Chapter 3 #2
And twelve lashes later, he succeeded.
They let Daniel take him after it was over. Leaning heavily on his brother, Nicolas staggered to the medical wing under the crushing weight of the crowd’s stares. He fought to control the fine trembling of his body.
“What the hell happened?” Daniel asked under his breath as they escaped around the corner of the administrative building and out of the crowd’s sight.
His face burned at the question. Daniel knew him well enough to recognize when he was keeping something secret, and he wasn’t ready to admit what had actually happened in that factory. “We saw the demon. The one that’s been killing paladins and leaving their bodies mummified.”
“God in Heaven,” Daniel breathed. “And you’re still alive?”
“I’m the only one.” He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was close enough now to eavesdrop. “He told me the others had black souls. That they were evil, and he’s something called a sin eater.”
“He’s been going after evil paladins?” Daniel asked, then brightened. “And you’re not evil.”
Nicolas huffed. “It doesn’t matter. Sloan thinks it’s the other way around. He thinks the demon killed good men and spared me because I was… like him, maybe. Too cowardly to fight him or too wrong to be eaten like the others.”
“Yeah, well, Sloan’s blown past crazy and gone right into psycho territory.”
“Shh,” Nicolas warned. “No more of that here. Not where someone might hear.”
The cold air of the hallway stung his back as they stepped inside.
He pointedly didn’t look at the assistant working the front desk, but she called for Doctor Maxwell right away.
Others had come in seeking the same treatment for the same wounds before—hell, Maxwell himself had been cleansed on more than one occasion—but that knowledge didn’t lessen the humiliation.
Maxwell appeared at the mouth of the hallway.
He looked just the same as always, wearing a white lab coat and delicate, wire-framed glasses.
His short hair was ash gray, and his brown face was lined with wrinkles.
The starkest difference between this visit and every other was how defeated Maxwell looked as he met Nicolas’s eyes.
“Right this way, Captain Garcia,” he said grimly.
Nicolas looked at Daniel, who understood immediately, taking his hand and offering him a nod. He was going to be there every step of the way, and for the first time since last night, Nicolas relaxed.
The exam room was like any other, with a paper-covered cot and a small cabinet in the corner for supplies.
“Have a seat,” Maxwell said. “Let’s take a look at the damage. Go ahead and remove the shirt, too, if you would. I have some spares down the hall. I can bring you one in a moment.”
The sin eater had sharp teeth. He distinctly remembered those teeth pricking his chest. Had it left any marks behind? Nicolas tucked his arms around his stomach, pressing the fabric tight to his body. Maxwell could report him for disobedience if he wanted, but he wasn’t removing the shirt.
Maxwell studied him carefully for a moment, pushing his wire-framed glasses up his nose. “There are no cameras in these rooms, you know,” he said softly. “And anything you say to me in here is protected by doctor-patient confidentiality.”
“Is that still true if Sloan tells you it’s for the greater good?” Maxwell himself had received two cleansings since all of this started, but Nicolas didn’t know where his loyalties really laid.
Maxwell straightened, tipping his chin up. “Yes. I’ve watched that man do some horrible things lately. I’m a doctor. I don’t know how to stop him, but I took an oath to do no harm. You have good reason to worry, and if you don’t trust me, I don’t blame you. But I hope you know that you can.”
Nicolas nodded, but he didn’t remove the shirt. “I do trust you—I think. But I’m not taking off the shirt. I just don’t want to answer those questions right now.”
“What questions?” Daniel asked.
“Danny,” he pleaded, and his little brother subsided. As much as it pained him, he’d tell Daniel the truth when they got away from HQ. He trusted Daniel with everything, even if he expected Daniel to seriously question his state of mind after he told him what happened.
Maxwell inclined his head. “So be it. Allow me to treat your back, at least.”
Nicolas obligingly turned his back toward Maxwell. The abrasions, he said, were shallow enough not to need stitches. He treated them with antibiotic cream, covered them with gauze, and gave him a prescription for some mild painkillers to get him through the week.
“I’m sending you home for the day,” Maxwell said. “You had a long night and a longer day. I doubt you’ve eaten anything since yesterday.”
No, he hadn’t. Sloan had withheld food during the interview, and the clock on the wall told him it was almost two in the afternoon now.
