“I know, okay? I get it. It was reckless and stupid and a bad idea all around. That’s why I’m going to end it. You guys don’t have to worry anymore. I thought he was making things easier, but he’s just been a crutch. That isn’t fair to him. Or me. Or anyone. I’ll end it. It’s better for everyone, especially with Ludgate involved.”
Nodding in sympathy, Lynn didn’t judge him for what he’d been doing with Cho, though she still said, “You’re probably right, Danny. It’s for the best.”
After she checked Danny over for any lasting injuries, Andre pulled him aside with a disapproving frown.
“Are you sure about this? About Prometheus? Last night…man, I hate to say it, but he may be less of a douchebag than I thought. Is ending things really what you want? I mean, besides him being a notorious criminal and all, what am I missing? Coz it seems like he really cares about you.”
That should have been sweet to hear, but it churned Danny’s stomach all the more. “It’s too complicated, Andre. Too hard. A bad idea,like I said. Forme. But don’t take my example. I think Gaia could be worth the gamble.” Danny tried to smile again, tried to be supportive of Andre’s newfound connection with Cho’s sister as he gripped his friend’s arm and squeezed, but it was getting harder and harder to fake being okay. He wanted to finallybeokay, to be back to a place in his life where he could be open with everyone instead of wearing so many masks.
Andre’s frown deepened. “Just be sure you’re right about Cho before you do something you’ll regret.”
Danny regretted everything, but he knew he was making the right call this time.
Andre told him about The Invisible Man suit, that it had been gone when he and Lynn reached the alley last night. Danny didn’t want to think about what the suit’s disappearance might mean, especially considering the way Ludgate had been able to manipulate the tiny mirrors across its surface. Even just on its own, the suit was a powerful weapon since it could render someone completely invisible.
When Andre mentioned that they had, however, retrieved Prometheus’s goggles, Danny told him to hang onto them. Next time he saw Cho, he’d give them back.
“It’s creepy though, that Hades could be eavesdropping or watching us from reflective surfaces at any time.” Andre said. “We’ll think up some precautions, maybe something to project onto reflections to keep him out. I’ll work on it… In the meantime, try not to talk shop too vocally next to any mirrors,” he grinned and gave Danny’s back a firm pat.
Danny knew Andre wasn’t trying to underplay the danger, just hoping to make him smile and feel a little better about an impossible situation. No one could escape their reflection.
While leaving the morgue, Danny had come upon his bottle of pills and stared at it with a thin film of numbness coating the anxiety he had over everything.
Facing Cho to break things off and finally confess the truth. Facing Ludgate again when he had no idea how to defeat him. Facing his own image in the mirror the next time he passed one, wondering if and when his eyes would changeblacklike Thanatos. Facing the photographs and evidence of the dead guard, mutilated because Danny hadn’t been able to stop Ludgate sooner.
Before the safety of that numb feeling tore open and spilled forth everything else, Danny had taken two pills straight away. Never more than two a day, Lynn had said, but she hadn’t said he couldn’t take two at once.
That taste of bile didn’t leave him when he reached his office upstairs and remembered that Ludgate could very well have sent footage of Prometheus and Zeus making out in the museum to the authorities or the papers, maybe even footage of Cho andDannyor proof that Danny was Zeus—who knew what evidence the madman had—but nothing surfaced. Danny went through his morning, his afternoon, hisday, without any sign that Ludgate planned to out his secrets. Not yet anyway.
R
His phone buzzing beside him pulled Danny back to the present and the evidence on his desk. The fiber was indeed silver, but he wouldn’t know more until he sent it to Andre and got some results back.
Checking his new text message, he saw that it was another from Cho. He’d texted Danny earlier, right after he left the man’s apartment.
It’s Mal, Sparky. Not Cho. Don’t forget it.
Danny always made that mistake, and he’d done it when he left too—“I’ll see ya around, Cho.”
This time the message said:Gonna have to help me celebrate when this lip heals.
Danny smiled; Cho had also gotten pretty beat up last night. Butno. He couldn’t. Hecouldn’t. He had to end this.
Cho didn’t even know the truth, that Danny had been lying to him,usinghim. He’d confessed that he killed Thanatos but not the real reason why, that after killing Danny’s partner and friend, Thanatos had targeted and killed Danny’smotherthe night of the power station explosion. Cho had no idea that Danny once blamed him for all of it because he hadn’t been there to help. The last thing Danny wanted now was to hurt Mal by telling him those terrible truths, even though, in the beginning, hurting him was what he’d wanted.
All he could think to text back was:Sorry. Stay safe.
Be easier to do that if we had a plan.
I know. Just give me some time to think.
Don’t keep me waiting too long.
“Another piece of evidence from the museum heist last night, Detective Grant,” a uniformed officer said as he entered Danny’s office.
“Hey, Boyd.” Danny set his phone aside. “Thanks. Just set it in the inbox. I should be able to get to it right away and pass everything to CSI.”
“Anything to please the captain, right?” Boyd said with a friendly smile, which fell when his eyes darted to the dusty remains of Rick’s desk. He made scarce after that to escapeThe Tomb. Danny couldn’t blame him. His deceased partner’s old desk might as well have been a headstone and Danny was the crypt keeper.
