Winging it, p.12
Winging It, page 12
He exhaled. “It’s not a supplier. It’s a system. An ecosystem. You’ve got producers—people who develop this stuff without oversight. Distributors with zero accountability. And users—agents, cadets, civilians—anyone desperate enough to mess with their Dominion.”
Desperation. That word stuck to my ribs.
My voice came out quieter than I meant it to. “They want power, or control. Or maybe just relief.”
His jaw tightened, and I felt the weight of his silence. “Sometimes all three.”
The air between us thickened, filled with stories we hadn’t said out loud yet—his and mine both. I looked at him, really looked, and wondered just how many times he’d seen people unravel from the inside out.
“What about oversight?” I asked, not because I didn’t already know the answer, but because I wanted to believe it still existed. “Isn’t someone monitoring this stuff?”
Eren’s laugh was low and humorless. “In theory, yes. In practice? We’ve got agents who look the other way. Some who join in. Protocol doesn’t mean much when ambition’s on the line.”
My chest tightened. “So if Rynn or Gable are mixed up in it…”
“Then we find out how deep it goes,” he finished, his voice solid as steel. “Before it pulls anyone else under.”
I nodded again, letting the gravity of it settle around us like fog. The deeper we went, the more tangled everything became. But if Eren was ready to dig in—I was too.
Chapter
Sixteen
Eren stepped close, his voice low and carved sharp enough to slice through glass. “I take lead. Rynn’s slippery, and he’ll test you.”
I nodded, not because I needed the reminder, but because I knew he needed to say it. My pulse quickened—not from fear, but from that electric hum of anticipation that always came before stepping into something dangerous and delicate. Rynn wasn’t just a loose thread in this case; he was the kind of man who wove his own patterns into everyone else’s mess.
“Got it,” I said, even though my stomach did a little somersault beneath the surface.
Eren’s gaze lingered on me a second longer than necessary, like he was trying to decide if I’d crack. I didn’t flinch. Instead, I met his fire-shadow eyes with calm resolve, because I wasn’t here to be babied—I was here to work.
“Remember,” he added, his voice dropping to that quiet rumble that always made people pause, “he’ll try to throw you off balance.”
“I don’t rattle that easily,” I replied, slipping my hands into my coat pockets to hide the small tremble in my fingers.
We approached the café tucked between a bookstore and a shop selling umbrellas and rain boots, the kind of place where secrets were traded with sugar and cream. I took a breath that filled my lungs with cinnamon and city smog, letting it ground me.
The bell chimed as we stepped inside, and there he was—Seb Rynn. Reclined in the corner like the king of calm, dressed like he’d stepped off the cover of “How to Look Suspicious While Pretending You’re Not.” One hand curled around a porcelain teacup, the other tapping rhythmically against the table.
“Rynn,” Eren said, already slicing through the atmosphere with no time for niceties.
Rynn’s smile spread slow, smooth. “Agent Thorne. And company.” His gaze flicked to me like a casual weapon—sharp, but lazy. “Let me guess—intern? No, too sharp. Field cadet?”
I didn’t respond, just offered him a pleasant smile that said, I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work.
“Let’s get down to business,” Eren said, his tone edged with steel.
Rynn gave a theatrical sigh, as if we’d just ruined his brunch date. “Always straight to the point with you, Thorne. Where’s the poetry in that?”
I felt the tension ripple in the air beside me as Eren’s jaw ticked. The man didn’t do poetry. He did results.
I took the seat across from Rynn, spine straight, gaze steady. He might’ve had the room wrapped around his little finger, but I wasn’t interested in playing his game.
Eren leaned forward, a slow, deliberate movement that felt like a predator locking onto prey. His voice was low, lethal. “Finn Belgrave was found dead with Dominion suppressant residue in his system. You had contact with him. What do you know?”
Rynn smiled—that slippery, too-smooth kind of smile that didn’t even bother trying to reach his eyes. “Ah, the charming world of rumor and innuendo.” He spun his teacup lazily between his fingers, like he had all the time in the world. “Suppression? Such an ugly word. I prefer calibration.”
