Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
SAWYER
Sawyer sat at his desk, absentmindedly tapping his fingers on the keyboard, wondering just how to word his email to Hadeom.
He wanted to keep his job.
Not for prosperity’s sake, and not for the public safety of this town—this town didn’t need a cop at all—but in case they needed help of a different kind.
Help of a militarised kind. A coastguard kind of help.
The whole Australian Navy kind of help.
If this Lusca was coming—and from what Sawyer could ascertain from the way they spoke of it, it was only a matter of time—then she would meet a twenty-first-century kind of resistance.
The last time she’d surfaced had been in the mid-1700s. She’d encountered humans with no more firepower than wooden ships with cannonballs.
Not that Sawyer had any clue what kind of battle they were in for.
He had the terrible realisation that it would be fought at the bottom of the fucking Tasman Fracture trench, in freezing-cold water some few thousand feet beneath the surface.
Far deeper than Sawyer could go. Below where he could help.
“What are you thinking?” Ciaran asked. He was sitting on the cot in the jail cell, legs outstretched, leaning against the wall with his laptop, looking a dozen shades of cute and sexy.
They couldn’t very well do work in their own respective offices—they still couldn’t be apart too far or for too long, even two days later. Well, he thought it’d been two days.... Time differences were made even harder by the fact that they spent most of their time fucking and dozing.
“Sawyer?” Ciaran’s smile was laced with concern. “You went from worried to horny. What are you thinking?”
Sawyer straightened up in his chair and cleared his throat.
“Uh, yeah. Sorry. Was just remembering....” He shook the memory of this morning’s shower sex out of his head.
“Uh, the worry part, yes….” They were still acclimating to feeling every single thing the other was feeling.
They couldn’t hide a thing and while it took some getting used to, he wasn’t convinced it was a bad thing.
“Just thinking about the likelihood of me being able to man a small submarine with firepower. How deep can those things go?”
Ciaran laughed, closed his laptop, and came out to lean against Sawyer’s desk. He bent down and kissed him softly. “No submarines.”
“Well, not mine, no. Unfortunately. But the Australian Navy has some with a hellfire arsenal. I’m sure Hadeom could pull some strings—”
Ciaran shook his head, still smiling, his voice gentle when he said, “No.”
“I know,” Sawyer said with a sigh. “Keeping the secret. It’s the number one rule.
I get that. But he knows. I dunno what. But he knows something.
And if there was ever a time....” Sawyer could barely bring himself to think it.
“The fact that you and the guys could be in serious danger scares the shit out of me, and I’m completely useless. I hate not being able to help.”
“I know,” Ciaran murmured. He put his hand on Sawyer’s cheek, his eyes searching Sawyer’s. “We’ll be okay. We’ll send her back with her tail between her legs.” He moved his fingers in a running fashion.
“And the fissure she crawls out of?” Sawyer asked. “At the bottom of the deepest parts of the ocean. Can you just close it now? Before she even gets here?”
He screwed his nose up. “Fissure. What a terrible word.”
Sawyer rolled his eyes. “Is crevice any better?”
“Marginally.” Ciaran chuckled. “It would be good if we could, but we don’t know where it will open.”
Sawyer thought about that for a second. “So, it’s not a fissure or crevice so much as it is a portal?” He thought about it some more. “A portal from wherever the fuck she’s been for the past two hundred and fifty years. Like in those superhero movies.”
Ciaran’s eyebrows flickered as if this was something he hadn’t considered. “Maybe.”
“So we don’t need the Navy,” Sawyer said, pushing his keyboard away. “We need The Avengers.”
Ciaran laughed again, then looked at the very blank report titled Tenebrae Cove Residents that Sawyer was still yet to write. “Your boss won’t be happy if you don’t send him something.”
Sawyer sighed and, taking the keyboard, spoke out loud as he typed.
“Ciaran Brenner. Age on diving licence: twenty-nine. Actual age indeterminate?” Sawyer looked up at Ciaran then, and he just shrugged and nodded.
Sawyer chuckled as he continued. “Sexiest man alive. Blood type: blue. Distinguishing features: hot-as-fuck tattoo on right forearm and copper-coloured eyes. Special talents include: toxins that burn, self-lubing tentacles, the ability to locate my prostate with exquisite precision, and—”
Ciaran burst out laughing.
“What?” Sawyer asked, grinning. “Too much information?”
“Send it. I dare you.”
“God no,” Sawyer said, highlighting the whole paragraph and promptly deleting it.
Then he typed out something else...
Something else he felt but wasn’t sure he should voice it...
No hiding, right?
I, Douglas Sawyer, hereby tender my resignation, effective immediately.
