Covenant (boyxboy)

Chapter Sixteen

"You really didn't tell him?" If Connor didn't give me the truth, it was going to be next to impossible to come up with a defense from Cambrias.

"I swear to God, I never said anything to Abel about EBG. I would never do that, I know it could get you in trouble."

It wasn't me I was worried about. I clicked play again on my phone, where a bystander's video of yesterday's encounter started over.

...Says the guy who forces him to jizz in a beaker six days a week, Abel sneered, followed by traffic noises and some mutterings from the crowd.

"He was guessing," Connor said. "He had to be."

I set the phone on the table and glared down at the sausage and eggs on my plate. It had been an accurate guess. Cambrias was sure to have questions.

But it wasn't Cambrias who lit up the inside of my head on the ride into work.

Bring me that fucking Eljo, my father's psychic voice raged. Now.

He hasn't done anything, I argued. Abel Gadrias is full of shit. He's been after Connor ever since last year's courting season.

I don't give a fuck who's trying to get in his prettyboy panties. He'll learn to keep his mouth shut.

You want to silence someone, go after Gadrias!

A leak gets plugged at the source, boy.

I slammed on the brake, skidding the bike into a parking slot so hard that Connor exclaimed and grabbed me around the middle. Touch Connor and I really will kill you.

There was no response, but I hustled both of us through the halls of EBG, not stopping until we made it into the lab and the hydraulic doors hissed shut behind us.

"What's wrong?" Connor asked.

I stomped to my computer and willed it awake so hard the hard drive sparked.

"Oh shit, the Doc must be on his ass again," Bo said.

"His dad?"

"Yup. That's definitely his daddy-issues face."

"I'm not in the mood, Bo," I warned.

"I can see that. And what I'm about to tell you is making me fear for our lives. I want your word there's not going to be any epiphanies or mental breaks or psychotic episodes when I say this. Just to be safe, Connor, come over here and let me stand behind you, hm?"

"Bo." I ground my teeth without turning around.

"Your face healed up nicely, by the way. No one would ever know you got clocked yesterday. I'm just saying."

"Bo!"

"We're being hacked," he said.

I spun, and Bo ducked down behind Connor's shoulders, which didn't do much to hide an adult Nephilim.

"What?"

"I said we're hacked. But don't worry, Ji-Soo is on it."

"Bo, you have three seconds to tell me—"

"Breach of the number twelve server." A curtain at the back of the lab was swept aside with a shing of metal rings. Ji-Soo was sitting in an inclined hospital bed, IV tubes sprouting from both arms and a laptop resting across her thighs. "We don't know which files he got, but they're all related to Connor's project."

She looked sick, her complexion a murky shade of gray. But there was fire in her eyes as her fingers flew over the keyboard. "I'll catch him."

"Ji-Soo?" She was definitely not well enough to be battling a cyber attack, but I had to know how bad this was. What if I needed to take Connor and flee town?