Chapter 67
Ender’s smile remained even as Killian started to frown. Ah, he had upset the pretty Siren.
Tsking, he pulled out his desk chair, and slowly lowered himself into it with a groan.
“You okay?” The Cryptid’s brows were pulled together now, clearly in concern.
“I’m fine. Carrying around two watermelons tends to make sitting a workout.”
“I imagine,” Killian said slowly, eyeing him as if he was prepared to rush him to the doctors at any second. Which he knew the man was. Ender had learned to avoid exaggerating around the Siren, as the worrywart tended to freak out easily when it came to his pregnancy.
“So, tell me, what job would be better for your looming hardheaded man than stalking me all day? Because this is obviously not working.”
“I…don’t know, Ender.” The Siren grimaced. “It was all he wanted to do.”
“What specifically did he like about it? The bureaucracy? The paperwork? The criminals? The headache-inducing red tape he had to follow?”
“He—” Killian smiled. “—liked helping people.”
Ender scoffed. “Seriously?”
“Yes. He enjoyed working within the rules, to solve the problems Cryptids faced, by helping create programs that made the world a better place for our kind as a whole. He saw the restrictions and the laws his own family had placed on his world as a challenge. As things that he had to find a solution around and within.”
“I imagine being a bodyguard, especially when the person he is following is mostly in a safe underground compound, does not even come close to being as challenging as any of that.”
“No, it doesn’t, not to him. Even when he was a field agent, he still found more purpose.
This is too mind-numbing.” The Siren sighed.
“He quit so easily. It’s a bit concerning that I didn’t find that off at the time, but we did just find out you were pregnant.
I don’t know, I could be wrong, but maybe it was already on his mind…
quitting… And I think not being able to see is affecting him more than he’s letting on. ”
Ender frowned. “Not being able to ‘see’?”
Killian wrinkled his nose. “Right…um, well, you know about Fates and their threads?”
“I wish I knew less, but yes.”
“They aren’t answering him. He can see them, but they won’t tell him anything.”
His eyes widened slightly, as his brow raised. “They aren’t? Why wouldn’t they? Or haven’t y’all figured that out yet?”
Killian shrugged. “The issue started after he changed my fate. When he looks, he can barely follow or see anything. And when they do share, or tell him stuff, it’s either jumbled or a barely-there clip, and it's hard to dig further.”
“That’s…odd. Has he asked his parents about it?”
The Siren laughed hesitantly. “Yeah, I don’t think he’s said a word about it to them.”
“Why not? His father, at the very least, could possibly help.”
“I’m not sure if you’ve ever met his parents, but they were never supportive of what either of us decided career-wise.”
“That’s curious considering it’s his father’s ‘family’ business. Is there a reason for it?”
“I’m sure there is, not that they’ve ever brought it up. But Vivian and Orion Grimm abhor the Fates’ rules, and while they keep in touch with the younger generations, I would say their feeling towards the older ones leans towards—”
“Dislike?”
“Hatred.”
Ender smirked. “I see.”
“They don’t trust them. And as for Cyrus, the lectures never ended when it was about working for the Bureau. They pushed him to quit every time they were in the same room.”
Very, very curious. Why did he, yet again, feel like he was missing something, or rather that he knew something but it refused to come to the surface. The names felt like they rang a bell, but nothing was there… How frustrating…
“If their feelings are that negative towards other Fates, I imagine he hasn’t brought it up because he thinks they won’t see it as a bad thing.”
“That is my guess. They’ve burned a lot of bridges with him, too focused on their own issues.
I know their attitude hurts him, not that he’d admit it.
But as much as they don’t trust their extended family, some of that has bled over into their treatment of Cyrus.
I don’t think they even realize how much they’ve damaged the trust between themselves and their son. ”
“I don’t imagine they are who he goes to when he’s in trouble then.”
“No, if it’s something he can’t solve himself, first it’s usually me, or even Severo. Followed by the Dweller’s parents.”
“Eh…those two headaches.”
Killian giggled.
“Well, I’ll think about it, about what he could do. His dislike of illegal shit will limit me. But just in case I can’t think of anything, does he have any hobbies?”
