Devon Monk - Hell Bent

I was not paying attention to him. Because I was angry, and angry only led to hungry, and most days, like say when Clyde was not telling me what I could and couldn’t do, I liked him.

“...to see you both check in here if you’re staying. We’ll need to come up with protection plans,” he was saying. “You remember there’s a meeting in a few hours with the Overseer, right?”

“We’ll be there,” Terric promised, as if I weren’t standing in the room. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Clyde pushed up onto his feet. “You and I square, Flynn?”

“Not really.” Like I said, he and I did not bullshit each other.

“You know what I don’t get about you?” he said.

“How I get all the chicks?”

“How after years of doing jack-all, you finally decide that today, and this one thing, is something you’re going to apply yourself to. The one damn thing I have to tell you not to do.”

“I could come up with other damn things you wouldn’t want me to do.”

“I’d rather you put your energy into staying alive.”

“Yeah. Well, that’s not really my thing.”

“When you decide what your thing is?” He stepped toward the door and fixed me with a look. “Warn me, okay?”

“Now, where’s the fun in that?” I asked.

I dropped the Mute spell with a slash of my hand, and black light snapped across my rings.

Clyde shook his head and walked out the door.

“Shame,” Terric said before I could take a step. “You and I have a meeting this morning.”

“I heard. I’m not going anywhere until then.”

He nodded. “And lunch. With Dessa.”

“Don’t need you to be my secretary, Ter.”

He was still sitting behind his desk, fingers resting lightly on the surface. “Good. I’ll be out in a minute.” He swiveled his chair so he could stare out at the city.

Dawn was rubbing the black off the sky. Looked like it wasn’t going to rain for a change.

I left him to his moping and joined the others in the main room.

Dessa and Dash seemed to have hit it off pretty well, laughing over something—I think a recent movie.

I wondered how much information she’s gotten out of him. Knowing Dash, zero.

She was drinking a cup of coffee, and looking . . . well, comfortable.

When she saw me coming and gave me that smile? Something inside me went warm and my heart tapped a hard beat.

What was wrong with me? It’s not like I’d never seen a beautiful woman before. But her smile. That smile. For me. It was undiscovered country and I wanted that. Wanted to make her smile.

Those thoughts set off alarms in my head. The warm feeling in my chest felt a lot like happiness. Maybe even hope. Two things that had never worked out well for me.

Things that might be best ignored.

“You two seem to have gotten chummy,” I said.

Dash leaned against one of the empty desks. I wondered, not for the first time, why we had so damn many desks that no one ever sat at.

“Good coffee, good company,” Dash said. “So, what’s the word?”

I shook my head. “We’re not going to pursue this.”

Dash nodded and took a drink of his coffee, keeping an eye on Dessa. He had excellent instincts.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

I sat on the edge of an empty desk and stuck my hands in my jacket pockets. “I don’t know how much research you’ve done on the Authority, but you must know that we have rules, structure, policies. We work inside the law. Yes, we kept Joshua’s death quiet for a few hours, but we’re getting the police involved. We’re turning the investigation of his death—and who killed him—over to them.”

Dash stood. “I’ll start making calls.” He strolled off to his office, stopping to talk with Clyde, who was on his cell phone near the far window.

“Really?” she said. “This is how you’re going to play it?”

“Isn’t a game, darling. We’ve had our see of things, and we’ll be turning all information over to the police. You’re welcome to come along if you’d like.”

She stood. Left her coffee behind. Stepped up in my space.

My body responded to her: heartbeat, blood, breath. Pounding. Needful.

I didn’t let it show. But I wanted to. Wanted to smile, and draw her in, and kiss her again until her clothes fell off.

“If you’re lying to me,” she said.

“I’m not.”

She studied my face, the corners of her mouth pulling just slightly downward. Searching for my tell.

“This isn’t my poker face,” I said. “This is my truth face. We’re off this case. Now, if you want to make everyone’s life a little easier, you could go talk to Mr. Turner over there and tell him what you know about . . . everything.”

She placed her hand on my knee. Heat scorched across my body. And I held my breath on a groan.

Keep it cool, Shamus. Keep it cool.

“You’re going to take orders from him?”

“Today I am.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow looks good too.”

For a second, her mask slipped, and the woman who was grieving for the brother she loved was standing there, with hope breaking in her eyes. “So you’re telling me no. Again.”

“That’s the way it has to be.”

She glanced over my shoulder. Terric was still in his office watching the sun rise on the end of his career. Dash and Clyde had closed themselves in Dash’s smaller office.

No help there.

“Shame,” she began. “You could give me a list of names, and I’ll take it from there. I can stay out of the way. Out of your way, out of the way of the police investigation. Please. You won’t even see me.”

There she was again, the woman behind the mask. The one who was willing to do anything to see that her brother’s killer was taken down. The one who rescued purple turtles for babies.

“Who says I don’t want to see you?” I said softly.

“Do you?”

What was I thinking? The best thing I could do for her—the best thing I could do for anyone—was keep them far away from me and my hunger.

“Well, we do have a lunch date,” I said, trying to keep it light.

“Yes,” she said. “We do.”

“I’m not going to give you any information, though,” I said.

“I understand that. I’m sure we’ll find something else to talk about.”

“Good. Oh, and, Dessa, if I were you, I’d give up on the revenge business.”

She shook her head and lifted her hand away from my knee. “No,” she said quietly, “you wouldn’t.”

I gave her half a smile before she turned to walk away. She was absolutely right. When it came to revenge, there was nothing on this earth that could stop me.

Dessa said good-bye to Dash, got the address of the pizza place, and was gone.

“Maybe you should invest in a bulletproof vest,” Dash said as he picked up the stray coffee cups and returned them to the coffee station.

“Wouldn’t do me any good,” I said. “I don’t think she’d aim at my heart.”

“Bulletproof jockstrap?”

I grinned. “Helmet. I think if I really crossed her, she’d take me down with one clean shot.”

He chuckled and walked off tugging at the cuffs of his shirt. The windows were bright enough, there was no use denying day had arrived. The pulse of the city was pumping.

I sat at one of the empty desks and tried to push the spike of hunger away. Nothing here to consume, Flynn. No one deserved that kind of death.

I rolled my fingers, grinding the rings between them, the metallic scrape becoming a rhythm to cover the song of the living. I closed my eyes and tried to lose myself to it.

Dash set something down beside me with a clunk.

I opened my eyes.