“Fuck.” He launched across the room and yelled through the house. “Max! Max, get your ass in here!”
Sure, Max arrived. But he had Candice and Rosa with him, and the women started screaming the moment they saw Laurence laying on the goddamn floor.
“The fuck is going on?” Max yelled.
“Just fucking call 911, okay?” Mikey hooked his hands under Laurence’s armpits.
“But they’ll bring the cops!”
The screaming was jackhammering right into his head, pissing him off. Bad enough he had a customer dying in his arms. Worse that the fucking banshees were announcing it. “Call them! I’ll drop him out back, you clean up in here!”
He hauled Laurence through to the back door, then down around the side of the house. It must’ve rained earlier. The alleyway was wet, covered in a sheen of water which puddled in the potholes.
“Fuck, he looks fucking dead, Mikey! What did you give him?”
Christ. He could do without Rosa nagging him right now. If he was lucky this night would end in getting fucked in the ass by a cop for looking the other way, and if the cop wasn’t the sort that took a bribe then he’d get jailed for killing Laurence. Or, worse, bent over a table to see if he’d flip on Enrique. “I told him to go easy! It’s not my fucking fault!”
Mikey dropped Laurence to the ground, but the guy didn’t even blink.
“Get out of here,” he growled. “You can’t be here when the cops show up.”
Rosa snorted at him. “You’re cold.”
“You’re high. Now fuck off before we all get arrested.”
The ants were still. For a moment there was fresh air, cool and clean and refreshing, and he was able to blink. To focus. To really see the man who was so close to him, dominating his mind and his body, invading every inch of him. He couldn’t tell whether this was more or less of a violation than any other he’d endured or welcomed.
The guy was in his head, wasn’t he?
The tourist smiled coldly at him. Mikey heard a “yes” even though nobody’s lips moved.
That’s impossible.
He had to be high. Maybe someone slipped him something. He didn’t use. That was a sure fire way to lose at life, though he wasn’t exactly winning. But there was no way this dude was reading his mind, controlling his thoughts, inside his head, because that wasn’t real. That was movies, and life was never like movies.
“You’re wrong.” The guy was British. His accent was like something out of Downton Abbey. And his lips still hadn’t fucking moved. “It’s only improbable.”
Mikey groaned. None of this made any sense, and his thoughts were scattering.
The ants were on the march again. He tried to scream.
13
FREDERICK
Frederick put a stop to Brennan’s scream before it could emerge. While it was unlikely the boy could make enough noise to arouse the suspicion of other guests it was always better to be safe than sorry.
He continued to dig. It was abundantly clear that Brennan was trapped within a cycle of abuse and had no harmful intentions toward Laurence specifically, but it was also not too difficult to extrapolate the fact that were Brennan to realize that Laurence now had potential access to Icky’s funds, he might leap more aggressively on that bandwagon to milk it for all it might be worth.
Even though it would get him nowhere in the long term.
Frederick scrolled through one memory after another. The boy had been subjected to corrupt police, criminalization, sexual assault (so, so many of those, without even recognizing it half the time), and he’d passed on much of what society had taught him. He’d sold drugs for sex, but he’d also sold sex for freedom. Brennan was so caught up in the cycle that he didn’t even realize that any of that was abuse. It was all just business to him.
Temptation reared its ugly head, and he came up for air.
This is recoverable.
God, what was he doing? First he’d allowed his sympathy to overrule common sense with the young lady he’d sent off to fetch Brennan, and now he was considering aiding Brennan himself. He didn’t have time for this! Not to solve a puzzle as complex and entrenched as this one. He was here to find out what he could about Mother’s death and then go home before his absence was noted.
He was not here to interfere. And he certainly wasn’t here to pick up strays and repair their bloody atrocious lives.
Loitering within proximity to Icky seemed to be having a deleterious effect on his rational decision-making processes.
Perhaps this is not your choice to make.
