Chapter 24 #2
"No." The refusal came sharp and immediate.
Charlie flinched; he couldn't help it.
Simon's expression shifted, something flickering across his face too fast to read. His hand lifted like he might reach for Charlie, then dropped.
"It's not safe," he said.
"Nothing about my life is safe." Charlie gestured at himself, at the tail, at the general disaster of his existence. "I'm a vampire who faints at blood. I live in constant danger of embarrassing myself to death."
Viktor snorted. "He has a point."
Simon shot him an annoyed look. "You're not helping."
"I'm not trying to help. I'm trying to understand why you're in such a hurry." Viktor's gaze sharpened. "What did Reuben say to you?"
"Reuben doesn't matter right now."
"Bullshit." Viktor stepped forward. "Everything about this screams Organization deadline. How long do you have?"
"I said it doesn't matter."
"How long, Simon?"
The silence stretched tight enough to snap. Charlie watched them face off, these two not-quite-humans with their enhanced everything and their shared history of violence.
"Roughly ten hours now," Simon said finally.
The words didn't make sense at first. Charlie's brain struggled to process them.
"Ten hours until what?" But even as he asked, he knew. The knowing sat cold and heavy in his chest.
Simon wouldn't look at him. "Until my deadline expires."
"To kill me." Not a question. Charlie's voice came out flat, empty of the panic he probably should have been feeling. Instead, there was just a tired kind of acceptance.
His tail finally vanished.
"I'm not going to kill you," Simon said in a tone as if it was obvious, as if he was stating the weather. "If I really wanted you dead you'd be long dead by now."
Charlie nodded. He didn't know what else to do.
"Simon." Viktor spoke up. "You know what happens if you don't carry out the order."
"I know."
"Do you really?" Viktor moved closer, and something in his expression made Charlie's stomach drop all over again. "Because I don't think you're taking this seriously. Reuben doesn't accept failure. Especially not from his favorite."
Simon's jaw tightened. "I said I know."
"He'll send you to correctional training."
"I won't go."
Charlie looked between them, that sick feeling spreading. "What's correctional training?"
Neither of them answered at first. Viktor's hands had curled into fists at his sides, and Simon had gone very still.
"It's reconditioning," Viktor said finally. "For hunters who've been compromised. Who've lost their way." He paused. "Let's just say it isn't pleasant."
Well, that wasn't reassuring.
"You're making it sound like torture," Charlie said.
"That's because that's what it is," Viktor said.
"You're being dramatic," Simon cut in.
Viktor turned to him. "You know I'm not, and I'm not letting you do this."
"Shut up," Simon said, but his words lacked their usual bite. "I know how to handle Reuben."
"You mean you know how to handle the man who tied you to a chair when you were fifteen and pulled your teeth out to teach you that being a vampire meant suffering? That man?"
"Shut up," Simon said again, louder this time. "Reuben kept me from becoming the thing that killed my mother. I'm not a victim. I'm a survivor."
Viktor only looked at him for a moment. "Is that how you're framing it?"
Charlie's stomach churned as he tried to make sense of all he was hearing. Whoever this Reuben was, Charlie didn't like him, and he didn't want Simon to go back to him.
Simon's anger was etched into his features now. "This is a pointless discussion. I'm going to do what needs to be done, as I always do." He pointed at Viktor. "You take Charlie to that vampire community and I'll investigate my lead and we'll meet up later. We need to stop wasting time."
Viktor's expression hardened. "This discussion is important. The second your deadline passes, Reuben will come for you himself. And he won't come alone."
"Let him come."
"You arrogant—" Viktor cut himself off, dragging a hand through his hair. "You helped me disappear when they wanted to send me back for more training. You risked everything to get me out, told them I'd gone west, covered my tracks for months. But you won't save yourself?"
Charlie watched Simon's face go carefully blank at the reminder. So Simon had helped Viktor escape the organization.
Simon's words sounded like he was choosing them carefully. "You didn't deserve what they wanted to do to you."
