shit. “Pissing me off by threatening you is giving him back control?”
Leo rolls his shoulders in a slow shrug. “Sometimes throwing off someone else’s balance makes you feel steadier.”
“That is one of the stupidest true things anyone has ever said,” I tell him sardonically. “Congratulations. You get the Nobel this year.”
Leo pulls a face. “Not sure if Profound Fuckery is one of the categories for the Nobels.”
“Notyet. But you just see what happens when they get a good look at all those signatures on my petition. You’ll be drinking champagne out of a massive trophy and fending off geek groupies in no time, don’t you worry about it.”
Leo stares at me like I’m the insane one here. “I mean. Just. There are so many problems with all of that, I can’t even. Drinking champagne out of a trophy? Am I winning a Nobel Prize or the World Cup final? Also, what the hell are ‘geek groupies’? Explain yourself now, I demand it.”
“Some people think being smart is sexy; I don’t know what to tell you, Leo, it is what it is, and I’m not about to go around shaming anyone for their preferences.”