The way he said it made my skin crawl.
Eren’s jaw tightened. His next words hit the table like a hammer. “Cut the shit, Rynn.”
The air changed then—thickening, like a storm cloud rolling in fast and low. I could feel the tension radiating off Eren, sharp enough to cut if you got too close.
Rynn just chuckled and leaned back in his chair, oozing fake charm. “You know me, Thorne. I’m not some gutter rat trading in whispers. You should know better than to lump me in with the amateurs.”
“You’re sitting here,” Eren said, voice flat and razor-sharp. “You’re not above anything.”
Rynn shrugged one elegant shoulder. “We had a few chats, Finn and I. Bright kid. Big ideas about Dominion manipulation.” His voice was all flippancy, but the way his fingers tightened around his cup told a different story.
“Big enough ideas to get him killed?” Eren pressed, relentless.
“Exploration is part of life,” Rynn said breezily, like we were talking about hiking trails and not someone’s death. He lifted his cup in a mock toast. “Some people handle the risks better than others.”
Eren’s patience was wearing thinner by the second; I could see it in the hard line of his mouth, the way his hand hovered near the edge of the table like he needed something to ground him. His frustration practically vibrated in the space between us, a deep, unspoken current.
I sat back slightly, keeping my expression neutral, my heartbeat steady.
Rynn smiled like we were pawns and he was the only one who knew the real rules of the game.
But I saw it now, clear as day, that smile wasn’t confidence. It was amusement. He thought he could outlast us. He thought we’d blink first.
I smiled right back at him, slow and steady, and didn’t blink at all. I eased back into my chair, letting the tension simmer like a kettle on the verge of boiling. Eren did the talking—cool, precise, razor-edged. I stayed quiet, let the shadows fill with silence, let Rynn hang himself with every smooth word he thought he could get away with.
Tap, tap, tap.
Rynn’s fingers drummed on the tabletop, casual as ever. But the rhythm was too perfect—like he’d practiced lying and set it to a beat. Each syllable was calculated, each smile lacquered on like a mask he’d worn too long.
The tapping faltered. Just for a breath. But I heard it. Felt it.
“Finn wasn’t worth getting involved with,” he said, so breezily it almost sounded like truth.
Tap.
And then, he looked at me.
Not long. Barely more than a flick of his eyes. But it was enough to make my stomach tighten. Why me? Did he think I’d flinch? That I was soft enough to sway if he smiled the right way?
I didn’t blink. Just stared right back, like I was filing every twitch, every breath, every blink into a mental dossier.
Eren, to his credit, never wavered. “And what about Gable?” he asked, tone ice-smooth and laced with something darker underneath. “You knew him too.”
Rynn exhaled too slow. His next breath caught, just a little too late to seem natural. A pause, like the question had threaded a needle too close to his center.
Gable rattled him. Not Finn. Gable.
Eren leaned forward, voice low and deadly. “You were seen together. Not long before Finn died.”
Rynn shifted, and I tracked the motion with interest. Every inch of him was suddenly too deliberate. Not lazy anymore—cautious.
He knew we were circling something real now.
And still, every time a Dominion term surfaced—suppression, modifiers, control—his eyes flicked back to me. Like I was the variable he hadn’t accounted for. Like maybe he thought I didn’t belong here. Or maybe he sensed I did—too much.
What are you looking for in me? I wanted to ask. Fear? Insecurity? A tell?
But I gave him nothing. Just a calm, even stare. Like I could wait here all day if I had to.
Eren leaned forward, a storm gathering behind his eyes. “You’re running out of places to hide, Rynn. Finn wasn’t just another bartender—he was mixed up in something dangerous.”
For a breath, Rynn’s amusement faltered, like a candle guttering in a sudden wind. The shift was subtle but there. “I’m not under investigation, Thorne,” he said coolly, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes anymore.
