23. Phae
Phae
I hadn’t expected to see Marc tonight. I’d expected even less to be hurling Nietzsche aphorisms like a torturous kind of foreplay.
Booker had been the Nietzsche fan. When I was twelve, he’d bought me a “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” poster to hang beside my bed, and I’d embraced that philosophy for my entire life.
Until now, maybe. I’d managed to hide my tears in the forest, but when Marc touched his lips to mine, my eyes prickled again.
Motherfucker.
I’d been living the wrong Nietzsche quote.
When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
For years, I’d tried to convince myself that work was all I needed, but the chink of darkness had been growing ever wider. And I missed the light.
But that light would blind me if I let it.
Better to walk back into the night.
Except this time, the damn light followed me.
“Don’t walk away. Not again.”
I spun, knocking Marc’s hand off my arm. I’d figured that after he saw the real me, the side I’d kept hidden for so long, he’d be the one walking away. No, running. This was actually harder when he was nice about it.
“Don’t do this, Marc.”
“You’ll fight for the masses, but you won’t fight for us?”
“Us? There is no ‘us,’ not anymore. We live in two different worlds, and they’re not compatible.”
“Edie and Heath manage just fine.”
I snorted. “Edie? You’re comparing me to Edie?”
“She’s in the public eye.”
“Oh, please. She runs a charity.” Emmy had briefed me. She was still here in Indonesia supporting Heath and Serena, but the rest of my team had flown home this morning. Places to go, people to kill. “You’re an A-list movie star. You post pictures of your feet on BuzzHub every morning.”
“My publicist makes the posts, and they’re not even my feet.”
Huh? “Then whose feet are they?”
“My ex-assistant’s ex-boyfriend’s.”
“Sounds awkward.”
“It is, but he does have excellent toes.”
“Okay, I’ll rephrase. Your legions of female admirers, the paparazzi, and probably a few weirdos think you post pictures of your feet on BuzzHub every morning.”
I’d had to eliminate a man with a foot fetish once. That kink sure made my job easier—all I’d had to do was wear peep-toe shoes and wait until he looked down before I pulled out the knife.
“You wrote us off without even talking to me.”
“What was there to talk about? You had an airtight contract. And I’d never suggest you quit because if you asked me to do the same, I couldn’t.”
“Not until the next break in your contract, I got that, but?—”
“Not ever. This isn’t just a job to me; it’s the life I was meant to live.”
“Jungle warfare?”
“Preventing small problems from becoming bigger ones, and getting justice for those who can’t.” Then more quietly, I added, “If I could turn back time, I’d slip more than laxatives into my dad’s food.”
I saw the moment it clicked. The moment Marc truly understood what drove me. That I fought over and over again for that little girl who’d been mindfucked by her father from the moment she was born, who’d been forced to watch as he drove her mother to suicide.
Marc opened his arms, and I stepped into them. I needed the hug. Deserved the hug.
“If we could turn back time, I’d do it for you,” he whispered.
No, he wouldn’t. Marc wasn’t a man who’d cope well in prison. It should have been me. Then I’d still have my brother and possibly my boyfriend, but not my job. Life would be very different. Bad different or good different? Well, I’d never know.
“The past is the past. We’ve all moved on.”
“Not completely.”
I looked up at him, and his gaze locked onto mine. Uh-oh.
“Don’t do this,” I warned again.
“Do what?”
“Try to change me.”
Try to break me.
“That’s what you think I’m doing?”
“This is who I am, and don’t think I missed the horror in your eyes when you realised what I’d become. When you saw who I am. When I killed seventeen people on Sunday.”
Marc kissed my forehead. “It wasn’t horror, it was shock.” He paused, considering. “Shock, but perhaps not surprise, and it was them or us. I understand why you did it. Why I did it.” He shuddered. “Every time I close my eyes, I see him fall.”
“It gets easier.”
“I’m not sure I want it to.” And that was the fundamental difference between us, wasn’t it? “Are you sure about the ‘no charges’ part? My lawyer said the authorities aren’t being very forthcoming, and I’m not allowed to leave the country. And…and I killed a man, Phae.”
