Chapter 10 #2
“Really?” Donny shakes out his napkin before putting it on his lap. “I seem to recall you also deciding to cook this dish on the night DJ brought that friend of hers from—”
“Thank you, Donny,” Griffin says, his eyes flashing to mine before he goes back to the kitchen to get some paper towels.
Nico moves through the doorway like he’s trying not to take up space, which is ridiculous considering how much space he actually takes up. His presence fills the room before he even fully enters it, and I catch myself sitting up straighter without meaning to.
He sinks into a chair at the other end of the table and keeps his eyes trained on the wood grain. His dark hair falls across his forehead, and even from here I can see the careful way he’s holding himself.
“Nice of you to join the living.” Griffin tosses a dinner roll across the table without warning.
Nico catches it without looking up, his fingers closing around it with this casual precision that shouldn’t be hot but absolutely is.
DJ fills Nico’s glass with water, then places it by his plate.
Nico looks up at her, and something in his face softens. “Thanks, Deej.”
DJ squeezes his shoulder, then sits a couple of chairs down, next to Benji.
Donny reaches for a roll, glancing at Nico as he does. “Sleep at all?”
Nico shakes his head.
“We could try the—”
“No need,” Nico cuts him off, but there’s no heat in his tone. Just exhaustion. I hear myself when Ray asked how I was doing on the anniversary. The true meaning behind my words. I’m absolutely not fine, but I don’t want to talk about it.
Donny raises his eyebrows, but he drops it, focusing on buttering his roll. The corners of his mouth tighten.
There are shadows under Nico’s eyes dark enough to be bruises. His shoulders are tense. What’s so wrong that he can’t sleep?
It’s none of my business. But this curiosity is like an itch I can’t scratch.
Griffin serves heaping portions of chicken parm and then sits next to me, launching into a story about a ghost hunt gone wrong.
DJ, who was there with him, does a great impression of Griffin calling for help after accidentally falling through a rotten floor inside an abandoned hospital.
I watch them talking over each other, adding details, and I feel like I’m watching someone else’s home movie.
Bob sits beside Donny’s chair, begging, and does a small wag of his tail every time Donny drops him a piece of bread.
Everyone is smiling. Well, everyone except for Nico, who’s cutting his chicken into pieces so small you’d think he’s preparing it for a toddler.
He’s not eating any of it. Just cutting.
And cutting. And cutting some more. Benji slides Nico the garlic bread without being asked.
DJ reaches across the table and steals a piece of pasta off Nico’s plate, and he shifts his plate closer to her.
I’m listening to DJ when I feel a crawling sensation on the back of my neck like a Daddy Long Legs walking across my skin. I glance up and catch Nico already looking at me.
He goes back to his chicken. I train my attention back on DJ as she tells me about a cannibal they once caught who was obsessed with feeding human meat to as many unwitting people as he could, including his poor host. Gave him a real power rush, apparently.
“An entity displaying cannibalistic interest is more common than you’d think,” Benji says excitedly. “The conditions needed for a Possessor to exist in the first place make them more willing to commit such a depraved act against other humans, even if they weren’t a cannibal when they were alive.”
Nobody at the table appears to have a problem eating through this conversation, myself included, surprisingly enough.
DJ is detailing the plastic container of suspicious chop suey they found in the man’s fridge when I feel Nico’s eyes on me again.
He’s probably not staring at me. Maybe he’s looking through me while thinking about something else. I’ve done that to people so many times. But when I glance up again, his eyes lock onto mine.
I clear my throat and aim for friendly. “Nico, do you need me to pass you anything?”
His eyes narrow, and there’s something so angry in them that my stomach tightens. “No.”
It’s a super intense amount of anger to have just because I accepted the job. He’s looking at me like he wants to murder me through his eyes.
I could drop this. Go back to my food, so there’s a chance parking lot Nico will reappear. But my mouth opens before I can stop myself.
“I just thought,” I say, “that since you’ve been staring at me for the past five minutes, maybe you needed something passed.”
Griffin makes a choking sound. DJ’s fork freezes halfway to her mouth, her eyes going wide.
Nico leans back in his chair, his expression unreadable. “Presumptuous to assume I was staring at you.”
“It would be, if you were being even a little bit subtle about it.” I keep my voice sweet even though my pulse is hammering. “So, what is it? Do you need something, or do I have something in my teeth?”
His eyes go cold in a way that makes the hair on my arms stand up. I’ve seen it before. That calculated emptiness.
In the courtroom. In Stanley Daniels’s eyes.
My fingers go numb around my fork, and I have to concentrate on gripping it to prevent it from falling out of my hand.
“Eden,” Donny says. “Will you pass the extra sauce, please?”
I hold Nico’s stare for one more second before reaching for the bowl. That was weird. More than weird. I don’t understand what that was, but my skin feels tight and wrong, like I need to shake off the residue of his attention.
Bob scratches at my leg under the table, his little nails catching on my jeans. I suck the tomato sauce off a piece of chicken and slip it to him, keeping the piece small because too much will upset his stomach. He takes it gently between his teeth and swallows it whole, then hobbles away from me.
Toward Nico.
I’m about to call him back when Benji pipes up.
“Nico, you should give Bob a piece of chicken,” Benji urges. “Don’t try to hand it to him—that puts pressure on him. Toss it behind him. It’s counterconditioning. He’s scared now, but over time, he’ll see you as a treat dispenser and form a positive emotional association with you.”
Nico looks about as enthusiastic about doing this as I would be standing in line at an amusement park behind a tongue-kissing couple for three hours. “A treat dispenser, huh?”
Griffin snort-laughs. “Yeah. Like one of those machines where you press a button, and a tennis ball shoots out.”
Nico glowers at him. But Benji looks so hopeful, so Nico sighs and cuts off a sliver of his chicken breast. Nico’s hand slowly drops under the table. At least Bob is welcome even if I’m not.
I hear a low growl and bend down to find Bob with his ears pinned flat, radiating suspicion as he glares at the offered food.
Nico draws his hand back to toss the chicken.
Bob lunges.
Nico jerks his hand back just in time. Bob’s teeth snap at the empty air where Nico’s fingers were a second ago.
“Bob.”
Bob comes scurrying back toward me.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Nico, pressing Bob against my leg. “He’s never done that before.”
Nico’s face is completely blank. Not angry. Or hurt. Just nothing.
He stands, his chair scraping against the floor.
“You okay?” DJ asks, leaning forward.
Nico nods and carries his plate to the sink. He rinses it with precise movements, then slots it into the dishwasher.
“Thanks for dinner,” he tells Griffin, and leaves without looking at any of us.
The silence that follows feels like someone sucked all the air out of the room.
I stare at the empty doorway, a nervous feeling gnawing at the lining of my stomach.
DJ and Griffin exchange a look that makes it clear they’re having an entire conversation without words. Donny sighs into his water glass.
“I’m so sorry about Bob,” I say, glancing between all of them.
Donny waves a hand but says nothing.
“Did something happen to Nico on your trip?” DJ asks Donny, her voice low.
Donny sets down his glass, his shoulders sagging in a way that makes him look every one of his years. “He hasn’t been sleeping well the past few days.”
“But he was doing fine before,” DJ says. “He was fine until William Caine.”
Benji slowly turns his head in my direction.