The tension in the room tightened, coiling in the space between them. Eren pressed harder, heat crackling off him, and I felt the invisible line we were toeing—one word away from Rynn shutting down completely or walking out.
So I leaned in too, not matching Eren’s fire but smoothing over it, like a balm over a burn.
“You’re right,” I said, my voice low and even. “This isn’t an investigation. This is a courtesy—so we don’t have to ask your last three clients instead.”
The words dropped like stones in a still pond.
For a second, Rynn just stared at me, and then he laughed. A real laugh, sharp and genuine, like I’d surprised him. He leaned back in his chair, still defiant but…interested now.
“Look,” he said, waving a hand lazily. “I haven’t set foot near Haven Labs in weeks.”
Eren’s gaze snapped to mine, a flicker of silent communication passing between us before he turned back to Rynn, voice clipped and cool. “Interesting you’d bring that up.”
Rynn shrugged, easy and careless, but the tension bleeding off him told another story. I caught the subtle tightening of his jaw, the flicker of nerves he couldn’t quite smother.
“I’ve got nothing to do with whatever’s happening there,” he insisted, words a little too quick, a little too smooth.
“Maybe not,” Eren said, voice like steel wrapped in velvet. “But you seem awfully familiar with it for someone who claims to be uninvolved.”
I watched Rynn shift again, a fraction too defensive, a crack in that polished armor. He tried to mask it, tossing another chuckle into the air, but it didn’t land the same way this time.
“Come on,” he said lightly, the sparkle in his eyes dimming just a shade. “You think I’m involved in this mess? That’s rich.”
Beside me, Eren bristled, his whole frame coiled like a spring ready to snap. I stayed still, studying Rynn the way you studied a puzzle right before the pieces finally clicked into place.
He thought he was still playing the game.
But now we knew exactly where to start digging.
And soon enough, he’d realize it too.
As Rynn pushed away from the table, that ever-present smirk still plastered across his face, the whole room seemed to shift—like the tension he left behind was a living thing that refused to follow him out the door.
Eren’s shoulders tightened, his focus tracking Rynn until he vanished around the corner.
When Eren finally turned toward me, his look was sharp enough to cut steel. “You’ve been holding out on me.”
I tilted my head, playing it casual, letting a little smirk tug at the edge of my mouth. “Just listening.”
His arms crossed tightly over his chest, and for a heartbeat I thought he might scold me. But beneath that familiar frown was something else—something rarer. Maybe even… grudging respect?
“You picked up on the tap,” he said, jerking his chin toward the empty doorway. “He does it every time he lies.”
The satisfaction bloomed bright and quick in my chest. “Yeah,” I said lightly, glancing after Rynn like I could still catch the tail end of his deception. “It’s like a tell in a bad card game.”
Eren’s frown deepened, but it wasn’t disappointment I saw in the hard line of his mouth—it was focus. Calculation. Like he was mentally moving pieces across a board only he could see.
Then he muttered, low enough that it might have been to himself, “Maybe you are more useful than you look.”
The pulse at the base of my throat jumped. Small victory. Tiny, stubborn thrill. I arched an eyebrow, letting the smile bloom full across my face. “Maybe?”
“Don’t get cocky,” he warned, but there was no bite behind it. Just a thread of something that almost—almost—sounded like humor.
We stood there for a beat longer, the energy between us sparking in a way that had nothing to do with Dominion flares or official cases. I caught him studying me, like he was recalibrating—measuring me not as an obstacle or an assignment, but as something more unpredictable.
I shifted my weight, bumping my shoulder lightly into his as I bent to help stack the abandoned files. “I’m not your average cadet,” I said, keeping my voice soft but sure. “I’ve survived worse than Rynn’s little mind games.”
Eren didn’t argue.
He just handed me a file, his fingers brushing mine for the briefest second—steady, grounded—and we moved forward.
Together.
