105. Deacon
Chapter 105
Deacon
F inn’s brought a guest home. Holden is siting on my couch, looking at me with just as much resigned acceptance as I’m showing him. I’m struggling not to comment, but Thea is not. “Somebody better start talking fast.” Glancing at her phone, she says, “The guards will be here in five minutes and will treat this as a hostile event.”
I laugh when Finn says, “It’s not a hostile event. I invited them over.”
“If Thea says it’s a hostile event, it is. Your presence is tolerated here Finn, but she can raise or lower the threat level, and revoke your access to the building any time she wants.” Pointing to the Holden, I say, “And she hasn’t given him the all clear, so like she said, talk fast.”
“You said you have something to ask me?” Thea prompts, eyeing the two of them warily.
“It’s more like something to tell you.” Holden says, reaching down to pick up his backpack. “We’ve made some progress on the team building challenge.” Looking at me, he says, “You wanna come closer to see this too?”
Finn flicks on the television and says, “You can cast it on the television. The firewalls here are better than the ones you set up at the dorm.”
Holden looks surprised. What does he think we’re doing here? This place is for Thea’s safety. That includes internet safety. Operations would have a fucking meltdown if there’s even a hint of vulnerability. That includes her social media posts and emails getting hacked by a neighbor.
Holden’s laptop screen appears as he explains what we’re looking at. “I think the reason everyone is struggling with the team building challenge is because it’s a challenge-within-a -challenge. The collaboration efforts should be with multiple committees. We started with your clue, Thea.” He clicks forward through his PowerPoint slides, explaining how it tied into Finn’s missing desk and a safe deposit box, before finally reaching the last slide with a question mark on it.
Nobody says anything when his presentation is over. Finally, I break the silence. “That’s it?”
He counters with, “Did you want more?”
“I was expecting a big reveal. You put a lot of work into this presentation, not to have anything to show us. If everything’s connected, what is the challenge item, and how do the rest of the members of your team get credit for it?”
Holden’s looking at Thea when he says, “There are no other members of the team.”
Her response is immediate. “How many times have I told you? I’m. Not. On. Your. Team.”
He shrugs, “Doesn’t matter how many times you’ve said it. We hit the reset button every time you cum around my dick.”
I do a double take. Did I hear him correctly? I haven’t interacted with Holden much, but he’s always been the quiet one in any group. To be honest, I’m not even sure what I imagined their interactions to be like. I know all about the little predator prey games they play, but for some reason I never considered that dirty talk was included.
“Just because your memory oozes out of your penis doesn’t mean mine does from my vagina.”
He sets his laptop on the end table and says, “Give me thirty minutes in the woods to test that theory.”
Thea turns to me and asks, “Have you heard anything from the other mentors about the prospects forming a super team?”
“The last update I got was that a few groups completed their challenges. But nobody’s given any hints about how they did it or mentioned the group challenges being interconnected.”
She gnaws on her bottom lip, her foot tapping the way it sometimes does when she’s plotting something. “Whatever the challenge item is has to be something valuable to The League. There’s gotta be more clues out there. But how do we find out which team has the ones that go with ours?”
I see the smile on Finn’s face when Thea says ours. Despite what she said about working alone, and being annoyed with them, she hasn’t exactly put in any effort into putting them out. I head to the kitchen to start dinner while they talk about possible leads. This may take a while.
Pax
“You’re sure about this?” The tattoo artists asks, hands hovering over the spot I pointed to on my body.
“Yup.” I sit back and try to relax, drowning out the sound of the needle as he gets to work drawing a new design on my skin. Thea’s scratches will fade, but the inked replicas will be on my cheek bone forever, just like the gold star he’ll etch on my hand where she drew it. The pain is worth knowing that I’ll carry a permanent reminder of her with me wherever I go. No matter what I do, or how things end up, every time someone looks at me, they’ll see that I’m hers.
I resist the urge to flinch at the buzzing so close to my eye. I zone out, letting my mind drift to that day in the gym. We were so close. I was so close to giving us both what we wanted so badly. I was prepared to let her cum all over my face, then I was going to fuck her into oblivion right there on the mats, with nothing to get between us. Something spooked her. I know she wanted control. She had it. But was I too rough? Not compliant enough?
The needle stops and the artist dabs at the area with an alcohol wipe, then resumes his work. It’s not an intricate design, but it’s a lot of tiny little ink pricks to make it look as fine as a scratch mark. I can’t see what he’s doing, but I’ve been coming to Inkscape for years and I trust his work.
He starts again right above the last markings. The vibration of the needle reaches to my jaw bone and eye socket. It’s more irritating than painful. Or maybe I’ve just built up a higher tolerance for the pain over the years. I’d sit here even if it felt like hot needles under my skin, because the result is worth it. The designs express my thoughts and feelings. As a bonus, it pisses my father off.
Every little win counts, but I need a big win. Something that will foil his plans once and for all, and let me get my life back. Unfortunately, that thing doesn’t exist. He’s not careless enough to make a mistake, and I’ve never seen even a hint of a weakness I could exploit.
