He hardly has to move to grab my wrist, tear it away from my face, and shove me back into my seat. From there, he says casually—far, far too casually—“Monika, there are more than forty-eight of us.”
“Frick!” I shout. “Don’t tell me!”
“There may be as many as sixty-nine,” Mr. Singkham says while I screech internally ... and a little audibly. “We call them the Inconnus—the unknown ones.”
“Sixty-seven, if we’re assuming Sixty-Nine was the last one sent. Sixty-Nine and Twenty are dead.”
“I don’t want to know! I don’t want to know!” I shout.
“It’s a little late for that now,” Mr. Singkham says, placing his kerchief on his desk. I glare at it, suddenly wondering how he’d feel if I shoved it down his gullet.
“Scheiße.”
“Now that we have that out of the way, Ms. Neumann, help us.”
My skin is tingling, my adrenaline doing that terrible thing where it makes my heart race but my mind move slow. Calculating. Calm. Easy. Relaxed in my realization that this is an adventure and I’m a junkie for it. “What do you want?”
“I want you to memorize this weapons list and see if Taranis has one of these or more in his possession.” He unlocks a drawer in his desk, withdraws a green binder, and slides it across the table toward me.
I don’t take it. I just scoff. “And how am I supposed to do that? It’s not like he carries bulky weapons around in the pockets of his baby-blue spandex.”
“I want you to search his apartment.”
“And how, exactly, am I supposed to do that?”
“The two of you live in the same building, do you not?”
I gulp, my face getting mysteriously hot. “How ... do you know that?” I ask stupidly. Of course he knows that. Everyone knows that. The only person who hasn’t realized that we live in the same building is Taranis himself, because I am deeply uninteresting to him in any way outside of my ability to take his pretty picture. Hell, we’ve even run into each other in the lobby—twice.
Mr. Singkham gives me a droll look and exhales. “Aren’t you two attending a party at the South Korean Embassy this Friday?”
I cross my arms over my chest, everything feeling so tight. “And?”
“And since the two of you live in the same building and are going on a date ... is it not rather obvious?” Mr. Singkham’s red face, more than his words, gives me insight into what he’s asking me to do.
My jaw drops. I stand up in outrage, and this time the Wyvern doesn’t stop me as I move toward the door. “You’re a fucking dick,” he says to Mr. Singkham.
“This is a matter of life and death,” I hear Mr. Singkham respond.
I stand in front of the door, one hand on the cold knob. Turning around, I seethe, “I am not going to be your honeypot spy, and I am not having sex with Taranis!” I walk out on them, slamming the door behind me.
Chapter Eight
Monika
Later that night, I finalize editing a few photos from the attack at Old Sundale Station. There’s one that I linger over. Fuck. I want it for my exhibit, but it’s not quite right. I could throw it in anyway—it’s just that good—but Taranis doesn’t deserve it. The way the light his body creates illuminates the planes of his face. The blood spatter that makes him look like a dark and vengeful angel, the kind that would drag you to hell with no remorse.
I start to feel hot. The kind of heat that’s embarrassing when you realize it’s happening because of a picture of a guy you know better than to like.
Tucking away my own vanity, and my overactive, underused sex drive, I send the picture to Simone—still my only contact on Taranis’s team—dust myself off, get into my bed, and turn on something to turn me off completely: a horror movie, the bloodiest one I can find.
Too bad the Black guy makes it to the end.
Too bad the Black guy was the villain the whole time.
I turn off the movie and lie back in my massive king-size bed complete with the most expensive sheets they had in the department store, and roll over the request made of me by Mr. Singkham. I openmy phone to the final cut of the image I just edited and close my eyes with a heavy sigh.
I might have sex with Taranis—if he even wants me, which he won’t.
