“It is too late,” X agrees softly, some of the anger leaking from his face. “But we haven’t broken any rules. If the Slayer knows we’ve discovered his camera, what does it matter? He’s actively challenging us to plot against him; it’s what he seems to want.”
Chasm returns to life like he’s been kicked. He slams the drawer back into place so hard that the dresser—luckily not the one that GG’s cage is resting on—wobbles like it might fall over.
“You’re going to yell at me,” Chasm accuses, turning some of that anger and frustration onto Maxx. The latter raises one chocolate colored brow.
“Yell at you? Not while Dakota’s present,” Maxx says, and that really does it. Chasm curls his lip up in a snarl and moves over to Parrish’s nightstand, stealing a pack of cigarettes and a lighter before climbing out onto the roof to smoke in nothing but his academy-issued slacks.
“Don’t provoke him like that; he doesn’t deserve it,” I say, giving X my harshest glare. I try to borrow a little from Maxine. Since he’s dating her, he must be somewhat familiar with that look she gives when other people are being total dicks. “What happened today was hard on both of us.”
“Doesn’t look hard enough on him,” X says, turning away from me and sliding his hands into his pockets. He stares at the rabbit instead of me.
“Can he help it if he has feelings for me when he isn’t supposed to?” I snap, and only when Maxx turns very, very slowly around to look at me do I realize the words that have left my mouth. “It isn’t like he wanted to act on them. I mean, he did. But he wouldn’t have without …” I just trail off because all I’m doing right now is making word salad. Sucking in a deep breath, I try to collect myself. “He—”
“He is sitting right here,” Chasm says, turning around to put his feet in through the window. He slouches over, the same old tattooed asshole I saw from the very beginning. “Dakota and I have a thing. Parrish and I even talked about it. You know I’d never fucking betray you guys”—I get a small thrill at the term you guys because it sure as hell feels like I’m included in that—“but my choices were to let him die or screw his girl. If our positions were reversed, do you know what I’d say? Go to town, bro.”
“Go to town, bro?” Maxx repeats, looking back at his friend and shaking his head. “I know you far too well to believe that shit.” X lifts a hand from his pocket and points at me. “When he gets back, the two of you are going to fight over this girl and butt horns like mountain goats or some shit.”
Chasm just stares at his friend, but he doesn’t deny the statement. His eyes drift over to me, and chills break out across my body. Somehow, I don’t think that Maxx is right. Chasm is too … he’s as self-sacrificial as Parrish and me, maybe more so, but only when it comes to certain people.
Parrish, of course, being one of them.
“I also get a say in this, by the way,” I remind them, moving over to GG’s cage and taking him out to cuddle. I press a kiss to the bunny’s soft head and his nose twitches.
“Maxx is just cranky because he’s missing his girlfriend,” Chas snaps out, taking a drag on the cigarette and leaning out the window to blow smoke into the wind.
Tension snaps taut in the room as Maxx turns his gaze down to the floor beneath his bare feet. He looks like he might be physically ill.
“Maxine and I broke up,” he growls out, and then he turns and throws open the bedroom door so hard that it slams into the wall. My eyes go wide, and I flick a glance back at Chasm. He’s staring at the doorway with a frown on his pretty lips.
“Is that cigarette smoke that I smell up here?” Tess’ voice rings out, and now Chasm’s eyes are just as wide as mine. He’s snarling in Korean and stabbing the cigarette out in the ashtray, shoving it to the side and climbing in the window as quickly as he can. He slams the window closed and then snatches up a can of body spray, soaking himself with it and chucking it aside just before Tess appears in the doorway.
She stares at us, standing in her missing son’s room together. Him, shirtless. Me, holding a bunny. That’s what saves us, I think. The rabbit. We couldn’t possibly be having sex while I’m cuddling our new pet.
“I believe I specifically asked the two of you not to be alone together,” she starts, frowning hard as she looks between us. My cheeks and chest flush red, but I don’t know how to respond to that. All this time, poor Chas has been taking shit for something he never did. Now that we’ve actually, you know, done it, I’m even less sure how I should react. “Any news?” Tess sounds tired and hopeless at this point.
