“You should answer them,” Cho said. “If you’re sure Ludgate won’t come after you tonight, you should—”
“No…” Danny shook his head. “Please. I just want to get out of here. I don’t want them to see me like this.”
“Danny, if they’re close, I’m not fast enough to get you out of here before they reach us. Can you jump one more time?”
“Yeah…I think so.”
“Then go home, kid. Just go home. I’ll—”
“No.” Danny pressed his hands to Cho’s chest and shook his head as fiercely as he could. But when his hands brushed Cho’s goggles hanging from his neck, he recoiled. The lenses. Ludgate couldn’t get to them through something so small, but he could hear them. He could watch.
Tearing them off of Cho’s head, Danny threw them at the discarded crumple of the suit. Cho looked startled at first but then seemed to understand.
“Danny, come on!” Andre called again, his voice doubled from the suit and somewhere nearby, maybe only half a block away.
Danny pulled him and Cho to their feet and held the thief close. He knew it was time to let Cho go, that everything he’d once planned was over and it was time to come clean. He should end things here and now and do as Cho said—let his friends take him back to the morgue, take him home.
But he couldn’t. Not yet. He wanted one more night to pretend.
“They’ll take care of the suit,” he said, strong enough for one more feat tonight, because he had to be, he had to be. He looked at Cho’s face, discolored and tainted because of him. “And I’ll take care of you.”
“Danny!”
Willing himself to have enough stamina to make one more jump, Danny set his sights on Cho’s apartment.
Chapter 24
Zeus was smart, but while he thought he was protecting himself and Prometheus, he’d given Hades exactly what he needed.
The lenses of Prometheus’s goggles were small, but they were large enough for Hades to snag the end of a piece of fabric. He reached through, gripped part of that fascinating black suit, and began to pull and pull it through the reflection, which was easy to complete once he had a good hold of it from his side of the mirror world. In moments, he’d claimed the black suit for his own.
“Where is it?” a male voice sounded from the mirror in front of Hades only a few moments later. He watched as feet stepped into view through the reflection.
“Maybe it’s still invisible,” a female voice joined him. “Are those Prometheus’s goggles?”
A hand appeared to retrieve them, and Hades got a clear view of a young man’s face when the goggles were lifted—dark skin, grey eyes, long braided hair. That must be ‘Andre’; Hades recognized the voice. Which meant the female was ‘Lynn’.
Prometheus might get credit for the diamond heist tonight, but it was doubtful the police could pin it on anyone, since most of the ice had melted, Prometheus had played things too smart initially, and all Hades had left behind was broken glass.
That’s what had given him the idea to go back for the guard before he tracked Zeus and Prometheus to the alley. All that glass. A thief was just a thief after all. Hades wanted the people of Olympus City trembling at his name like they had trembled before Thanatos. And he had much better plans for Zeus as well.
“Are you going to tell me what’s been going on between Danny and Cho?” Lynn asked.
“Uhh…I think he should be the one to tell you.”
“Andre…”
“Something’s not right,” Andre said, holding the goggles at his side, giving Hades a view of the ground. “The tracker went dead. A second ago it said the suit was right here.”
They wouldn’t find any trace of it now, not when it had found a new home in the mirror world. Staring at the fabric in his hands, Hades grinned. Breaking Zeus was going to be much more fun than simply killing him. For now, he just had to bide his time.
ß
Mal felt like he might throw up when he and Danny finally came to a stop out of the whirlwind of lightning, and he realized they were standing in his apartment. He’d lost his new comms and his goggles; he would not lose his lunch. Priestly was going to be pissed at him, especially if any of his creations could be tracked back to the shop, but for now all Mal could focus on was keeping the room from spinning.
“Are you okay?” Danny asked. Funny, considering the kid didn’t look much better than he did. Mal just wanted one chance to get his hands on Ludgate so he could bash the man’s teeth in. He didn’t usually find catharsis in hands-on brutality, but for this asshole he’d make an exception.
