by G. R. Lyons
He ate alone, did the dishes, took a shower, pulled on some pajamas, and was just deciding whether to go to bed when he heard a key in the lock at the front door.
Asher waited, and let out the breath he was holding when he saw Ryley walk in. His man was wearing nothing but running shorts and shoes, the rest of his body covered in a fine sheen of sweat, his chest rising and falling heavily as he panted.
Ryley spotted him and went still, holding his breath for a moment, then continued panting as he pushed the door shut behind him. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Asher took a step toward him. “You alright?”
Ryley nodded, still catching his breath. “Just needed…” He gestured at the door. “Went for a run, found myself at the Gate, so I went to see the Vakti, ran back…” He trailed off, and his eyes went wide. “Shit. Ash. I'm so sorry. I left again without saying anything–”
“It's alright,” Asher said, holding up a hand and closing the distance between them. “Feel better?”
Ryley gave a noncommittal nod. “Sort of.” He groaned and pressed a hand to his side. “Went at it a little too hard, but…”
“You needed it,” Asher finished for him.
“Yeah.” Ryley nodded, then blew out a breath and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Fuck, Ash. My parents are dead…and my parents lied…and Vic knew. He knew, and he never said anything…”
Asher grimaced. “Ryley…”
Ryley looked up at him, studying his eyes, then took a step back. “Gods, not you, too.”
Asher held up his hands. “I only knew that Vic knew something. He wouldn't tell me what it was, though. Except…we did talk to the Vakti–”
“What? When?”
“That day you–” Asher gestured with his hands. “With the fire. We went to talk to them, but they wouldn't say anything either.”
Ryley stared at him, then shook his head and slipped down to the floor, leaning back against the wall. “Fuck.”
Asher crouched beside him. “They said they wanted you to remember on your own. With the way they were talking…I honestly thought it might be for the best…” He trailed off and sighed. “I'm so sorry.”
Ryley slowly shook his head. “Vic tried to tell me,” he said, his voice low and curious, almost like he was thinking out loud, reasoning through it. “For so long. He kept hinting, and I kept ignoring him.” He shook his head again, and finally met Asher's eyes. “Maybe I wouldn't have even believed you if you'd tried.”
Asher nodded. “All I would have been able to tell you was that something happened. As for what…”
Ryley nodded back, staring blankly at the floor. “Gods, how could I just forget like that?” he whispered. He looked up, and Asher followed his gaze. Ryley was staring at the dining table, the folded shirt just visible at that distance. “I have to talk to Vic.”
Asher nodded, getting ready to stand, then he heard Ryley groan when the man tried to do the same.
“Maybe tomorrow,” Ryley amended right before he let out a huge yawn.
Asher chuckled and helped Ryley to his feet.
* * *
RYLEY STOOD at the entrance to Sturmwyn Insurance, the wrapped-up knife firmly clutched in his hand, and took a deep breath before he opened the door.
The receptionist put on her usual smile of greeting as she turned away from her computer, only for her eyes to go wide when she recognized him. “Ryley,” she gasped. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey, Sheila” Ryley said, dredging up a smile. “Is Vic in today?”
Sheila gave him a puzzled look, and no wonder. Ryley could just as easily have called Vic—everyone in the office knew the two of them had been together—but Ryley wanted to see the man in person. And on neutral ground. If an argument erupted, they'd both have to keep calm.
“Yeah, he's in,” Sheila said.
“Is he busy?”
Sheila turned to her computer and clicked on something. “He doesn't have any appointments that I can see. Do you want me to tell him you're here?”
“No, I'd rather just go back, if that's alright.”
“Yeah. Sure.” She gave him a friendly smile and gestured at the doorway that led to the bullpen, even though Ryley knew it well.
“Thanks, Sheila.”
He gave her a parting nod and turned away, taking another deep breath as he passed the first cubicle. Several of his former coworkers looked up at him with surprise. Ryley gave them quick waves and smiles, but never slowed his pace. He wasn't there to answer a dozen questions from people who were all clearly wondering why he'd just upped and vanished one day without a word. He needed to talk to Vic.
