“Please.” His Adam’s apple bobs. He squints, trying to see me. Maybe. Or maybe he’s just trying to conceal that he still has one working eyeball. “I’ve told you?—”
“A fair amount about your favorite Olympians,” I concede. “But now we’re going to talk about Malikai Barlow.”
He stills. “I don’t?—”
My scoff silences him.
I have an excellent scoff. Sighs of disdain. Huffs of exasperation. Many a men have fallen still after such an exclamation.
I’m getting off track.
“Focus, Jeff.”
“My name isn’t?—”
“Malikai Barlow,” I interrupt.
He sighs, and it’s not nearly as powerful as mine. I creep closer and grasp his shoulder. The light is still on his face. His pupils—sorry, fuck,pupil—is a tiny pinprick.
Hmm.
“Tell the truth. Cross your heart, hope to die… stick a needle in your eye.” I tilt my head.
Do I have a needle on me?
“No.” He scrambles back, seeming to forget that he’s handcuffed. His shoulders bulge, his arms reaching the end of their limit. His chest rises and falls sharply. “No, um, Malik. He rarely goes by his full name. He, ah, he’s the leader…”
“Of the Hell Hounds.” I release his shoulder. “Do you have anythingneworinterestingto tell me?”
He considers that.
“For your freedom, Jeff,” I whisper. “Don’t you want to see sunlight again?”
“I do,” he agrees. “I just… I don’t know what you want.”
“Let’s start with a little history lesson.” I rock back on my heels. “And maybe some pain management. Would that loosen your lips?”
His eye widens. The other one flaps, the eyelid shredded. At least it’s stopped bleeding… terrible thing, eye wounds. All head wounds just bleed and bleed andbleed. This one is evident by the dried blood down his face, staining the front of his shirt.
He’s lucky he didn’t die.
I pull a vial and syringe from my pocket. I make a show of uncapping it, tipping the glass bottle upside down, inserting the needle in through the cap. Drawing a few millimeters of morphine.
He sways toward me now.
Fucking junkie.
“Talk,” I demand.
“A h-history lesson.” He wets his lips. “Okay. Um. The Hell Hounds used to be led by Cerberus James. Malik was his number two, but Wolfe James—Ares, you know—was his son. So everyone assumed Wolfe would take over. But then he said he didn’t want it, and neither did Jace or Apollo.
“Wolfe appoints Malik, and it’s part of the whole city clean-up thing in the wake of the end of the war. So I don’t know, I guess Malik is kind of?—”
“When did Apollo and Jace go into the Hell Hounds?” I thumb the plunger, letting a drop or two of morphine ease out. Our chats about the Olympians didn’t cover their early years.
“In their early teens,” he tells me, his voice fuckingeagernow that I have what he wants within reach. The metal handcuffs clink and scrape as he readjusts. “Malik was like an older brother to them, like a guiding force, you know?”
“No. Keep going.”