He paused, the cursor blinking at him as if daring him, challenging him...
“Sawyer,” Ciaran murmured. “No.”
He looked up at him and saw only concern on his face. Sawyer let out a long breath and, leaving the words on the screen, pushed the keyboard away again. “Maybe I need to.”
“But is that what you want?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. If being here as just a cop was all I was doing, then no. But knowing Hadeom sent me here to gather intel on you? I can’t be a part of that. I won’t have any part of that.”
Ciaran frowned, and he didn’t need to say how bad he felt because Sawyer could feel it.
“But maybe staying a cop and fabricating some mediocre bullshit will help me keep him happy,” Sawyer rationalised. “I can keep him at arm’s length that way. If I resign now, he’d think it was suspicious, right?”
Ciaran nodded. “Probably, yes.” Then he shrugged. “Or he could turn up himself to see what the hell’s going on. Or send another cop who will definitely rat us all out.”
Sawyer growled at that. “Who would find themselves at the bottom of the Cove with some unfortunate concrete boots on.”
Ciaran barked out a surprise laugh. “Detective Sergeant! Did you just threaten homicide?”
If someone threatened you first, then yes...
“Not at all. I simply threatened them with some questionable fashion choices.”
Ciaran laughed again, the sound making Sawyer happy. “Since when are cement boots a fashion choice?”
“I was just kidding,” Sawyer said, though neither of them believed it.
Then Ciaran nodded to the screen again. “Whatever you decide, I’ll support you. Resign, or be a cop forever. The choice is yours.”
Sawyer took the mouse and hovered over the Send button for a long few seconds. But then he deleted that too.
When he looked up at Ciaran, he found him smiling at him.
“I will have to send him something,” Sawyer said, though the idea of revealing any details about the residents of Tenebrae made him feel ill.
“Maybe I should tell him to focus on old Mr Brown. That might keep him busy for a while. I mean, the man is a hundred and two years old, lives totally off grid, no driver’s licence, and his cheque book should be in museum of defunct financial institutions of the twentieth century. ”
Ciaran chuckled, took Sawyer’s face in his hands, and kissed him. “I probably wouldn’t do that.”
“Do what?” Sawyer asked. Then his smile faded... Oh god. “Is he.... Who is Mr Brown, exactly?”
Ciaran, eyes alight with humour, smirked at the wall. “Uh... I am not at liberty to say.”
“Hey, I thought we had no secrets.”
He laughed then and put his hands up. “I... ugh. I cannot...”
Sawyer could feel the anguish twisting through Ciaran. He wanted to say something but couldn’t?
Like there was a pact he couldn’t divulge, not even to Sawyer. A secret that was not his to tell, some nonhuman treaty...
Sawyer grabbed the keys to the cruiser and stood up. “Well, would you look at the time.”
Ciaran blinked at him, confused. “What? Time for what?”
“Time you and I went and paid Mr Brown another visit.”
Driving out of town and into the mountains was different this time. Sure, the misty rain and the low cloud cover was the same, but now he had Ciaran beside him.
Admittedly, Sawyer couldn’t come up here without Ciaran. Well, not without feeling as if he’d had his heart ripped out. They’d be working on their time apart for a while yet, Sawyer reasoned.
But not today.
He didn’t want to be anywhere else but with Ciaran. Was it absurd? Yes. Did he give a fuck?
Not when he got to see Ciaran sitting beside him in the front of his cruiser with a huge grin on his face, his excitement palpable and adorable.
Not ever.
“Don’t get to ride in a car very often? Is this a new experience for you?”
He snorted. “You mean going for a drive with my boyfriend like it’s the most human thing I could ever do? Yes, this is a new experience for me.”
Sawyer laughed and, reaching over, took Ciaran’s hand so he could bring it up to his lips. He kissed his knuckles. “Boyfriend.”
Ciaran shrugged, trying to appear indifferent but not pulling it off. “Yes. A fitting human qualifier, is it not?”
“Well, it’s not wrong. Just grossly inadequate.”
“Agreed.”
“What’s the cephamorph equivalent?” Sawyer asked. “If boyfriend is the human term.”
“Mates. Bonded pair.” He sniffed and looked out the window. “Husbands.”
Sawyer’s foot slid off the foot pedal, and the cruiser jolted. “Husbands,” he repeated, stunned, yes, but damn if it didn’t feel right.
“Well... well, yes.” Ciaran looked at him then, affronted. Offended? “Is that not what you would call us?”
Sawyer blinked quickly. “Yes. I guess. In the sense that we’re sworn to each other. But we’re not married—”
Ciaran surprised him by laughing. “Oh, you humans are so weird with your religious beliefs.”
“I’m not religious—”