As he neared Vic's desk, he spotted his own, a weird pain tightening his chest when he saw a stranger sitting there. It made sense that his job had been given to someone else in his absence, but the sight still hurt, knowing for sure now that things wouldn't go right back to normal when and if he ever finished his training on Jadu'n.
“Skye.”
Ryley tore his eyes away from his old desk and found the boss standing nearby, staring at him with his hands on his hips.
“My office,” Parker demanded.
“Yes, sir.” Ryley followed, not even getting close to Vic's desk. He glanced back and saw Vic was on the phone, so the man hadn't even noticed he was there yet. Ryley hoped Vic would be free by the time the boss was done with him.
He stepped into Parker's office and heard the door shut behind him, then sank into the offered chair while the boss seated himself behind his desk.
“I hope you didn't think you could just waltz back in here and expect to still have a job,” the man said.
Ryley shook his head, the knife feeling especially heavy in his lap. “No, sir.”
Parker watched him silently, expectantly, then finally asked, “Well? I tried to get an explanation out of Lucius, but the man was remarkably…tight-lipped about the whole thing. Said you were dealing with a private matter and that was all he'd tell me.”
Ryley blinked. Vic hadn't said anything? Hells, the man apparently knew more than Ryley ever had, yet he'd protected Ryley's privacy? Even after Ryley had betrayed him over and over? What the hells?
He wanted to be pissed at Vic for keeping things from him, but that little show of loyalty made his anger slip.
Ryley took a deep breath and blew it out heavily. “I was on Jadu'n.”
The boss blinked. “Jadu'n? What for?”
Ryley breathed a humorless laugh and shrugged, spreading his hands. “Turns out, I'm a mage.” Parker's eyes went wide. “At least, I could be, with training.” And that's so not happening.
Parker stared at him. “And you never thought to share this little detail before? Do you have any idea how useful a mage's skills could be around here?”
Ryley shrugged again. “I only just found out myself, right before I left.” Before the boss could say anything, he went on: “No one ever told me. I found out the hard way.” Ryley paused, then clarified, “I nearly killed someone.”
“Gods,” Parker breathed. “Again?”
“Yeah–” Ryley broke off, staring at the man. “Shit. You knew.” Ryley slammed the bundle down on the boss's desk and flipped back the folds of the shirt, leaving the blood-stained knife in view.
“Where did you get that?”
“Transported it—by magic—without meaning to,” Ryley said. “How much did you know?”
Parker glanced at the knife, then looked up at Ryley with a grimace. “Not much. Just what's in your file.” He held up his hands. “When your job application came in and we ran your DNA sample to confirm your identity, it flagged a match in the system, linked to that case,” he said, pointing at the knife. “Naturally, we had to investigate the connection.” The man held up his hands again, giving Ryley a placating gesture. “All I knew was that your name was linked to an old murder case in which you were the only suspect, but since you were a kid at the time, the suspicion was ruled out, and I figured it wouldn't affect your ability to d
o your job.”
Ryley stared at the knife. “But you weren't the only one who checked into that, were you?”
“No. It was assigned to an agent to review, and the agent reported to me that it wasn't relevant to your employment.”
Ryley slowly nodded, his eyes still focused on the knife. “And which agent was that?”
Parker frowned, thinking. “Childhood trauma case? Must have been Lucius, come to think of it.”
Ryley nodded again, his suspicion confirmed.
* * *
RYLEY WALKED up to Vic's desk. The man was intent upon whatever file lay before him, so he didn't notice Ryley's approach. Ryley reached across the desk and set the knife down, right on top of the file.
Vic stared at it for a moment, then slowly lifted his gaze to Ryley's face. “Ryley.”
“Now I know why you stayed with me so long,” Ryley said.
Vic blinked. “Ryley…”
“I was just another one of your cases, wasn't I?” Ryley demanded. “Just another traumatized child that you thought you had to save.” He paused and shook his head. “Gods, Vic, was any of it real?”
