"Uh…"
"Just giving you something to hold onto. Literally."
I imagined the wink following the statement while my eyes stayed glued to our linked hands. "Uh, is this professional?"
"Shit." Chase chuckled under his breath. “I am so bad at professionalism.”
"Yeah, you are." Yet I wasn’t complaining.
"If you can feel my hand, then I think you’re feeling enough.”
"But—" Actually, I couldn’t feel his hand. Or that was a lie. Icouldbut didn’twant to. It felt safer not to.
"Can you feel my hand?" he asked.
"Y-yeah."
"Then you’re doing just fine. There is no should or normal in this situation. Shifters are born not made, so when people turn later in life, it’s usually becausesomething elseinterrupted their normal before it had a chance to begin. So it’s all kinda fair game."
"Oh."
“And if it helps, you aren’t alone.” Chase squeezed my hand. “You aren’t alone."
Huh. He didn’t pull his hand away. Me either.
We stayed there, sitting in the quiet night while time passed. It slowly began to sink in. I just needed something to hold onto while the world reasserted itself into a new configuration. His hand worked just fine.
~
Chase
Merritt: Sit down.
My older brother decided to start bossing me around via text message now. The guy clearly had too much power.
Merritt: Are you alone? Go somewhere private.
Chase: Am I supposed to move or sit down?
Imagining his annoyance wasn’t quite as fun as the real picture glaring at me.
Merritt: Find some privacy, then sit down.
Merritt: Out of Temple’s range.
Huh. The second message stopped me from protesting or playing around further.
Not much was happening anyway. We’d just started carefully explaining why Lucas would be unreachable in the near future when his father jumped up, ready to go to his son’s apartment and pack a bag for him. He’d picked up on the undercurrent of ‘supernatural danger’ and basically began shoving his son into the arms of the more experienced protectors.
Now we were waiting for Lucas’s father and his tag along Temple to come back.
I stepped away from the living room where Lucas, Gary, and I were pretending to watch something on TV while lost in our own thoughts. They were sitting on the couch and every so often, the uncle nudged his nephew and asked how he was doing, sometimes with a ‘you okay there, Bullseye?’
Merritt had sent me a video. I pressed play.
Hodge sat in an interview room giving a statement.“—expect me to believe anything Barton Shroud has to say?The man’s a butcher, make no mistake. The damage wasn’t visible the same way in bloody limbs and mangled body parts, but he was slicing up people’s spirits. I’m here as a courtesy to the agency, not because his statements deserve a response or have any validity whatsoever.”
There were rumors of tension between Matthias Hodge and the department that led to his retirement, but most people had no idea he was being investigated. The man himself had to expect as much. He provided insider info to Shroud for a price and had to know the crazed mage felt no greater loyalty towards him and gave him up. Bringing Hodge in for a statement might even put him at ease. It gave him a chance to defend himself instead of being in the dark. They had to play this carefully to ensure Shroud didn’t use his familiarity with the DSA tricks and playbook and attempt to flee.
