Page 35 of Gates of Tartarus

“Yougo to pub quizzes?” Maddox asks inquisitively. “I’d think you’d need to avoid places like that.”

“It depends,” I reply thoughtfully. “Usually quiz nights drive out the normal drinking crowd and bring in a different vibe. I’d never go if, like, it were just a normal night. But if I’ve had enough rest and time off from work, and I’m feeling pretty strong, I can make an early quiz. Not a late night one usually – the crowd changes. But yeah, maybe once a month Deo and I hit up The Drunken Dog for their pub quiz.”

“How do you do?” Jonah asks, smiling.

“Oh, usually okay…” I reply, but Deo scoffs.

“She’s being humble. We clean up,” he says with a maniacal sort of grin that I can tell surprises the team, and I laugh.

“Deo is seriously competitive. Don’t let this calm, cool demeanor fool you. This guy’s got layers like an onion.”

“An onion?” Deo asks, faux hurt. “Not a cake?”

“NO, you dense, irritating miniature beast of burden!” Jonah interjects in a pretty decent Scottish accent, and we grin at each other. “I should be on your quiz team. Pop culture.”

Hideo looks torn. Quizzes areourthing, but he really,reallylikes winning. And we both suck at pop culture. It’s our Achilles’ heel. Movies, no problem. Literature, history, current events? We got it. Who’s dating whom? Who went where and why in what? Nope. We’ve almost lost our winning streak because of those questions.

“Eh,” Deo replies neutrally. “Okay.Once. We’ll see if you’re any good.”

Jonah’s eyes widen in surprise, but, wisely, he stays silent. I think he made the offer as a joke, but he clearly wants to be part of it now, and he underestimated Deo’s desire to win. Deo studies his phone for a moment, then says, “There’s one next week on the 15th. 7pm. Be there at 6:00 to get a table. We haven’t lost in three months,” he adds warningly.

Jonah shoots me a nervous look but says, “Cool. Cool, cool, cool.”

“Noice!” I reply jokingly, and Deo looks between us, obviously confused, before shaking his head and mumbling, “I’m going to regret this.”

“So we’re all meeting at The Drunken Dog next week?” Walker interjects, and Maddox makes a note on a pad of paper in front of him.

“No! Christ!” Deo responds. “Don’t we have work to do?”

Walker turns to Maddox, ignoring Deo. “You want to carpool? We can go straight from work.”

Maddox looks thoughtful, and Deo groans under his breath. “This is your fault,” he says to me. “You did this.”

“Not to ruin team bonding,” I say, smiling, “but can we please discuss what Babylon said, what game I’m supposed to play tomorrow night with Tennireef, and any other pertinent information?”

Deo shoots me a small smile as Madds calls us all to order and begins briefing us on the events of yesterday and what our aims are for tomorrow night. He’s prepared military-like dossiers for each of us to run through, complete with various plans should things go sideways tomorrow evening on the “date”. Mine has multiple pages of history on Tennireef, subjects Maddox would like me to address, things he thinks would interest Tennireef or lure him into false complacency. Maddox must have been up the entire night preparing these, and I whistle low in appreciation.

“Madds, I could have helped with these,” I say. “You didn’t have to do it all yourself.”

He shrugs. “I needed to have eyes on how all the pieces fit together. We’re going to review this stuff – you need to go get fitted for a wire for Friday. Okay, team. Page 2 of the handout, please. Section B, paragraph 2… Kailani. Go,” he says, all military muscle and focus, and I shake my head slightly, smiling as I walk out the door.

???

This day,I think, stretching and rolling my neck, sore from hours of sitting and working. I’m in my now rarely used office, gathering my things to head home. It’s already almost dark, and, looking forlornly out the window, I see the rain still pouring down.Another freaking Uber, I think. Deo, who has just poked his head in my room, catches my look and correctly interprets it.

“I’ll run you home, KaiKai,” he says quietly.

“All the way to the island?” I ask, a smile in my voice, like there always is when he uses my nickname, and he shrugs.

“If you want me to,” he replies unexpectedly. “I feel like we haven’t had much time together lately. I know we don’t really… I mean, we haven’t had time to train as much, or get dinner... We haven’t been to Le Petit Pain in ages – they’re going to start wondering what’s happened to us. Their revenue’s probably decreased by half.” He offers a small smile, but it’s tight, and tired, and I look at him carefully.

“Hey, Deo,” I say softly. “I miss you too.”

He reaches out to take my hand, turning it over and studying my fingers carefully. He’s lost in thought, staring at our hands together, and I watch his bent head, trying not to breathe too loudly and disturb this moment. I’ve boxed up my feelings about Hideo so tightly for so long it’s second nature at this point, not daring to look too closely in the little box inside my heart where they live, stacked neatly next to Lachy and Gemma. It’s become habit to ignore the almost physical pang of longing that punches my stomach every time I see him, but in these strange, quiet moments, it’s impossible to force everything down, and I have to choke back my response to his dedicated presence.

“Remember that time on the peninsula, early in the morning, when we went for a hike?”

I nod, not speaking. He’s thinking about a time last year when we had to drive to the Olympic Peninsula for a series of interviews. We could have taken the ferry over but decided to drive instead, mostly because of Deo’s thing with boats. When we got there, the people we were meant to meet with pushed the interviews off to the next afternoon, so we had to hole up in a small, kind of horror-movie-set B&B together. Not wanting to spend a second more there than we had to, we decided to go for a hike the next morning. We left the hotel around 4am and hiked out to the cliffs overlooking the ocean. The forest on the way out was silent, life just waking in the early light of dawn, Hideo and I walking noiselessly in unspoken agreement not to disturb the surrounding peace. The early fog made for an otherworldly trek, and when we broke through the canopy of the trees and the fog fell away at the cliff’s edge, it felt like we were somewhere else entirely, like I wassomeoneelse entirely. We sat on the edge of the cliff, stupidly, and hung our legs off, cold even through our jeans but unwilling to move, and, staring out at the sea together, Deo reached over and took my hand for the first time. We stayed like that for as long as we could before it got too cold, before our restless shifting disturbed the moment and cracked it, little fractures that ruined the quiet.

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