“I told them I did it. Usually, I don’t like to take credit for other people’s work, but it seemed like the best option. I mean, what’s one more?”
Besides, the authorities were more interested in the crow and the missing heads.
Questions, questions, so many questions.
I’d refused to answer any of them—that’s why we had the suits.
Oh, and the Indonesians had asked us to run a joint training exercise with Kopassus.
No, thanks. Emmy could do that if she wanted to.
“What about forensics?”
“It was my gun. Okay, sure, they could calculate the height of the shooter by checking the bullet’s entry angle, but they won’t, not when they have a literal assassin standing there saying she pulled the trigger.
” Marc flinched at the word “assassin.” Good.
He should. “Confirmation bias is a wonderful thing.”
“What about the others? Katie—KD—and Frank? What consequences will they face?”
“Who knows? I’m not an attorney; I just cause headaches for them. But right now, they’re going with the ‘no comment’ approach, and I expect they’ll be charged with unlawful abduction and property damage at a bare minimum. I can’t believe you’re paying their legal fees.”
“They’re not monsters. Yes, the kidnapping itself was terrifying, being held at gunpoint and shoved onto a boat, but they didn’t treat us badly after that. And someone has to look out for the tarsiers.”
“Chaining yourself to a tree has gone out of fashion?”
“Two of their members have been jailed for trying that, and where did it get them? Nowhere. You think Kamryn and Frank will end up in prison?”
Hopefully.
“Do you want them to?”
“Honestly?” Marc let go of me and perched on the edge of an oversized plant pot. “A slap on the wrist would be more appropriate than a jail sentence, especially if that developer backtracks and builds his resort on Malati.”
“He won’t.”
“You can’t be sure of that. Heath said he was Kamryn’s father?”
“Heath’s right.”
“From what she told me, Lonnie McDonald came out of the same mould as your dad. There’s some bad blood between them. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to wriggle out of his promise once this storm has blown over.”
“He can’t. Emmy bought the land from him.”
“What?”
“Yup. For a whole two bucks.”
“But…but why would he sell it? Surely even if he can’t build there, it has to be worth more than that.”
“Because before we came to find you, we flew to Thailand and caught McDonald in a compromising position with a minor.”
Marc’s eyes bugged out. “Are you serious?”
“I’d show you the video, but you’ve seen enough shit already this week.”
He was silent for a moment, processing, his hand resting on my hip. I should have pushed it away, but I didn’t.
“What will Emmy do with the land?”
“She mentioned a wildlife sanctuary. Maybe some kind of conservation project if the locals are on board with that. Which reminds me, I need to speak with Kamryn before I leave. Warn her that if she opens her mouth about anything she saw, I’ll personally napalm the entire east side of the island.”
“How about you let me speak with her instead? I might be a little more diplomatic.”
“Really? What would you say? Threaten to bring down the entire organisation with a barrage of strategically edited BuzzHub posts?”
“I’d offer to publicise the plight of the tarsiers and highlight the importance of conservation in exchange for her silence, and if she didn’t accept my proposal, then I’d introduce the napalm option.”
“I can’t believe you’re not freaking out about this.”
“About your napalm habits? Believe me, I am; I’m just good at hiding it.” He cupped my cheek with his other hand. “Phae, I hate the thought of you rushing headlong into danger.”
I swallowed hard. “And I hate the thought of you being pawed by pretty young starlets at parties, so let’s call it even.”
“I won’t pretend I’ve stayed celibate for the past decade, but I quit my starlet habit several years ago.” He tilted his head to one side. “So, are you going to break my heart and tell me you’re dating Captain America?”
“I’m hardly relationship material.”
When you joined the Choir or any other point team, you basically accepted that your teammates were your new family.
Okay, so Jez somehow managed to hold down a steady relationship, as did Echo, plus Tulsa hate-fucked a Mafia-adjacent wise guy every few months and bitched about it for weeks afterward.
Sin had a thing going with a hot hockey player.
And Priest had a habit of marrying random women—seven and counting—which always ended in divorce or annulment.
The rest of us? We depended on battery-operated boyfriends and one-night stands.
When I got myself off, I pictured Marc’s face.
His fingers.
His cock.
And now here he was, pressed against me, hardening rapidly.
