Page 34 of Of Angels & Absolution

“Fuck,” I mutter. I didn’t even notice that. I need to watch more closely, to monitor her more thoroughly. We only did it to fuck with her, to get video of her in her room, invade her life and violate her privacy. Now, it’s more than that. Now, she has a secret, and Mercy doesn’t get to have secrets.

“So how do I keep tabs on someone who leaves their phone at home?”

He scoots back from his desk and ambles over to the wall. He moves aside a framed poster fromThe Matrixand reveals the front of a high-tech metal safe. “If you really need someone’s location, you can put a tracker on their person,” he says. “It’s not a camera, but you’ll know where she is.”

“How do I do that?” I ask, thinking about those ugly fucking clogs she wears all the time. I could track those.

Nate is doing a retina scan to open his safe, and he doesn’t speak until it beeps, allowing him to put in a code next. “It’s a bit difficult to do it without her noticing, since it goes inside her body,” he says. “Would she agree to that?”

“What do you think?” I snap.

“I think you’ll need to make a small incision or shoot it through her skin,” he says. “She might feel it in there even if she doesn’t know when you’re doing it. But I’ve got something that will help her sleep through the insertion, if you’re interested.”

He hands me a baggie from the safe. I scowl at him, realizing this is a whole new level of violation I hadn’t considered. I relish the thought of it. Not just knowing where she is, being able to follow her every move, but doing it withouther knowledge or consent. Picturing her fury and hurt and indignation when she finds out has my cock stirring, especially when I think about plunging it to the hilt inside her while she howls with rage.

Fuck. I can’t think like that. She’s my sister, for god’s sake.

I snatch the bag from Nate and stuff it in my pocket. “What do I owe you?”

He looks me up and down, as if considering what he could use a guy of my size for. I don’t like the thought of being his goon, beating up guys I don’t know for crimes I can’t imagine, but I knew when I came here that I’d do whatever he asked.

He stands and stretches, then motions me to the door. After stepping out into the hall, I turn back.

“I’ll call you,” he says, and before I can give him my number, he closes the door in my face.

“Asshole,” I mutter, but I turn away and hurry out of the dorm. I may have lost Mercy, but she’ll come back to me. A lost lamb always returns to its flock.

I consider waiting for her at the spot where she left campus, but I don’t trust her to return the same way, so in the end, I make my way to her dorm.

I’m lying on her bed when she steps into her room a few hours later.

She only pauses a second before pulling the door closed behind her. “What are you doing here?”

I sit up and swing my legs off the side. I can’t believe my sweet little sister has the audacity to ask me that when she’s been sneaking around doing god-knows-what all night, until the window shows the first light of dawn outside. But then, maybe she’s not such a meek little lamb after all.

“I think the better question is, what wereyoudoing?” I ask, stroking the head of the grey kitten that made itselfcomfortable on my stomach while we waited. “Where exactly have you been, little sister?”

She takes her time turning back, unwinding the scarf from around her neck, and shrugging out of her cardigan. She hangs them on the back of her chair and then slips off her clogs, pushing them under the edge of the bed. “I can’t believe Dr. Jekyll let you pet him,” she says, eyeing the cat. “He hates me.”

“Don’t avoid the question.”

She sits down on the edge of her bed, curling her toes inside her white socks, burying them in the fuzzy rug next to her bed. “I went to meet someone who had information about Eternity,” she says, rubbing her temples. “Now I’m tired, and I’d like to get some sleep, if you don’t mind.”

Of all the things she could have said, that one surprises me. In truth, I didn’t expect her to answer at all. I thought she’d fight me, hedge and avoid, and maybe, as a last resort, lie. I thought maybe she went to meet that bastard Royal, or some asshole from one of her classes who she knew we wouldn’t let her go out with. Guys only want one thing when they call a girl at midnight, but she’s probably too naïve to know that. I thought she’d try to make excuses, say whoever she met was just a friend. I didn’t think she’d be playing detective.

“Who?” I ask.

“What?” she asks, sounding exhausted.

“Who did you meet?”

“I don’t know his name,” she says. “Juvenile cases are closed, so getting files isn’t exactly legal. It was all very discrete.”

“Where are they?” I ask. “The files you were supposedly getting.”

“I only read them,” she says. “He said it would be incriminating if he gave them to me.”

“Of course it was a guy,” I say. “And what did you give him for this information?”

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