Chapter Nineteen
Calling all Seattle fans of Dungeon-Free Dragons! This month’s meet-up will be at the empath club. Get great food and join
new friends for a peaceful RPG where we hatch baby dragons that safely grow into happy adult dragons.
—Post shared on social media
Grayson kept the steering wheel steady with his knees as he glanced at his phone. “McFeely’s?”
Behind him on I-5, someone honked. Grayson tossed the phone back to the passenger seat and grabbed the wheel again.
Of all the ways he’d expected Reece to respond to his request to meet, naming the fake empath club hadn’t made the list. And
tonight, with news of the AMI president’s death still rocking Seattle, the club would likely be extra packed with people wanting
to gossip.
In hindsight, letting Reece choose a place might’ve been a bad decision. Grayson was making an awful lot of those.
He drove back to the studio, where he stood at the kitchen island and ate two packs of Reece’s vegan ramen out of a rainbow bowl as he read up on the old Empath Initiative facility out by Port Angeles on his phone.
Eyes on Empaths had done a feature story on the old facility two years ago. Gretel had gone in person and posted some of her own photos of
the abandoned campus: an evergreen-edged parking lot with lots of potholes but no cars, a shell of an office building with
several boarded windows, a pile of rusted construction debris with a raven perched on top. If Traynor had been there recently
to hide a flash drive, Grayson would guess he’d picked the office building, where it’d be out of the elements, at least, and
the floors were finished and safe to walk on.
You told Reece you needed to see him, a little voice in his head pointed out.
Grayson hesitated over his phone. But yeah. He had done that.
Why?
Because Grayson was leaving town tomorrow—leaving St. James alone to watch over a powder keg with potentially murderous corrupted
empaths on one side and the folks framing them on the other.
But you’re the Dead Man. You don’t have needs.
And you most definitely don’t need Reece.
Grayson put his phone down. It was time to go.
McFeely’s had been put through a lot that one November night after Senator Hathaway had died. Between Cora Falcon’s thralls,
the panicking crowds and Reece smashing a historic window to escape, the club had needed to set up temporarily in a warehouse
in Kent while the building underwent cleanup and repairs. McFeely’s had just reopened that week in their previous location
in Pioneer Square.
It wasn’t much more than a mile from the studio, so Grayson opted to walk, leaving the Smart car in the building’s garage instead of trying to find more downtown parking.
It was a cold night, a light and partially frozen rain falling on his hat as he walked the sidewalk, trying to avoid any deeper puddles.
The familiar smells of most urban downtowns were here, car exhaust and less pleasant human aromas, but at least layered over salty ocean air and rain.
It was louder than expected, with pockets of people smoking on downtown corners, undeterred by the cold or the damp, and a steady flow of cars splashing through puddles.
He still couldn’t explain why he’d told Reece he needed to see him. And he definitely couldn’t explain why, as he’d been leaving
the studio, he’d grabbed his own Texas hooded sweatshirt, the one he’d once given to Reece. He was wearing it now, zipped
up under his coat, the hood pulled up over his hat to keep the rain off his neck. Reece wasn’t gonna notice. Hell, maybe Reece
wasn’t even gonna show.
It was exactly 10:58 p.m. as he approached the historical building that hid McFeely’s. More cars now lined the streets, though
he didn’t see his F-150 anywhere, and faint bass was floating out from the upstairs window. As he approached the double doors
under the green awning, a thick white man with a goatee waved him up to the front of the line.
“Evan Grayson?” When Grayson nodded, the man pointed at himself. “Rocky. Reece said you were coming. You’re his boyfriend,
right?”
“Actually, I’m his—his—Reece is here already?”
“Got here maybe an hour ago.” Rocky spoke with the comfort of a man who clearly no idea what kind of empath was now in his
club. “How’s Diesel? Never the same without him, but it sounds like he caught a hell of a flu in Vancouver. He said you were
letting him crash at your place in BC.”
“He can stay long as he wants,” Grayson said. “Where did Reece go?”
“He mentioned he was going to find Ben.” Rocky was sizing Grayson up with a professional sort of air. “You’re not the jealous type, are you?”
“The what?”
“My man, you’re the size of Godzilla,” Rocky said patiently. “I gotta know if I’m going to be breaking up your fights.”
“My . . . fights?”
“I get it,” Rocky said. “Pretty dude like you—you’re used to being the one people want.”
“Well—”
“But in here, they got a specific taste. And no offense, but that taste ain’t you.” Rocky said it real kind, like Grayson’s
ego needed to be let down gently. “This crowd comes for the empaths, and they will be all over Reece.”