The buzzing stops again. “Need a break?”
“I’m good.”
“Just a few more strokes and then we’ll be done with this one.”
“I’m in no hurry.” He tilts my head to the left, and gets back to work, while I go back to daydreaming about a life unencumbered.
“Paxton!” I turn at the sound of my name, waiting for her to come to me. I’m sure we look ridiculous standing twenty feet apart, but I’m not moving. Eloise has gotten entirely too comfortable lately. When she doesn’t move, I continue on my way. There’s probably at least one person out here that’ll run off and start a rumor about our “public blow up.” Good. I want Thea to see that I am not now, nor have I ever been Team Eloise.
More thoughts of Thea have me rerouting my steps towards the library. I find Holden on the second floor mezzanine near the back, at Thea’s favorite table. I greet him as I lower myself into a chair. “W’sup, man.”
“Hey.” He stares at my face, the tattoo under the Saniderm bandage more visible at this short distance, and because he misses nothing, he spots the one on my hand as well. “Nice ink.”
“Look here, asshole. This table’s occupied.” Thea says from behind me. I have my hood up, so my neck tattoos are covered. “Just because Holden appeared to be sitting here alone doesn’t mean you can just help yourself to a seat.” I lower my hood as she comes around the table to face me. The books she’s holding hit the table with a loud thunk. “Oh, it’s you.”
“Yes. Me. You want me to leave?”
“That’s on Holden. You’re his friend and, unlike some people, I don’t make demands of who he can and can’t be friends with. But if you’re gonna sit here, we need silence. This is a work table. The fuck off table is two floors down.”
I didn’t bring anything with me to work on. Noticing that, Thea huffs in annoyance and pulls out a legal pad and a textbook for our class. “Do the homework.”
“You want me to do your homework?”
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll check your answers before submitting them.” Pulling the book and legal pad closer, I get to work. I’d rather be here doing an assignment I’ve already completed than to be alone at Vale Tower right now.
“Don’t try to be funny, either, I need to be able to read your-”
“My what?” She’s staring at my hand. Does she know what it is?
“Your handwriting.” She flicks her fingers at my tattoo. “Don’t be bitching about your hand hurting, either. You’re the one who inked up your dominant hand.”
“I didn’t know I’d be writing this evening.”
“There’s a lesson here for future leader you. Prepare for all possible contingencies.”
Finn walks up to us, and says, “Contingencies? Did you fuckers have a planning session without me?”
Thea glares at him. Kissing her cheek, he says, “It goes without saying that they’re the fuckers. Not you.” Taking the chair next to me, he sounds way too excited when he asks, “What are we planning, and do we get to blow shit up? The cliff’s notes version will do.”
He whips out his phone and I ask, “Who are you calling?”
“Cassius. He’s a prick, but he has cool toys. I’m gonna tell him Thea said I can borrow his EMP.”
She hops up and jumps across the table, snatching his phone out of his hand. “Nobody’s planning anything that requires Cass’s toys.” She says, disconnecting the call. “And I’m not so sure I like you associating with him.”
“You don’t?” Finn asks, holding his hand out for his phone.
“No, and I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I think he’s a bad influence on you.”
I can’t help but laugh. It’s loud and the most carefree it’s been in ages. Thea scowls at me. “What’s so funny?”
“You’re saying somebody out there is a bad influence on this guy?” I hook my thumb towards Finn. “The prince of blood and destruction? The guy who the high council worries is a psychopath?”
“That’s not funny.”
“No?” I tease. “Then what about the hypocrisy of what you just said? When you saw me sitting here, you said you don’t control Holden’s friendships.”
“I don’t. Finn’s not Holden. And if you actually knew Cassius, you’d be worried about them becoming characters in an unhinged buddy cop movie, too.” She returns to her seat. “Don’t believe me? Look up Dark Canyon Court, online.”
I do and say, “It says a sinkhole opened up on the road. So?”
“The sinkhole was Finley Jefferson Rhodes, the Third, and his buddy Cass experimenting with the corrosion rate of nitric acid.” Then, for the first time since this conversation started, she’s glaring at Holden. “And don’t think I don’t know that you’re the one who erased them from the camera footage.”
Holden’s unbothered by her disapproval. “It was a valid experiment.”
“How? When would knowing the corrosion rate of nitric acid ever come in handy?”
He answers, “Never.”
“Exactly.”
Then he says, “Unless someone makes it through us and your guards and hides you away in a facility buried under thirty feet of steel.”
She looks to me to back her up with this unhinged conversation. I was with her in the beginning, but after hearing Holden’s explanation, I agree it was a valid experiment. Noticing she won’t get any help from me, she aggressively turns the page in her book, muttering, “Not a reasonable brain cell amongst the three of you.”
Finn chuckles, and answers, “Four.”
“What?”
“There’s not a reasonable brain cell amongst the four of us when it comes to you. Deacon’s the one who suggested the location.”