Vic gazed at him for a long moment, his expression blank, then let out a sigh. “Sit down, Ryley.”
“I'd rather stand.”
“Very well.” Vic glanced at the knife, then focused on Ryley's face. “You were just a case. At first. Before you came to work here, your application flagged a DNA match–”
“Yeah, I got that,” Ryley said, waving his hand impatiently.
Vic nodded. “I got your file to review, and though the case was closed, there were still some points that weren't very clear to me. The case was ultimately ruled a murder-suicide, but it never made sense that a man would stab himself to death, especially with as many wounds as he'd sustained. The angle and force of each strike weren't consistent with self-inflicted wounds. Since you were the only other person involved in the incident, there was this theory that you were the murderer, but the very idea seemed ridiculous at best. The whole thing made me curious. I wanted to see how you'd survived such a traumatic event, and how you—a three-year-old boy—were the only one to come out of it alive, so I told Parker the case was irrelevant to your employment, hoping he'd hire you so that I could see for myself.”
Ryley looked at him silently, waiting. “Go on.”
Vic sighed again. “When you first came here, you were so…happy. I couldn't see even a hint of trauma in you, as though it had never happened. I don't care how well someone gets over something, there's always some lingering sign. Anxiety. Flinching. Heightened situational awareness. Something to indicate that the past is still there, somewhere in the victim's memory, even if it's no longer debilitating. But you?” Vic shook his head. “Nothing. You were always just so damned chipper. It didn't make any sense. Which made me realize you'd repressed it so badly that you had no idea it had ever happened. And the more I got to know you, the more I was sure of it.” He gave Ryley a wry smile. “Yeah, you were just a case. At first. I'd never counted on falling for you.”
Ryley inwardly scoffed. He didn't want Vic softening his anger, even if Vic's words did have that affect on him.
“Then why didn't you ever say anything?” Ryley demanded.
“I wanted to. Believe me, I did. Once I knew you'd repressed it, and especially after we got together and I started seeing your nightmares, I knew it was buried in there somewhere, and needed to get out. You needed to deal with it so it wouldn't keep haunting you. But that's when I started noticing the weird stuff that kept happening around you. The flickering lights. The car not starting. Static interference in our phone calls. It took me a while to make sense of it, but I finally caught on that it only happened when you were emotionally volatile: angry, before you calmed yourself down, or afraid, like waking from your nightmares.” He paused, then added, “Aroused, especially when you were aroused and frustrated.”
Ryley scoffed aloud that time. “So you were denying me on purpose? For the sake of an experiment?”
“No, Ry. Gods, no,” Vic said, then glanced around before lowering his voice. “You know why I denied you in bed. I made that very clear.”
Ryley grumbled under his breath, but couldn't say anything. Vic was right. He did know why, and as much as it had infuriated him in the past, he couldn't very well fault the man for his reasoning. Hells, Vic had lived through a trauma of his own, but he'd always faced it head-on while Ryley had buried his.
“And seeing all that,” Vic went on, “started to make your whole case make a lot more sense. It filled in the gap in the explanation for what happened that day. A traumatized child who'd just witnessed his parents' murder, a child who happened to be born with the gift of magic, suddenly bursting with power and using that gift to kill the intruder? Way better explanation than murder-suicide, that was for damned sure.” He paused and gave Ryley a look. “And way better explanation for why you'd repressed it so strongly.”
Ryley slowly nodded. “So why didn't you ever just tell me?”
“I wanted to,” Vic said emphatically. “Believe me, I did. But something like that, brutal as it was…I didn't know if it would destroy you to remember it all. I've seen enough people in the aftermath of trauma, and yours was so heavily repressed that I couldn't begin to guess how you'd handle it. But that was why I kept pestering you about being a mage. I guess I hoped that hinting about it from that direction might…I don't know. Trigger something. Awaken the memory without trying to make you confront it directly by saying, 'Here's what happened,' which you probably would have refused to believe.” He paused and waved at the knife. “Even with proof.”