Oh. Grayson cleared his throat. “He’s, um—kind of a handful, actually. These days especially.”
“No, see, that’s not going to turn anyone here off.” Rocky patted his shoulder sympathetically. Grayson was beginning to understand why he worked at an empathy-themed club.
“Look, I get it: Every asshole in here wants to take Ben home. Do I love that? Of course not. But I deal, right? I process
my feelings like a grown-up. So you gotta deal too, especially when we’re short a bouncer without Diesel. If someone hits
on Reece, I need to know that my new friend Godzilla won’t start swinging.”
“I do try to avoid violence in front of empaths,” Grayson said.
“So you’re not going to hit anyone tonight?”
Grayson opened his mouth, then hesitated. “I probably shouldn’t make that promise.”
Rocky sighed. “Then you better watch your man.”
“I’m gonna watch him real close,” Grayson promised.
Rocky let him inside, and Grayson climbed the stairs up to the second floor. The music was loud and the crowd thick: A lot of folks had shown up after the Macys’ deaths. Even folks who didn’t know about corrupted empaths couldn’t be missing the sheer number
of empathy-related murders that kept happening in Seattle.
He scanned the crowd, checking the dance floor and every table for any sign of Reece. Fake empaths in gloves were all over
the place, all of them about Reece’s height and build and dressed in costumes of various kinds. Reece could be in disguise,
blend in perfectly and have a whole crowd of potential thralls; he’d definitely known what he was doing when he picked this
meeting place, and Grayson might’ve underestimated him yet again.
In his pocket, his phone buzzed. He pulled it out and read the text on-screen.
Reece: Marco
Grayson looked up. At the far end of the club, three bartenders in fake empath gloves were making drinks behind the marble-topped
bar: Ben Castillo, his complicated hair partially hidden by a plush hat with moving ears; a short woman with tattoos and a
top hat, chatting with two other women; and a third bartender in a domino mask and familiar black bunny ears, looking straight
at Grayson.
As Grayson approached, Reece leaned on the bar. “You’re supposed to say Polo.”
“Pardon?”
“You know. When you’re seeking someone you can’t see, you say Marco and they call back Polo.” Reece rested his chin on one fake-gloved hand, all innocence. “Didn’t you ever play that game in the pool?”
Grayson slipped into the empty stool right in front of Reece. “I thought we weren’t playing.” He leaned on the bar too. “After all, you picked a meeting spot where every hapless clubgoer is your hostage.”
Reece had already shifted backwards before their arms came anywhere near each other. “I didn’t have to meet with you at all.”
That was true. Reece could have told Grayson to fuck off with his ask; he looked on the verge of doing it now. Grayson nodded
at the bottles stacked on glass shelves behind Reece. “Since when do you bartend?”
“I wanted a bar between us. For obvious reasons. Ben is pretending to be an empath; he was willing to let me pretend too.”
Reece shrugged lightly. “I mean, I could have made him willing. But it hasn’t come to that yet.”
The mask only covered from his eyebrows to the bridge of his nose. Grayson could just make out his eyes behind the cutouts.
In the dim lighting, they appeared almost glittery black, as they had that one night in the truck, when Reece’s empathy had
danced free between them.
“It better not come to that ever—” Grayson paused as an out of place but unmistakable scent rose above the other club smells.
“Did you use my shampoo?”
Reece scoffed a little too dramatically. “Don’t be stupid.”
“That’s not a no.”
“Not everything is about your hair—”
“Hey, it’s your hot, scary boyfriend!” Ben’s cheerful voice broke through their conversation. He grinned at Grayson. “Evan,
right? Thanks for helping Cookie.”
“Cookie?” Reece repeated.
Ben pointed at one of the fake empath waiters, who was wearing a halo on a headband, white feathered wings and not much else.
“He was the one who suddenly went to Australia the night Senator Hathaway died. Your boyfriend had promised me he’d check on him.
Turned out the job he’d been offered was fake, but Evan bought him a ticket back, and he came home safe and sound.
” Ben glanced between them. “Did you guys not talk about that?”
“We’re overdue for a lot of conversations, don’t you think, sugar?” Grayson said, gaze darting to Reece, who narrowed his
eyes.
Ben grinned. “Is Reece getting your drink?”
“Sure am,” Reece said, eyes still narrowed. “One Shirley Temple, coming up.”
“Ben!” the third bartender called.
Ben gave them a rueful smile and headed back down the bar.
Grayson unzipped his coat, gaze still on Reece, on the club’s lights dancing over his profile and the overgrown dark hair