Sleeping Dogs Lie

Chapter Sixteen

Aaron successfully avoids me for the entire weekend. Which pisses me off worse than a tomcat with its tail stuck in a door. If I didn't know any better, I could almost convince myself the whole incident down in his weird, radioactive superhero lair below the Med Tech was something I cooked up in my imagination. Because I have a pretty vivid imagination.

Here's the thing. I know that whatever I think happened down in that superhero tattoo lair was one hundred percent real. I have a gun and a ghost Mark that prove I was there. So even though Aaron's shady enough that I could believe he might've used a secret knock-out gas on me and then given me false memories revolving around my sweet, sweet Walther and this ghosty infrared Mark that I can just barely see, no amount of his avoiding my eye contact or sidestepping me on stiff legs with tightly clenched fists can convince me that that whole interaction was make believe. That gun is real. Real enough that I can cuddle up with it at night like a lover.

You can't fool me, Aaron.

And it's no use for him to even try and pretend like he isn't avoiding me. I am skilled at the art of avoidance. All forms of avoidance. It's an art form with me. I've perfected it the same way 14th century Venetians perfected the art of Muranese glass blowing. So I know exactly what that little douche is up to. He can't run away from me fast enough for it to look like he just happened to be leaving a room at the same time I came in. Jerk.

And then there's my Daniel situation.

Talk about avoidance.

Even though I do my best to avoid him, he comes and mopes around after me both weekend nights. His moping begins to cool my white-hot fury toward him, but the major damage has already been done. I can't trust him anymore, no matter how sad he feels or how angry I'm not. What's he lying to me about? Why would he even feel like he has to lie to me?

I tried one more time over the weekend to ask him what he was doing "late at work" on Friday, and his big, revelatory answer was, "computer stuff." Like he needed to be all evasive and secretive. Which is hilariously ironic, because when it comes to highly classified work within the hierarchy of the Hex, mine is right up there, and his is definitely not.

And as good as I am with surveillance feeds and backtracking to find traces on people's Marks, I can't seem to backtrack to a point where I can figure out where Daniel was that night. The only person I know to ask for help is that little tool, Aaron. So until he pulls the bug out of his ass and stops pretending like we don't know each other, I don't know what to do.

And now, thanks to Aaron, I've got this burden that has to do with the Hex's interest in Freya, and it's all loaded up on my back and I'm just hauling it around on my own. Because I absolutely refuse to share it with Daniel. If he won't tell me the truth about what he does late at night, then he doesn't need to know anything about what I do, either.

On Monday night, Daniel tries to get me to take a shower with him, and it leads to a big, old fight. One like we've never had before.

"It's not going to work, Daniel!" I tell him.

"I don't know what you mean, Alecto," he says. "It's just a shower."

Which is stupid, because, whatever it is, it isn't that. We've still never done anything in there other than talk, but lately I get the impression that Daniel wants to get pushier about it than I'm ready for him to get. And I'm sure that whoever's sitting at the Comm, watching us through that toothbrush holder, must think my bathroom sees a whole lot of action.