He sighed loudly and hit Answer. “Sawyer here.”
“Nice of you to answer. Should I call off the search party?”
“I wasn’t?—”
“You fucking answer when I call. You got that?”
Ciaran growled, clearly having heard what Hadeom said. It made Sawyer smile.
“Like I told you before,” Sawyer said. “I said I’d report back when I had something to actually report back about.”
“So there’s nothing,” Hadeom said. “Nothing out of the ordinary?”
Sawyer smiled at Ciaran. Hell, he damn near laughed. “Not a thing. I can’t even issue parking tickets because no one here drives.”
Hadeom was silent for a second. “You weren’t sent there to issue traffic citations.”
Sawyer was tempted to ask him exactly why he was sent here, just to make Hadeom say it out loud, but he knew better than that.
“I requested a briefing on each member, and you failed to do that,” Hadeom said.
Member?
“Member of what?” Sawyer asked. “Don’t you mean resident?”
Silence.
“Anyway,” Sawyer added. “Time moves differently here.”
He actually had no clue what day it was.
Hadeom was quiet for a second. “How, exactly? How exactly can the construct of time move differently? Maybe that’s something you could put in your report that you’re still going to send me.”
Sawyer wanted to say so much—so, so much—but he knew if his plan of drawing out his five years was going to work, he had to be patient and placate the man. “Sure.”
“And I want profiles,” he added.
“Sure. I’ve uh... I’ve been spending some time with the locals,” Sawyer said. “Fishing.”
Ciaran smiled, and it made Sawyer’s whole chest grow warm.
“Getting to know them better. It’s been... fun, actually.”
“Fun? You sound like you actually like it there. Jesus.”
Sawyer couldn’t help but smile, meeting Ciaran’s copper-coloured eyes. “I love it here.”
Hadeom made a displeased sound, no doubt sneering. “I shouldn’t actually be surprised. Everyone else can’t wait to leave, said it creeped them out, andyoulove it. Figures.”
Sawyer knew Hadeom was basically calling him a freak, and from the way Ciaran’s jaw clenched, he thought he had, too, but Sawyer decided to take it as a compliment. “Thanks.”
“And you have nothing unusual to report?” Hadeom asked again. “No crazy stories like every cop before you swore was real? You’re saying that Tenebrae Cove is just a sleepy little village where nothing weird ever happens?”
Sawyer met Ciaran’s gaze, and he knew the other guys were watching and waiting for his reply. Oh, there was a hundred things he could, and probably should, report.
The fact that the entire town’s population wasn’t exactly human, that shapeshifting cephamorphs walked amongst them, that time here did in fact not move as it should, that he’d soul-bonded with the leader of a consortium of octo-men. That he’d moved to a town wherenothingwas normal....
Ciaran shrugged, eyes alight with humour, waiting for Sawyer to answer, but all Sawyer could do was try not to laugh.
