"Sure did."
"Well," I clear my throat, "When I told him, there was a split second where it was like a shadow fell over his face. His eyes turned almost black, all the ambery gold drowned out by it. He covered it quickly, hiding that part of him, likely not to terrify me even further than I already was. But I saw, just for a second, the reason they gave him that awful name. I think he was more afraid of it than I was."
He looks down at his watch, putting the car back into gear, "Cormac isderanged. The place he goes to when he's killing someone, I can't imagine what kind of man it takes to live inside his head and remain somewhat normal. But he’s?—“
"I don't think you should be telling me this if you're trying to convince me to care about him," I mumble.
He laughs, harsh and loud as he makes a U-turn. “I’m not trying to convince you of anything. You don’t need me to tell you that he’s a good person beneath the layers of unhinged, violent protectiveness.”
"So that’s the point of this little kidnapping, heart-to-heart routine? To tell me it’s okay to care about him? To give me fucking permission?”
“What do you mean?” he asks. “We're just chit-chatting until it's time to go back. And you don't seem the type to wanna talk about the weather."
I can feel my eye twitching, annoyed at his flippancy when we'veclearlybeen having a deeper conversation than just— "You call airing out my dirty laundry and trying to pry into my head chit-chat?"
As he gains speed, he looks at me from the corner of his eye, "Yup. If we had more time, we could talk about your mommy issues. What is she on, husband number eight, now? But that doesn't seem like the kind of conversation that occurs between two people who've only met a few times and one of those times was when you were getting finger fucked by my friend and watching me beat the shit out of someone.”
"Oh, mygod." I bury my face in my hands.
Skyler falls into a fit of genuine laughter, adding, "Maybe next time."
"For just a minute, I thought maybe that would be something wenever, evertalk about," I groan. "I hopedsomethingwould be off limits."
He waits for a beat before responding, "Do you mean the mommy issues... or the other thing?"
"Shut up."
"Listen," he taps on the steering wheel to the beat of the music. "You're not the first or last person to get off on the fights. And I'll be honest. I don't hate it. I make hundreds of people come without ever even touching them."
"Oh, Jesus Christ."
"We have a whole cleaning crew that's just for bodily fluids," he grins.
I want to throw up.
"But you don't need to worry about that," he adds. "No one but you has ever been in that seat. It's reserved for you every night."
"Every night?"
"Yeah, basically since we opened.”
"Why?"
With a stutteredummm,he answers, "I think you can probably figure that out on your own,Danaan."
The short car ride back to Mingle is heavy with silence. One Skyler doesn't seem to notice at all.
When we're only a minute or two away, I gather the courage to ask a question. "How did you know all that stuff?"
"Cormac might do the killing, but he’s not the only one with a penchant for information gathering. We’re a team,” he explains. “I mostly work from the outside doing the techy stuff and I keep his ass from getting caught. Cutting cameras. Destroying evidence. I can do almost everything except the whole taking a life thing. I don't have the stomach for it like he does. It takes an exceptionally brave person to embrace the killer inside them and be able to look in the mirror the next morning."
"If you keep him from getting caught, how did they get him?”
For the first time, I see Skyler's face twist into something real, a deep well of guilt opening up as we pull into an alley behind the club, "They didn't, though, did they? Nothing concrete enough to keep him. I'm more concerned about whoever got the drop on him in his own house. Idiot wouldn't let me set up any fucking security there."
I don't know what drives me to say it, but there's not a doubt in my mind that he needs to hear it. "It wasn't your fault."
"Yeah," he clears his throat. "It was."
