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"I'm under oath, that if I tell you my—our—secrets, and you even whisper them to someone who isn't supposed to know, I..." she trailed off, unable to say the words.
"You'd have to shoot me?" he whispered.
"I'd have tokillyou," she corrected. "Anything you do falls back on me now, so I'd be in danger of the same fate if the secrets got out without Chance's permission."
"You need permission to tell me?"
"I... I don't know. Like I said, my declaration is usually made after permission was granted," Mykie explained.
Caspar was touching the gun, twisting it in his hands as he inspected it. "I trust you to do what's necessary, if I did accidentally blab your secrets," he stated, his voice confident, more than she'd heard it all day.
"What?" Mykie looked away from the road, unsure she was hearing the boy correctly. "You can't be serious. Why?"
"No one else would stick up for me like you did. I…I did not come from somewhere I felt safe, for most of my life," he murmured. "After your help today, I owe you my life. I have no money and no job. If my life is the only thing I have to give, I’m willing to give it for your protection now.”
She gulped. His dedication…She didn’t know what to do with so much power.
He laid a hand high on her thigh. "I hope that you’ll find me useful.”
There was that tone of his, again. Like he was offering himself up in more ways than she could handle right now.
Mykie turned onto a street and noticed that she was drawing closer to her destination. Her stomach filled with dread as she turned onto a familiar hill.
She didn't get to study the house from that morning after being in such a hurry. It was painted a woodsy brown and blended in with its environment at first glance. From the front, there was no clue to the back being almost entirely of glass on the first floor. The garage was located to the right of the front door and seemed to be added on after the house was initially built. There was a wooden porch built around the front of the house and around the left side.
Overall, it looked more like a vacation home than a year-round house.
She pulled up beside where Dexter was leaning against Caspar's car. She was surprised to see him still there, what with having Noah there to drive Dexter back. Dexter pushed off the car and came over to Caspar's door as soon as Mykie turned the car off.
"Everything went well?" Dexter asked, and Caspar seemed to take a double take before he realized Dexter was talking to him, not Mykie.
Dexter held out his hand with Caspar's keys and Caspar accepted them, stuffing them in his jacket pocket for the time being.
"Y-Yeah, I think so. I'm stuck on crutches for a little while until my foot’s better. Mykie told me a little about what it means to be 'protected' or whatever," Caspar shrugged, but Mykie noticed that he avoided looking at Dexter directly. She admitted that to an outsider, Dexter's quiet and strict demeanor could be intimidatingat first, but she wasn't sure that was the reason that he wouldn't look at him.
Dexter seemed to sense it too, and he placed a hand on Caspar's arm. "Good. We'll make sure you're somewhere that fits you better. Being a waiter seemed like it wasn't meant for you."
"The job was fine!" Caspar insisted, finally looking up at Dexter. "I was the one who messed up."
"There was no reason to publicly humiliate you, no matter how bad at your job you could have been," Mykie countered, coming around the side of the car.
Caspar looked at Mykie for a while before nodding. "Maybe you're right. But—"
"But nothing," Dexter said, interrupting him before Mykie could open her mouth. "That's not how you treat your employees, and you're probably not the first one they've acted like that with. We'll make sure you're the last, however."
Dexter and Mykie shared a look, which Caspar caught.
"It's not a big deal! I'm not worried about it anymore," Caspar insisted, looking between the two of them.
Mykie shook her head after collecting his crutches from where they laid in the backseat, giving him a fond look. "That's not how it works anymore. Your business is my business, and we protect our own."
Caspar's eyes widened, although he accepted the crutches from Mykie's hands without a word. He led the way to the front door and Mykie took a deep breath, wanting to turn back around and run the opposite direction just like she did that morning, but Caspar had already had the door open before she could turn.
"Cas? What the hell happ—Mykie?"
Call Dropped
Corbus was at the island counter surrounded by textbooks. He was half-sitting and half-standing beside one of the stools, frozen when he spotted Mykie.
