Chapter 23 #2
Part of the building has been blown out, one of the rooms on the second floor by the looks.
There are body parts littering the concrete in front of it, tangled amongst brickwork, plaster, and who knows what else.
Fire redder than I’ve ever seen licks out of the gaping hole in the building, and smoke plumes twist up into the night sky.
“Move.” Officer Blake’s voice booms from behind us. He barges through, a black panther hot on his heels.
More officers appear and we’re quickly pushed back as they get the scene under control. Another one of the guards appears, his horns and wings on display.
I’m not sure I’ll ever be used to seeing the supernatural.
“What happened?” the male demon asks. “I was doing a flight patrol when I heard the explosion.”
“Looks like one of the teams picked the wrong artifact,” a female guard, standing as a barrier between us and the chaos, replies.
“Bloody hellfire. I didn’t realise the explosives were going to be so destructive. I thought we were under attack.”
The female laughs. “Yeah, I think Derran might be given the night shift for the foreseeable. Though, Zephyr should’ve known Dragons never go small when it comes to fire.”
They both laugh.
I don’t know how to process this. We were warned the games were deadly, but this is insane.
“I think the whole team is dead,” another guard calls from where they’d been piling the bodies. “There’s at least five, possibly six.”
We watch on until the fire gets put out and dawn light starts creeping into the sky.
Wyatt and Tacita are quiet beside me. Wyatt tried to get us to leave when some of the others returned to the dorms, bored now they’d seen the commotion.
But Tacita had refused. She watched each movement carefully, like she was committing everything to memory.
It was only when the guards started moving the bodies to wherever they were storing them–or burying them I guess–that she broke concentration and all three of us headed back to our room. Wyatt stayed with us without any further discussion.
“Did you see it?” she asks as the door clicks closed, shutting us away from everything once more.
“See what?” Wyatt replies. His hand hasn’t left mine and he pulls me down onto my bed as he collapses onto it himself.
“The weapon they removed. It was a gun.”
“Oh, yes. A subcompact semi-automatic pocket pistol. A bit of a waste of product really, it's for total amateurs.”
Tacita rubs the skin just above her brows with a thumb and forefinger. “Yes, but it was one of the weapons we were discussing. That was the incorrect guess made that cost that team their lives.”
Ripping my hand from Wyatt’s so I can sign, my brain clicks back into action. “Yes. The wife of the lynch pin was given a gun as a present. It probably knocks her off the suspect list.”
“I agree. There must be a connecting player we’re missing. Not just an outlier. We need those additional files.”
“But we don’t know who has them,” Wyatt muses.
“I want to know which ones the team that just got incinerated had.”
“I saw numbers Eight, Thirty-Two, and Eighty-Nine.” I sign.
“Ninety, Twenty-Six and Thirteen were the others,” Tacita adds.
“Thirteen?” Wyatt sounds shocked.
“Yeah, the female from the top floor of the other building. Oh wait, she was one of your groupies wasn’t she?” Tacita doesn’t hide the distaste from her voice.
“Yes, and she was a decent lass.”
“A good lay, you mean?”
“Don’t be jealous, Mo Stór.” Wyatt grins at her. “I can’t help who I slept with before you walked into the prison. And she was more than that, she was alright.”
“Pfftt. I’m not jealous. You can sleep with who you like.”
“I’m not sleeping with anyone but you two anymore.”
Wyatt’s declaration makes my heart skip inside my chest. How did we get from discussing the case to this? Not that it hasn’t been on my mind, but I thought I was alone in wondering what kind of dynamic we had started between the three of us.
“I didn’t ask for that.” Tacita looks nervous for the second time on this never-ending night.
“Maybe not, but perhaps it’s time I threw it out there. I don’t want anyone else. Whatever we’ve started here, I want more of it and I won’t be fucking anyone else whist we see where it goes.”
“Wyatt, don’t be ridiculous. It's been a handful of days.”
“Are you saying that you’ve been fucking someone else besides us?” he asks.
Tacita goes quiet. Her silence gives Wyatt the answer.
“What about you?” Wyatt swings to face me.
I shake my head, no. No one else.
“Do you want there to be anyone else?” he follows up
I look over at Tacita and then return my focus to Wyatt. “No.”
“Wyatt, come on. We’re having fun, we never said it would be more than hooking up.” Tacita tries to bargain.
“Maybe we did the first time. But maybe I want more now.”
“What more can we be in here?”
“Whatever we want.”
“That’s stupid and you know it. You’re competing in a deadly competition. There’s no guarantee you’re surviving it.”
Confusion pulls at my brows as she doesn’t include herself in our situation.
“We,” Wyatt corrects her.
“What?”
“You’re competing too.” He points out, his forehead creasing.
“Right, that’s what I meant.”
A silence descends over us and ticks on as seconds pass.
“Look, I’m tired. We’ve not slept and have to be up in an hour. Why don’t we just pretend this conversation didn’t happen and meet up for breakfast like we usually do,” Tacita suggests.
Wyatt doesn’t speak, still staring at her like she’s a puzzle he can’t solve. “Fine,” he eventually replies. He turns, and in a very unexpected move, kisses me.
It's a soft kiss, his lips simply fitting to mine and giving me a brief taste of him before he moves away. “See you in a couple of hours.”
I can only stare in stunned gaze as he pushes off the bed and leaves.