Maxwell fetched a new shirt for him, and Nicolas pulled it over his ripped one rather than take it off. Neither of them commented on it.
“I also don’t want you driving.” Maxwell winked at them. “Daniel, I’m ordering you to drive him home. Pick up some food on the way. Make sure he rests for the remainder of the day.”
Daniel smiled—one of the rare ones these days that actually touched his eyes. “Yes, Doctor. Come on, Nic. I’ll let you pick where we eat.”
He knew he should eat, but the thought of food turned his stomach. “I honestly don’t care,” he said. “You know what I like.”
People stopped and stared all the way to the parking lot.
Nicolas felt brittle, like one wrong touch might shatter him.
Was this how Daniel had felt after his cleansing?
His little brother had withdrawn into himself after that day.
The others in their squad treated him like his empathy for the traitors might be contagious.
Nicolas had tried to temper their behavior, but he knew things had been hard for Daniel ever since.
It was a relief to finally get in the passenger seat of his car. A moment later the air conditioner was blasting and Daniel was tapping something on his phone.
“What’re you doing?” he mumbled.
“Ordering pizza. It should arrive at your apartment about five minutes after we do.”
Nicolas’s eyes slipped closed. “Perfect.” He leaned his head against the window.
Daniel patted his leg. “Just rest, Nic. You’ll be home soon.”
He dozed, feeling the gentle push and pull of the car’s momentum as Daniel steered them toward his place.
It wasn’t a deep sleep, hovering in the haze between there and not.
Behind his eyelids, he saw orange orbs glowing in darkness and felt sharp claws tickling his cheek.
He wanted to arch into it, go back to that moment in the darkness when it was just the two of them and the rest of the world stopped spinning just for them.
He woke with Daniel’s hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him awake. “We’re here.”
Nicolas groaned. His head hurt from being pressed against the glass. He fumbled with his seatbelt and stood, stretching in the afternoon sun. His gaze swept up the side of the apartment building—and he froze.
In a random window, he saw twin points of glowing orange.
No way. Adrenaline flooded through his overtired body. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, and he didn’t know what he was feeling. Fear and excitement fought for dominance, and his cock jerked behind his zipper.
“Nic?”
He finally tore his eyes away from the window to find Daniel watching him with a frown. “Yeah? What?”
“I said are you ready to go up? The pizza will be here any minute.”
“Yeah, of course. Let’s go.”
When he looked up at the window again, the orange points were gone. He shook himself. Maybe it was his imagination, a remnant of the dream he’d been having in the car. Why would the demon have followed him home? If it was a sin eater, it would be hunting sinners.
He put the strange image from his mind and led Daniel up to his second floor apartment. He’d never been so happy to see the iron 22 on his door before. The key slid into the knob, and when he pushed the door open, he gasped, reeling back a step.
Orange eyes stared back at him from the darkness within his living room.
“Nic? What’s wrong?”
Nicolas turned, opening his mouth to tell Daniel it was okay, that the demon—probably—meant them no harm, but when he followed Daniel’s gaze to the living room, the eyes were gone.
He patted Nicolas’s shoulder, brow furrowing. “Are you okay?”
Nicolas laughed. It sounded a little hysterical to his own ears. “No, not really.” He flicked the light on and looked around. No demons lurked within. His apartment was warded, after all. The sin eater couldn’t appear inside the wards. He was just imagining things.
“So what’s going on with you?” Daniel asked, guiding him across the gray carpet and pushing him down onto the sofa.
He went to the balcony doors next, pulling the curtains aside that covered the glass doors and opening the blinds on the windows on either side, filling the room with warm light. “Tell me what happened last night.”
Nicolas sighed. It was probably better to tell the whole tale before he ate anything.
He tugged the shirts off, discarding the ripped one, and looked down at himself.
He felt like he should be covered in marks.
The demon’s touch had left fingerprints on his soul; it should be visible on his skin, too.
Instead, there was only one visible mark on his body—scabs dotted around one areola, and the sight made his face heat.
“What—is that a bite mark?” Daniel asked, sitting beside him and leaning in to inspect it closer.
“Yeah.” He passed a hand over his burning face. “So, the sin eater… It didn’t just kill them and then disappear.”