That was certainly true. He couldn’t simply reach in and swipe all of Brennan’s troubles away. Not while the guy still bore the same face. Frederick could re-program Brennan from surface to core and still his old woes would catch up with him the moment he stepped out into the street. Half the city’s police had either fucked him or taken a bribe from him. Cartels knew who he was and expected to do business. If Brennan no longer allowed those people to use and abuse him, what might become of him? There were a thousand ways to dispose of a body, especially here. A bay full of sharks, a city surrounded by wildfires or desert, and a city just south of the border rife with cartel warfare offered a diverse set of opportunities for anyone wishing to put a bullet in Brennan and forget he ever existed.
Eliza Doolittle could return to the gutter and take her new-found confidence with her, but Brennan didn’t have that option, and to even consider it was hubris itself. There was no easy path, no simple answer, and that just made it all the more tempting.
So few things were difficult.
Frederick rocked his jaw, then closed his eyes.
THE HOUSE WAS as awful on the inside as it had looked from the car. The wallpaper peeled in corners, and recoiled from damp near the floor. The curtains were threadbare and bore such a myriad of stains that any original pattern was indecipherable. Curtains — such as they were — blotted out the world without blocking much light, and so streaks of sun cut through the dusty air in shafts that under any other circumstance would have been picturesque.
Brennan’s arms wrapped around himself as he stood in the center of it all, the hotel towel around his waist, his damp curls dark and limp. His chest quivered with hasty breaths and he stared around like a wild thing.
“I don’t understand,” he breathed uncertainly.
Frederick waved a hand vaguely, encompassing the entire filth pit with the gesture. “I thought a familiar setting might enable you to speak more freely.”
“We—” Brennan licked his lips and looked down, then clutched at the towel. “This. I showered, then… I got the towel, and…” He tailed off while his brain stayed on the hamster wheel.
“We’re still there.” Frederick scrutinized a dilapidated armchair, then lowered himself into it. It took a second to remind himself that this wasn’t real, they weren’t physically here exposed to this grot and decay. “This is merely a construct. A mental image pulled from your memories. Somewhere we can talk without being overheard.” Or spied on from the future.
“Dude, this is gnarly.” Brennan took a step back, away from Frederick. “You’re claimin’ it.”
Thank goodness Frederick was still inside Brennan’s head, or that would have been utterly indecipherable. “I am not,” he countered. “It’s all true. Or do you habitually talk to strangers inside your own home while standing around in a towel you don’t own?” He raised his chin. “And with none of your usual hangers-on present?”
He adjusted the chair beneath him to better match the comfort he was accustomed to, rather than stick with Brennan’s memories of the ratty and uneven cushions. All he did was restructure it from within, since it was a wholly fake construct within an imagined reality. Just because they weren’t physically here didn’t mean he should have a broken lump of foam digging into one arse cheek.
Brennan sucked air through his teeth. “And if I wanna bail?”
“Please.” Frederick rolled his eyes. “You and I both
know that you’re curious. It’s your mind we’re in, dear boy.” He tapped his temple with an index finger. “Would you rather be dressed?” He switched the towel out for a tailored three-piece suit without a great deal of effort. Rewriting anything within a mindscape was child’s play, but it was a flashy enough distraction to elicit a gasp of awe from Brennan. “Or perhaps you would rather be somewhere else?” He waved toward the room, palm upwards, and switched Brennan’s home out for the Palomar’s penthouse suite. “Or something more interesting?” Barely a thought and he switched location again, erasing the hotel room and replacing it with a view over Victoria Harbor at night, the Symphony of Lights’ lasers shooting into the dark sky from the array of skyscrapers which lined Hong Kong island.
Brennan’s mind fell off the wheel altogether, and he staggered back until his calves hit a purely imaginary couch and he fell onto it with a choked sob. “What did you give me?”
“Nothing. No drugs. Cross my heart.” Frederick drew a lazy X over his breastbone. “Is Hong Kong not for you? Would you prefer Paris?”