Ryley kept nodding. “I saw the video.” He glanced up and saw Vic's eyes go wide.
“There's video?”
“Yeah.” Ryley frowned. “You didn't know?”
Vic shook his head. “There was no mention of video in the case file.”
Ryley nodded again. “The whole thing was caught on tape.” Vic's eyes went wider. “My parents– Fuck, they're not my parents,” Ryley muttered, shaking his head. “They showed it to me yesterday after I confronted them. They've had it all this time and never said a word.”
Vic blinked. “Gods,” he breathed. “That would have definitely cleared up a few things, but the case notes said nothing about video.” He shook his head and muttered, “Withholding evidence.”
Ryley kept nodding, staring blankly at the knife, then sank into a chair and slumped forward, planting his elbows on the desk and running his hands through his hair, feeling suddenly exhausted. “It was awful, Vic. That video…Seeing it all over again…”
He felt something brush the back of his hand, and looked up to see Vic reaching across his desk. Ryley grabbed Vic's hand and clutched it with both of his own.
“I'm so sorry, Ry,” Vic murmured.
Ryley rested his forehead down on their clasped hands and let out a sigh, then looked up again. “Am I totally screwed? Is it even possible to live with this?”
“Hey.” Vic got up, pulling his hand free just long enough to come around the side of the desk and crouch beside Ryley's chair, taking Ryley's hands again. “I know this is hard. You've been through hell, and had to witness it again. But you're strong, Ry. You'll get through this. I know we didn't exactly end well, but you are my friend–”
“And your case,” Ryley muttered.
“That, too,” Vic admitted. “But I do care about you, Ry. I'll help you in any way I can.” He paused, then added, “And I'm sure Asher will, too.”
Ryley glanced at him. “I hear you guys are friends now.”
Vic chuckled. “Yeah. Oddly enough.”
Ryley looked down at their hands. “Thank you, Vic. For being there for him. I know you didn't have to.”
“Hey.” Vic gave his hand a squeeze, and Ryley looked up. “He's not just a case to me. Neither are you. I want to help you get through this, if you'll let me.”
Ryley studied his eyes. “Because of Cam?”
“Yes, there's that,” Vic admitted, “but also because no one deserves to go through what you did.”
Ryley kept nodding. He didn't seem to be able to stop. He gave Vic's hand a squeeze, then let go, staring at the knife as Vic got up and went back around to his chair.
“Hey, Vic?”
“Yeah?”
Ryley kept his eyes on the blade. “Is there any chance, in the case file, it says where my parents are buried?” He glanced up at Vic. “I'd like to…”
Vic raised his eyebrows in question. “To?”
Ryley huffed out a breath. This was going to sound so stupid. “Talk to them,” he muttered, looking down at his hands. When Vic didn't answer right away, he glanced up at the man from under his eyelashes, and saw a thoughtful look cross Vic's face.
“You know,” Vic began slowly, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, “I might be able to do you one better.”
Ryley straightened a bit. “What's that?”
Vic's smile grew. “Let me just make a phone call.”
Ryley frowned, confused, and watched as Vic snatched up his mobile and selected a number.
“Hello, Athan?” Vic asked into the phone.
Ryley blinked. Athan? As in…the guy with whom Ryley had cheated on Vic? What in all seven hells?
“Yeah, hi,” Vic said, looking at Ryley as he spoke into the phone. “I was wondering if I could ask you a big favor. For Ryley.” Vic listened to Athan's response, then flashed Ryley a grin.
What the hells was going on?
Chapter 30
RYLEY FIDGETED as Vic reached out to ring the doorbell. He knew this house. He'd been there dozens of times. All to get laid. The fact that Vic, of all people, was voluntarily bringing him there damned near blew Ryley's mind.
And Vic hadn't given Ryley a word of explanation after hanging up with Athan. Just told Ryley to follow him. So Ryley had. He scrubbed his hands over his face, listening to the tread of heavy footsteps on the other side of the door. Why were they going to see Athan? What did Athan have to do with his parents? The suspense was killing him.