“Oh, just some people, right. You’re not one of those kinky heathens, then?”
“Accept your Nobel Prize and find out, I guess.”
Rohan smashes his hand against the van’s horn and sticks his head out the driver’s side window to glare at us.
“Hey, arseholes!” he shouts. “Let’s get a fucking move on before my dad literally dies of old age before we get the chance to murder him!”
I thrust my hand out and flip him off without a word. Leo rolls his eyes good naturedly and shoves my shoulder. “Go on,” he says, “sit up front with snippy. I better stay in the back with Dan to make sure he behaves.”
There’s nothing on this Earth that would make me feel comfortable and normal about that, but Leo isn’t asking, he’s telling, and so there’s fuck all I can do regardless.
I swoop in to steal one last hard kiss, holding my mouth over Leo’s until he’s breathless and flushed. He smiles, wide and sunny, at me when I pull back. I let myself smile too despite the fact there’s still this gnawing sense of dread in my gut.
Leo spins around and climbs into the van to babysit Dan, leaving me no other choice than to do as he says and join Rohan at the front. I wouldn’t put it past Rohan to drive off without me, so I’m quick about shoving my way into the passenger seat next to him. Predictably, Rohan starts the van before I’ve even closed my door behind me. Prick.
We drive the rest of way with minimal breaks, everyone taking turns to drive except Leo, who remains stubbornly by Dan’s side the whole time, like some sort of loyal Disney animal-sidekick character. I’m not sure how my life got to the point where I’ve legit fallen in love with Flounder from the Little Mermaid, but here we are.
Hours later, we park up on the side of the road about half a mile from where Ian Stone is holding up in what is, according to Rohan, one of his many houses. It’s in the countryside, sitting on the edge of a cliff.
After over half a day of travel, everyone is irritable and in need of stretching their legs. Dan stays inside the van while the rest of us form a circle outside to formulate a plan of action. First up is deciding who’s actually going on the mission.
“We can’t let Damon or Dan anywhere near Ian Stone or Obsidian Inc.,” Leo says. “Not when they can control them just by speaking.”
There’s really no disputing that. It would be pointless to go in there after Stone with two fully compromised people who wouldturn on the rest of us as soon as they’re ordered to by anyone who’s been injected with the green control drug.
“Okay, fair,” Rex says. He jerks a thumb back at the van. “But who’s going to tell the angriest mutant that he needs to stay here with Damon and me.”
Rex doesn’t have to tell us out loud that there’s no chance in hell he’s leaving his boyfriend alone with Dan.
Leo winces a little, half turning to look at the van doors contemplatively. “I’ll go talk to him about it.” He walks back over to the van, getting inside and shutting the door behind him so his conversation with Dan will be as private as it possibly could be, given that two of us on the outside have super-hearing.
I stifle the ridiculous jealousy that threatens to rise up inside me over … I don’t even know what. How much Leo seems to give a shit about my brother? It’s beyond insane to feel threatened by Leo being his typical overly empathetic self.
Still, the urge to listen in, to know exactly what the two most important people in my life are saying to each other, is stupidly overwhelming. I don’t, but only because Rohan is giving me a knowing look that has my hands twitching into fists, replacing the need to eavesdrop with a more familiar need to cut my knuckles on his teeth.
Around five minutes later, Leo emerges from the van and joins us again. He seems relaxed and satisfied with whatever went down in the van with Dan, which makes me want to shake him until his bones break loose and rattle under his skin.
“He promised to behave,” Leo says. He seems bizarrely confident about the legitimacy of that “promise,” considering who it originated from.
“Oh, yeah, sure, of course,” Rex says, nodding sarcastically. “I forgot we were traveling with the world-renowned mutant whisperer.”
Leo flips him off but doesn’t otherwise comment on the barb.
***
Ian Stone probably owns at least two dozen houses all over the world. I haven’t seen his property portfolio, so I can’t say for certain if this one is the ugliest mini-mansion he’s bought with his blood-soaked billions, but I’d guess it has to be up there, top five at least.
“That,” I say, wrinkling my nose in distaste, “is one ugly fucking house.”
“Yeah,” Leo agrees. “You’d think someone with his sort of money would be able to afford a house that doesn’t look like a very exclusive, hardcore prison.” He makes a face. “What is it with rich megalomaniacs and obnoxiously evil real estate?”
“Answered your own question, there,” Rohan says dryly. “One plus one equals two.”
Ugly as it might be on the surface, Stone’s house is still protected by a state-of-the-art security system. Luckily for us, we have the literal super genius on our team who created that state-of-the-art security system, and he is more than capable of hacking into it from the outside with a laptop that we nicked from an empty, far less secure house.
Once Rohan has taken down the house’s defenses, we move in. There are a few OI guards looming around, but they’re easy enough to subdue as we go about relieving them of their weapons and communication devices. Leo winces when I snap their necks, ever the softhearted, whereas Rohan just leans against the wall looking vaguely bored. The contrast between Leo’s muted distress at the casual violence to Rohan’s impatient disinterest is almost funny. I don’t laugh if only because it will upset Leo more if he thinks I’m taking murder any less seriously than I usually do.
We break in through the first-story window round the back of the building, climbing into the kitchen one at a time, withRohan taking the lead. He’s been to this house before, so at least he knows the layout. I stay close to Leo, resisting the protective urge to throw a tea towel over his head and shove him behind me. As if he can sense my struggle, Leo allows my hovering and bumps his shoulder against mine, a gesture clearly meant to soothe. It’s annoying how much it works.
