19. Castor
"What do you mean,Nico? Why isn't it going to matter?" I've got a towel wrapped around my waist, and my waterproof bag is leaving a trail of water behind it. Eros is right, though. I grabbed Tristan Bellucci's things, the governor of Vitrom. Things he was adamantly grabbing with his old, grubby hands. Things I'm really looking forward to seeing.
Nico has his large tablet in his hands. "Reports are coming in. They've got an analysis of who was in the area and who left the quadrant. There are ten people missing. Tristan's one of them. The crews are still working their way in."
"Who... who else is missing?" Annabelle's by my side. "Are Porcia and her mates on the list?"
Nico glances down the list. "No Septimus on the list, no Koralli at all."
"My brother?"
Nico pauses. "I'm sorry, Eros."
"Right." Eros's jaw is clenched.
"That doesn't mean he's dead. Just missing, right? He's missing."
"Sunshine, ‘missing' is another way of breaking it to the family slowly."
"Really? No, you have to stay positive." Annabelle's at his side.
"I should go back. The omada's back at the docking for the arcade shopping, and my solo's still at Zaffiro." Eros scrubs his hand over his face. "I rode with my mother. She told me she was going to come for the opening but then leave. I didn't notice if she did. Fuck. What kind of son doesn't notice when his own mother leaves? Did you see her? She wasn't in the gallery, was she?"
"No," Nico says. "I took a complete inventory of who was in the gallery for Annabelle's safety. There were no other Zaffiros there."
"Good." Eros nods.
"You can take my Gorsca," I offer.
"Wait." Nico raises his chin from his tablet. "Atlas has just issued a decree. Everyone needs to stay in place or go immediately to their home, if they aren't home already. Only emergency personnel are to be out."
"Decrees don't apply to me. I'll get my cloaking solo from Zaffiro," Eros says.
"Eros, I know you want to find your brother, but—" Annabelle cocks her head.
Holter cuts her off. "Belle is right. Knowing you, you could get into the flooded dome. But it's too dangerous."
"You know, never mind. I have something else that might be better. A small personal cloaking device."
"What?" I turn to him. "How can that even exist?"
"Yeah, well, it does." Eros takes long strides down the hallway where Annabelle has her office. There are several mostly empty rooms. Eros ducks into one and rummages through a pile of dirty laundry, pulling out a small, green-painted tin with no lock. He opens it, takes out five small discs, then fastens them around his body and clicks a button. "Exists." He vanishes. Other than a shimmer in the air, there's nothing there.
"Right, but that doesn't mean you should use it. Please, Eros. I'm sure Atlas won't leave the order on for long." She turns to me. "Right?"
"It won't last," I confirm.
"Please, getting hurt yourself isn't going to help your family," Annabelle says to the shimmering spot.
Eros reappears. He pulls the discs off his body. "Right, right? Okay, Sunshine. I'm being reactive. I'm not going to do anything rash."
"Let's get cleaned up and then see what Tristan Bellucci was willing to risk his life for." I nod at the door, where Nico and Holter are standing. We move together down the long corridor to the living room.
Eros drops to the sofa and runs a hand down his face. "My brother should have known better. Why did he try to escape through the docking dome? It doesn't make any sense."
"Maybe he was going after someone?" Annabelle says.
"Maybe," Eros whispers.
Nico gets out a second tablet, and Holter studies what looks like an older block. "First report is calling it an accident. They're spurting nonsense about Atlas's trident hitting a frequency high enough to shatter the glass. Which is pure nonsense."
"The sharks above the dome, the ones that are trained to make the shadows, they were swimming in a different pattern. They normally swim in circles during these things, at least from what I can remember from past years. But there was no pattern right before the whole thing happened." Eros splays his legs open, and Annabelle's small robe flops to the side. Annabelle sits down next to him and pushes his legs shut.
"Whoa, I hadn't noticed that, but then I had just finished my speech when you made your call down to the floor. The chamber and the whole mess about the trident had me worked up."
"This list is down to seven missing. Two dead." Nico says. "Tristan Bellucci and a parking valet from Seolfor are confirmed dead. Your brother is on the list of still missing. But a male from Stele is off it. They found him alive, pinned beneath a solo."
Annabelle smiles at Eros. "There's hope."
"I should get dressed. I might take another shower." Eros squeezes her hand and leaves the room.
"That's a good idea." Annabelle smiles. "Do you want me to help?"
"Yes but no." Eros shakes his head and quietly leaves the room.
Holter wanders to the other side of the room. Pots clatter, and the refrigerator opens and slams shut. He drops a large wooden cutting board on the counter and pulls out a knife... I sit next to Nico and lean over his shoulder. His brow furrows, and he scowls at me. "What? I don't have my block. It's locked up in the lock boxes in the administrative building?—"
Nico raises his hand. "That's motive... information. People kill for less all the time."
"Fuck." I nod. "You're right. I don't have anything tidal-wave-causing on my block. But others? Others..."
"Sure as hell do," Nico finishes.
I take my bag with Tristan Bellucci's things over to the table and open it. It looks like a regular human bag, but when it's closed, the flap seals, making it watertight. My notes from my speech are there. Everything is analog in the chambers. Most don't bring anything in. The fact that the Vitrom had so much is surprising. There are two books, one of which is printed in a language I don't recognize. The other is a journal full of handwritten code. Numbers, some letters, a few symbols.
Nico's next to me now. I hike up my towel, tucking it firmly at my waist. There's a capsule a little longer than my hand. I open it. There are two ink pens inside, but the shell of the container is super thick. "What do you make of this?"
