Chapter 4 Present #2
Dan jerks forward in his seat, arrogant laziness momentarily put aside and replaced with a whirlwind of anger and incredulity.
“You jumped in front of his bullet, you lunatic!” He sounds defensive again, but this time it isn’t for himself, it’s for Jack, which sets off a firework of hope inside me.
Things can’t be completely lost if Dan still cares enough to fight in his brother’s corner even if it is subconscious.
“Yeah, and he’s never gonna let me forget it, trust me. He’s like if a shrew and an elephant had a kid. He’ll die mad about everything,” I huff, crossing my arms loosely over my chest and leaning back in my seat, forcing some casualness in the hopes that Dan will mirror it.
Dan doesn’t respond right away, the quiet stretching on and on. There’s a loaded quality to it as if the moment is teetering on the edge of something potentially explosive and ultimately devastating.
Then he thumps backward in his seat and slumps down, emulating the posture of a moody teenager, the rage draining out of him so fast that it gives me whiplash.
In the blink of an eye, Dan has returned to his relaxed state, no trace of his earlier anger as if he never lost his temper at all.
It makes me wonder if he really did, or if that was for show, maybe to see how I would react to his aggression.
“How’s it been?” he asks; then at my confused frown, he adds, “The whole ‘being a Liquid Onyx survivor’ thing.”
Honestly, it’s been kind of shitty. My new senses have been going haywire ever since I left medical.
I have to ignore how bright all the lights are, how they burn my corneas if I let my eyes wander too close to them, or even sometimes if I don’t.
They’re so sensitive. And where there would have been silence before, I can hear noises like they’re happening right next to my ear: the sound of Dan breathing, the scratch of the metal chairs every time one of us moves, the sound of the oxygen generator, and the buzz of electricity from every wire and bulb.
I tap my temple with two fingers. “Got a major fucking headache.”
Dan nods, like that was what he expected me to say. He doesn’t seem to feel guilty about what he did to me despite the fact he tried to use it as an argument as to why I should be pissed at him earlier.
“You know what your power is yet?” he asks, watching me with renewed interest, like he’s trying to guess what my power might be based on what he sees.
“I bet it’s something really destructive and murder-y.
” I have no idea what he sees in me that would suggest my power would be particularly harmful, but it sets me on edge anyway.
Not wanting Dan to realise how much the idea of having a dangerous superpower bothers me, I pretend it doesn’t bother me at all and shrug. “I’m still living in the suspense, waiting for the next plot twist to come along and fuck me up the arse.”
That gets me a laugh, wrung out and short-lived but real enough to reassure me that Dan’s mood swings aren’t entirely inauthentic.
It would be a mistake to forget that Dan isn’t just a physical threat.
All his life he’s been trained to manipulate people, including their feelings and responses to him.
I might trust him not to murder me outright if he doesn’t have to, but I’m fully aware of how he’s trying to chip away at my defenses in the hopes of getting through them.
For what exact purpose? That’s for him to know, and me to find out, probably before it’s too late to salvage the situation.
Nefarious as his plans toward me might be, I’m unwilling to play this game for much longer without getting something in return.
“Why did you inject me with Liquid Onyx?”
“Because you were dying.” Lie. He answers too fast for it to be anything else.
Changing tack, I try another angle. “Why did you ask to speak to me directly rather than any other FISA agent?”
“Have we reached the ‘interrogate’ part of this interrogation?” Dan asks, and there’s an undeniable thread of relief in the question that I want to tug at.
“Why, were you finding it lacking those particular vibes before?”
Dan tilts his head from side to side in consideration. “The total absence of any waterboarding equipment has forced me to adjust my preconceptions about how this is going to go, I’ll admit.”
“FISA doesn’t torture people,” I say firmly.
“At least not on camera, they don’t.” Dan jerks his chin at the camera in the far-left corner of the room. He shoots it a jaunty grin and a little wave that borders on obnoxious.
“Feel like answering my original question?” I prod.
Dan brings his gaze back to me and lets it travel across every inch of my body in a purposefully slow appraisal. When his eyes land back on my face, there’s a strange intensity burning in their pale-green depths that almost startles me.
“Maybe I just think you’re hot, and I’m a shallow bitch,” he offers, with so much false innocence in his voice that it almost circles back around to being outright wicked.
I sigh, quietly annoyed. “Are you going to answer any of my questions without being a prick about it?”
Dan goes still in his seat, his entire body stiffening visibly. He doesn’t respond straightaway, like he needs a moment to reorientate himself, as if the callout has brought him up short and thrown him off his game, whatever game that might be.
“Ask me a question that isn’t boring as fuck, and I might,” he challenges.
There are so many things I want to ask him, and most of them aren’t even relevant to the current situation.
I want to ask him about Jack, about how he feels about his brother, about their lives together before I met either of them.
But there are several cameras on us, and Anabelle would skin me alive if she found out I had used precious interrogation time to ask my boyfriend’s brother what they were like as kids for the sake of my own curiosity.
“Do you know about the blue and green drugs?” I ask instead.
“Yeah, I do,” Dan answers, serious this time. “I know about the machine that’s gonna turn the blue one into a massive gas cloud too.”
Unable to contain my eagerness, I pepper him with follow-ups. “What do you know about the machine? Just what it can do? Or where it is?”
Dan’s mouth draws up into a mocking smile. “Oh, I know where it is, Agent Snow.”
“Why?” I ask, ignoring his blatant condescension. “Why do know? And why are you telling me? This doesn’t make any sense.” I let out an exasperated breath, frowning at Dan accusingly. “You don’t make sense.”
“You mean because I’m all drugged up on mind-control bullshit?
” Dan’s smile drops completely. He shrugs.
“Yeah, I am, but I only have to follow the orders they actually give me. They didn’t tell me about the machine.
They talked about it around me because I’m basically a chair to those fuckers.
They didn’t tell me I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone about it either. Idiots.”
That’s a lot in one go. But there’s nothing completely unbelievable in anything he’s said.
“Will you tell us where the machine is?” I ask intently.
Dan’s gaze catches mine again and holds it. “If it means taking down OI, then yeah, I’ll sing like a guilt-ridden bird on execution day.”
It’s too easy, I know that it is. But there’s too much at stake not to take a few risks, and I’ve bet on worse odds before.
“I meant what I said to you that night,” I tell Dan because at least one of us should be honest in this conversation. “I forgive you.”
And let’s hope I can forgive him for whatever game he’s playing with us all now.