Page 80 of Suspicions on the Stage
“No idea, but anything is possible.” I shake the bag for emphasis. “This might preserve the chain of custody, or whatever.”
He snorts. “Yeah, ‘chain of custody.’ Like that means shit to the people who run this town. I thought Bay City was bad, but it’s just hiding under a veneer of sweet tea and syrupy words here.”
“No surprise, though,” I murmur. “It had to be like this or Magnus couldn’t have thrived for so long.”
He sits on the edge of his bed and unbuckles his belt, then slides his pants down. His white undershirt, which is stained with sweat goes in next. He puts it all in the bag and looks up at me with a sigh. “Lucas is showering, right?”
“Yep. That smell is pervasive as fuck. You should grab a quick one, too.”
“Yeah,” he says, “we smell like a combo of corpse and sweat blended with wood polish. It’s pretty bad.”
“Doesn’t make you less attractive, just… harder to get close to,” I say with a small smile.
Slade’s mouth twitches, a half-smile that makes him look boyish. “Go take that somewhere safe,” he says. “I’ll meet you once I’m clean.”
I leave him to it and walk back to my room, passing the open bathroom door where Lucas is still behind the curtain. The steam billows out, carrying the sharp, clean scent of whatever body wash Lucas brought from his dorm. I peel off my shirt, sniff it, and realize maybe I need a change, too.
Stripping, I toss my stuff in the laundry, and head to the shower in the other bathroom. The water is icy at first, then boiling, then settles into something tolerable. I scrub until my skin is raw and my scalp tingles. For a few seconds, I let myself pretend I’m not someone who just survived another police standoff and has to catalog the evidence to avoid being framed for whatever comes next.
Wouldn’t it be nice…
When I get done,Lucas and Slade meet me, and then we head downstairs to join the others. The world has shrunk to a single point of tension where we gather to deal with all the shit being flung at us: the covered gazebo. Together, we head outside with clean bodies and bare feet, ready to face the mess the day brought.
At least, I hope we’re ready—if anything else hits, I’m going to fucking riot.
Kaspar is sitting on the arm of the new sofa, arms crossed and his jaw working. Iggy’s leaning over from his chair to the table,hunched over a laptop with two mugs of coffee next to him. Liam is at the bar, mixing something in a big glass pitcher. The smell of food wafts from the island next to the prince and me, and I’m suddenly extremely grateful the dragon made good on his promise.
The three of us—Slade, Lucas, and I—move as a unit to the couch. I sit next to my polar bear and leave space for the Fae on my right. Slade takes up a spot on the ottoman I have my legs on, resting against my chest. I’m not surprised he needs to be close after all this uncertainty..
“Took you long enough,” Liam says, but there’s no bite in it. He hands me one of the drinks he was making, and I sip it, uncaring what the fuck alcohol it is. I just need some comfort.
Iggy looks up for a moment, clocking us as a group. “You guys okay?” he asks, which is a stupid question but exactly the one I need.
“No,” I answer. “But it’s over for tonight.”
I look at my glass, studying after I swallow it down. It’s not juice; the color is off, more chartreuse than orange.
Oh, well. Whatever it is , it’s better than dead-body air and dry mouth.
The professor closes his laptop and stands, stretching his arms above his head until his spine cracks. For a moment, he looks older than any of us, which is patentlynottrue. However, his seriousness always puts him right up there with Kaspar in looking like he’s going to die of something shoved up his ass that’s biting him.
“What’s our next move?” Slade asks softly as I run my fingers through his hair. “This fucked up a lot of our previous plans, which is annoying. Now we have to regroup again.”
“We go on as usual, of course. They haven’t arrested anyone, and we have other things to do besides sit around and twiddle our thumbs. Those morons will take forever to deal with the evidence and shit they got today, plus Balor has to do the autopsy.”
Kaspar nods. “Agreed. Morgana has many things to attend to as dean, and the lawyer is doing… whatever he and those mercenaries do. The rest of us should continue on as normal, and give them no reason to suspect Lucas and Slade anymore than they do now.”
I rub my eyes, and when I speak, my voice is firm. “Then we adapt, improvise, or survive whatever they throw at us together. That’s the key here, right?”
The only sound is the hum of Iggy’s laptop. I arch a brow at them, and they finally chime in with grumbles of assent.
“Better. Now, onto the next thing.”
“Then let’s recap,” Kaspar says, breaking the almost-tranquility. “Two people died in less than a month on a campus that seemed to have a non-existent crime rate before.”
Liam frowns. “Did you check that stat?”
“Of course I did, Li. But I assume that’s because everything was being covered up by Magnus and his cronies. No colleges in existence have clean slates like the security at this place act like State U does. No drunken fights, no drugs, no sexual violence?I’d love for that to be true, but I’m definitely not naive enough to believe it’s true.”