“Glass of water and some painkillers and I’ll be right as rain,” Mal said. He seriously hoped he was right about that. He’d had a concussion before, which this definitely was, but he didn’t think any of the other damage was lasting, much as it hurt to move.
“Here,” Danny said and flipped on the light before leading Mal to the counter in the kitchen.
Mal steadied himself against it while Danny darted away. It was too dizzying to follow the kid’s movements, but when he looked up and saw that his curtains had been drawn, he figured he understood what Danny was doing—covering every reflective surface he could find. Assuming that would help.
Finally, Mal turned and got a glass of water. Then his ibuprofen out of the medicine cabinet above the stove. He’d downed four of them and finished off the water by the time Danny returned.
“I think that’s everything,” Danny said with a faint pant to his breath. His face had a few harsh looking dings, but Mal guessed his body had it worse.
Refilling the glass, he handed it to Danny. The pills wouldn’t work on him, but water was something at least. Danny practically chugged it.
“Come here,” Mal said once he’d set the glass aside.
Reaching for the duster, he pulled it from Danny’s shoulders to take in the sight of him. Danny’s feet were dirty, his shoulders and chest and everywhere blossoming with bruises and scrapes. It made him look small and fragile standing there in his underwear. Mal trailed his fingertips down the center of Danny’s chest to his ribs where one of them had been broken.
“I’ll be fine. I heal fast, remember? Let me take care of you. You should be sitting.” Danny placed a hand on Mal’s less bruised and swollen cheek, touching him every chance he could and seeking comforts Mal didn’t usually offer. But then, Mal had been doing the same thing, like he needed to feel Danny’s skin to remind himself he wasn’t a reflection that would vanish.
“Danny…” Mal backed out of Danny’s touch. This was a bad idea. Danny needed more than just him tonight. He needed more than just him.
But Danny followed after him and reached for his neck tentatively with a cringe on his face from remembering how he’d clenched his hands there earlier. “Please, can I stay? I don’t want to go home yet.”
“They’re going to wonder what happened to you.”
“I’ll call them later. Later. I’ll tell them I’m okay, I just… Please,” his voice caught on a sob, “don’t make me leave.”
Mal sighed. He’d never been able to refuse Lucy when she was crying either. “You can stay. If you’re sure?”
Danny nodded frantically. “You’re still hurt. I can help. Or maybe you should call your nurse? I can…I can wait upstairs while they’re here and—”
“Danny, it’s fine. You want to check me out, feel free. But I plan to clean up and go to bed. I’ll see the nurse in the morning.”
“Okay,” Danny nodded again, but he didn’t let go. He kept his hand hooked around Mal’s neck like it was a lifeline he needed to keep from crumbling to the floor.
“Come on. Gotta put this away,” Mal said, prying Danny’s fingers off himself but holding on tightly as he drew the hand down. He smiled as he turned and led Danny from the kitchen.
Holding Danny in one hand and his duster
in the other, Mal felt more grounded during the short trek to his secret room. It didn’t matter anymore; Danny knowing where he kept his gear seemed trivial after tonight.
When the invisible seal in the wall shifted and the door slid out of the way, Danny stepped up next to Mal and peered inside curiously. Mal had a few backup pieces stored—extra bodysuits, boots—but the hook in the back for the duster was empty, and a stand for his amplifier lay waiting.
“How James Bond of you,” Danny said, still somber but a little more genuine in his smile.
When Mal had put everything away save the bodysuit he still wore, he snatched up his phone from inside the room, almost having forgotten he’d stashed it there. Dangerous to have it with him on a heist. He had several text messages and calls from Lucy. Perfect.
“Let me put my sister’s mind at ease. Get yourself cleaned up and into some fresh clothes. Bring some down for me too. Then you can take care of me however you like.”
“First-aid kit?” Danny asked.
“Bathroom, under the sink.”
“I’ll be quick.”
“Wouldn’t expect any less,” Mal smirked, then frowned at his phone as soon as Danny left.
