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Unless…
Unless itwasdangerous and he wasn’t interested in getting blown up along with me.
I had to get it together.
I couldn’t keep letting myself play “worst case scenario.” That never led to anything good.
Plus, even if it wasthatdangerous, I still had to figure it out. I had to have control over my shit before the incursion. No exceptions.
I took a deep breath and imagined teasing out the emotions from the messy nest.
Except it was all so intertwined, and B had so thoroughly scared me, that I reallywasworried I’d blow myself up.
I ended up letting it go and only focusing on the safes.
It wasn’t until two safes later, with three separate gearboxes for three different lock mechanisms, that I thought about changing my approach.
I made a little safe in my mind. A tiny Lola to put compulsion inside of.
Then I thought of a miniature Wesley, and locked away magnetism.
I saved the biggest power for Ricardo, and conjured a perfected replica inside my head, setting all those booby traps and fail-safes to hold the dominance in check.
There, that should do it.
And once that was done, I returned my full attention to the job in front of me.
Hours later, a buzz in my pocket pulled me from my reverie. I wiped the gear grease off my hands and retrieved my phone from my back pocket to find a text, not from Sunny, but from Julian.
Since when did he have my number?
Sunny said you wanted to be called up for meals and we’re almost done with the witches. Get yourself cleaned up and ready for a formal dinner in an hour.
“How presumptuous,” I said to myself as I angry-stabbed a reply.
If that was an invitation to dinner, it blows more chunks than a drunk middle-management dude who just got downsized.
The party people—frat boys, bachelorette parties, or celebrating types—were one thing. Seeing someone at the bar trying to drown their sadness took a whole different skill set to handle. The guys who lost their jobs and the ones who were getting cheated on were the worst.
Strangely, women, generally speaking, didn’t seem to drown their sorrows in public. At least not in my bar.
And they definitely didn’t stare at their phones waiting for those three little dots to appear. But that’s what I was doing. One text from Julian and I was pretty much done. Head was out of the game. I stared at my phone for a few more seconds before shoving it back in my pocket and kneeling beside Xavier’s open chassis. This fancy boy had a lot of extra gear assemblies and far too many housings to be as straightforward as he appeared.
The manual made no mention of any special features, but I had a feeling Xavier was keeping secrets.
Like everyone else in this place. Julian, Sunny, everyone except BDD had intentionally withheld information.
Though, I hadn’t really pushed B too far on that front.
Ooh! That vampire! King or not, really knew how to get under my skin!
My pocket buzzed and I was tempted not to look at it at all.
I held out for all of five seconds. Who was I kidding? I couldn’tnotcheck.
My sincerest apologies, mate of mine. Would you kindly join me for a formal dinner this evening at seven p.m.?
I checked the time; a few minutes after six.
