22. DONOVAN
Artemis was in the computer lab looking for his next job, something violent, vicious, and able to satisfy the rage inside him. I’d sat with the thought that perhaps the rage came from a place I’d let him see, that it was something I could’ve stopped, or at least shaped. I thought letting him sit at the desk would help him see how much more fun it would be than getting your knuckles busted and bloody. But part of me knew that he would never succumb to that, he would just keep fighting. I’d seen that anger and pain, that need to commit violent acts. It wasn’t easy to notice at first, in fact, I hadn’t wanted to accept it. This life was dangerous, with death working alongside you, and one day, it would come for you instead of the people you were targeting.
I sat beside Reaper in the medical wing. He was getting a vitamin infusion. He’d been in the cages again, making extra cash. He called it his training ground, and I couldn’t be further from wanting in on it.
“You two made it official then,” he said.
“Yeah, and now I just have to worry about him,” I grumbled.One of the fairies came over with their thick fibrous green shakes. It was placed on the table in front of me. “Thanks.” It was like mixing cement, and would harden in an instant.
“It’s why I don’t date,” Reaper said. “I don’t want to be sat thinking someone is going to get hurt because of me. And then, there’s the obvious weak spot in my life. You know how many fuckers would come out of the woodwork if I decided to get a partner.”
“Work or life?” I asked, finally giving the straw a big suck to taste the smoothie.
“You know I ride solo in work,” he said. “And if I did have someone, I wouldn’t tell you, and I wouldn’t say it here.”He glanced around. There were hidden cameras everywhere. The place was bugged up to the eyeballs—but that was to be expected. Mercy’s biggest pull over people was the information she held. If it ever got out, the world would crumble. “I did join a dating app though.”
“Shut up.”
“Just to get laid,” he said. “I’ve started being super honest with people on there.”
“Ok, saying what?”
He snickered. “I hope you’re not hitting on me,” he said. “I think I’d destroy you and that twink.”
I leaned back, sucking more of the smoothie through the straw. “You’re not my type,” I mustered through the intense taste hitting my tongue. Almost choking on it. Reaper laughed, followed by his own round of intense pain as he clutched his ribs. I hadn’t seen the fight he’d gotten into, but I assumed since it was in the cage, something intense had happened—and he won.
Five minutes and half a smoothie later, we’d stopped laughing.
“You should try date someone here,” I told here.
He shook his head. “Mercy told me I wasn’t allowed.”
“Was that before or after Kael?”
Reaper leaned back in the comfy chair, the IV fluid almost empty as he looked at it. “Kael Sinclair,” he grumbled. “We don’t talk about Kael.”
“We talk about me a lot,” I said. “I figured it was time you spilled something.”
Kael Sinclair an illegitimate kid and heir to the Sinclair fortune. From memory, he was the only person who’d ever actually hurt Reaper. He continued to shake his head and screw his eyes, as if object permanence would kick in and I’d leave.
“Do you still speak to him?” I asked.
He shook his head a little faster. “We were never compatible,” he said. “Two tops don’t make a bottom.” Laughter started up again, as did whatever pain he was going through as he pushed a hand under his pit and keeled slightly.
***
The computer lab was on whichever floor the elevator decided it seemed. I never got used to the lack of numbers, or the motion in the elevator. Up or down, for all I knew we could’ve been going side-to-side as well.
It was a quiet place with the soft, creamy finger taps on keyboards. It was lulling almost. I walked around. Some of the fairies were directing through comms, giving advice and information.
I spotted Jinksy, and beside him, Artemis. There were three of them. The other one was Finley, it was a guess. In the mostly dark room with the cool-toned computer screens lighting up their faces from beneath, almost casting menacing shadows.
“I take it you’ve found something,” I said, approaching them.
All three of them looked at me like lemmings, startled by my presence.
“It was all Artemis,” Jinksy said.
His big eyes stared at me, with the biggest smile to match. “I love this system. Everything is here. I can search anyone and find out their entire life.”
