Ann Aguirre - Mortal Danger

“Are you screwing with me?” he asked finally.

“What? No!” I was honestly offended. God, this is so backward. Isn’t he supposed to be able to tell when a girl’s into him? “You remember I asked you to kiss me, right? Maybe it wasn’t anything to you, but that was kind of a big deal for me.”

After I said it, I wondered what Wedderburn would make of this. Kian was supposed to be making me fall for him, and this was the kind of thing I’d say if his efforts were paying off. So maybe it didn’t matter that his boss might be listening to how we really felt. Well, how I did, anyway. The constant tension and uncertainty was excruciating.

He didn’t say anything straight off but at the first opportunity, he pulled into a convenience store parking lot. After he stopped the car, his knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, but not before I saw that he was shaking. Okay, what the hell. Kian didn’t look at me, his gaze fixed straight ahead. A liquor store next door had a broken neon sign, so it flashed red across his skin in stutters and skips.

“After my life imploded,” he said softly, “I tried not to feel anything because it only seemed to get worse, until … well, you know where I hit bottom. And when. Working for Wedderburn is like … limbo. I have a life, but it doesn’t belong to me. And … I don’t have a great track record.”

First crush equals dead girl, check. That should’ve given me pause, but I didn’t think he had anything to do with that. Maybe there was a hidden monkey’s paw after all, or like he’d said, she was a victim of the opposition. Her death got him demoted from catalyst to indentured drone, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to get her killed on purpose.

Unless he didn’t know his fate was tied to hers until it was too late …

“I don’t have any track record,” I answered. “Unless you count that kiss.”

He shifted so I couldn’t see his eyes. “There was that summer guy, Ryu. Do you still talk to him?”

Are you jealous? But it seemed cruel to ask. “Yeah, now and then.”

Should I reassure him? Hard to know when I had no idea what was happening between us or if I should even want the things I did from him.

Roughly, he whispered, “Our kiss meant something to me, too. But I thought once you knew I could’ve helped you before you hit extremis, it would change things.”

“I’m not pissed, if that’s what you mean. I was shocked . It’s horrible, knowing you saw everything firsthand. But … if it doesn’t make you think less of me—”

“Why would it? It’s all on them, not you.” But I could hear the doubt in his voice.

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I am afraid.” Those three measured words sounded dredged from the bottom of his soul, limned in shadow and salt.

“Of what?”

“Having you. Losing you.”

“I don’t understand.”

I wanted to touch him, and for the first time, I felt bold enough. Reaching over, I brushed the hair out of his face, and he turned instinctively, nestling his cheek into my palm. The heat of his skin felt incredible, as if a small star burned at his heart. I traced downward, conscious that it wasn’t his true face I was touching. On the surface, he was heartbreakingly beautiful, but that wasn’t the core of him. Instead, he was a bundle of fears and scars, and I was so afraid I could love those imperfections.

“It’s two sides of the same coin. Right now, there’s nothing they can take from me.” He lifted his shoulders in a graceful shrug. “Even the cabin was just a place where I lived, so it didn’t matter when it burned. WM&G wrote me a check today. I’ll buy a condo this time.”

This time implied that Dwyer & Fell had gone after him before, probably trying to mess up somebody else’s timeline. That raised the question of who, why, and when. Kian had never told me about the other catalysts he worked with, before being assigned solely to me. Maybe one of them got too attached to him, so Dwyer & Fell tried to take Wedderburn’s pawn. From that angle, it wasn’t hard to understand his reservations.

But I tested my theory to be sure I was right. “If you let yourself care about me, you’ll have something to lose.”

“It might even be part of Wedderburn’s plan. To get me so wrapped up in you that I’ll do anything he asks, anything to keep you safe.”

Anything was a big, deep hole of a word, an abyss Kian could fall into without ever hitting bottom, and I saw cognition of that in the sorrowful gaze he turned on me. His voice dropped, so low I could barely hear it over the air pushing through the vents. “I’m not far from that point now. God only knows how I’d be if you were mine.”

Before I could think better of it, I opened the glove box and pulled out the tin he’d used to seal the car before. I started on my side and he quickly did the same, catching on to my desire for privacy.

I shifted in my seat, bracing for his response. “Maybe we should find out. I don’t want to pretend to date you to fool the people at my school. I don’t want to fake it for Wedderburn’s sake, either.” Freezing, I wondered if I was horrible for checking. “Wait, will this count as a favor?”

“Wedderburn might be pissed if he found out I didn’t frame it that way, but he told me to get close to you. I can finesse this. So come on, Edie, tell me what you want already.”

“You. I don’t care if it’s a bad idea, which … it probably is for lots of reasons. Things are already so screwed up and I just want to be happy for a while.”

“You think you could be with me?”

“It’s always good when we’re together. Even when it’s scary.”

“Oh God. I’ll probably regret this, but…” He trailed off and cupped his hand around the back my neck, pulling me toward him in a kiss that put the first one to shame.

He was all tender care mingled with urgent demand. Before I knew it, I was practically in his lap. He ran his hands over my back and shoulders, like he didn’t believe he had the right to touch me, but I never felt as if he were admiring his own creation, more like he couldn’t get close enough, or couldn’t believe I was real.

I knew the feeling.

“You’re a coma dream, aren’t you?” I whispered, leaning my forehead against his.

“Hope not. This is the happiest I’ve been in years. But I suppose that’s not a strong counter to your claim.”

I could’ve kissed him all night, but he’d picked me up because he had something important to show me. “I hate myself for saying this, but don’t we need to be somewhere?”

He wore a smile I could only describe as loopy. “Right.”

Kian started the car and merged with the evening traffic. The silence between us was odd, but not awful. He kept glancing over at me and smiling, as if I were a wish he’d made that unexpectedly came true. We were almost there when I realized he was heading for Wedderburn, Mawer & Graf. At this hour on a Saturday, if it was a company like any other, there would be few people in the office building. Somehow I didn’t think the devil—or whatever Wedderburn was—kept normal office hours.

“Will this get you in trouble?” The last time we entered the building, he used a code to activate the elevator. With that, plus the tracker in his watch and regular surveillance, I didn’t see how he could avoid getting caught.

His smile faded. “I’m not showing you anything against the rules, Edie. This is … I’ve been instructed to offer you this. As a gift.”

But he seemed none too sure of my reaction, and I gnawed my lip as he led me through the creepy beige lobby to the elevator bank. Inside, a completely nondescript melody tinkled from poor speakers. Kian pulled out his phone and keyed in a different code by pressing different buttons on the elevator keypad, so many of them that I lost track. Eventually, the doors swished open and we got off. The silence was almost more ominous than the muffled screaming had been. Monochrome seemed to be the unifying theme in WM&G décor; this corridor was gray, unnervingly so, and there was only one door, as far as I could tell. A short corridor led up to it, making me think it must be a huge room, easily the width of the building.