“We could make it work,” he whispered.
The joint burned down to my fingertips, and I dropped it. Ground it out with a foot. Bent to flip it into the plant pot and brushed dirt over the top.
“I have to leave now.”
“That’s it?”
Marc had commitments—the Whispers in Willowbrook production plus at least one other movie that I knew of. I didn’t know where I’d be next week, next month, next year. After the novelty of skulking around with me wore off, he’d want more. He’d want what I couldn’t give.
“I’ll walk you back to your room.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be my line?”
“Which one of us is carrying the gun?”
“I thought it was a taser?”
“Who says I can’t have both?”
“ Do you have both?”
“I have a stun gun, a semi-automatic, two knives, and a vial of snake venom.”
“Snake venom? Is that a euphemism?”
“No, actual snake venom.” I tapped the jewelled silver pendant I wore, the capsule hiding a deadly secret. “It has an injector for those little emergencies.”
This time, Marc followed without trying to stop me. “Will you at least reply to my emails? It hurt like hell to lose a girlfriend, but it hurt even more to lose a good friend.”
“Maybe.”
“I still have the same email address.”
“And the same password, which is a rookie error. You should change it regularly and make it longer.”
“So you do snoop through my inbox?”
“Not often. The number of women sending you pictures of their body parts is disturbing. And no, I haven’t read the pinned message.”
“I do nothing to encourage them.”
“That’s the problem; you don’t have to. You just walk around looking like Marc di Gregorio, and women begin flinging their underwear in your direction.”
“I could grow a beard or something.” He rubbed a hand over the stubble he hadn’t yet shaved. “What do you think?”
I thought I’d like to feel the scratch of that against my thighs, but I couldn’t encourage him either.
“Do whatever makes you happy.”
We reached the stairs.
“What would make me happy is backing you up against this wall and kissing you until I taste my name on your tongue.”
Out of curiosity, I examined the wall. It was damp, covered in moss with tiny succulents woven among the spongy fronds.
“You’d crush the poor plants.”
“I don’t care.”
“Really? The Stockholm syndrome is wearing off?”
“They’ll grow back.”
I started down the stairs, trying to block out the memories. Marc nibbling my bottom lip. The way he brushed my hair away from my face before he kissed me. That magic tongue between my?—
“Guess I’ll leave your Thanksgiving gift with Kitty.”
No, gifts weren’t a traditional part of Thanksgiving, but Huck loved unwrapping shit, so they’d become a part of ours.
Especially since Dad died. When he was alive, he used to give us regular lectures on the dangers of materialism, right before he bought himself a new set of golf clubs or upgraded his car.
“You don’t have to keep buying me stuff.”
“C’mon, give me that. I like shopping for you.”
True. And now that we’d reconnected, however tenuously, that meant I’d have to buy him a gift in return, didn’t it? Maybe I could delegate the task to Marcel? No, that would be a cop-out. Which meant I’d have to go to the mall, and I hated the mall.
“Well, I can’t stop you.”
“Really? After what I’ve seen over the past few days, I suspect you could if you put your mind to it.”
“So you want me to handcuff you?”
“To the bed, preferably.”
“Nice try.”
It would be so easy to jog to my room, fetch a pair of steel bracelets, and ride the best dick I’d ever had for the rest of the night. But I cared about the man too. And I didn’t want to get his hopes up.
I couldn’t give him what he needed.
“Good night, Marc.”
We reached his room, and I was not going inside.
He kissed my forehead, my cheek, my neck, those lips lingering as heat flashed through me.
Asshole.
“Good night, Phae.”
Then it was his turn to shut me out. I leaned against the cool wooden door, fanning myself as regret warred with common sense.
Emmy meandered past, a drink in one hand and a cell phone in the other. “Oh, just go inside. You know you want to.”
“Shut up.”
“Is that a hickey on your neck?”
Fuck, was it?
“I’m still armed.”
“Hey, me too. Wanna spar in the hallway? It might help to get rid of that sexual tension.”
“Leave me alone. Don’t you think my week’s been bad enough already?”
Man, Emmy was a pain in the ass. I sagged against the door again, but this time…I heard voices?
What the hell?