Page 93 of The Wild Charge

The word choice struck him as strange.What do you need?There was an assumption there that Tenny wouldn’t have called to chat, that it was out of need. (Well, that wasn’t untrue.) He supposed probablyno onecalled Ian to chat. At least he had his husband…

Tenny dragged a hand down his face and said, “I need information. I’m looking for someone.”

“Hm. And your club hacker can’t find him?”

“I haven’t asked him.”

“Ah.” A rustle, like he’d sat down. “Are you alright?”

Tenny ground his teeth. He didn’t want…whatever Ian was trying to do. He wantedanswers. He wanted to get off this bloody phone, pick himself up, and go make sure no one broke into this house tonight to kill them all.

“Tennyson,” Ian prompted, patient, kind.

“We saw a man tonight,” he found himself saying, without meaning to. Bloody vodka. “A man from Reese’s past. Someone who–” How to explain this to a civilian, that was an issue. It was hard to swallow. “Who hurt him,” he settled on, far less graceful and exact than he would have been sober.

“Oh, darling,” Ian said with feeling, “I’m sorry,” and Tenny found that his eyes were burning.

He blinked hard and said, “I have a name. And I need…”To kill him; to push my thumbs into his eyes; to take him apart bit by bit. “Information.”

“Well, not to self-aggrandize, but you did come to the right person.”

“Marshall Hunter. I need to know everything about him.”

“Marshall Hunter,” Ian repeated, memorizing it. “Give me twelve hours.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Tennyson. Are you okay?”

Tenny thought about pouring all the ugly, black emotion sitting like a bomb in his chest out onto the desk, and down the phone line. Thought about sayingI’m scaredandI care too much, why does caring have to hurt?He said, “I will be when that bastard’s six feet under.”

~*~

The second time Reese moved to go after Tenny, Fox let him go.

And then wished he hadn’t, had perhaps used him as a human shield instead, because Walsh pointed to him and said, “Outside.”

“That sounds rather dangerous,” Fox drawled, as he followed him through the house and out onto the front porch.

Walsh didn’t speak again until he’d shut the front door a little too forcefully, and then the porch lights provided enough light to illuminate his ugly, Tenny-like snarl as he whirled on Fox. “Nothing’s going to happen tonight. That would fuck up their plan.”

Fox leaned a hip against the rail. “Oh, so you know their plan, now? Care to share?”

Walsh closed the gap between them, fuming. “Tonight was nothing but a psy-op for them, and you know it.”

“Who’s ‘them’, King? Abacus? This other guy?”

“It’sall of them, it’s – no, you know what, fuck you.Fuck you, Charlie.”

It was an effort not to laugh. “Raven was right,” he deadpanned. “Youaredrunk.”

“Yeah, I fucking am. Ghost has been letting you run point on this, letting you play Secret Agent, and look where that got us. The whole city’s going to wake up tomorrow” – he flung an unsteady arm toward the darkened pasture – “and think the Dogs have brought street violence right into the heart of downtown. None of us’ll be able to get a cup of coffee without getting stared at. The bar’s supposed to have its grand opening in a few weeks, and who do you think’s going to want to come drink at a place we very publicly own, huh?”

Fox folded his arms. “You’re worried about thebar?”

“I’m worried,” Walsh snapped, somehow bristling up even more, “that my wife and kid are going to get fucking killed because we pissed off the wrong people!”

There it was.

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