Even Chester looks startled. “Right now?” he says, checking his watch with a frown. “It’s pretty late for that, isn’t it?”
Hawthorne’s scowl deepens. “Are you refusing?”
Chester flinches. “I—no, not at all. I’ll get right on it.”
“Good,” Massimo says, waving Chester through without a second glance.
Obie follows close behind Chester as they slip through the doors, barely restraining himself from casting a curse on the two hunters along the way.You’re off duty,he snaps through the bond.You’ve been working twelve-hour shifts for nearly a week; you shouldn’t have to go down there on your day off.
Chester’s eyes stay fixed straight ahead.Relax. If they’re setting up the spare interrogation rooms, they reallyareshort-staffed—we only use those when we literally don’t have any other space. And we just need to restock them, not clean them. It’ll be fast.
Vividly, Obie thinks of the nearly empty purebred-only wing.It’s not thetime,Locke. It’s the principle of the thing.
Chester doesn’t respond, not joining in Obie’s usual criticisms of the Sanctum in general and their treatment of Chester in particular, and Obie’s unease deepens. What the hell is hisproblem?Did something else happen in the Courtyard? Did he see a fellow hunter and get rattled? Did he learn about JJ’s soul exchange symptoms and get worried?
Or was it really just the proposal itself?
Obie’s whirlwind thoughts show no signs of slowing as Chester taps his key card and quickly leads the way through the prison. A quick stop in the main stockroom to fill a handcart with everything he’ll need, a brief stint in the break room to check for other pending assignments, a long walk down the seventh hallway from the left to a dead-end room Obie has only seen in passing?—
Obie barely waits for the door to close behind them before flicking a hand to pull down the blinds, casting a soundproofing spell over him and Chester, and making himself visible again. “All right, Locke. Out with it. What’s going on with you?”
Chester doesn’t look at him as he starts pulling blades, torch lighters, and hammers out of his handcart, deftly organizing the instrumentation table. “Nothing, okay? I’m fine.”
Obie follows him. “You sure don’tseemfine,” he says, automatically grabbing a new container of biohazard bags and putting it in its usual spot under the sink. Chester hesitates, jaw tight and eyes unreadable, before busying himself with restocking the shelves along the far wall—as far away from Obie as possible. “You’ve been acting weird for half the night. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing,”Chester bites out, shooting him a glare as he quickly checks the interrogation table’s restraints. “I’m just tired, okay? It was a long night. Drop it.”
He grabs his handcart and stalks back into the hallway without waiting for a response, only pausing for long enough to mark the room as ready in the nearest computer. Gritting his teeth, Obie follows him up the seventh hallway and straight back down the eighth, making sure his invisibility and soundproofing spells stay active until they’re inside the very last room. “Is this about Cass?”
“Is this about—?” Chester squints at him. “Why would I be worried about Cass?”
They need to finish this stupid assignment so they can talk in private. Impatiently, Obie snaps a pair of gloves onto his hands and grabs some corrosion-imbued torture devices for the instrumentation table, shoving them into their proper places. “Because your best friend is marrying ademon?”
“Because my—?” Chester smacks Obie’s hands away, glowering. “Stopdoingthat, Smith!”
“What?” Obie fires back, pulling off the gloves and dropping them back into his pocket dimension. “I memorized how to set up these rooms ages ago. Check my work if it bothers you.”
Chester’s hands tremble the slightest bit as he adjusts Obie’s placement of a few blades. “No, I don’t have a problem with JJ marrying ademon,”he says, mimicking Obie’s emphasis of the word. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been actively conspiring with a demongodfor the past month.”
He retreats to the opposite side of the interrogation table, standing at the long end to check the restraints. Frustrated, Obie stands directly across from him, the two feet of cold metal the only barrier betweenthem. “Then whatisthe problem?” he demands, flicking his wrist and making a handful of supplies fly to their appropriate shelves. Chester scrubs a hand down his face, looking irritated at the help, but Obie just scowls back. “You’re not telling me something, Locke, and I don’t like it. We can’t afford to hide things from each other, not anymore, and?—”
“You!”Chester bursts out, throwing his arms out wide and finally meeting Obie’s glare head-on.“You’remy problem!”
The words cut deeper than Obie expected. He jerks away, trying to hide it. “Me? What didIdo?”
“This!”Chester snaps, gesturing sharply at the instrumentation table that Obie helped set up and the shelves that he helped restock.“Allof this! You keep doing all of thesegoddamnsweet things for me, like—like helping me with my job and showing me memories of your family and taking me to watch mybest friendget engaged, and it’s driving meinsane!”
Obie stops short, his heart stuttering. “What? You?—”
But Chester isn’t done. “Do you have any idea how difficult this is?” he demands, his voice rougher than usual. “You saved me, Obie. I literally tried to curse you, and in return, yousavedme. You saved me from everything the Sanctum would’ve taken from me, saved me from the future they would’ve forced me into, saved me from the fact that I kept trying to hurt my friends and—and myself.”
Obie’s pulse is pounding in his temples, faster and faster as he starts to realize what Chester is trying to say. “Chester?—”
Chester leans forward, his eyes blazing. “You walked into my life, and you didn’t give up on me, and you gave me a purpose. You gave me something to fight for, something tolivefor. And I’m just supposed to stand here and pretend that doesn’t mean anything to me? Thatyoudon’t mean anything to me? I’m just supposed to be okay with the fact that, the moment I defect, we’re going to break thebinding spell and go our separate ways and act like the past few months never happened? I can’t—I can’t justdothat, okay? I can’t go back from here. I can’t go back to a time before I knew you, before I—before I?—”
The roaring in Obie’s ears is getting louder with every word, fast and uncontained and exhilarated. There’s honest grief on Chester’s face, honestlonging,like he’s been trying to cling to something he knows he can’t have, but?—
But hecanhave it. Why would he ever think he couldn’t? Obie’s heart cracks at the thought. Has Chester ever been allowed to have what he wants? Has he ever been able to talk about his wants and needs and desires, ever been able to be vulnerable around someone without worrying about the consequences?
