Chaos plucked the phone out of Cooper’s fingers. “I’ll take this.”
Cooper blinked at him. “Um. I need that, actually. To call the hospital.”
“For Nix?” Chaos asked absently, stowing the phone somewhere in his loose brown pants with the deft fingers of a pickpocket. Cooper supposed hewasa pickpocket. He’d just stolen Cooper’s phone. “That would be useless.”
“Forme,” Cooper told him. “The hospital’s for me. Because you’re not real?” He wasn’t sure why it came out like a question.
“I’m not?” Chaos looked down at his hands. “Well, that would be a surprise.” He reached up, placing one of his hands on Cooper’s cheek. Heat. So much heat. The warmth of his touch was almost shocking. His wings fluttered, filling Cooper’s head even more with the sweet smell of campfire smoke. “Do I not feel real?”
“I don’t know,” Cooper murmured, his eyelids suddenly feeling heavy. “I haven’t been touched in a while.”
“Yes, your soul piece tastes of it.”
Right. Cooper had given a piece of his soul in exchange for…friendship? “Tastes of what?” he asked, his head full of cotton.
“Loneliness.”
Cooper couldn’t exactly argue with that. He found himself leaning into the touch on his cheek. It was…intimate, this hand on his face. He could even feel Chaos’s breath puffing gently against his lips. Was this hallucination about to turn into some kind of sex dream? Cooper wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
It would be embarrassing to admit to the doctors later.
But apparently that wasn’t something he needed to worry about. Chaos withdrew his hand after a moment. “Would this help convince you?” he asked.
And then Cooper’s computer monitor was on fire.
Even with his certainty that none of this was real, and the ample backups he kept of his work, Cooper couldn’t help jumping to his feet in alarm. He wasn’t sure where he got the strength, but maybe it was one of those weird adrenaline things, like how mothers lifted cars off their babies. “No! Fuck! That’s my whole life!”
“That thing?” Chaos frowned at the flaming computer. “That can’t be right.”
But the flames disappeared in the next moment, as quickly as they’d appeared in the first place, and there was no sign of damage. Cooper ran his hands all along his monitor, checking anyway. It didn’t even feel warm.
It kind of had the opposite effect of convincing him this was all real, actually.
“Puppy.”
Cooper turned to look back at Chaos with a frown. “What?”
“That’s the animal humans get,” Chaos said, his eerie fox eyes latched onto Cooper’s face. “To keep and to care for?”
Cooper ran a hand through his hair before pressing it hard against his forehead. “Sometimes, sure. Some do. What—”
“Okay. Puppy.” Chaos grinned, the picture of delight as his tail swished behind him. “That’s what I’ll call you.”
“You think I’m a pet? Didn’t I— If I summoned you and made a contract for my soul and everything…aren’t I supposed to be the one in charge ofyou?”
Chaos’s tail stopped its rhythmic movement. His whole body went still, and that air of danger Cooper had almost forgotten about—even with the flames—returned in an instant. “You think to order me about?” Chaos asked softly. “Command me?Containme?”
“Um… No.” Cooper shook his head vehemently, resisting the urge to back away. There wasn’t anywhere to go anyway. He was already pressed up against the desk. It was tempting to crawlunderthe desk, his hindbrain recognizing there was danger in the air. “No, no. No commanding. Puppy’s fine. Call me whatever the fuck you want.”
Chaos brightened, that eerie stillness dissipating in an instant. “Perfect! Because you’re about to pass out again, and I’ll be going exploring. So you be a good puppy and stay here when you wake. No running off without me to protect you. It sounds like you have enemies. I approve. Enemies are very exciting.”
Cooper could only focus on the part that made any sort of sense. “I’m about to pass out again?”
“Yes.” Chaos nodded eagerly. “A contract takes it out of a human, and like I said, I don’t believe you were in peak physical condition to start with.”
Well, ouch. It wasn’t like Cooper thought he was the finest specimen of man out there, but…
He swayed on his feet. Maybe the passing-out part was right. Still…
