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“Huh,” was all he said.
“That’s not helping.”
He raised one brow, almost as if to scold me. “You just told me a lot. Give me a minute to process it all.” He rose to a standing position and moved back into the other room. I heard the minibar open again and the sound of the couch sighing under his weight.
It took me a second to realize he wasn’t coming back into the bedroom, so I got up and followed him into the living room. Sitting area? Lounge?
&
nbsp; I plopped down beside him on the couch, and we stared at the blank television set.
“I’ll tell you this, Tallulah.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t think I’m ever going to get bored spending time with you.” He smiled faintly, in a way that suggested he didn’t really find this situation funny but was maybe just trying to make me feel better. It worked. Sort of.
Sitting here on the couch with him felt so…normal. In spite of the fact we were talking about a serial killer. Or that our weird jobs meant we never saw each other. This was the most normal I’d felt in ages. Being with him gave me the sense I belonged somewhere, in spite of the fact we were breaking about a dozen temple rules whenever we were in the same room.
We shouldn’t be together, and yet here we were.
I wanted to hold his hand, but that seemed wrong at the moment.
Cade spoke after a length of silence. “So, we have a guy killing kids to get the attention of the gods, who has now implied he plans to move on to adults? That’s the real cut-and-dry basics of this?” He glanced over at me and caught me staring at him. I probably should have looked away, but I didn’t.
“Yes.”
“And in three days the largest group of clerics will be gathered here, in Las Vegas, for a well-publicized convention.” He didn’t look away either, staring at me like there were answers in my eyes to questions neither of us were asking.
“Yeah, that seems to be the case.”
“Sounds to me like there’s a good chance this guy will come right to us, if we wait.”
I must have made a face because he actually smiled for real this time. “Unless you have a better idea about how we can figure out who this person is, I think that’s all we’re really left with.”
I chewed thoughtfully on my thumbnail. “Just sit around and wait until he kills someone else? That’s not really a plan so much, is it?”
“Until he tries to kill someone else. You have to remember this will be a lot different than what he’s used to. Up until now he’s been killing kids who no one knew about, who weren’t being watched. Now he’s coming here, where the world press has its eyes on us, where we have more security than any other event on the planet, and where every single person in the room has some sort of gods-given powers. I mean, you could deep-fry him. Prescott could just give him a poke in the ribs and he’d be dead. The people he’s coming after aren’t helpless.”
“Okay, sure. I’m fine. Pres is fine. Todd Matheson probably has nothing to worry about.” Like the cleric of Ares ever had to fret about much. He was a human tank who was all but impervious to physical harm thanks to his liege god. “But what about the Infatuates? This guy killed their initiate already, and I’m supposed to believe they’re going to be safe from him? They can’t exactly seduce him to death.”
This made him smirk, and I wanted to smack him because I was trying to make a legitimate point. “I’m just saying, the opportunities for him to get the upper hand here are a lot fewer,” he said. “There are more eyes watching everywhere. More protection for those who can’t protect themselves.” Cade placed his hand on my thigh, and a rush of excitement shot through me. “We’ll take care of everyone, I promise.”
Except he really couldn’t promise me that.
We didn’t know who this guy was, how he was killing these kids, or what he planned to do next. As for the eyes of the world being on us, I was fairly certain that was precisely the kind of attention this killer was hungry for.
What was the best way to show the gods were uncaring and ineffectual?
Kill the people who were supposed to matter most to them.
“I don’t like this at all.” I wanted to take his hand in mine and squeeze. I wanted to curl against his side and breathe in the smell of him, until I could pretend we were the only two people left alive on Earth and nothing else mattered.
I didn’t dare.
A cautious knock at the door drew our attention, and a moment later, Sawyer let herself in with Leo right behind her. I shuffled a few inches away from Cade so his hand was lying innocently on the couch cushions. We hadn’t been doing anything, but I felt guilty all the same.
“You guys all caught up?” Leo asked. I wasn’t sure if he was implying we’d done more than talk, but forty minutes sure wouldn’t have been enough time for that.
