Chapter 4 Present
Present
Leo
Watching Dan Roth casually lean back on a chair in one of FISA’s interrogation rooms is a bit like going to the zoo and watching a wild animal nap in a domesticated version of their real habitat.
There’s not a single part of my mind that underestimates this man’s ability to murder me and everyone else in this base if he so chooses.
Dan has been devested of his Obsidian Inc. uniform. They’ve re-dressed him in grey jogging bottoms and a white T-shirt. His dark-blond hair is shorter than Jack’s, shorn close to his scalp, closer in length to how Jack’s was when we first met.
Now I have the chance to look him over without the buzz of adrenaline or the fear of getting shot, it’s easier to see the differences between the Roth brothers.
Dan has a scar through one of his eyebrows but is missing the scar Jack has on his neck.
Oddly, both scars are of similar shapes: mismatched, permanent marks of violence.
Dan’s freckles are more pronounced, his skin paler than Jack’s although that could be due to the recent trip Jack and I took to Southeast Asia.
Dan is slightly bigger, too, meatier in the shoulders and thighs.
Dan seems to carry himself differently as well.
I noticed it the two other times we met, but it’s even easier to see now.
Jack moves through life in a defensive hunch, every muscle primed for combat, his instincts set firmly on high alert, ready to lash out and protect him with very little provocation.
In contrast, his brother has a constant air of lazy arrogance.
He’s resting back in his chair, feet sprawled out in front of him under the metal table and forearms resting on his thighs, like he chose to be there, and he’s doing us all a great favour by waiting to be questioned.
His shoulders are so low and loose that I’d think he was asleep if his eyes weren’t open and staring with boredom up at one of the interrogation room cameras.
He has an insolent curve to his mouth as if he finds the entire situation beyond amusing, like he knows something that nobody else does, and he’s laughing at us for that ignorance.
There’s not a hint of fear or defensiveness in his entire body, like nothing can touch him, hurt him, unless he allows it to.
It’s disconcerting, to say the least. I can see why this sort of behaviour pissed off so many OI agents, with their false sense of hubris.
It must have eaten at them that this young man, or child as he would have been, wasn’t cowed by their violence or apparent control over him.
I can also see where Jack has tried to replicate Dan’s movements, mostly when he’s trying to pretend something doesn’t bother him.
But with Jack, it has only ever been a pretense of detachment, a facade of indifference to hide behind.
With Dan, it seems more natural as if the mask is real rather than a fabrication.
It causes something cold and spiked to twist inside my chest, a piece of barbed wire pulling taught around my heart, imagining a younger Jack trying desperately to imitate his brother, to build up armour he could use against people who would do him harm, which at that time would have been pretty much everybody he came into contact with.
I’m not exactly nervous to be in the same room with Dan again.
If anything, there’s an odd sense of excitement.
This is Jack’s brother, the one person who knows my partner better than anyone else ever has or likely ever will.
If this weren’t such a terrible circumstance, I’d be hyped up at the idea of meeting Jack’s family.
As it stands, this is likely going to be a charged encounter, regardless of the outcome.
Anabelle, much to my surprise, didn’t seem any happier than Jack did to be sending me in alone to meet with Dan.
In contrast, North seemed to have more confidence in my ability to handle the situation.
They had one of those silent arguments about it right in front of me.
In the end, North won, an achievement to be sure, and I was told I could sit down with Dan for whatever conversation the other man seems intent on having with me.
Dan’s eyes latch onto me when I enter the integration room, but just as quickly, they flicker away dismissively.
That doesn’t mean he isn’t watching me as I move around the room to sit down across from him, or that he isn’t entirely aware of how close to him I am, but he does a good job of making it look like he doesn’t think I’m any sort of threat.
I mean, I’m sure he doesn’t think I could take him in a proper fight, but he’s still vulnerable here, and no amount of fearlessness on his part could overwhelm the training he’s gone through that makes him calculate the odds of survival in any given situation.
Anabelle wanted Dan’s hands to be shackled before I went in to meet with him, but I put my foot down hard over that.
If Dan wanted me dead, he could have killed me in my kitchen.
Even after what he did, I’m still not afraid of him.
However naive or suicidal that makes me, I don’t care.
I won’t let FISA chain Dan up like OI has been doing his entire life.
