I take a purposeful step back from the situation and shove at Dan instead, herding him into the van, leaving Damon and Jack to follow after us because they’re fully grown adults who can look after themselves. Dan, surprisingly, lets himself be semi-manhandled and even sits next to me on the bench in the back of the van without complaint. I choose to take that as a good omen for whatever crap storm is about to commence when we get to the safe house.
***
North is waiting for us at the safe house along with Dru, my aunt, and Agent Green as well as a few other nameless agents who are guarding the perimeter. My shattering relief over Anabelle is short-lived once we start debriefing each other. North and Anabelle let us go first, telling them the (mostly) full story of what happened with Ian Stone. In exchange, they tell us the result of OI’s attack on FISA’s base and what came after that, all the information they have on our current position. It turns out FISA was able to beat back the OI insurgents without too many losses, eventually driving them out, but a lot of people were dosed with the control drug during the attack.
When I ask about how the team Anabelle sent after the machine got on, there’s more bad news.
“So what you’re saying is, Ian Stone is dead, but we’re still royally fucked?” Jack says bluntly, a sardonic expression twisting his handsome face, like there’s a cosmic joke playing out right in front of him that he’s reluctantly amused by.
North heaves a sigh that only sounds about half as annoyed as usual. He all but picked Rohan up and slammed the smaller man into the porch railing of the safe house when we got here. It was only the sight of Damon that seemed to stop North from either strangling or fucking Rohan right then and there out of fear over almost losing him.
“Eloquently put as always, Agent Roth,” North says dryly, “but yes, that would be accurate. The location your brother gave us was a trap meant to secure the Liquid Onyx survivors we sent to shut down the drug dispersing machine.”
“And it worked, right?” Jack presses. “All the supers have been dosed?”
“Unfortunately, again, yes,” North confirms. “At least six Liquid Onyx survivors are now under OI’s control.”
Dru frowns, looking up from where she’d been clacking away at her laptop ever since we grouped together in the kitchen. “But will they even be able to follow through on the plan without Ian Stone?”
Jack makes a derisive noise in the back of his throat, and I shoot him a quelling look, jumping in before he can say something scathing and unhelpful.
“Ian Stone might have been king dickhead at OI, but he was never the only dickhead there. Pretty sure the other OI directors will be pushing full steam ahead. We still need to find the machine and shut it down.”
Anabelle stands at the centre of the room with her hands lightly clasped in front of her. She’s as composed as a cathedralstatue, not one hair out of place, not a single wrinkle in her green silk shirt or black trousers. She tilts her chin up, fixing first Jack and then me with a querying stare.
“Do you think Dan might know the real location of the machine?” she asks.
Anabelle and North both insisted that Dan could not be part of our initial debrief. I tried to argue it, but I was easily outvoted, so Dan was taken to a different room in the house and left there. Dan didn’t seem bothered by the easy banishment, only promising not to chew on the furniture, that signature smirk on his face.
Jack looked torn between wanting to stay with his brother and needing to get as far away from him as possible. It’s becoming increasingly clear to be that however all this turns out, it’s going to be a mess to untangle in the aftermath.
“Maybe,” I say cautiously. It’s difficult to guess what Dan’s real motives are, considering we have no clue how much OI has influenced his decisions. They could have ordered him to do all of this or just some of it, and it’s not like he’d know the full truth even if he was willing to tell it to us.
Rohan pushes away from where he’s been leaning against the kitchen island and crosses his arms, darting a contemplative look at the door to the living room, where Dan is waiting. He can likely hear this entire conversation, which is why I thought it pointless to keep him out of this meeting in the first place.
“There’s a chance he knows,” Rohan says. “IfIever did, I can’t remember it. There are gaps in my memories, times when they must have ordered me to forget what I saw or did for them. But they had Dan on a looser leash than me and might have been less studious about hiding information from him.”
Rex shrugs from his place next to Damon on the other side of the room. “It’s worth asking. Not like we have much choice here.”
Damon nods in agreement with his boyfriend. “Real question is, if he does know, how can we get him to tell us?”
That question is met with a lot of tense, pensive looks from almost everyone. Jack is the only one who seems to think the answer is obvious. He gives me an aggrieved scowl, jerking his chin at the door, at his brother.
“Go on, then,” he says. “If he’s gonna to tell anyone, it’s you, Leo.” He sounds incredibly mixed up about it, both frustrated and resigned to the inevitable in equal measure.
Anabelle’s penetrating stare switches to me, icy examination in her gaze, like she’s trying to freeze the explanation out of me.
Rohan, having come to the same conclusion as Jack, nods slowly, eyes slipping from me to the door and back again. “He’s right, Snow. Roth’s imprinted on you like a mutant duckling. Go seduce my brother into defecting sides, or whatever.” He smiles at me like an arsehole. “We know you’re good at that if nothing else.” He doesn’t even glance at Jack, which somehow makes it more insulting rather than less.
I resist the very strong urge to tell him to do one, but only because I feel like he’d find that more entertaining than if I ignore the implied insult. When I first found out that Rohan is related to Jack, I thought it was mind-blowing, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder how I didn’t see it on my own. They’re scarily similar in the worst ways.
“Do you think there’s a chance he might tell you the real location of the machine, Agent Snow?” North asks me, slapping down some of that perfunctory professionalism that might just be the thing that saves us all.
I want to deny it outright, but Rex is right that we’re very low on options right now, so I force myself to consider it seriously. Whatever it might have seemed like on the outside, all Dan’s reactions to me have been inexplicably tied to his feelingstoward Jack. It isn’t really about me, which means I have no idea how to use it in my favour to get Dan to tell me anything.
“Worst thing he can say is no,” I allow, agreeing because there’s no better choice than this.
“Actually, the worst thing he can do is send us into another fucking trap,” Rex comments archly, which I ignore even though he’s not wrong.