Walking sluggishly toward the sofa, he scrolled through Lucy’s text messages as he went. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, he could feel his wounds more acutely. At least it eased his dizziness to have something to focus on.
What the hell happened?!
Police at the museum, did they get you?!
Mickey, I will kick your ass from here to Sunday if you don’t answer me!
Can’t believe your boytoy is Zeus.
Mal sagged down onto the end of the sofa. Dom had to go and open her big mouth. Not that Mal hadn’t given Lucy plenty to work with, letting Danny whisk her and Dom out of the museum while he stayed inside.
Safe. At home. Don’t come over, he sent her.
He expected the immediate retort: Busy entertaining Sparky?
Yes. It’s complicated.
I’ll bet. You get the diamond?
Ludgate beat us to it. I’ll explain tomorrow. He debated telling her to avoid mirrors, but that would only broach more questions. She was safe from Ludgate for now. As safe as anyone else.
You better. Jerk, she said, which was as close to ‘I love you’ as either of them got.
Mal smiled as he replied, Brat.
“You really shouldn’t let me rummage through your clothes,” Danny’s voice carried over from the stairway. “I find out all sorts of dirty secrets.”
Tossing his phone onto the coffee table, Mal glanced over. Danny looked refreshed and clean, the visible bruises on his face already fading. He wore Mal’s long-sleeved grey T-shirt and navy sweats, while carrying the first-aid kit and a damp washcloth, along with a black shirt thrown over his arm and a pair of white sleep pants…with lightning bolts on them.
Shit.
“Those were a gift.”
“Sure they were.” That puppy smile was blinding in the way Mal most adored, but there was a crack in it that couldn’t be banished. When Danny sat, placing the first-aid kit and cloth on the coffee table, there was a heaviness between them painted in pain and bruises from the long night.
“You don’t have to do that,” Mal said.
“Do what?”
“Smile for me.”
Danny’s expression was blank by the time he looked at Mal, still holding the Zeus-like sleep pants. “I…I just feel like…if I don’t smile, I’ll start crying again and won’t be able to stop.” On cue, a tear slipped free and dropped onto the fabric in his lap. He laughed and brushed it away. “To be fair, it’s not completely fake. Finding these totally deserved a smile.”
Mal chuckled with Danny, and maybe it was a broken sound, but it was still one they shared. He wrinkled his nose at the clothes though, wondering how he could possibly summon enough energy to change into them. Danny must have noticed because he stood. Mal started to stand too, but Danny held him down.
“You’re still wearing your boots, heathen,” he teased.
Snorting, Mal sank back into the sofa. “Smart-ass. Those I can get myself.” But he cringed as soon as he bent over, putting too much pressure where his middle was bruised from when Danny had crushed him. He hissed and sat back up.
“I got ‘em,” Danny said.
What brave new world had Mal built for himself that his enemy was welcome in his home and willing to get on his knees to remove his boots for him? Danny even brought them to the rug to continue the ongoing joke. Then he returned and urged Mal to his feet.
Slowly, Danny found the zipper at the back of Mal’s sleeveless, high-collared bodysuit, and drew it down, peeling the fabric from his skin. He helped Mal into the sleep pants and shirt, which Mal would have protested with anyone else and demanded to do it himself.
They sat and Danny motioned for Mal to scoot closer as he opened the first aid kit. Mal assumed Danny was usually the one being treated back at his hideout, but he still knew how to tend to someone else. He wiped the blood from Mal’s cuts with the warm, wet cloth—across his lip and above an eyebrow—dabbed antiseptic cream on both of them, then bandaged the cut above Mal’s eye.
Danny’s hands were warm as he slid them up beneath Mal’s shirt to feel at his ribs for breaks. He seemed satisfied with what he found, but Mal couldn’t help wishing the touch would linger, and he shivered when Danny’s fingers pulled away. Danny left Mal feeling cozy and content just by being near him, like he could curl up right then and go to sleep without a care in the world.
“You shouldn’t sleep yet with a concussion,” Danny said when Mal started to lie back.