"And you do?" Viktor's voice cracked with something that might have been anger or might have been grief. "Because you protected one vampire instead of killing him? Because you finally saw through their lies?"
"They're not lies." Simon's voice came out too sharp, too defensive. "The Organization saved me. I was covered in my mother's blood, halfway to becoming the same kind of monster that killed her. Reuben gave me a way to fight back."
"He gave you a lifetime of trauma," Viktor shot back.
Simon's hands clenched. "I'm not discussing this."
"Of course you're not. You never do. You just go on swallowing those pills." Viktor blew out a breath, and his voice gentled slightly. "I've been where you are. Believing that the pain was necessary, that it made us better. But it didn't. It just made us afraid of becoming ourselves."
"I'm not afraid," Simon argued.
"I'm afraid for you," Viktor said. "Afraid you might still confuse torture for love."
"It wasn't torture," Simon protested. "I was out of control. I attacked his men. I needed—"
"You were a traumatized child who'd just watched his mother die," Viktor said gently. "You needed therapy. Medical care. Time to grieve. Not to be strapped to a chair and—"
"Stop." Simon's voice broke on the word. "Just stop."
Charlie couldn't stand it anymore. The way Simon stood there, shoulders rigid, hands clenched, clearly struggling with himself.
Without thinking, Charlie crossed the space between them and wrapped his arms around Simon.
Simon went completely still. Every muscle locked up like Charlie had attacked him instead of hugged him. His arms hung at his sides, not returning the embrace, not pushing Charlie away. Just frozen.
"You didn't need training," Charlie said against Simon's shoulder. The leather of his jacket smelled like rain and gunpowder and something uniquely Simon. "What you needed was someone to hold you. I wish I could go back in time, but I can't so I'm doing this now."
A sound escaped Simon's throat. Not quite a gasp, not quite a sob. Something raw and wounded that he immediately tried to swallow back.
Charlie held on tighter, feeling the tremor that ran through Simon's body. Like an earthquake starting deep underground, barely visible on the surface but devastating at its core.
"You can push me away if you want," Charlie said quietly. "But I'm not letting go until you do."
For a long moment, Simon just stood there, breathing too carefully, too controlled. Like he was afraid that if he breathed normally, something inside him might break loose.
Then, so slowly Charlie almost missed it, one of Simon's hands came up. Not to push him away, but to rest against Charlie's back. Just his palm, flat between Charlie's shoulder blades. The touch was so light Charlie might have imagined it if not for the warmth seeping through his shirt.
"This is stupid," Simon said, but his voice came out wrong. Too rough. Too small.
"Yeah," Charlie agreed. "But it's good to be stupid sometimes. That's what I'm good at."
Simon laughed then. A real, genuine laugh.
The sound made Charlie smile too.
The laugh seemed to surprise Simon as much as it did Charlie. He pulled back slightly, looking almost offended by his own reaction.
"Don't make me laugh," Simon said, but there was something softer in his eyes now. "This is serious."
"Everything's serious with you." Charlie's hands were still resting on Simon's shoulders. He could feel the tension there. "When's the last time you did something just because you wanted to?"
Simon blinked at him. "I kissed you."
Heat flooded Charlie's face. "That doesn't count."
"Why not?"
"Because you were trying to apologize. Or punish yourself. Or—"
"I wanted to." The words came out quiet but clear. "I've wanted to since I first saw that ridiculous smile of yours."
Charlie's brain short-circuited. "My ridiculous smile."
Simon's mouth twitched. "Yes."
"Wait, does that mean you wanted to kiss me while you were hunting me?"
"Apparently."
Viktor made a sound that might have been a cough or might have been barely suppressed laughter.
"That's messed up," Charlie said.
"Yes," Simon agreed. Then, with a small grin, "At least we're not actually cousins."
Charlie laughed in spite of himself. He'd completely forgotten about the remark Simon had made to his boss.
Too late, Charlie noticed that Simon used his distraction to extricate himself. He glanced at Viktor. "You know what I need you to do."
And then he turned to the door and left before either of them could try to stop him again.