The man blinked. “Hobbies?”
“He has to have something. And it’s as good of a place to look as any if I can’t find anything job related.”
“I mean…he doesn’t really have any, aside from shit he did with me. And shopping…” The Siren frowned, before gasping. “Oh! When we were younger, he used to like taking shit apart and modifying whatever it was in any way he could. But he hasn’t really done that in a long ass time.”
The Cryptid wrinkled his nose, before continuing, “He messed with one of his father’s cars, and there was a big blow up between him and his parents, and it sort of…
ruined it for him. Part of me thinks it was a stress-induced habit to begin with, so the fight tainted it.
But he did seem to really enjoy it back then.
“At one point, he had been considering double majoring in engineering, but didn’t do it in the end. Between you and me, I think it was the list of upper-level math classes that talked him out of it.”
“Was he any good at it? Or did he tend to fuck up and blow shit up?”
“No explosions to my knowledge,” Killian said with a chuckle. “And things usually were better off when he was done.”
“Okay, that’s something to keep in mind… Let me think about it…”
The man smiled. “Thank you.”
His brow rose slightly. “For?”
“Trying, and realizing that this isn’t working for him.”
Ender grunted, “Don’t thank me yet. What I come up with may end up being worse, you never know.”
Killian barked out in laughter, his eyes seeming to glow bright. The Siren was pretty as shit when he laughed. Wait, no, he was beautiful all the time.
What the fuck was he even thinking about?! Nonsense, that’s what!
Cyrus stiffened as the door opened and Ender walked out. Following behind him wordlessly, he couldn’t help but note that the Gorgon was waddling, and had to suppress the urge to point it out.
Cyrus frowned as he found himself walking into an office, right off the entrance of the Intelligence Center that he’d never seen before. With black walls and floors, there was a single floating brown desk in the room, with a desk chair behind it, and two floating chairs in front.
Nothing else was in the room, aside from the giant fucking mess.
Tablets were stacked everywhere; from the desk to the chairs, and even on the floor.
There were also some actual paper stacks in the room.
The only clear space was a path to the chairs, and one leading off to the right behind the desk.
Ender took the chair behind the desk, waving towards one of the cluttered chairs in front. “Sit.”
Sighing, Cyrus carefully cleared the stuff off the least cluttered chair, setting things on the floor, before even more carefully sitting down, as he did his best to avoid kicking shit over.
Ender eyed him quietly for a moment, before saying, “How would you like to become my lie detector?”
Cyrus blinked. “Excuse me?”
“It would be more of a temporary basis thing, until I manage to narrow down the options and find something better for you to do. But you Fates, I know one of your lesser known talents is that you know when someone is lying to you. And it has nothing to do with listening to body reactions and all that bullshit. You see it, in their threads.”
“I can’t—”
“You can’t see into them right now, but you can read them in the moment, can’t you?” Ender smirked, his gaze a bit too knowing.
“Killian’s been sharing my secrets, I see.”
Not that he really cared if Ender knew. He’d have told him himself if the Gorgon had asked.
“Aww, your snookums is worried.”
He snorted. “I dare you to call him that to his face.”
Ender laughed. “No, I don’t think I will. Anyway, as I was saying, you know when something that's been said is off. I’m not sure what you see or how, I just know that it’s true.”
“Mostly true, I suppose.”
If he dropped the veil down as he talked to someone, and really kept watch, he usually could tell whenever someone lied.
Because anytime someone lied, their threads, for a brief moment, would dim ever so slightly—subtle, yet still noticeable.
But that would only work if the person knew they were lying.
It got a bit muddled when it came to half-truths, and people just being unsure of what the truth was at all.
“What I also know to be true is that you hate being a bodyguard.”
Cyrus sighed and admitted, “I do.”
“Then it’s settled! At tomorrow’s meeting, I want you to join the table. No zoning out, as I know you have been doing for the last few weeks, because—” Ender’s nose wrinkled. “—afterwards, we’ll be meeting up with someone rather unsavory.”
He frowned and hesitantly said, “Okay…?”
Why did Cyrus have a feeling that he wasn’t going to like where this was going?