Covenant (boyxboy)

Chapter Eighteen

Six weeks passed. I didn't get arrested. No one showed up demanding to search the house, though I had moved my stash of insulin back to the lab in case they did.

Jonah Gadrias put out a five million dollar reward for evidence regarding his son's murderer, and it was all the news stations could talk about. For that kind of money, I half expected Bo to reconsider the alibi he'd made up for me. And I don't know, maybe he would have if Ji-Soo's condition wasn't so bad. Hateful eyes followed me everywhere I went, my home network's security system thwarted dozens of attacks a day, and every move I made outside the house was being recorded by numerous entities. But through it all, Bo stuck to his story. He had confined himself to the lab with Ji-Soo, barely sleeping or eating, and I think the enforcers felt too sorry for him to push very hard.

I, on the other hand, was called to the enforcement office on three separate occasions for questioning. The things they asked gave insight into how the investigation was going; they wanted me to explain the amount of insulin that was fatal for an adult Nephilim. I answered, of course. Insulin induced severe depletion. Thanks to our sugar-dependent metabolism, a single microgram of insulin was enough to ensure psychic, and consequentially cardiac, arrest. I gathered from the enforcers' queries that Abel had been attacked with at least ten times that amount.

No wonder he'd died so fast.

But I was a scientist. The fact that I knew this got the investigators nowhere unless they could prove I'd had the drug in my possession. Their scanners hadn't found anything on me that night. And there were no custody records, because I'd taken the insulin home without authorization. By the time EBG performed a security inventory, the case was right where it was supposed to be in their controlled substances safe.

The missing syringe was explained by forged and back-dated experiment notes. Bo had whipped them up without question when I asked. He had to believe I was the killer. But he never asked me about it, nor did he scold or tease. It seemed he was willing to shoulder the sin alongside me, probably not so much for friendship's sake as it was to keep Ji-Soo alive.

When the enforcers demanded to know how I'd smuggled insulin into the Hallowed Eve party, I sidestepped their lie detectors by answering, "Ask the murderer."

"Isn't that what we're doing now?"

"I did not kill Abel Gadrias." As with every other time I'd said it, their screens showed I was telling the truth. I heard one of them remark that I was the best liar he'd ever seen. Hah. Little did he know it was my lab partner who was the true pro.

They switched tactics after a while. Had me recount the story of Abel hijacking Connor's drone in the park, asked for "my side" of the well-publicized fight where Abel had hit me. They brought up the button-melting incident from last year's Valentine courting event. They even put up side-by-side photographs of Abel Gadrias and the human boy I'd killed, Tyler Crockett, and tried to get me to admit they looked alike, that they'd both angered me by expressing interest in Connor.

I decided it wouldn't be fruitful to argue that I'd caught Tyler in the act of violating Connor, after beating him nearly unconscious. If Abel had done that I would've been able to end his life legally, and none of us would be sitting here.

The enforcers baited me for hours, showing me screenshots of social media conversations between Abel and Connor like they were hoping to goad me into a confession. Evidently Abel had found ways to circumvent the blocks I'd put on Connor's internet accounts. That was a galling discovery, but the guy was dead and I wasn't about to give the enforcers the outburst they were looking for. Abel was a savant. Breaking through rudimentary digital barriers had to have been child's play for him.

Connor had done a fair amount of complaining about me to Abel. True to his word, he hadn't divulged anything about the experiments he was subjected to at EBG; his gripes were more mundane, and personal. I wouldn't let him play the video games he liked. I was critical of his friends. I treated him like a child, or else like he was invisible. A lot of comments about how cold and silent I was, more interested in work than in being around him.