Cain sighed. “I thought it was mostly a thing younger people would reference,” he blurted out. His cheeks were so red, Damon could feel the heat of them from a foot away, and he felt his own lips twitch.
“Exactly how old do you think I am, sonny? I’m forty, not a hundred and forty. And this hair has been gray since I was younger than you.”
Cain pressed his lips together like he was fighting a laugh. “Right. No, I knew that. You’re right. Sorry.”
Was the kid humoring him? “Now I’m annoyed. I could kick your ass, you know.”
“I know,” Cain nodded seriously. But then his head tilted to the side. “Like, assuming you didn’t get winded while you were chasing me.”
Damon squinted and lifted himself up higher, so he was propped on one wrist. “Say again?”
Christ, this was the craziest conversation Damon had ever had. Why did it feel so good?
Cain laughed, high and light, but he didn’t move away. “Nothing. I said nothing.”
“Hmm,” Damon agreed, laying back down again. “That’s what I thought.”
“But what the heck does anything have to do with Harry Potter?” Cain demanded.
“Oh, right. Voldemort. Remember, none of the good guys in the books would say his name because they were so scared of him. Even when he wasn’t around and had no power, they’dgivehim power by refusing to name him out of fear.” He shrugged his shoulders as best he could with his hands behind his head. “When you own the words, you keep the power.”
A whole parade of emotions chased one another across Cain’s face - surprise, fear, wonder, anger, and finally, a sad sort of acceptance. “It’s a really nice analogy,” he allowed. “But I don’t think it’s entirely the same thing.”
Damon thought it was probably more apt than Cain was willing to admit, but it was none of his business. He shrugged again. “If you say so.”
“You haven’t distracted me, either,” Cain warned. He crossed his arms again, and he looked so fucking adorable, all self-righteous and innocent, with that hint of hesitation peeking out beneath his bravado, that Damon rolled his eyes. “I still want to know what your big plan was for tonight. Or did you even have one? Was being arrestedpartof the plan, or just a fun little afterthought?”
Did he have one? Little brat. “Oh, I had one. The plan was to cause a scene,Cain,” Damon sighed. “Such a loud and disruptive scene that people would come running out of the fundraiser, phones held aloft like Lady Liberty’s torch, ready to stream it all over social media.”
“What?” Cain sputtered. “That’s the stupidest plan I’ve ever…”
“And then, when it was plastered on Facebook and trending on Twitter,” Damon continued. “Your father wouldn’t be able to ignore it anymore. He wouldn’t be able to justgo onlike nothing had ever happened, like he hadn’t ruined lives and killed people. Maybe the authorities would look into it. Maybe they wouldn’t even have to. Maybe just getting him involved in a scandal would be enough.” He glanced over and saw dawning comprehension in Cain’s eyes. “Reporters would dig deeper. Voters would remember.”
“Oh my God,” Cain whispered.
Damon nodded. “It would’ve been beautiful.” He sighed again and said grudgingly, “But I get that you didn’t know. That you thought you were doing the right thing.”
Cain shook his head rapidly. “Oh myGod,” he repeated. “Not oh-my-God, what an amazing plan, you fucking idiot. I meanoh-my-God, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“The fuck it was.” Damon scowled, sitting up. “It would have worked. People would have flooded out in another minute.”
“Yeah, maybe.” But Cain waved this away with a flip of his hand and he leaned forward, getting in Damon’s face. He smelled clean and woodsy, like some subtle, no doubt outrageously expensive cologne. Damon was momentarily distracted by the desire to bring him even closer, but then his words brought him back. “But who gives a shit? You’re missing something vitally important here.”
“Oh, really. What’s that?”
“My father would not have sat by and allowed that to happen, Damon! God. First of all, there have been a million negative stories written about him over the years.”
Damon raised a skeptical eyebrow. He’d found nothing negative about the senator in all his searching, and while he didn’t believe for a second that the Seavers’ deaths were the only skeletons in the man’s closet, he assumed Emmett Shaw had been too crafty or too lucky to get caught.
Cain grimaced and looked away. “My father was a businessman for years before he ran for office. You know that, right? Hell, he was one of the original founders of Seaver Tech, along with Cam’s father and Drew’s. You don’t think there were dozens of disgruntled former employees who’d have been only too happy to dish about him? Colleagues who remembered he made some shitty hate-speech comment, or people he’d passed over for promotions they deserved?” His face grew bleak as he added softly, “Or maybe something even worse that I don’t know about yet.”
“The point is,” he continued, “every one of those stories got buried, Damon. My father’s record is spotless, which is why he’s such a political darling. No one has said a damn thing against him.”
“Impossible,” Damon said. “You can’t buryeverystory, Cain. Not every disgruntled employee can be bought off, not when tabloids are happy to pony up just as much cash to get dirt.”
“You’d think,” Cain agreed, and he seemed to shrink in on himself as he spoke the words. “I never really thought about it, about how convenient it was that he made everything go away. I mean, sure there are plenty of people who write articles disagreeing with my father politically, but… those are almost like advertisements for him, you know? What seems like a bullshit human-rights-violation to one party sounds like the path to American greatness for the other. The stuff about my father personally, though, all goes away. And I know there have been things.” When he lifted his eyes to Damon’s again, they were wide and hurting. “I’ve heard my father talking with… with Jack.”
Damon inhaled sharply and rubbed the back of his neck. Once again, speaking the man’s name was like launching a verbal grenade. Knowing he’d been idiotic enough to fall for that asshole was bad, but knowing Cain had also been taken in made it even worse somehow.
