30. Wolfe Acquisitions
thirty
Wolfe: Acquisitions
“You look like shit!” Nathem pointed out before flashing a smile at two girls walking by and flexing when they giggled, burying their faces in each other’s chests before scampering off.
Fucking hell. I remember when there were other women besides Daphne. When their tits and ass did it for me, but now they were simply frauds. Pretenders. Nothing.
“And why the fuck are you wearing Threx’s clothes?” he asked, throwing open the backseat door and giving me a look.
“Where is Jessie?” I groaned, wondering why the universe couldn’t give me the quiet one just once.
“Yeah. That.” Nathem ran a finger down his jawline. “Blade had a meltdown. He is better at that shit than me.”
Christopher suffered from night terrors that didn’t always disappear when he woke up. Daphne used to make him tea and rub his shoulders until dawn. However, after she left, our back rubs didn’t hit the same.
“Why, you’re not happy to see me?”
How the hell did this man have so much energy all the time?
“It’s not that. We need to swing up north and surveil coordinates I’ve intercepted,” I explained, palming the broken cookie in Threx’s pocket.
“Any clue what it is?” he asked, glancing at the trunk, silently checking if we were prepared.
“Honestly, I have no idea. Are we fully loaded?”
“Yeah. Cabin’s full. Explosives, too… because Blade is a fucking weirdo.”
I smiled, forgetting how much he loved that boom.
“Should be fine. Maybe. Look, this is Reaper shit. I am not going to lie to you.”
Nathem’s eyes fell into a scowl before he slammed the door shut.
Reapers had amnesty, which meant they could kill anyone, and we had to accept it. However, it didn’t work the other way around. If we were venturing into Black Hood territory, there was always a chance we wouldn’t be returning.
But the real question was, why the fuck had Threx been carrying this shit in his pocket for over a week?
Was it a leak?
A trap?
Another attempt at getting him to join the order?
I growled low, pulling a bottle of water from the side of the door.
“How far north?” he asked, throwing on his gloves and tossing a glare at me in the rearview.
“Bellingham. Somewhere in the sticks, according to the map.”
“Yay,” he groaned, igniting the engine and putting the car into drive.
I was exhausted, and no matter how many times I hit my head against the window during the flight, all I saw was Daphne sobbing into Threx’s boner.
“What is with you?” Nathem asked, offering me a cookie from the dash stash, or whatever stupid name he called it. I peeled it open and shoved it in my mouth.
“I haven’t slept in two days, Lyla is dead, and now I have to scope out Reaper interference. What do you think is wrong?”
“I think Daphne fucked Threx.” He blinked. “And for the first time in your nothing ever affects me, control fuck of a universe, you’re fucking jealous.”
“Nathem,” I leaned forward. “Do you like your dick?” I smiled, taking another bite of the peanut butter cookie. “Because I am about two seconds from shoving it down your goddamn throat if you don’t shut the fuck up.”
“No,” he said with a laugh. “You won’t.”
“Try me!” I sneered.
“Come on, Wolfe, you are not used to normal feelings, or how to deal with them. But trust me, you need to get this shit out.”
Did I? Because these kinds of emotions felt more dangerous in the universe than they did inside me, where I could keep them, put them to bed, or hack at them with a damn knife.
“Okay, let’s start simple.”
God, kill me now.
“What is your primary emotion? Are you angry? Sad? Afraid?”
“Annoyed,” I fell onto my back, staring at the ceiling for maybe the first time. “What the hell is all over the roof?” I asked, peering closer at the dried splotches.
“Yeah, don’t touch that. I am not saying it is recruit jizz, but I am also not saying it’s not.”
“Fucking hell! You let them borrow the car?” I kicked his seat.
“No,” he made a face. “I did not let them do shit. They stole it in a fuck-run after their naming night. Also, when the hell did I become their babysitter? Can we lovingly pass that shit off to gimpy?”
I glared. Blade could barely wipe his own ass, much less mentor baby criminals.
“Okay, maybe not Blade. But not me. I am over it. Now,” he threw more food at me. “Primary emotion.”
“Nathem,” I held my eyes shut. “I wanted Threx and Daphne to figure out their shit. It is why I took him there! Drop it.”
Nathem slammed on the brakes.
“Have you lost your goddamn mind?” I shouted, nearly landing on my face.
“Primary emotion,” he demanded when several cars swerved into the side lanes.
“You’re going to get us fucking killed!”
“PRIMARY EMOTION!”
“HURT!” I shouted. “And not because they had sex. Or because she loves him more than me, but because Threx GAVE her more than I did. Now, fucking drive!”