“No! Stop! Stop fucking… Make it stop!” Brennan clutched his knees and stared out as lights danced up and down the skyscrapers.
Frederick shrugged, and the light show paused, becoming nothing more than a static image. He knew it wasn’t what Brennan meant. “I have a proposition.”
Brennan’s brain kicked back into gear. “Sure. What do you want, and what’re you offering?”
“I’m offering a new life.” Frederick eased from his chair and strode to the windows which cut them off from the harbor. “This memory is mine. Have you ever even left America, other than to visit Mexico? And not even the nice parts? No, I know that you haven’t. I’ve been to Paris. Milan. Tokyo. Hong Kong.” He nodded to the light show, and it restarted on cue. “I live in London. I have a butler, a chef, three housemaids, and a wealth manager. I don’t tell you this to brag, but to explain precisely what is on the table.”
Brennan looked down at himself. The suit Frederick had imagined for him was svelte, made from wool so dark it was almost black in this low light. The tie around his neck was the same color as his hair. None of it was anything Brennan had worn in his life, yet it looked phenomenal on him — at least, it did from where Frederick sat. Brennan was less sure of the cut or material and more fixated on the disconnect between his knowledge that none of this was real and the lies that his senses told him.
“How will I ever know any of that’s true if you can make me see whatever you want me to?”
“Ah, dear boy.” Frederick sauntered toward the couch and leaned forward to rest a hand against Brennan’s shoulder, then he pushed the American back so that he could straddle Brennan’s lap. Imagination mirrored reality. “Very little in life entertains me. But I have a theory. More of a hope, I suppose.” He pursed his lips and settled his backside on Brennan’s knees. “I think that I can rescue you from your God-awful existence and elevate you to a place you would never stand a chance of reaching on your own.”
Brennan blinked, then snorted. “You think ‘cause you’re rocking the lifestyle you’re better than me, huh? Is that it?”
Frederick shrugged. “I am better than you. But that’s no moral judgment, no subjective statement. It’s a quantifiable fact. Not only do I possess all the dreary markers of success — wealth, privilege, all that rot — I’m also certainly the most puissant telepath you have or will ever meet; perhaps the most powerful one alive today. Who knows?” He leaned in and allowed a faint smile to curve his lips. “Are you telepathic, Mr. Brennan?”
Brennan’s lip curled. “You know I’m not.”
“Something else, then? Telekinetic? No? Hm, perhaps you have the power to transform into an animal? No?” Frederick rested his forehead against Brennan’s. “No. Like eight billion other people, you are startlingly normal. When we add something good to something which is already good, we get something qualitatively better. That’s all there is to it.” He sat back and regarded Brennan. “But that has nothing to do with the lifestyle and everything to do with what I am. What I’m offering you is that lifestyle. The chance to walk away. The chance to never fear a police officer again.”
That hit a nerve. Not only was that clear on Brennan’s face, but the flinch was palpable in his thoughts too.
“You’ve been reading my mind,” he whispered.
“I could have done it far more subtly. I felt it was more appropriate to advertise my presence in this instance,” Frederick said.
A nervous laugh bubbled out of Brennan, and cut off just as abruptly. “This is insane. You want a toy! Something to play with because you’re bored! Is that what I am to you? A plaything?”
Frederick leaned in and rested his elbow on the back of the couch, to the side of Brennan’s head. He propped his head against his hand and let out an exaggerated sigh. “You and I both know,” he said softly, “that you enjoy being toyed with.”
He felt the erection below him as it swelled to life. It wasn’t here, of course, but Brennan’s mind was aware of what his body was doing, and his own self-image naturally mirrored that reality. It was a Catch-22 situation which Brennan lacked the tools or experience to escape from.
Arousal and embarrassment flowed through Brennan, a wave of commingled feelings which swamped him and made him shrink back against the couch. Shame followed, as well as a hint of anger at the knowledge that Frederick was inside his head and could read each and every flicker of thought or twinge of emotion.
