I become aware of the warmth of him through our clothing and the way his breathing rises and falls under my hands. The smell of him is clean, kind of like pine, something I’ve noticed before but never from this close. His thumb is moving across the back of my skull, barely there. I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it. But I like it, a lot.
My grief is still there but something else is pushing through it, something warm and physical, not to mention kind of wrong for such a serious moment.
I drop my head back, just enough to see his face and his eyes are on me. The seriousness I’m used to with him is absent, and what’s left is something I haven’t seen before. For a moment, he seems open and unguarded.
His gaze drops to my mouth, then returns to my eyes, almost like he’s asking permission.
My stomach tightens as something electric runs through me, and I know he feels it too because he pulls me tighter. A blast of warmth heats my face, and I hope like hell I’m not blushing too much.
He lets me go.
Not abruptly, but carefully. His hands leave my hair and he takes one step back, just enough to break the circuit flowing between us. His expression is already returning to the old Sting, all control and walls going back up.
But his eyes. His eyes haven’t caught up with the rest of his face.
I stand in the corridor with my hands empty and I think,Goddammit.
“Let’s get the others,” I say in a breathy voice that I’m trying to hide. “I’d like to lay this out once, for all of us.”
Sting looks at me for another beat. Then he nods and walks away.
I collapse against the wall, my back flat against the cool surface, and breathe.
Focus.
19
VI
Twenty minuteslater in the skylight room, I’m standing and the guys are sitting, like we’re in a conference room somewhere and I’m making them a big pitch. Which, I kind of am. It’s a change from how things usually are, and while nobody says anything, I know not to push things too hard.
Iknownot to. But that doesn’t mean I won’t. They need to understand how fucking serious I am, even if I’m stepping out of line. When all is said and done, I’m still just a Runt, and I have pretty much zero authority over anything, including myself.
So I make my case to the guys, step by step, starting with explaining that Alice has more of Dad’s documents hidden in a bad part of the Rot, in a sealed-off department store. All I have to say is No Man’s Land, and the guys exchange looks. They know what that means, certainly better than I do.
They know the risks of venturing there, and they’re weighing whether learning about my father is worth the danger. While I think it is, of course, I can only guess what kind of hell that section of the Rot has become over the years. I mean, this partof it, that we currently inhabit, is hardly a picnic. Who the hell knows what lies on the other side.
Are the people who wander there, who don’t belong, at risk of being jumped? Or worse?
I don’t even want to know how Alice got Dad’s stuff there, and what she had to go through to do it.
I explain what’s at stake. The papers we’ve seen are a partial picture. They show Dad flagging corruption and show him being ignored. But they’re incomplete. They stop before the story ends. Whatever Alice has could be the rest, the part that connects the names to the money and decisions that turned Rothwell into what it is now.
I tell them the risks so they know I understand, without minimizing or softening anything. We’re looking at contested territory, where there’s no authority, and the possibility of confrontation.
“On top of that, there’s the real chance that we go in there and find nothing, or find something that doesn’t help. I just want you to know I understand all this,” I tell them.
I’m not going to beg, I’m just making a case. And I’m good at making cases.
Armen listens, still and absorbing. When I finish, he asks two questions. How deep into the sealed section? And does Alice know the exact location, or an approximate one?
I give him what I have. Exact location, yes. She described a maintenance hatch behind an old stockroom. She’s been there before, just not in a long time.
He nods and says nothing else.
Rogue is leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed and his head tilted. His expression is unreadable. Not hostile but not supportive either, just the normal Rogue look that means he’s taking everything in. Or he’s already come to a conclusion and is keeping it to himself until the timing is right.
Not surprisingly, Sting is hard, solid, and unmovable.
