Page 49 of Lovesick Gods

Long lunch break?

Danny exhaled a laugh as he swiftly responded,You obviously don’t know what it’s like in a police station.

Actually…

Somehow, Cho still managed to make Danny smile, but it was the promises the man made about what he’d do to Danny the next time they were together that kept him up at night.

I’ll find a time. Keep me posted if anything changes for you.

Eager, Sparky?

The captain’s been riding my ass all week. Would prefer it was you.

Keep thinking about me. Maybe I’ll call later and ask what you’re wearing.

Danny nearly did throw his phone, because Cho’s teases only made it worse. He sent back a middle finger emoji and Cho responded with a smiley face. Dick.

Setting his phone aside, Danny got back to work. The Invisible Man, as Andre had taken to calling the new thief in Olympus, had struck again, leaving almost as much lacking evidence as the first case. They had only two things to go on.

The first was the location of the heist, Olympus City Glassworks: a glass and mirror shop, small, but with enoughexpensive merchandise that their safe held a great deal of cash during the day. Which was part of the mystery; the heist had taken place before the manager brought the money to the bank, during shop hours. It had to be an inside job.

But then came the second clue: a Virgil Labs business card planted inside the empty safe; generic, no one’s name on it, but enough to act as a calling card that yes, this was the same thief as from the previous week.

Captain Shan had insisted that all of the Virgil Labs employees be vetted a second time, while Danny and his father also looked into the glassworks’ list of current and former employees. They’d split the list in two, which wasn’t long, but Danny was only halfway through his portion.

Pausing in the grunt work, Danny peeked at a different set of files on his desk, hidden beneath a stack of evidence forms—a few old case files on Malcolm Cho. Anything that had happened this past year, Danny knew intimately. He and Rick had even gone after Cho once as the Elemental Task Force, though while they’d been able to pin the case on Cho, they hadn’t caught him. There were several other cases from before that time that Danny knew about, but he’d purposely dug up a few reports he wasn’t familiar with in case he could use anything to his advantage.

Pulling out the files, he looked at them now. The first was an old B&E from before Cho was known as Prometheus. He and Dominque Drake had been caught red-handed by police attempting to break into a home in one of the ritzier neighborhoods of Olympus City. Drake had injured several officers, but Cho held back from doing any permanent damage. He’d given up once they were surrounded. With his powers, he easily could have escaped if he didn’t care about collateral damage. It was instances like that that had made Danny so sure Cho wasn’t all bad when he first encountered him as Zeus.

The second file Danny came to was older, maybe the oldest on record. Danny could tell by the date that Cho would have been a young teenager. He realized as he read the details that while he had only been a kid himself at the time, he knew this case. He remembered it from the news—the day Harold Cho, the Elemental dubbed Icebox by the papers, had finally been captured and sent away to prison.

Icebox was known for a string of brutal B&E’s, as well as for being an enforcer for the Irish mafia. He’d seen jail time but had fled his parole to avoid being saddled with permanent dampeners and had evaded capture ever since for almost a decade, still making a name for himself with occasional robberies and assault.

That night, the police were called to his home about a domestic disturbance. They didn’t know they were closing in on Icebox until they arrived. Given the bruises found on Lucy, it was surmised that he’d been beating his children when young Malcolm Awakened.

Ice had exploded out of him and covered most of the house by the time the police closed in. Cho had protected his sister, but his father, even mostly immune to cold, wasn’t as strong as his newly Awakened son and had fallen unconscious. Elementals triggered by trauma were always more potent in their abilities than those Awakened naturally. Cho might have had a natural Awakening eventually, but that night pushed him to the brink. He could have been a real threat to the police, but he didn’t put up a fight when they came in; he only wanted them to take care of his sister.

‘Cho, Malcolm—found in near catatonic state, mumbling to himself and rocking back and forth while he held his sister, Lucy,’the report read. ‘Ice surrounded them, covering most of his father, Harold—aka Icebox—but Lucy remained untouched. Malcolm came willingly when police arrived. His only wordswere on behalf of his sister, to be sure she was safe and would be taken care of. He showed no remorse for his unconscious father or being removed from his home. Adolescent is clearly suffering from extreme duress and trauma. Recommend psych evaluation and immediate conditioning.’

Danny cringed. Elementals didn’t go into normal foster care. Most people hid their children when they Awakened, but if they came forward or were found out, they could choose to have their children trained and safely contained until adulthood when they were old enough to decide for themselves if they wanted to live quietly without their powers or to work for the government. Wards of the state didn’t get the same choice. Officially, they did, but Danny knew it didn’t actually work that way.

Statistically, most Elemental orphans ended up as government agents or criminals—never catch and release; never dampened to live normal lives. Some disappeared from the system all together. Back when Harold was first hauled away, Cho was separated from Lucy for years, until the day she Awakened too.

Her foster mother came upon her playing inside a greenhouse she had erected from winding vines and flowers, enclosing her from the outside world. She refused to come out or to create a doorway for anyone to enter until they agreed to let her see her brother.

Meanwhile, Cho had already met Drake in Juvi, making the three of them an almost unstoppable gang of raw power that got smarter and more influential every year they were active. Icebox was long gone by this time. He’d been killed in prison less than a year after his capture. His biggest fault was relying too heavily on his abilities. Without them, forced to wear dampeners full-time, he couldn’t stand up to the trained muscle he picked fights with in the yard. His arrogance was his undoing, whereas his sonwould come to escape prison without the use of his powers time and time again.

If Cho had been like Thanatos, or even more like his father, he would have been a much bigger threat to the city. Instead, he remained a simple but talented thief.

He wasn’t a monster. Not back then.

Danny jumped when a message popped up on his computer. His father had gotten a hit on one of the glassworks’ employees. He was running a few ideas past Lynn and Andre, and then he’d get back to Danny with his findings. Danny replied with enthusiasm that was easier to fake over text and promised he’d finish his portion of the list as soon as he could. Researching Cho would have to wait.

Later, Danny didn’t know if he should be angry or relieved that before the end of his shift, when he thought he might have a couple hours to spare to see if Cho could rearrange his schedule, he got a message from Andre saying that he, Lynn, and John were waiting for him downstairs. He stared at his phone in longing before lightning jumping down to the morgue.

“Whoa, kiddo!” John held up his hands as Danny sparked into existence right next to him. “I don’t think I’d be too happy if you landed on top of me one of these days.”

“Sorry,” Danny offered a shaky laugh as he rustled his fingers through his hair and dropped his messenger bag on Andre’s desk. “Feeling kind of rushed today. What did you guys find?”

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