“How is it any better,” Brennan choked, “than giving myself over to anyone else?”
Frederick shrugged and pushed himself to his feet. He backed away from the couch and drifted toward the windows, but remained facing Brennan as he went. “Because it’s no fun for me if you mean no when you say yes. It’s in my interests for you to want everything that happens to you.”
Brennan narrowed those deep green eyes at him. “You ain’t gonna put me on blast?”
Frederick gave a sharp snort at the very idea of it. “Humiliate you? What on earth for? Unless you like that sort of thing, obviously.” He gave Brennan a wicked grin. “Mr. Brennan, allow me to introduce a concept to you which — from everything I have gleaned of your memories — seems an utterly alien one.”
“Okay.” Brennan crossed his arms tightly. “Shoot.”
“It’s a funny thing. I want you to give it to me whenever it suits you, and in return I promise to honor it at all times.”
“Uh huh. What is it?”
Frederick smirked. “It’s called consent. You may have heard of it.”
Brennan’s shocked look was priceless.
14
MIKEY
“Do you even know what consent is?”
The words burst out of him in shock. Here was a guy who had used crazy mind control powers on him — and probably on Candice, come to think of it — to invade his privacy, sift through his memories like they were just a movie to consume, force him up to a hotel suite and get him naked, and now the dude acted like consent was important to him?
“Mm. Does it trouble you to find someone as morally flexible as yourself?” The British guy had a cold smirk that bordered on cruelty, yet all it did was make Mikey’s heart race.
And his cock harden more.
Fuck. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it! He’s in your head, dumbass!
“Brah,” he gasped, “everyone’s as morally flexible as me. They just pretend like they ain’t.” He pushed himself up from the obscenely comfy couch and turned away to adjust himself, then wondered why he even did it. These clothes weren’t real. Nothing was. Hell, maybe even his erection was fake.
He narrowed his eyes.
“I don’t even know your name,” he grumbled.
“Frederick.” The older guy’s voice was smooth as silk, like the villain in some Bond movie. All he needed was a fluffy white cat and it’d be perfect.
“Dick, huh?”
“Don’t tempt me. I’m usually so good at
resisting urges, but you’re something else entirely.” Frederick turned away and regarded the made-up skyline. Who even knew if that was really what Hong Kong looked like. “Maybe it’s just because Icky has himself a bit of rough,” he mused. “Who knows what I could be missing out on?”
Mikey sniffed and picked his way toward the window, keeping well beyond arm’s length of Frederick. This place looked like another suite in another swanky hotel. Maybe the dude lived out of hotels when he wasn’t in England. The lasers which had been strobing the night sky faded away and left the glittering of office windows and apartment blocks to reflect off the harbor waters on their own. It was hard to tell just how far away the skyscrapers were. Mountains rose behind them into the night sky, some speckled with tiny lights of their own, and the only thing which made him think the harbor could be vast was the cruise ship parked midway between shores. He counted seven decks, yet the thing looked no bigger than a yacht from here, and that meant the skyscrapers were anything up to a kilometer away from where he stood.
The sheer scale of the place was mind-blowing. There was nothing this tall in San Diego. Even the Symphony Towers would be lost in it all. He searched for signs of cars among the skyscrapers, but it took a couple of minutes to realize just how tiny they were when he finally spotted them, like fleas on a dog.
Mikey glanced toward Frederick and took in the man’s sleek blond hair and quarterback shoulders. Anything below the casual cream-colored jacket and pants was left to the imagination, but Mikey wouldn’t have kicked the dude outta bed, that was for sure.
Except that this dude knew what he was thinking.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he turned back to the skyline. Frederick was a mind-reader, but so much more, too. This whole get-up was amazing. Even though he knew he was in the Palomar, his head was totally somewhere else, and Frederick was in here too. In here was like magic.
Mikey blinked, and turned to Frederick. “You can make anything in here, right? Not just, like, some threads and a city.”
Reeve of Veils (Inheritance Book 4) Page 9