“So keep me company.” Mal rested his head on the sofa’s pillow and lifted his legs to stretch across Danny’s lap. Danny set his hands on Mal’s thighs. Such casual, constant touch. Mal never allowed that with anyone. Not even Lucy. She tended to stray from touch as much as he did unless she had control over the situation.
Mal didn’t have control with Danny, he never had, but for once that didn’t leave him feeling weak or scared.
Soon, Danny’s eyes grew distant. Mal hadn’t minded the quiet while Danny tended to him, but now it felt stifling. Danny should never be this still. Only his thumbs moved, gently grazing over the white and yellow sleep pants that Mal thought clashed horribly with everything about him. But then Zeus didn’t clash as much with Prometheus as he’d always thought, so maybe he was wrong.
“What happened, Sparky?” he asked. “What did you see? What did he do? Beat you around, fine, but it was more than that. And don’t tell me you don’t want to talk about it,” he pushed when Danny dropped his head back onto the sofa. “Ludgate’s after both of us.”
“Maybe. But he got inside my head. Got inside my…body and…” Danny shuddered at the memories, keeping his eyes on the ceiling. “There was a maze of mirrors…with Ludgate in every one of them. And me too. My reflection.”
“With black eyes?”
“Like him.”
Thanatos.
“My reflection wore his suit, had his eyes, and I just…”
“Danny, listen to me,” Mal gripped Danny’s hand. “You are nothing like Thanatos.”
“You don’t know what I’m like,” Danny sneered, trying to wrench his hand away.
“I think I do. Better than most.”
When Mal wouldn’t release him, after several more half-hearted tugs, Danny gave up, mouth turning sharply downward, face red and blotchy with imminent tears. He opened his mouth and looked at Mal as if there was something terribly important he had to tell him, but he gave up on that too.
“There’s one thing still bothering me,” Mal said.
“Only one?”
“Ludgate, what he said at the museum—that he owes you. What did he mean?”
“I don’t know,” Danny�
��s brow furrowed in frustration. “It all seems so personal but I don’t know why. I’ve never met him before. His real name is Cassius Dougal Junior. I don’t know him either. It doesn’t make sense. I’m just so tired,” he said with a bone-deep heaviness. “Of everything. Of me.”
The defeat in those words shook Mal. There was a time when he wanted nothing more than to see this man brought low. But now he knew him. Even before he did, he never would have wanted this.
Mal knew tired. And beaten down. He knew defeat as though the world would never let him win. He had made his own rules to conquer that a long time ago, but Danny made him break almost all of them.
“Then we’ll rest,” Mal said. “And we’ll sleep. And we’ll figure this out. I do have a diamond to reclaim, after all.”
Danny laughed, a sudden eruption that was sad and broken but grateful. “Whatever you say, Cho.”
Mal didn’t know what to say, but he didn’t think more words would be enough, not now. Coaxing Danny to lean toward him, even though it strained his sore ribs, Mal arched up to meet the kid halfway for a soft kiss. His lip stung, but he didn’t care. “It’s Mal.”
“Right,” Danny puffed a breath. “Mal.”
Their loss tonight didn’t feel like a loss with Danny next to him.
Mal couldn’t have said when they fell asleep after that, right there on the sofa in the same positions they’d started in. He only knew that when he roused, it was to the sound of clattering and vibrations. He’d always been a light sleeper.
Blinking at his phone within reach on the coffee table, Mal quickly snatched it up and glared at the number. Unknown. Panic seized him as he wondered if it was Ludgate. His phone’s screen was reflective, wasn’t it? Did that matter? Did it have to be glass instead of plastic? Mal grimaced at the swirl of fear in his belly.
The call ended but immediately started up again.
Moving swiftly, Mal lifted his legs out of Danny’s hold. The kid frowned in his sleep and tried to turn toward him, so Mal guided Danny to lie down in his place when he stood.
“Who is this?” Mal answered sharply once he’d walked a safe distance across the room. At least nothing tilted around him, but his head still throbbed.
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