Chapter 10 Felix
Felix
All five of us gathered on the mismatched sofas in the basement.
I clutched the Philodendron Pink Princess against my chest like a shield, its glossy leaves trembling with my hands.
I didn’t want to risk keeping the plant in the darkness of my bag any longer, and frankly, I needed something to hold.
Rory kept shooting me confused glances from the adjacent sofa, probably wondering why I’d brought horticultural backup to an emergency meeting. Flynn lounged in the armchair, looking thoroughly bewildered, whilst Priya perched on the edge of her seat like she was ready to spring into action.
A beat of silence.
Rory raised his hand as if we were in a school. “So… don’t shoot me, but what’s a code 909?”
“No bloody clue,” Flynn admitted.
“I was hoping one of you knew,” Priya said.
They all looked at each other expectantly.
“We just ask Kit when we don’t know the code,” Rory said, and my stomach twisted into knots.
“Yes, well, that’s rather the point,” Seb said dryly. “Kit isn’t here. Hence the emergency meeting. Felix believes something may have happened to him.”
All eyes swivelled to me. I sank lower into the sofa, using my tiny plant as camouflage.
“Something’s happened to Kit?” Alarm burst from Rory, his eyes widening. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I found out approximately one hundred and twenty-two seconds ago,” said Seb, “when Felix told me.”
“But why would Felix know if something happened to Kit?” Rory asked, and another bucketload of anxiety shot through my system. This was all too much already. “What’s happened?”
My face burned. “We… we were supposed to meet this morning. Before work.”
“Meet for what?” Rory asked.
“Training!” The word shot out of me like I was being interrogated. “Early morning training! Running and… and fitness stuff! You know he’s been training me!”
Rory’s eyebrows climbed towards his hairline, and he raised two hands. “Okay, okay! I just didn’t know you two had fitness sessions before work, okay?”
Fitness session. The thought was hilarious.
Most of the time Kit had my back against the rough bark of the lime tree, his hands mapping every inch of my body like he was memorising my shape, his mouth hot against my throat.
The only fitness involved was my heart rate spiking every time he touched me.
“Kit said I needed morning sessions because I was so unfit,” I said.
Priya had gone very quiet. Too quiet. She was studying my face with the sort of intensity usually reserved for suspicious supernatural phenomena, and I had the horrible sinking feeling that she could see straight through my pathetic cover story.
The plant’s leaves rustled as my hands shook.
“And you’re entirely sure the pair of you definitely had a… training session… scheduled for this morning?” Seb asked, and I got the sneaking suspicion that maybe he wasn’t completely buying it either.
“Yes, and I’ve got the texts to prove it,” I said, then immediately wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
Oh, God. What if they asked me to actually prove it? What if they wanted to see my phone?
My chat history with Kit was… compromising.
For a start, he’d begun texting me goodnight almost every single night, complete with kissy face emojis that made my heart do ridiculous things.
And if they scrolled back far enough, they’d find those messages from ages ago.
From that night Kit had to leave, so he asked me to make that list…
My chest tightened to the point that a heart attack was a genuine possibility. Please, no.
“Kit’s never missed a session!” I blurted out, to distract them from my message inbox.
“He doesn’t oversleep either,” Rory said, frowning. “Kit gets up at five thirty every morning and goes for a run. He has porridge at exactly six fifteen, and he’s always at the hotel by seven. Always. When I lived with him, I refused to come in with him that early because it’s barbaric.”
Flynn shifted in his chair. “Maybe he’s having another… breakdown? Um… sorry, I mean, mental health crisis?”
They all exchanged glances. Those two weeks had been a dark, dark time for everyone.
“No,” Rory said firmly. “Sorry, but I don’t believe it. He was fine yesterday.”
Seb nodded. “Rory, message Theo. Ask him to inspect Kit’s flat, see if there’s anything amiss or if Kit’s simply there incapacitated.”
Rory nodded, already pulling out his phone. “There’s a spare key to Kit’s flat at ours. Teddy can grab it.”
“And I presume you’ve tracked his phone?” Seb asked, turning to me.
I gripped the plant tighter. “I checked as we came down here. Our app shows his phone is currently offline. I’d need my computer to properly see if I can pull up data on when it last pinged a location.”
“I saw him leave here yesterday around seven,” Priya said. “He said he was headed across London to Arnos Grove. End of the Piccadilly line.”
“Yes,” Seb said. “Felix, check if we’ve got anything from this morning, then see what we can pull up from yesterday evening.”
I nodded, though my hands were trembling so badly I wasn’t sure I’d be able to type properly.
“Kit was due to meet a vampire at Arnos Grove Station last night,” Seb continued, and the temperature in the room seemed to plummet. “A breakaway from Marcus Vale’s clan who apparently wanted to hand over details on him.”
The plant’s leaves rustled violently in my grip. Marcus Vale. The vampire who hated us with a burning passion, who left bloody trails of bodies throughout Brixton, who was building his own twisted army. The one whose prodigy we’d captured and… questioned… in room 410 in October last year.
“It’s possible that the intelligence meet-up went sideways,” Seb said, his voice carefully neutral. “That the vampire was lying. Bluffing. That it was a trap.”
Scorching hot anger flared within me. If there was a chance it was dangerous, why on earth had he gone alone?!
Flynn sat forward in his chair. “You think Vale has him?”
The words hung in the air like a death sentence. Nobody said what we were all thinking—that Vale might have killed Kit already. That this could be revenge. Perfect, bloody revenge.
“We don’t know anything yet,” Seb replied, but his face said it all.
My chest felt like it was caving in. Kit could be dead. Kit could be somewhere being chopped up into little pieces whilst I sat here holding a houseplant like an idiot. Kit could be—
“Felix,” Seb said sharply. “I need you focused. Can you do this?”
Freddy scampered up onto Rory’s lap, squeaking frantically.
“I know, little friend,” Rory said, scratching behind his ears. “I’m worried too. Settle down.”
But Freddy didn’t settle down. He continued going mental, then performed a sequence of acrobatics worthy of an animation, bouncing off the coffee table and launching himself onto the lampshade.
From there, he scampered across the thick oak beams running parallel across the ceiling, his sharp claws gripping the wood as he navigated between the smaller cross-joists towards the basement staircase.
We leapt to our feet to follow him, watching as he swung from the lightbulb that hung halfway up the stairs.
“Um… okay?” Rory said to him. “Look, now really isn’t—”
Freddy made a noise—half squeak, half growl.
“Someone bring me a ladder,” Seb ordered.
Priya sighed and disappeared upstairs.
When she returned, Seb balanced the stepladder precariously on the stairs and climbed up.
“Don’t!” Flynn called out as Seb reached for the light fixture. “It’ll be hot!”
Seb just looked at him dryly, then pulled something small and dark off the base of the light. He held it up for everyone to see.
“What’s that?” Rory asked, squinting.
“It’s a listening device,” Seb said grimly. “Someone has installed a listening device in our basement.”