Chapter 4 #2
Unfortunately, the fun’s over. Now’s the midnight hour for contending with bratty goddess descendants.
I’ve known Tia for years, even if it’s from the other side of a rivalry neither of us can get over.
In the quiet moments when she thinks no one’s looking, her emotions flare.
But the rest of the time she’s a frigid face, a cold voice.
There’s a reason Tia’s nickname amongst the other interns is Ice Queen – she only ever cares about her mistakes, and she shuts everyone else out.
Whatever. If I’ve ignored it for the past several years, I can do it for the rest of my life.
But as Tia walks to the far end of the lab, an idea forms.
Your next assignment is to kill Tia.
My mind flashes to the memory of warm hands, a fervent promise.
I won’t disappoint you.
I stand and jog after Tia. ‘Come on, where’s your special first-aid kit? I can help.’
She doesn’t stop moving forward into the darkness. That’s fine.
Sending a quick thank you to my history of disastrous experiments and freak lab accidents, I walk the overly familiar route to the general first-aid kit and snag it from a wall cupboard. ‘Tell me where your special kit is. I know there’s a numbing agent in there.’
Tia doesn’t reply, her back retreating into the lab.
‘I’ll call Niko through your helmet and tell them you’re grievously injured and need immediate assistance.’
Tia’s forearm muscle flexes as she clenches her fist. ‘Third right drawer of our lab table. It’s padlocked. The code is Niko’s birthday.’ Voice hoarse, unsteady.
I move back towards our table to grab the kit. Every magical descendant has one, because regular drugs aren’t safe for our unique genes.
It’s a black plastic box, and I find everything from numbing agents to sleeping pills to ‘painkillers – extra strong’.
Perfect.
With my back facing Tia, I pocket the last one. It’ll be perfect for the assassination mission, or at least enough for the Foxes to analyse Tia’s genes and formulate a poison that will work on her.
When I turn back round, Tia stands stiffly by a window, her gaze cutting down and out towards Singapore’s skyline.
The world through the glass sprawls across the night, ablaze with artificial light – a result of a population’s immense fear of the dark that could only be born from a life spent solely in the city.
The light glints off her diamond teardrop earrings, reflecting a sliver of rainbow across the room.
Another fragment of it catches her cheek, streaking her face blue-green-purple, laying a light kiss over the corner of her lip.
Forget being a descendant – in that flowing dress, her face all dark brows and high cheekbones and pretty lips, Tia Njauw is a goddess.
Why does even the universe have to be on her side?
I clear my throat and order her to sit.
As Tia shifts, the rainbow slips off her face and returns her to the realm of regular mortals.
Kneeling, I rip an alcohol swab open with my teeth and grab the numbing agent.
My fingers part the fabric of Tia’s skirt at the slit to find the wound. The intensity of the act sharpens my Fox senses: the darkness twines around us, heat radiates off Tia’s skin in the frigid lab and the silky fabric slides smooth under my thumb.
Dim light illuminates a dark, credit-card-length gash across Tia’s upper thigh, scabbed and fresh blood smeared across her skin.
Tia’s face remains blank, eyes drifting and miles away. Still, she hisses when alcohol brushes broken skin.
‘Sorry,’ I mutter reflexively, dabbing the blood from the sides of the wound as carefully as I can.
It’s probably the adrenalin, but a shiver runs down my spine when my fingers brush Tia’s skin. The temperature of the room skyrockets ten degrees, and sweat prickles the back of my neck.
When I glance up, my eyes meet hers. My throat runs dry. ‘I’ll put the bandages on now.’
Tia nods.
It’s funny because I normally have no qualms touching Tia, especially when she’s Lune. A bump against Lune’s shoulder, a grab of Lune’s wrist to throw her down, a leg against Lune’s gut to pin her in place. Always a farce, an act or a move to disarm the other.
But this is Tia, not Lune.
That’s probably why I have to concentrate on making sure my hands don’t shake as I lower the bandage onto Tia’s thigh, my skin warm where we touch. The quiet isolates us from space and time, thieves us from other eyes or ears.
Ideal for assassination, I think faintly, like only the violence of homicide could shake the swelling tension free, like dew from a leaf.
The only witnesses to my crime would be the splinter of moon in the sky and the glittering light from outside, both silent passers-by to two hands, two hearts, two bodies and, God, why does this feel so criminal? Every touch a sin, every darting glance a sacrilege.
Suddenly, I feel naked.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Tia’s question hangs between us like a spiderweb, fragile and quick to entangle.
My hands still from tying off the bandage.
Without looking up, I focus on keeping my tone dismissive and say, ‘It’s the least I can do.
’ The feeling of Tia’s skin lingers on my hands even as I clear my throat and stand, running my hands through my hair like that’ll get rid of it.
‘Don’t take it to heart. Your incompetence borders on hazardous. ’
Tia’s brow twists, but before she can reply light floods the room, and her phone hums. She scrambles to pick it up. ‘Niko?’
‘We’re all clear. Everything all right?’
Tia glances at me, as though daring me to say something. When I don’t, she replies, ‘Yeah, don’t worry about it.’
There’s so much to unpack in the way Tia hides her injuries from her loved ones, in her insufferably constant readiness to perform without fail. It reeks so strongly of validation-deprived behaviour it’s almost pathetic.
I snap the first-aid kit closed and turn to her. ‘Are you heading down?’
White fabric billows over Tia’s wounded thigh as she stands, like curtains coming down on a show, to hide that she was ever injured at all. ‘Likely not. Thank you for your help.’
I frown. ‘Aren’t you a VIP? You have to be there.’
‘Last time I checked, that doesn’t concern you.’ Tia picks at her moonstone pendant. Her lips quirk up, almost imperceptible. ‘Goodnight, kit.’
She leaves.