Chapter
Seventeen
The hum of the emergency lights buzzed low in the near-empty halls of DPA HQ, casting everything in a muted gold haze. Shadows stretched long across the polished floors, and the familiar, sharp edges of the building softened under the glow. It was like seeing a dream-version of the place I'd spent the last three years trying to survive.
I sat cross-legged at one of the scattered workstations, chai cupped in my hands, hoodie sleeves pulled over my fingers. My tablet rested against my knees, notes from the Rynn meeting flickering across the screen. I'd been at it for hours—cross-referencing, building timelines, chasing threads that seemed determined to unravel.
And then it hit me. One thread—a mention of old case suppressants—didn’t fit the standard records. It had to be from before the bans. Before it all got… sanitized.
Which meant it would be buried in the sub-basement archives.
Which meant I needed someone with clearance.
Which meant—unfortunately—I had to call him.
I pulled out my comm and flicked to Eren's number. He picked up on the second ring, sounding exactly as thrilled as I'd expected.
"Vale," he barked. No pleasantries. Classic.
"I need your authorization for the sub-basement archives," I said, skipping the small talk.
"Why?" His tone was a mix of annoyance and skepticism.
I took a deep breath, steadying myself. "Rynn mentioned an old case involving suppressants. The records from before the bans aren't in the standard database."
There was a pause, then a heavy sigh. "And you think you'll find something useful down there?"
"Yes," I replied, my voice firm. "It's a thread worth pulling."
The silence stretched out, thick with his irritation. Finally, he muttered, "You realize it's two in the morning, right?"
"I do." I glanced around the empty hallways, feeling the weight of the late hour pressing down on me. "But this can't wait."
His exasperation was almost tangible through the comm line. "Fine," he snapped. "I'll meet you there in ten."
I nodded, even though he couldn't see me. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet," he growled before cutting the connection.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding and gathered my things, making my way to the sub-basement entrance. The security panel blinked red until Eren arrived, his expression as dark as his usual attire.
I grinned into my cup, feeling a little more awake. "What, do you have a date or something?"
There was a beat—a pause so long I wondered if he hung up.
Then, dry as desert wind, he shot back, "And if I did?"
"I'd be impressed," I teased, leaning back in my chair and letting the warmth of the chai sink into my bones. "Is she also fluent in brooding and long, judgmental silences, or is that an acquired taste?"
I could practically hear his sigh through the comm.
"I'm sending authorization," he said, ignoring the bait entirely. "Meet me by the archives. Five minutes."
The line clicked dead.
I smiled to myself, tucking the comm back into my hoodie pocket. Five minutes. Plenty of time to refill my chai and mentally prepare for an evening of sifting through dusty records—with Eren Thorne, no less.
God help me, I was actually looking forward to it.
Eren appeared at the end of the hallway, framed by the low, golden glow of the backup lights. He moved with that signature clipped stride, radiating a kind of restrained irritation that practically rolled down the corridor toward me. I tightened my grip on my chai and forced myself not to flinch as he approached.
"You better have a good reason for dragging me back here," he said as soon as he was within range, voice low and sharp enough to slice through the hush of the empty HQ.
I straightened from where I was half-perched on a file cabinet, trying to look casual even though my heart was thumping in my ears. "Relax. It’s important, as I've already explained."
His gaze raked over me — messy bun, oversized hoodie, a stack of haphazard notes clutched in one hand. I could practically hear the judgment radiating off him.
He exhaled slowly through his nose, pinching the bridge of it like he was physically restraining himself from strangling me. "You’re unbelievable."
I grinned, all faux-innocence. "What, did I interrupt your big Friday night plans? You never actually went into detail."
Eren crossed his arms like a human barricade, gaze cool and unyielding. “Probably because it’s none of your business.”
I leaned into the doorframe, swirling the last bit of chai in my cup as I grinned at him. “Oh, come on. You can’t seriously think I wouldn’t be curious about the walking enigma that is Eren Thorne. It’s like trying to read a field manual in an ancient dialect—with the pages glued shut.”