I blinked, the words lodging somewhere I couldn’t cut them out.
“For years,” I blurted, driving my fist into the leather seat. “Daphne and I would play this little game. I’d ask her how dark she wanted to go on a scale from one to ten, and she would respond.”
Nathem smiled, loving that about her. We all did.
“However, in all the years we’ve been together, Daphne has never once given me a ten. Not fucking once. And up until yesterday, I never questioned why. It was a number that belonged to Threx. You know it. I know it! The whole fucking universe knows it.”
“True,” Nathem nodded. “I mean, they certainly make you believe in God.”
“Exactly. Plus, withholding that number also kept her safe. It meant that I could never fully consume her. But after watching the way he spoon-fed his soul into her body last night, I realized that I had never given her a ten either.”
As Nathem turned onto the ramp north, the landscape began to change, the city falling away into a stretch of green and overcast skies.
“It is hard to do that with someone you do not view as yours,” he made a point, swerving around a Ford.
“Or if you lack the necessary anatomy to play the part.”
“What do you mean?” Nathem asked.
“I don’t have a soul or a heart. The only way I knew how to prove my love to her was by being the one thing she always needed, which up until yesterday was fucking THREX!”
“And now you have to be Wolfe,” he smiled at me, passing me a fresh pack of cigarettes. “And you’re afraid it won’t be enough.”
I rolled my neck, pressing the nicotine stick between my lips and exhaled.
“I am not afraid, Nathem. I won’t be.”
“Look, boss,” Nathem took a breath, veering onto one of the many logging roads that sat forgotten along the highway.
“Daphne is a strong-willed, pain-in-the-ass who loves louder than anyone I know and doesn’t apologize for it.
The fact that she didn’t kick your ass back to Seattle the moment Threx made all her dreams come true means you already live inside her. She loves you.”
I shut my eyes, not wanting to feel anything. Emotions were dangerous, and I needed to focus.
“And besides, what a ten looks like for Threx is not the same for you.”
I stared at Nathem, considering what he had said.
“He’s never had her body; you have. That extra mile, that surrender, will come quieter… for you both.”
I sat in that thought for a long time while Nathem drove the back roads of Reaper territory, watching the way the green in the pines blurred through the tinted window.
The idea of giving Daphne more made everything inside me feel indifferent.
I had already offered her my love, which, until her, was nothing more than a brain cocktail of attachment hormones and a failure of human evolution.
I’d given her my body and all its dark, violent things.
Hell, I did not keep her, even when she begged for a title.
And most of all, I agreed to coexist with Threx.
For most fucking people, that would be a goddamn eleven.
But it wasn’t.
I saw the difference.
Threx broke for her, his soul lighting her up when she placed her halo on his head. It was blasphemous against the cold logic of my prison, but I couldn’t look away. I didn’t have a body like he did; I was a place, a seat of power, the cage holding us both.
“Is that it?” Nathem pointed to a silver Airstream perched in the middle of the clearing. “It doesn’t seem like anyone is here.”
I searched for signs of life, but there weren’t any. A red flag.
“I’ll bet you five hundred right now, whoever is in there is dead as fuck!” Nathem called it outright, putting his gun in his lap.
But why would a Reaper lead Threx to one of their body stashes? That part didn’t add up.
“Park here,” I instructed.
“What?” Nathem turned. “We can’t just walk in there without backup. What if it’s a hideout?”
The smell of rain and rot suggested otherwise.
“I don’t think it is. But you can stay behind,” I gave him the choice. “This is something I need to do.”
Nathem held his ground as I opened the door into the quiet forest, noting the absence of birds and background noise.
“Here,” Nathem threw me a face mask. “It is mostly for the smell.”
I nodded when he settled beside me, ending the last of his cigarette on his boot.
“Ready?” he asked, and I shot him a half-smile. Nathem may be a therapist from hell, but he was loyal to the very end.
We moved into the clearing together, scanning for red lights, tripwires, hidden cameras, anything that might send us back. Not that it mattered. If the space belonged to the Reapers, they already knew we were here. One of the perks of federal backing was eyes in the sky.
“Think they are watching?” Nathem searched the trees. “It’s oddly empty,” he added, stopping short of the staircase leading inside. “No parameters? No safety tactics? This is one hell of a mind-fuck.”
I bit my lip under the mask.
“Yeah, something is not right,” I agreed, offset by how this all felt just a little too pedestrian.
I filled my cheeks full of air to dampen the stench of death before kicking the door open with my boot.
“What the fuck?” Nathem peered into the dark, throwing his hand over his nose.