“Are you doing okay in here?” I ask, subtly checking him over. “No problems?” I can’t see any bruises or other injuries on him, but that doesn’t mean he’s been treated well by any FISA agents who have been charged with looking after him.
Dan finally brings his familiar green eyes back to rest on my face. His mouth tips up into a mildly caustic smile.
“Don’t worry,” he says, “none of your agency friends have busted their fists up trying to pay me back for attacking you.”
He sounds amused that I would ask, either because he doesn’t understand why I’d care, or if he thinks the suggestion of that happening is itself ridiculous.
“Good.” I bob my head. Then I ask wryly, “Did you cut your fist on any unsuspecting agents?”
Dan’s head twitches to the side slightly, like a puppet who had his strings suddenly jerked. “You got someone in mind?” He seems genuinely intrigued by the notion. “Anyone you want me to tune up for you next time I’m getting dragged to my cell?”
Dragged seems an unlikely scenario, unless Dan was out cold. I can’t imagine Dan doing anything but fighting like hell if someone tried to drag him someplace he didn’t want to go. There’d be bloody nail scratches down the damn walls.
“Heard from the medical staff that you were a real treasure to have as a patient. Wouldn’t want to ruin that reputation so early on,” I say ruefully.
“Don’t know about that,” Dan muses, his gaze intense, almost like a physical thing reaching out to blast heat on my face. “Seems like you’d be worth ruining a lot of things over.”
There’s a dig in that statement, a first strike officially dealt.
I can feel the bite and venom in it even though Dan’s easy smile doesn’t slip.
Although given the way his eyes dart over to the one-sided glass window, I’m guessing it wasn’t a blow meant for me but rather the man standing on the other side of it.
I’d be an idiot not the realise that part of the reason why Dan wanted to meet with me specifically is about getting at his brother. I knew that going in, but that doesn’t mean I like the idea of being used to hurt Jack.
I want to tell Dan how much Jack tortured himself after he thought he’d killed him, what a horrible state he was in mentally, how losing Dan almost destroyed him.
But something tells me it wouldn’t matter what I said to Dan right now; all he’d hear is how Jack gave up on him, left him behind with OI to be broken down by them over and over again, but this time alone, without his brother there to keep him sane—even if that isn’t fair or true.
“Thank you,” I say instead.
Dan’s focus snaps back to me with the suddenness of an unexpected bullet. “For what?”
“For letting my mum go.” Because he didn’t have to do that. He could have killed her or at least threatened to kill her, but he didn’t. He let her run, and it’s probably the reason why he was caught by FISA.
Dan seems genuinely confused and more than a little suspicious, which is definitely fair.
“I only did that so she wouldn’t get in the way,” he says defensively, like I’ve accused him of some misdeed rather than thanked him.
It reminds me of how Jack can be sometimes, so quick to lash out at anything that seems too good to be true, like he wants to rip open the smooth, clean surface to see the muck and razor wire that he thinks must be hidden beneath.
“It doesn’t matter why you did it.” Although I’m almost certain he just didn’t want to hurt an—ostensibly—innocent woman if he didn’t have to. Not exactly the mark of a saint but certainly not the actions of an innately cruel man either. “I’m still grateful.”
Dan stares at me then, eyes squinting ever so slightly, like he thinks I might be a trick of some kind.
A magician with a disappearing bunny hidden behind a mirror.
It makes me want to laugh, but I suppress it, given how I don’t know what Dan’s reaction to being laughed at would be.
Just because I don’t want him chained up does not mean I’m unaware of how psychologically compromised he is.
I have no clue what his triggers are, and I’d rather not end this interrogation—if that’s what we’re really calling it—by testing out my new Liquid Onyx durability.
As if reading my mind, Dan tries to argue, “But I stabbed you and shot you up with Liquid Onyx.”
“Yeah.” I sigh wearily, like he’s caught me out. “Okay. Thanks for that too, I guess.”
“Thanks for that … too?” Dan looks so bamboozled, it’s hilarious.
“You saved my life.”
Dan makes an indignant noise. “After I got you shot.”
Everyone is really hung up on this whole “me being shot” thing. I’m not even bleeding anymore; come on, turn the fucking page.
“Jack shot me,” I point out, testing the waters by mentioning his name outright.