Clover’s smile widened, and he gave Pyro another kiss. “I’ve always wanted a dog.”
His words resonated with what Boar had said before. Pyro’s heart skipped a beat, but before he could tell Clover about it, both their phones beeped.
“A Golden Retriever?” he asked absent-mindedly as he opened the message.
“Drake’s back. And he has Boar’s pills,” Clover said. He must have gotten the same message in their group chat.
[Drake: Everything is okay, but we are moving tomorrow.]
[Boar: Drake got me painkillers, so don’t worry <3]
Pyro sighed with relief and squeezed Clover’s hand. He’d been angry that he couldn’t help his lover, but maybe the point was that they could all rely on each other.
Chapter 17 – Tank
The crowd outside was like an approaching tornado. Its roars got ever louder, as did the thudding of hundreds of feet, and Tank couldn’t help his hair bristling when a voice at the back of his mind told him to run for cover. Tank’s family was somewhere out there, and if the swarm of bloodthirsty animals who called themselves people recognized the impostors among them, blood would drizzle down the pale steps of the arena.
Tank had intended to do everything alone. He’d wait for his opportunity to strike and poison Apollo, starting a chain of events that should make the bastard’s heart stop. He hadn’t wanted any of the others present, but they’d insisted that if something went wrong, they could run together and protect each other.
Tank sincerely hoped they’d leave him be if he fucked up, take care of Clover and run off to the Alaska safe house, but worry still made him sweat like a pig.
He flinched when Ben entered the lounge for security staff with a big scowl twisting his handsome face. He looked like the kind of guy who in movies stopped to help stranded female drivers, but his usually-broad smile and dark blond hair hid the soul of a hyena. Tank had seen signs of it during their deployment, but while Ben had been hiding his true self in the army, his service to Apollo revealed the true, blood-red color of his personality.
Tank did not want to think about it, not now when so much was at stake.
“Where’s Hanson?” he asked, as if he hadn’t slipped the bastard an overdose of laxatives an hour back.
Ben kicked over a chair, as if he’d been waiting for a question that warranted this reaction. “Shitting his guts out. I swear I’m gonna kill him if this happens again. Told him last time to stick to safe foods before big events, and look what he’s fucking doing. The fat hog probably had that local ice cream again.”
Tank’s nape relaxed now that he knew his stunt had worked, so he continued playing dumb while the TV mounted on one of the walls showed real-time footage of the spectators gathered in the five rows that circled the entire arena. “Who’s replacing him?” he asked, even though he knew one of the usuals was on leave, which left only him and one other guy, who might have worked for Apollo much longer than Tank, but whom Ben hated with a passion over a lost rivalry for the attention of a woman. That meant only one person could be Apollo’s second personal guard for the night.
Ben tsked and reached out toward Tank. He held a wreath of artificial herbs.
Tank’s heart skipped a beat. “What is this?”
“Your laurel wreath. Take it. You’re replacing Hanson.”
“Me? I’ve only been here for a month. And… what? Why would I need a wreath?”
Ben briefly shut his eyes, and his nostrils flared, as if he were struggling to keep himself under control. “The boss wants it to feel more ‘authentic’. Be thankful he doesn’t have us wearing skirts and sandals.”
Tank’s blood ran faster. He would be close to Apollo during the event and have the opportunity and means to strike when everyone’s attention would be on the bloody spectacle at their feet. The pen-shaped syringe with poison burned in his pocket. “Shouldn’t he be the one to wear the wreath?”
Ben shook his head. “Just go with it. He read that Quo Vadis book again. When we first arrived earlier, he had me walk him to the arena and told me how he’d get that albino runt he’s looking for strapped to a bull and then have the animal fight a pack of wild cats so he’d be gradually ripped apart along with the bull. Unnecessarily elaborate, if you ask me.”
“He’s the boss,” Tank said, struggling not to show how Ben’s words affected him. Clover’s smiling face passed through his mind, and for a heart-searing second, he wanted to call the whole thing off. Text the guys, Thinking about you, and be done with it. Clover should not be here, in the den of the monster who wanted to maul him and feast on the bones.