Wren smiled. “All clear?”
“All clear,” Blu parroted before mimicking the noise of a snore.
Teddy huffed out a laugh, mostly to cover up how shaken he was by the contact and the moment between them. Wren was like a drug to him. Just a couple of days with him and he was back to where he’d started. Consumed by him.
“Excellent,” Wren said, pulling away from Teddy and stalking toward the back door. He moved like a shadow, Teddy thought as he trailed after him, feeling clumsy and loud in comparison.
“Wren, wait,” Teddy whispered after him. “Just…”
“No time to wait.” Wren pulled something out of his pocket and crouched until he was eye level with the lock.
He pushed a long, thin object into the lock and started wiggling it around.
“You have a lock-pick in your pocket?” Teddy asked, running a hand over his face. “What am I saying—of course you have a lock-pick in your pocket.”
“I like being prepared.”
“For crime.”
“If that’s what you want to call it. I call it an upgrade.” Wren shrugged, throwing a smile over his shoulder that had Teddy weak at the knees.
The lock clicked and Wren pushed the door open, pocketing his crime tool and walking inside like he owned the place. There were no alarms, no warning signs, nothing that would make it feel like they were doing something wrong.
And yet, as he followed Wren, watching him poke and prod and shuffle things around, he couldn’t help but feel that thrill of working beside him. They’d had so little chance at Nexus. Teddy was certain a specific someone had had a lot of say in that, as they were usually assigned to separate groups in practice cases.
But sometimes there was no avoiding it and they had to work together. It was those days Teddy had loved best. Wren worked like he was made of magic. Every restless thing inside him would quiet down and focus on the task. Every ounce of strength he didn’t even know he had would come out to play. He was small. He looked fragile. People thought him breakable. And sure, maybe in some ways he was.
But in all the ways that counted to be a good cursebreaker, Wren was a miracle. He located the curses faster than anyone, he honed his skill to cause the least amount of pain possible. While others just looked to get the job done, Wren worked to get the animals back to health, and it made all the difference.
It wasn’t a surprise that Teddy had tested as compatible with Saint, because he had the same compassion Wren did. The same respect for life Wren did. Those similarities had served as a comfort to Teddy for years, because in his mind they were proof that had they been allowed to test for compatibility, he and Wren would have been a match. He just knew it.
He watched him now as an adult and found the same reverence, the same blind focus. He touched the cages with careand gentleness, brushed feathers and hair and scales with no discrimination.
He baby-talked the slimy and cooed at the too-many-legged, and all the while Teddy knew he was laser focused as he went through ledgers, drawers, and papers, and looked for secret compartments and mismatched numbers. He was beautiful when he worked. He made every hair on Teddy’s body stand up. He made his skin prickle with admiration and his heart sigh with adoration.
Wren huffed and broke Teddy out of his thoughts, putting his hands on his hips in the middle of the room.
“Anything?”
Wren shook his head. “As much as I hate pet shops on principle, the animals seem to be in good health and well cared for. I don’t see any evidence of deliberate participation in whatever bullshit this drug ring is doing. If they had a cursed animal here I’d bet anything they had zero clue what it was and just treated it like a regular job.”
“Well—” Teddy started, but Wren’s phone interrupted. He watched Wren pull it out of his pocket and was reminded of the silence of his own phone.
The silence that had stretched too long. The kind of silence he might have thought would be a comfort. Instead, it just made him jittery and aware of the fact that it would probably be broken with an explosion rather than the dreaded ping.
“Fuck,” Wren muttered.
Teddy frowned. “What?”
Wren walked over and turned the phone toward him, a text open on his screen.
Unknown: Looking at the wrong place.
The text was followed by a location share.
“Is that…?”
“Jackass won’t relent.”