Nico takes the tin-colored container and turns it around.
Eros appears in the room. "What are you doing?" His voice drops. "Do you know what that is?"
"No?" Nico holds it in the palm of his hand.
"Exactly, so put it down. That's not a pen case."
Nico's tablet dings. He hands the capsule to Eros, who puts it extraordinarily carefully down on the table.
"What is that?" I ask, staring at it like it might explode after the way Eros called it out.
"That's security council tech. The chamber inside is shielded so you can get it through any scan. But whatever it is, we're not opening it here. We need a containment device, just in case it's poison."
"Poison?" I say. "Poison's been outlawed?—"
"Security council does whatever they want." Eros nods.
Nico's back to the sofa table, his tablet in hand. "Another found dead. A clerk from Tinom. And another off the list, from Diamont. Five missing now." Nico looks up at Eros. Damn, this is painful. I can't imagine having a brother on that list.
"I should message my mother." Eros pulls a block from his pants. "Spare, one of many."
"Castor had a thought." Annabelle nods at Nico and Holter. "If this is an attack, what if whoever did it was trying to get information? What if they were after the blocks and tablets locked down?"
"It's an awfully violent way to hack someone." Nico waves his tablet with the newsfeed on the screen.
"Yes, it is." Eros sits on the end of the sofa. Annabelle joins him. "When I was taking a shower, I kept thinking about Michio. Ever since he's been a governor, he's been keen on Veneratia. He wants everyone there. Every sibling, Mother, and all our fathers. But the only one he invited today was me. I thought it was because of Marina. Damn it, I don't like accusing him... but what if he knew? He even said to come alone but didn't give me any more details. Just that it was going to be an interesting Veneratia."
I sink to the seat across from the sofa. "That's not good."
"No, it's not." Nico scrolls through the newsfeed. "Three more Permula members found alive. List is down to two."
"Michio and who?" Annabelle leans over to see Nico.
"Forrest Mason, governor of the Stele dome." He closes the tablet. "I have an alert set for Michio's name. It will ping if anything comes up."
"Forrest Mason is another security council member," I add.
"Yes, he is." Eros shakes his head. "At this point, I'm letting everything out. My contact with the security council has always been Tristan Bellucci. While years ago there were other members who knew I was an agent, they're all dead now."
Annabelle gasps.
"From old age. Or at least, that's what was publicized. There's a lot of layers. To keep things hidden or balanced, as they liked to say."
"With the governor of Vitrom gone, you're done." Nico nods at Eros.
"I am. But I would also be one of the biggest suspects."
"Even with Michio missing?" Annabelle asks.
"Yes. My brother Kaemon will take over as governor," Eros says. I've never seen him so serious. It's understandable. But weird.
"Until they find Michio alive," Annabelle adds.
"I also pushed Tristan."
"Out of the way from the falling plaster," I add.
"Sure, but others might not frame it that way. Plus?—"
"You started the chant," Holter says from the kitchen.
"Well, we know you didn't do it—the sabotage to the dome, not starting the chant. So we need to figure out who did." I nod at Eros.
"Yes, fuck." Eros grips his upper thighs. "And find my brother."
I motion to the container on the table. "How do we find a containment device? Do you have one in your apartment?"
"No. Fuck, I wouldn't keep that sort of tech there. It's too damning." Eros leans back and rolls his head to look directly at Annabelle.
"What? If you don't keep it at your apartment, where do you keep it?"
Annabelle smooths back his hair, and he closes his eyes. Fuck, her petting him like that sends bolts of desire to my hard cock. I want her hand on me. Eros inhales, his chest rising and lowering as she runs her fingers through his hair, over his forehead and down the side of his jaw.
"No, you know what?" she says. "Can we just stop worrying about all of this for just a day, or an hour? Come here. We're not allowed to go anywhere. Not with the king's decree." Annabelle opens her arms, and Eros immediately sinks into her chest. She kisses the side of his head to the back of his ear.
He wraps his arm around her side, and I have the feeling that he's going to fall asleep, but that's not the merman way. It certainly isn't the way of a male like Eros. He flips her onto him. Her legs straddle his. "You're right, Sunshine, I need you. You're our home. Fuck, if anything had happened to you..."
"I'm okay. I'm right here." She rests her hands on his chest.
I don't hear Holter come over from the kitchen, but then he is here too.
Standing behind Annabelle, Nico's got the hem of her tunic in his hands. "Hands up, Little Krill." She raises her hands in the air, and the butter-soft golden tunic lands in a pile near my feet. Fuck. Did he throw that at me just to rub it in that I'm not part of the pod? Because he didn't—doesn't want me to be part of it.
"What are you waiting for, golden prince?" All I can see of Eros is his legs and his hands on Annabelle's amazing ass cheeks.
"I should go." I stand, and the towel I had hastily tied falls to the floor.
"Please," Annabelle says between breaths of kissing Nico and Eros.
Holter's clothes are gone, and he takes over for Nico while Nico's pants and tunic end up on the white floor. This might be my only chance to be with her again. I'm not allowed to go anywhere. Not with the decree from Atlas. And logically, I doubt anyone would report me for getting in the elevator. But it's a chance I don't have to take and an excuse I am all over.
I kneel at the opposite side of the sofa. I'm not going to wait for my turn. Not when her long neck is waiting for me to taste it. Not when I've been dreaming of this, of having her again. Of being in her arms. No, if this is the last time I'm allowed to be with her and the pod, then I'm going to take every last second I'm given.